Chapter 3

Keep Calm and Carry On

'Any news on these ships in the sky yet?' Jackie asked her daughter and son-in-law as they walked into the living room at Tyler Mansion. It had been another normal day at Torchwood, even with the alien ships in the sky.

'No Mum. There's still no contact,' Rose said, as she stooped down and lifted Jason into a hug.

'I told her that,' Pete said from his armchair. 'I've been monitoring the bulletin boards in my office.' The former director of Torchwood still had his login to the Torchwood server.

'It gives me the creeps,' Jackie said with a shudder. 'It's like them sycophants in the old universe, when you did that changin' trick.'

'Sycorax,' John corrected her as he got down on the floor to play with Eyulf and Juleshka.

'That's them. And look at the trouble they caused.'

'Yeah Mum, but they actually made contact and told us they were bad guys. And gettin' people to stand on the rooftops was a bit of a give away weren't it.'

'That's what I mean. Not sayin' or doin' anythin' is worse,' Jackie said.

'I think they're cool,' Eyulf said. He wasn't worried because he knew that if they were a problem, his parents would sort it. After all, the ships had been in the skies since yesterday and nothing had happened.

After a quick cup of tea at the mansion, the Smiths made their way home to try and have another normal evening with their children as they had done the day before. Whilst the children watched their favourite programs, their parents kept an eye on the Torchwood bulletin boards on their tablets.

Their children were aware that something was "going down", when their grandparents were asking their parents all about the ships that had appeared in the sky. They weren't afraid though, because they'd got something other kids hadn't got. They'd got John and Rose Smith as parents, and they could fix anything.

And so, the evening passed normally, and in their normal routine, the children eventually went to bed. John and Rose settled down on the sofa, and switched on a twenty-four hour news channel. As were all the news channels, it was showing live footage of the ships floating effortlessly above cities around the world. They knew more from their Torchwood tablets than the reporters in the field.

What the bulletin boards didn't show, were the crowds of people who were gathering below the ships. Some were in party mood, celebrating the arrival of the saviours of the Earth, expecting them to cure all of mankind's woes. Others were more pragmatic, curious as to who these visitors were and what their motives were. And of course, there were the doom sayers, proclaiming that the end of the world was nigh.

Some governments in the more strict political regimes, had declared martial law and curfews to prevent civil unrest and rioting which usually followed times of uncertainty. Other cities had cordoned off the areas underneath the ships, and allocated open areas where people could gather and be easily policed.

It was around ten o'clock at night when the Torchwood bulletin board went to condition red, whilst the news channels were still blissfully unaware of an incident in China. John reached for his tablet as it "bonged" for his attention.

'What is it Love?' Rose asked as she reached her own tablet off the low table.

'Oh SHIT!' he exclaimed as he read the alert. 'There's a missile heading west from somewhere in the Pacific ocean.'

'Oh God no,' Rose said with dread. 'Is this it? Is this how it ends?'

'Typical bloody human response. Anything they don't understand or are afraid of, they attack it.'

'Oi! That's my species you're dissin',' Rose said with some irritation.

John looked at her and realised he was generalising a very varied and amazing species. 'Sorry . . . Present company excepted of course.' He reached around her shoulders and pulled her into a kiss.

'Apology accepted. So who's behind it then?'

'Well. It doesn't take a genius to work out it's from a submarine, and that means no one is going to be able to prove who fired it,' John reasoned.

'And where's it headin'?'

'Satellite tracking has its final destination as Beijing.'

'But if it hits the ship over Beijing, it'll fall on the city. Millions of people will be killed!'

'Yeah,' John said with a sad resignation.

'Bloody stupid humans,' said Rose.

They watched the red missile icon flash it's way over Kumamoto, Japan, Jeonbuk in South Korea, before leaving a trail of red dots over the Yellow Sea. The icon flashed over Beijing briefly before disappearing.

'Oh those poor people,' Rose whispered.

John frowned at the display. 'Maybe not. None of the satellite or ground based sensors are registering any release of energy.'

'What. You mean it didn't explode?'

'It looks like it. They must have something like extrapolator shielding. No wonder they don't need armaments.'

The news channel on the television announced some breaking news. ['We are going live to our correspondent, Glen Oglaza in China for some breaking news.']

