FIC: Alien End-Game (9/?)

M looked up as her office door crashed open. Her mouth opened in a rebuke but she was pre-empted by her aide, a short but stocky former RSM charging in. "Sorry ma'am, but you said you wanted to know when they arrived."

M struggled to prevent her excitement from showing. Realising she'd half-risen from her seat, she sank back down and nodded. "And their ETA?"

"They passed our quarter-hour reconnaissance post some five minutes ago."

"Excellent," M stood. "Then I had better prepare to greet our guests." Walking out of her office, she stared down the corridors of the converted mansion twenty or so miles west of Cardiff. Reaching the four-storied mansion's stepped entrance, she watched as the remote-controlled gates opened, and a convoy of three battered mini-buses pulled into the walled courtyard. A tremor ran through her when the buses began disembark and a bearded, chain-mailed powerhouse with an aura of majesty that clearly identified him as the once and future king stepped down from the second bus. Fighting the urge to curtsey, she stepped forward. "Greetings," her voice faltered then steadied. "Greetings sire."

"Greetings mi'lady," the monarch inclined his head slightly. "We have an injured amongst our number," the king looked over his shoulder to where a tiny brunette was helping a ravaged-looking man down the bus' three steps. "I trust you have a healer here?"

"Yes, of course," M looked towards her aide. " Barclay, help the young lady-."

"We're fine!" the young woman snapped, eyes flashing indignantly.

Arthur chuckled. "Fair Kennedy is rather protective of sage Rupert." The king looked towards the mansion. "And what function does this house perform?"

Gathering her thoughts, M led her guests through the ornate door. "This building is the headquarters of Torchwood, an organisation set up to combat supernatural and other-worldly threats to Britain and the world by Queen Victoria in 1879, after a meeting with a being that she considered supernatural but we later confirmed is alien called the Doctor."

M was shocked when Arthur threw his head back and let out a booming laugh. "The Doctor? That is a name I have not heard in a long, long, long time."


"What the hell!" Faith yelled as the lorry suddenly swerved off the road, crashing to a halt, throwing Xand and Harriet to the floor. Dana and Rona grabbed Harriet, pulling her back to her seat, while she did the same for the former Sunnydaler.

The moment Harris was back in his seat, Faith was charging out of the back of the parked truck to find out what was happening. Her mouth dried when she saw two ships flying down at them, energy blasts shooting out of their wings. She gaped when she saw O'Neill and Teal'c taking up flanking positions knelt behind the truck. "Jesus," Faith muttered to Daniel stood beside her at the rear. "We should be running, not trying to shoot them down."

"We're too big a target," the archaeologist replied, eyes fixed on the approaching space ships, "they'd never miss."

"They'd never miss-." Faith gasped as the words' chilling implication hit home. "Shit!" Turning back to the truck, she let out a yell. "Everyone out now!"

Rona was first to hit the ground, Xander a thankful second, and the rest following seconds after. Faith kept her eyes fixed on the incoming spacecraft even as she ushered the others into the doubtful cover offered by a few bushes beside the roadside.

A blast crashed into the truck. The vehicle exploded into a fireball, the concussive force flinging her into the air. Landing face-up with a painful grunt, she looked up to see O'Neill and Teal'c shooting blast after blast into the two crafts. One of the ships exploded into fire, the other plummeted to the earth, smoke billowing from it. The ground shuddered again as flames briefly filled the horizon.

Faith's eyes widened. She had to grudgingly admit she was impressed. Pops could shoot and staying in the line of fire had taken a serious pair. Shoving aside such treasonous feelings she sprang to her feet, strode over to Xander, and helped him up before shooting her father a scornful glance. "Nice shooting, shame you couldn't do it ten seconds earlier. Ya know when we still had a vehicle. Just how are we supposed to travel the klicks to Colorado? Tried hitching once, really don't like the barter system that goes with it."

O'Neill shot her a wounded look. Before the general had chance to respond, Xander was between them. "This is America, land of the car. We'll pick up something easy at the next town." Xander shot an enquiring glance around.

"Which is fourteen k to the west," Daniel helpfully supplied.

"Fourteen K? Okay," Xander joined her in glaring at Jack. "Now I hate you too."

Faith nodded approvingly. Finally Xander was getting with the program.


