Notes: Times moved on a bit in this chapter and Rose tries out the dimension cannon with unexpected results
Chapter Ten
Two years, six months after arriving in Pete's world
Lori B. Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator was on the large video conference screen in the cabinet room. Harriet Jones was asking her about the images from the Hubble telescope.
"Madam President, while the Hubble telescope was taking images for the extreme deep field study in the Fornax constellation, it was noticed by one of the astronomers that a galaxy 13 billion light years away was fainter than it was on a previous image," she explained.
Malcolm Taylor cut in. "Lori, its Malcolm Taylor. Do you know what caused the decrease in magnitude?"
"Oh hello Malcolm. We think so, but we hope we are wrong. We postponed the extreme deep field project so that we could point everything we had at the galaxy. I'll show you what we've got."
A series of images, consisting of dots of light on a black background popped onto the screen. Each one showed a fainter and fainter point of light until it disappeared. There was also a stream of data from the spectrometers from far infrared through x-rays.
"Dear God no," Malcolm said. "Have you verified this data?"
"I'm afraid so, there is no doubt," Lori replied.
"What?" Harriet asked. "What's wrong, what is it Dr. Taylor?"
"It's the beginning of the end!" Malcolm said quietly. "Each star in that distant galaxy was extinguished one by one, that's why it lost luminosity over time. If you look at the data, there is another galaxy, slightly closer that is starting to dim."
"Are you trying to tell me that whatever it is that's eating galaxies is getting closer?" There was a hint of panic in her question.
"Yes Madam President, it will eventually reach us and eat our own galaxy," Malcolm said.
"Then we must find a way to stop it," Harriet declared. "Director Tyler, please divert all your resources over to finding a solution to this phenomenon. Funding will not be an issue, whatever you need, you have only to ask. And I don't think I have to remind you that this is top secret, if the public get wind of this, it will be global chaos."
Harriet adjourned the meeting and Pete took Malcolm back to Torchwood to talk with Dr. Roger Stansfield.
Stansfield had stayed on at Torchwood after the dimensional transporter project had finished. He enjoyed teaching at Oxford, but the opportunity to do research in trans-dimensional physics was too good to miss.
Once he got back from the Palace of Westminster, Pete called Rose up to his office. In private he explained the findings from the Hubble space telescope.
"Dad, what are we going to do?" she asked him.
He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, his shoulders sagged. "I have absolutely no idea," he admitted. "This is the kind of thing the Doctor would know how to fix."
Five months after the emergency cabinet meeting, Dr. Roger Stansfield came bursting into Pete's office unannounced carrying a messy pile of email printouts in his hand. He looked at Pete's startled face and realised what he'd done. He ran back to the door and knocked it and ran straight back to the desk.
"Mr Tyler, I've just had this email from Dr. Taylor at UNIT. We've been corresponding since the dimension transport project ended, it's sort of a hobby of ours and we've been brainstorming the missing stars. We bounce ideas off each other and this one has bounced really high," he babbled, his words not coming quickly enough for his frustrated brain.
"Roger calm down, what is it?"
"Er, its complicated is what it is. Dr. Taylor would like to come over and discuss it with you, with us. It's big, really big. Will you be able to meet us in my lab at 12:00?" he asked. He was literally hopping from foot to foot.
Pete smiled at him; he liked his childlike enthusiasm for his subject and his ability to explain his subject matter in such a way that even a child could understand it.
"I'll be there at 12:00," he told him.
"Excellent! Oh, and your daughter, would she be able to come to? After all, it's the data we got from the Doctor's actions in the lever room that gave us the clue." With that he turned around and ran out of the room, trying to catch the thoughts that were flying out of his mind.
"Thank you for joining us," Malcolm said as Pete and Rose entered the lab. "I might as well get straight to the point; we think that whatever is causing the stars to go out is opening the void again. The stars are disappearing from reality."
"WHAT!" Rose's heart leapt into her mouth. "Did he just say what I think he said?"
"We think we may be able to use this to our advantage. Roger has prepared a rather elegant demonstration of the complex physics involved in our theory." Roger Stansfield and his team of scientist nodded a greeting.
On a worktop along one wall, stood two glass tanks half filled with water. Floating on the water were sheets of ice a few centimetres thick. Next to the tanks were two sidearms.
"Er, what's going on? Does the master-at-arms know that you have firearms in here?" Pete asked suspiciously. The idea of these two 'loose cannons' having firearms scared him.
