Chapter 2
Arrival
All the Torchwood Institutes around the world were anticipating the arrival of forty five unidentified vessels which were approaching at high speed. At Torchwood One in London, everyone in the Communications Hub of the Despatch Office was waiting for the first view of the visitors.
['Ah, here we are. We're getting a live stream from CSA in Quebec,'] Todd announced, and an image appeared on another screen.
The impression they got from the image, was of a group of space moths with their wings raised, ready to flap down to somehow propel themselves through the vacuum of space. They were illuminated by the sun, and shone against the black backdrop of star studded space.
Rose reached for John's hand and intertwined her fingers with his. 'They're beautiful. Surely someone who builds ships like that couldn't be hostile.'
John smiled at her. She was always anthropomorphising aliens and their cultures. 'It may be that a winged configuration make them more efficient at attacking.'
'Oh don't,' she said worriedly. 'D'ya think it could be like the film "Independence Day" though?' She'd only been nine years old when it had first been released in the cinemas. But she'd seen it years later on television in Mickey's flat. That wasn't long before she'd met the Doctor and found out that aliens were for real.
She remembered laughing when she watched it with John on the Movie Channel, and realised that in this universe it starred Idris Elba and Kevin Bacon instead of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. She still enjoyed finding these inconsistencies between the two universes.
John brought her out of her memories with a laugh. 'What, that sci-fi comedy? Nah. If you have space travel and you want to wipe out the indigenous life forms, all you have to do is collect a three mile wide rock from the asteroid belt and drop it on us.'
'Chrissie. They are still coming to us aren't they?' Jack asked, concerned that John might be right.
'Yes. They are starting to spread out into a configuration that will distribute them around the globe.'
'Unidentified ships approaching the third planet from the star. Once again, this is Captain Jack Harkness, Director of the Torchwood Institute in London, Great Britain. You are not authorised to enter our atmosphere. Change your course now or this will be seen as a hostile act.'
They waited for a response, but it never came. Instead, what came was a series of sonic booms as one of the massive ships pushed its way through the atmosphere over London. An asian face appeared on the screen next to Todd.
['Jack, it's Sanjeev. We have one of those ships approaching New Delhi,'] the director of Torchwood India, Sanjeev Vishwanath told them. ['ISTRAC facilities in Bangalore are tracking more of them heading East towards China, Korea and Japan, and South towards Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.']
'Goonhilly are tracking multiple targets heading over Europe and Africa,' Chrissie said.
['NORAD have them over Washington and Ottawa, with others moving towards South America,'] Todd added.
'Major cities around the world. Whoever they are, they've done their homework,' John said.
Jack's phone started to ring and he took it out of his pocket. He looked at the caller display and saw it was the president, Harriet Jones. She had recently been re-elected for her third term of office. 'Hi Harriet. I take it you've seen our uninvited guests.'
['Difficult to miss when they are parked directly over the Houses of Parliament,'] she replied. ['What do we know Jack?']
'There are forty five of them over all the major cities around the world. They are ignoring our hails and warnings.' He looked over to John. 'Anything on the scanners?'
John checked the data with Chrissie and shook his head. 'Only what you can see. They have deflector shields which are bouncing our signals.'
Jack went back to the call. 'They're deflecting our scans. Sorry Harrie, that's all we've got at the moment. We'll keep working on it.'
['Do that Jack. I've got a lot of NATO generals wanting to launch a bunch of missiles at them . . . and talking about that, does the institute have anything . . . you know what I mean?']
Jack once again looked at John. 'The president wants to know if we have anything we can use against them if we need to.'
John looked at Rose and back to Jack. 'We've seen another Harriet Jones give that order before. We are not going to see it again.' He had defeated the Sycorax, and they had honoured their champions command (even if their leader hadn't), and left. The Prime Minister, Harriet Jones had given the order for Torchwood in the old universe to destroy the Sycorax ship.
'They've shown no hostile intent so far. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.' Jack ended the call.
'What about the TARDIS?' Jake Simmonds asked from the doorway.
'What, fly one of the most powerful ships in the universe into the heart of a leviathan without knowing their intentions? John said. 'I don't think so. No, the TARDIS will be our ace up our sleeve . . . a last resort.'
'So what do we do then?' Rose asked her husband.
'Well, Chrissie over there is going to keep probing their shields. She's not called "Brains" for nothing. And we, Wife, are going to peep over the fence at the new neighbours. To the bullet lift,' he said in the style of "to the bat-poles".
'Hang on, I'll grab my jacket from the office.' She was just wearing the white blouse, black skirt and boots of her uniform. If they were going to the roof, she'd need the black jacket as well.
As Jack made his way to hold the bullet lift, John stopped off at the equipment lockers to collect a metal briefcase. Rose caught up with him and they entered the lift together. The bullet lift was an express elevator from Special Operations to the roof and travelled so fast, that it built a pressure wave in front of it. Powerful air pumps on the roof sucked air out of the lift shaft to form a partial vacuum to allow a rapid ascent, and pumps in the basement allowed a rapid descent.