A young man in a padded jacket appeared on the screen. He looked as though he had been asleep and suddenly woken up. ['A few minutes ago, soldiers from the Red Army who have cordoned off Tiananmen Square, started to mobilise and started shouting orders to evacuate. We then saw a rocket trail burn across the sky from the east and an object appeared to drop onto the alien ship. Fortunately, the warhead did not explode. Had it done, thousands, if not millions of people would have been killed. We can only speculate where the missile came from, and why it failed to explode. It may be that if it was an unauthorised launch, the warhead may not have been armed. If it was an attempt to provoke a reaction from the alien ship, it appears to have failed. This is Glen Oglaza for Twenty-Four Hour News in Beijing.']

Torchwood Special Operations Standby Room.

Torchwood Tower, Canary Wharf.

08:00.

'Okay team. Settle down and lend me your ears for more wonderful weirdness,' said Rose, as she started the day's briefing. 'You've all probably heard about the developments overnight in China. It doesn't seem to have provoked any reaction from the aliens, which is more than can be said for NATO and the United Nations.'

'Was that missile a dud, or did the aliens neutralise it?' Stuart "Irish" Sinclair asked.

'As far as we can tell, it was a viable weapon,' Rose replied. 'Now we've got extra telecoms staff on duty today as we're expecting an increase in calls from members of the public who are worried, concerned, or just plain crazy.'

'So you reckon the worried and concerned will phone today then?' Jake asked with a cheeky grin.

Rose laughed with the rest of the Watch. 'Maybe a couple of 'em. But don't forget, John says that a lot of paranoid delusionals are actually low level telepaths who are picking up signals from people who are on the same wavelength. We'll need to check all calls, no matter how outrageous. Some of them may be tapping into our visitors upstairs.'

She referred to her tablet. 'Now, item one. The social media search bot has picked up a lot of traffic about cats behaving oddly, y'know, like when there's goin' to be an earthquake or somethin'. "Numbers" and "Ace", I'd like you to take the new recruits and see what you can find out. If they are tapping into the alien network, we might be able to use that.'

The new recruits were Amy "Legs" Pond and "Other" Craig Owens. They had completed their orientation in the Despatch Office, and were now being paired up with experienced agents in the field.

Craig gave a lopsided smile. 'This is a wind-up, isn't it. Y'know, one of those initiation rites, yeah?'

Amy nodded. 'Yeah. I mean, who in their right mind would try and interview a cat?'

'She's got a point there,' John said as he breezed into the Standby Room with a grin on his face. 'You never get a straight answer from a cat. All devious and secretive . . . Now a dog! That's a different story. They'd give you their PIN number for a biscuit . . . if they'd got a PIN number of course. Offer to throw a ball for them and they'd try and tell you the answer to life, the universe and everything.'

Rose gave him a "look". 'Thank you for that Doctor Smith.' She turned to Amy and Craig. 'Take no notice of him . . . I don't. The Animal Behaviour guys in Zoology have a pro forma of questions for the owners, animal species, type of behaviour change, when that behaviour changed, stuff like that.'

'Oh, I see,' Amy and Craig said, nodding in understanding.

'Item two . . .' Rose continued the briefing, and the day proceeded normally. Well, as normally as it could with a huge, moth shaped alien spaceship hovering over their heads. Torchwood was on amber alert because of the incident with the missile, but it seemed to have been ignored by the visitors. In fact, no one could decide what had happened to the missile.

The aliens took no action against those responsible, or even indicated that they had known of the attack. They ignored the incident contemptuously, leaving mankind to worry over a vengeance that never came. It was a more effective, and more demoralizing, treatment than any punitive action could have been.

The weekend came, and Saturday was the day John and Rose did the weekly shop, and spent quality time with their children. They would take them to do some exciting activities, such as ice skating, go-karting, or Lazerquest, or meet up with some friends to play in the local park. In the transdimensional extension of their house, they would mess around in the playroom. Juleshka had shown a talent for gymnastics, and Rose would teach her some moves in their basement gym next to the pool.

Sunday was a welcome lie in for John and Rose. He was spooning his wife, his left arm gently embracing her as he cupped one of her breasts. She stirred and looked back over her shoulder. 'Mornin',' she whispered sleepily. He kissed her bare shoulder, returning the greeting.