"You know the Doctor?" M queried as she led her guests into the underground bunker beneath the house, down the thirty steps, through the secret wall that appeared to be just another side to the extensive wine cellar, and finally down a long, light-bulb illuminated passageway, its floor thick with only recently disturbed dust. Stopping at a grey vault door complete with overhead watching CCTV camera, she punched in a four digit code. A steel door slid aside, leaving her with a handprint recognition panel. She provided the necessary identification and then stepped back, waiting for the door to swing outwards before leading the group into the vast conference room beyond.

"Know the Doctor?" Arthur's amused boom filled the room. "No-one truly knows that one, but I have made his acquaintance. He and Merlin were friends. He was the only man Merlin regarded as his intellectual superior. And," the legendary monarch scowled, "it was after fair Gwen's death that the Doctor persuaded Merlin to sacrifice his own life force to put us all to rest until such time as our nation needed us as it had never needed us before."

"The Doctor had you all put into suspended animation?" M asked.

"I am unfamiliar with the term," the king responded. "But the Doctor told Merlin that one day an enemy would come at a time when he was in another place, dealing with another threat and could not be here to defend earth, and that our fair land would have fallen into such a state of decay that it would need the Round Table to save it and bring it to prominence again."

M stared at the king, a cold finger sliding up her back at the hidden meaning she thought she glimpsed in his words. "Y….you intend to rule Britain again?"

"Aye," the king's features stiffened to stone. "One of the Slayers showed me how to use one of your computers. Our country is ruled by a craven misfit unfit to run a rude tavern much less our mighty nation. Criminals, foreigners, and those who would destroy our history and traditions are more important to this ingrate than those who love our proud land. Well no more! After these godforsaken aliens are defeated, no more!"


"General Hammond," Hammond looked up when a Master-Sergeant hurried into his office. He was more relieved than he cared to admit when his junior saluted. At least military discipline was holding. So far. "General O'Neill and his team had arrived."

"Excellent," Hammond rose, suddenly old bones creaking. "Please, lead the way."

As they walked through the underground bunker, a relic from the Cold War, Hammond ruminated on what was to happen next. Their objective of taking down the snakehead prison ship was tricky to say the least. The ship was probably the best guarded of all the potential targets outside of the Quartet's own mother-ships. But freeing the world's heroes would give them a chance - which was more than they had right now.

"Vegas odds," he muttered. Unfortunately the house was stacked against them, and the house usually won. Coming to a halt by a grey elevator door, he waited more or less patiently for it to open, breaking into a smile when it slid open. "Jack," he smiled at the grey-haired man who was first to step out of the elevator, "it's good to see you made it back in one piece."

His general managed a weary, painful smile. "Dorothy was never as glad to see Kansas as I am to see you right now sir."

"Miss Lehane," he nodded towards the young woman he recognised as Jack's illegitimate daughter. Her photograph didn't do her justice; she really was an astonishingly beautiful young woman. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

"Yeah," the curvy Slayer sniffed dismissively while eyeing him with a cynicism that marked her as entirely too old for her years. "I bet it's in your top ten moments of all time. When's Fang getting here, only the quicker we kick the aliens' asses off earth, the sooner I don't have to see his," Jack almost flinched at the scorching look the brunette shot his way, "face again."

Hammond was forced to use all his diplomatic skills to keep his calm in the face of the young woman's rudeness. "Hunt and Bourne will be returning here with Witchblade and Hellboy in 36 hours. Finn," the Slayer groaned, hardly surprising given her troubled past with the soldier, "will be returning with Angel's tea, and the added bonus of the vampire hunter, Blade, in 48 hours."

"Sooner the better," grunted the Slayer.


Hammond looked up at the knock on his door. "Come in." He smiled sympathetically at the man who entered. "Jack, take a seat."

"Thank you sir."

He stared at his junior for a minute before speaking. "Your daughter seems a formidable young lady."

"She's all that." His friend smiled weakly. "I'd be proud of her. If I had anything to do with her."

"General," his heart went out to O'Neill at the pain in his second-in-command's eyes. "I know you, and you'd never knowingly desert a child. You've proven your loyalty too many times for me to ever think you would. Just give her time."

O'Neill smiled crookedly, but there was no real amusement in the facial expression. "Want to give me an idea how long? Is there a traditional length of time I have to wait for forgiveness?"

Hammond stared back at his subordinate. There was some questions there was just no answer for.