The trio stepped out into the roof pyramid, where the sleek, delta wing airship was docked. The pilot and ground crew were in a comfortable, prefabricated hut, where they waited for a call out. Jack asked one of the technicians to open the pyramid so that they could perform some surveillance.
The technician went over to a control desk, pulled up and twisted a lever to lock it in place, and then pulled down a second lever. There was a loud clunk, followed by a low whirring, rumbling sound. Powerful hydraulic rams pushed the triangular "petals" of the pyramid outwards, allowing a breathtaking view over London.
A cool breeze blew across the open roof, as they moved over to the west side of the hangar and looked out over the Thames, past Tower Bridge and the Globe Theatre, to the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben three miles away. On any other day, that would have been an incredible view in itself. Today however, there was another view that stole the show.
'Holy shit!' Captain Lovell, the pilot said, as he came and stood beside them. They were looking at the underside of the moth shaped leviathan which was hanging in the air above Westminster. Wispy clouds hung over, around and under the ship.
'Exactly,' John said as he put down the metal briefcase and reached inside his brown, pinstriped jacket to take out his digital opera glasses.
'Can ya see anythin'?' Rose asked in his ear as she looked over his shoulder.
'Plenty,' he replied. 'But it's what I can't see that's more important.' He handed her the binoculars and stooped down to open the briefcase.
'What am I not seein' then?'
'No visible armaments, no energy discharge ridges, so no death rays,' he said as he took out a small model jet aircraft called a "hawk". It was the larger and faster version of the "spy-fly" surveillance drone.
'No visible manoeuvring thrusters, so they are using some form of inertial manipulators. No visible lifting thrusters, so they are probably using gravity neutralisers.' He switched on the control tablet and flew the drone off the roof and up towards the alien ship above them. 'Let's see if there is anything else we're not seeing.'
The alien ship got larger and larger on the view screen until all they could see was mile after mile of shiny metal until the image blurred momentarily.
'Ah, I've hit the deflector shields. Right, let's do a fly-by and see what we can discover.'
He flew the hawk all around the ship, particularly over the top surface that was hidden from view. The hawk curved over the bulbous "head" of the moth in a lazy arc, and John got a good look into what he presumed was the bridge of the vessel.
'It's empty!' Rose exclaimed.
'Yeah. They might all be having a video conference with the other ships, or they might know that we're snooping around and be shy,' John theorised. 'But, I know the distance from the ship, the view angle and magnification, so when I get downstairs and upload the recording, from the height of the control desks and seats, I can work out how tall they are.'
'What do you reckon the threat level is Doc?' Jack asked.
'Well. There has been no overt show of force, except for invading our airspace when we asked them not to. No obvious weapons . . . This looks like a research vessel, a ship of exploration. The radio silence may be some sort of protocol they are following. So I think Rose was probably right when she said that someone who builds a ship like this couldn't be hostile.'
'I hope you're right,' said Jack.
'Me too,' John said quietly. 'Because if they're not . . . Wellll, they haven't met me yet, have they?'
'This feels wrong,' Rose said, as the "gull wing" door of the DeLorian swung upwards. 'Leavin' work while that ship is still hangin' over London.' She swung her legs out, stood up, and smoothed down her skirt.
'I know. But it could be ages before anything happens,' John said as he got out of the drivers side.
Rose flipped the seat forward for Juleshka, Eyulf and Jason to climb out in turn. 'I know, but I feel that I should be there, doin' somethin'.'
'Yeah, me too. But we'll all get a call if anything kicks off.'
The kids ran up the steps ahead of their parents and called out a greeting to Donna-The-House as they entered their Notting Hill home. Rickey the Cyber Dog scampered down the hallway excitedly to greet them.
'Afternoon you lot,' Donna replied from one of the many hidden speakers. 'Afternoon John, Rose. What's all this about aliens parkin' their vehicles over capital cities? I hope you're goin' to clamp 'em.'
'I'd prefer it if we could tow them away,' Rose told Donna-The-Robot in the hallway, who was hanging blazers and satchels on the coat hooks.
'Tell ya what,' Donna-The-Robot said with a big grin on her visual interface. 'Give some of our London Traffic Wardens a bunch of helium balloons, and they can float up and slap a parkin' ticket on 'em. That'll have 'em runnin' for the hills.'
They laughed at that thought, and John went to close the door when he heard someone call his name.
'John? We've seen it on the news, you know, all those ships in the sky . . . Is everything all right?' Melissa, their next door neighbour asked. She had been looking out for them to return so that she could get more information on the mysterious space ships.
'Hello Melissa. As far as we know, everything is fine. They don't appear to be hostile, so we just have to wait for them to initiate contact.'
'But what do they want? Why are they just hanging there?'
Rose came to the door and put an arm around John's waist. 'Hi Mel. How's Abby?' she said, trying to reassure her with normal, everyday conversation.
Melissa wasn't expecting a question about her daughter, and it threw her for a moment. 'Er, she's fine thanks.
'Oh thank God you're back,' a man said as he walked up the path towards them. 'We've been worried sick. I've had to make Brendan some camomile tea to calm his nerves. What's going on with these ships in the sky, are they going to eat us?' Justin, their other neighbour asked.