She gently rolled on to her back lifting her left leg over John's waist. His erection found its way inside her and with gentle contractions of her pelvic floor she caressed the welcome visitor inside her. John made slow easy movements with his hips in response, slowly bringing her to her climax.

She gasped and sighed as he pushed all her buttons. 'Mmmm. Phew, that was lovely. Thank you.'

He kissed her shoulder again. 'You're welcome,' he said as he was about to withdraw from inside her.

'Don't go. It feels nice,' she told him, pulling him back with her leg. 'This still feels wrong y'know.'

'I don't know, it felt okay to me,' he said cheekily.

'No, not that,' she smiled, giving his trouser snake a squeeze with her pelvic muscles. 'Doin' all this normal stuff when those ships are just hangin' there in the sky.'

'Yeah, I know. But we have to wait for them to make the first move, so we might as well just get on with our lives.'

'Hmmm. Okay. So, are ya gonna get on with it then?' she said cheekily, and started to contract her pelvic muscles again.

'Ooh, definitely,' he replied with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Later that morning, Rose was in the kitchen, preparing the Sunday lunch with Donna-the-Robot. Donna-the-House was playing the radio through her hidden speakers, and "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer started playing.

'Lookin' for some hot stuff, baby this evenin',' Rose started singing, and was reminded of the DVD "The Full Monty" she had watched recently at a girls night in. She started doing the Dole queue pelvic thrust dance. 'I need some hot stuff, baby tonight.'

'Ha, "The Full Monty".' Donna-the-Robot said, and started to join in. 'I want some hot stuff, baby this evenin'.' They did their pelvic thrusts together and started laughing.

['Gotta have some hot stuff,'] the radio sang out, and they raised their arms and bumped their hips together. ['Gotta have some love tonight.']

'Bravo,' John applauded from the doorway.

Rose squealed a laugh when she saw him watching. 'Come and join in if you want. Tell you what, you can do "You Can Keep Your Hat On" tonight if ya like,' she said with a flirty smile.

'If you'll keep yours on, WPC Smith,' he said with a waggle of his eyebrows and a cheeky smile.

And so, people around the world got on with their lives, and became accustomed to a bunch of alien ships hanging over their cities. All except for Torchwood that is. The Torchwood Institutes around the world were constantly monitoring the ships and investigating anything that could indicate what the aliens were up to.

On Tuesday morning, someone named Karellen, calling himself Supervisor for Earth, made himself known to the world in a broadcast that blanketed every radio frequency. Television screens showed the ship hovering over New York, rather than the person who was speaking. He spoke in English so perfect that it sparked controversy on social media and in academic establishments.

But the context of the speech was more staggering even than its delivery. By any standards, it was a work of superlative genius, showing a complete and absolute mastery of human affairs. There could be no doubt that its scholarship and virtuosity, its tantalizing glimpses of knowledge still untapped were deliberately designed to convince mankind that it was in the presence of overwhelming intellectual power.

However, John Smith, the Doctor, wasn't strictly speaking, of mankind. He did concede that the speech was well crafted and well conceived; but when it came to overwhelming intellectual power . . . well, they hadn't met him yet, had they?

When Karellen had finished, the nations of Earth knew that their days of precarious sovereignty had ended. Local, internal governments would still retain their powers, but in the wider field of international affairs the supreme decisions had passed from human hands. In the morning, a shuttle would land in front of the United Nations Secretariat Building to take the Secretary General of the United Nations to meet with Karellen.

'Well, that told us!' John said with raised eyebrows. 'Who ever this Karellen is, he's almost as clever as me.'

'Who the hell does he think he is?' Jake asked with a hint of indignation.

John crossed his arms and pulled a face. 'He thinks he's the new ruler of planet Earth.'

'Can we stop them?' Jack asked as his mobile phone started ringing.

John answered him with a question of his own. 'Stop them doing what? This Karellen says they want to help us by stopping us from killing each other; by saving the environment and banishing hunger and poverty.'

Rose looked flabbergasted. 'Don't tell me you approve of them takin' control of our planet.'

'Why not?' he replied with a deadpan expression, but he couldn't keep it up. A mischievous grin spread across his face. 'Nah, of course not. If anyone was going to do that, it would have been me. But you have to let people do these things for themselves, learn from their mistakes and develop society naturally.'

Jack was answering his phone as they spoke. 'Yes Harrie, we saw the transmission. Our team are on it . . . I'll call you when we know more.' He ended the call and looked at the expectant faces in the room. 'That was the president. She wants some answers.'

'So do I,' John said. 'Who are these guys? Why are they here? What do they want?'

'Good questions Doc. I want department heads in the meeting room in ten minutes for a brainstorming session.'

Ten minutes later, heads of the various departments in Torchwood were sitting around a large table in the meeting room. Jack Harkness was chairing the meeting.

'So what do we know so far, and what can we infer?'

The head of Special Operations, Andy McNabb spoke first. 'From a military perspective, the arrival of the aliens was a classic example of intimidation by a show of superior force. They were inviting that missile launch at Beijing to show their invulnerability. While the planet was distracted by looking up, a covert military force could have been infiltrating key strategic installations all over the planet.'

'Do we have any evidence of infiltration?' Jack asked worriedly.

Chrissie Anderson answered as head of Technical Operations. 'When Andy suggested an aggressive force would take out power, communications and transport hubs, we started monitoring power stations, satellite installations, transmitter masts, road and rail networks, and airports. So far, we've seen nothing out of the ordinary.'

A young man in overalls from the Engineering Department spoke next. 'Each ship could hold a substantial assault force. They have an area of five square kilometres. Assuming a lightweight titanium type alloy, we estimate a mass of around one thousand metric tonnes.'

John spoke next. 'No obvious armaments, although that doesn't mean they can't have extendible particle beam weapons or missile launchers hidden behind panels.'

'That's reassuring,' Jack said sarcastically.

'However, from my experience, it seems to be a scientific vessel. From the bridge layout, I estimate their height at around eight feet, and the controls appear to be configured for someone with more than five fingers.'

Having seen that John had finished, Jack looked to Chrissie. 'Any progress on looking through their defences?'

'The energy shield they use to protect the ship from space debris in flight, and as a heat shield when entering an atmosphere, reflects a lot of the electromagnetic spectrum. It seems they only want visible light to pass through.'

'That figures,' Andy said. 'No point having an intimidating superior force if no one can see it.'

'I agree,' Alice Dimaggio said. 'Whoever these people are, they are experienced in human psychology. They arrive unannounced and position themselves in plain view with no hint of their intention. Are they here to help us, or harm us? Instead of answering that question, they completely ignore us. We are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.'

'And now, we think we know what that grand scheme is,' Andy said sceptically.

Alice continued. 'We think the speech was written by a committee of writers, and this Karellen's delivery was perfect. It was reminiscent of Lincoln's Gettysburg address, with some Winston Churchill, J.F Kennedy and Martin Luther King thrown in for good effect. The message cleverly contained something for everybody, and people remember the part that appealed to them.'

'And did anyone else spot the unspoken information hidden in the message?' John enquired.

'What information?' Jack asked.

'These guys aren't in charge. Karellen called himself Supervisor for Earth, which infers that there are supervisors of other planets,' John reasoned. 'They're long lived, very long lived. The plans they've got for mankind, whatever they ultimately are, will stretch over generations.'

Alice nodded as she realised he was right. 'Of course. They want our children to grow up never knowing a time when those ships haven't been there. They will see them as a benign presence who stopped the world from fighting and starving. They want us to be happy. They want the species to survive.'

'Yes, but they don't want it to progress,' John said. 'Chrissie, do you know how a Torchwood scanner works?'

'Yes, of course,' she answered, slightly puzzled by the question.

'How do you know? They are based on alien technology.'

'Because we took the original apart and worked out what it was and how it worked. And then we built our own version,' she said with a hint of pride.

John gave her a big grin. 'Of course you did you clever human. But what if you had been given one and told what it was and how to use it. Would you have bothered to find out how it actually worked?'

'Well, I myself probably would, yes. But I can imagine a lot of people would just accept the gift and use it.'

'Yes. And eventually, people forget to ask and take it for granted. With no conflict or competition to motivate technological advances, development stalls. The human race enters a golden age of art, entertainment, leisure activities and . . . stagnation,' John explained. 'Whoever these visitors are, they are afraid of what you are capable of becoming and where you will go. The human race spreads through the galaxy and across the universe, and someone wants to stop you. So the question is . . . what do they want us for?'

'Right. So we need the Secretary General of the United Nations to ask some specific questions,' Jack said. 'I'll have a word with the president.'