'Eat us?' Melissa almost screamed at Justin. She turned to John and Rose. 'You didn't say they'd come to eat us.'
John rolled his eyes in frustration. 'Look. Nobody is going to eat anybody! Right?'
'But Justin said . . .'
'How do you know . .?' Justin interrupted. 'They did in that show "V" that was on the telly years ago.'
'Oh yes. Those green lizards disguised as humans,' Melissa remembered.
John was incredulous. 'But that was TV. This . . . this is real life.'
'But you don't know for certain, do you? It said on the news . . .'
'Ah, ah, ah. Fingers on lips,' John said, putting his finger on his lips. He'd had enough. He looked to Rose to put a finger on her lips, and then gave his neighbours a stern look. Melissa and Justin looked at each other uncertainly and then put a finger on their lips.
'That's better. Now, what you see on the news, is what we know,' John told them, which wasn't entirely true. Looking at the seats on the bridge, they now knew that the alien visitors were around eight feet tall. And from the layout of the controls on the desk, John reckoned that they had more than five fingers.
'Jack Harkness is in contact with the president, so as soon as we know anything, the president will know, and she will inform the press.'
Rose could see that they weren't convinced. 'Look, if there was any danger, would we have brought our kids home?'
Melissa and Justin looked at each other. She had a point.
'No. We'd have taken them with us to the government bunker where we could coordinate a response to any threat . . . Wouldn't we?'
['Oh nicely done. Brilliant,'] John thought to her.
'Yes, I suppose you would,' Melissa agreed.
'Sorry,' Justin added sheepishly.
John nodded an acceptance of the apology. 'Okay. Now if there are any developments that require action, you will be the first to know . . . We promise.'
'That's very kind of you,' Melissa said. 'Thank you . . . Sorry.'
A pair of green eyes, which had watched the interaction with interest from across the street, continued to watch as the neighbours said their goodbyes and went to their houses. The eyes waited for the Smiths to turn around and enter their own house, before moving off down the street.
A few streets away, a small group moved stealthily along a path, behind the row of terraced houses, towards a small wooden shed at the bottom of the garden. They knew that the occupants of the house were in the front room, and so would not notice them as they made their way inside the shed.
'There was a time when our ancestors would have convened a meeting in a temple, with stone columns, wall paintings and statues which honoured us,' Astrophé said with a sigh of resignation as she looked around the shed. Instead of stone columns, there were rakes, spades and garden forks. There were no wall paintings, only a flip-down calendar with the dates of when various vegetables had been planted.
She gave a single laugh at the statue which tried it's best to honour them. A garden gnome smiled at them with pale, faded lips and lifeless eyes. His fishing rod long since gone, and his chipped nose alluring to a lifetime of watching over fish in a pond which was no longer there. 'We would have been revered as gods. And now where do we meet? A shed.'
'We all share the memories of our ancestors Astrophé, that is why we are here,' Alogue told the small group. 'Where we meet is not important, although this location does have certain advantages.'
'Really, and what would that be?' One of the group asked.
'I will come to that later. Firstly, are we all agreed that these ships are the ones that our ancestors have seen in other skies?'
'Yes, we see them as the ancestors saw them,' the group agreed.
'And are we agreed that when those ships left, those skies no longer existed.'
'But our people have lived here for thousands of years, must we now find a way to leave, or do we suffer the fate of those on the other worlds?' one of the group asked.
'Let us not be too hasty. This world has something the others did not. The Torchwood Institute. This institute has demonstrated time and again that it has the skills and technology to deal with aliens, friendly and hostile.'
'And how would WE make contact with Torchwood?' Astrophé asked.
Another voiced his concerns. 'All this time we've gone about our business unnoticed. If we make contact, there will be no going back. The world will know of us.'
Alogue nodded. 'You are correct, Atonic. However, that brings me to the reason of why I brought you to this garden. There is one man I have heard of who may be receptive to us. He lives nearby, and is a scientist who seems to have integrity and an intelligence which is beyond this planet. I believe that for the information we can share, he will maintain our anonymity.'
'That's a hell of a risk,' Atonic told him. 'What makes you think that we can trust him?'
'He reluctantly came to public attention when he married the daughter of the then director of the Torchwood Institute.'
'You mean that nice couple, Doctor Smith and his lovely wife Rose,' Astrophé realised.
'That's right. And since then, I have followed his career with interest. He has been a champion for this world on many occasions, and yet he shuns any praise or publicity. Are these the actions of a man who would betray us?'
'They may be the actions of a man who has something to hide. A man with secrets . . . a man who wants to hide his shame,' another theorised.
'Perhaps, perhaps not,' said Astrophé thoughtfully. 'But I counsel caution in our approach. It would be unwise to show our hand all at once.'
'Of course. I will make the initial contact and see if he is responsive,' Alogue said.
'Agreed. Be careful, and we will meet again when you have some information for us.'
Alogue nodded. 'I will leave a message in the usual place.' He went to the door and peeped out into the garden. 'All clear. Let's go.'
He led the group back along the path, past the end terrace house and out onto the street. As the group split up and went their separate ways, Alogue made his way towards Northumberland Terrace.