Malcolm laughed. "Don't worry Director, they are BB guns and they will demonstrate our theory really well. Please come over and see."
Pete and Rose moved over to the worktop.
"Miss Tyler would you pick up the first gun please?" Stansfield asked her as they reached the tanks. Rose picked up the gun and examined it before prepping it to fire.
"This first tank represents the events that created the anomaly in the lever room all those years ago. Would you fire the gun at the sheet of ice please? The glass is laminated so it won't break."
Rose aimed at the centre of the sheet of ice and fired. There was a 'splut!' as the ice split into a few pieces.
"The metal BB pellet represents the void ship that punched a hole in the fabric of space-time, as you can see, the ice cracked just as our universe did," Malcolm explained. "Now, the other gun has plastic BB pellets loaded. Rose, could you try and fire through the cracks in the ice please?"
Rose picked up the second gun and prepped it before aiming and firing. The little yellow pellets passed through the gaps and sank to the bottom of the tank.
Roger took over the commentary. "The yellow pellets represent the yellow buttons that you used to pass through the cracks into the 'water' world. Also, the pellets can also catch some of the pieces of ice and cause more fractures. Only when you stop firing can the ice come together and refreeze into a solid sheet once more."
"So the ice represents the interface between the universes and how it behaves," Rose said, grasping the analogy.
"Yes, very good. Now let's move over to the next tank. Try the plastic pellets on the ice please," Malcolm requested.
Rose fired, and the pellets either bounced of or lodged on the surface of the ice.
"Do you see that?" Roger asked. "It's all about energy. You need a certain amount of energy to punch through the ice. Now watch this, this is brilliant."
Roger put on a protective glove and picked up an ordinary metal pea-shooter out of a beaker of boiling water. He went to the second tank and gently pushed the pea-shooter through the ice.
"If we apply the same energy that the void ship did, but do it slowly, the ice doesn't fracture." He let go of the pea-shooter and it stood upright in the ice.
"Now miss Tyler, can you fire a pellet through the pea-shooter?"
Rose put the barrel of the gun against the pea-shooter and fired. There was a little 'plink' noise as the plastic pellet bounced off the bottom of the tank. She fired again, and again. 'plink', 'plink'.
Malcolm and Roger faced Pete, standing side by side, looking very pleased with themselves.
"We are writing a paper, 'The Dimension Cannon Effect of the Manipulation of Trans-Dimensional Quantum States'. Director if we can re-assemble and modify the lever room, we believe with the knowledge gained from the dimensional transport project, that we could build a working dimensional cannon," Malcolm declared. He pushed his spectacles onto the bridge of his nose.
Rose's jaw was on the floor. "Are you tellin' me you will be able to send someone... Me through the void?"
"Once the cannon is energized and has opened a hole, it will be a piece of cake." Malcolm pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose.
Three years, four months after arriving in Pete's world
It was 19:13 and Mickey was with Jake and the rest of the blue shift in the standby room of S.O.U watching one of the soaps on TV. They were on a 08:00 to 20:00, 12 hour shift with three quarters of an hour to go.
Captain McNab came out of the operations room and looked across at Mickey.
"Mickey, can I see you in the office for a minute?" His voice was unusually subdued. Mickey stood up and walked over. Andy ushered him inside and shut the door.
"I've just had a call from Director Tyler. It's about your Gran. They took up her evening meal and found her unresponsive. I'm afraid she's passed away Mickey. I'm very sorry." Andy put a hand on his shoulder.
"She'd become bedridden over the last few months," he told him. "She was gettin' old and sick. The doctor said it was a chest infection, she was on antibiotics for it but it wouldn't clear up."
"Go on home son, go and say your goodbyes."
"Thanks Cap'n."
The funeral was held a week later with the service being held at Rita Anne's local church, which was full to bursting. The vicar told of her hard life which was filled with honesty, integrity and goodness. How she saw her blindness not as a disability, but as a gift which allowed her to see peoples hearts.
Mickey told of how she had kept him on the straight and narrow, even when he didn't want to be. He had given her attitude as a teenager, and she had given him love.
People realised what an incredible woman she was when someone as famous and influential as Peter Tyler, CEO of Vitex and current director of Torchwood, read the lesson from the bible.
Family and friends then made their way to the crematorium where a final farewell was said. A reception was then held at the community centre attached to the church, with an amazing spread of food which Pete had insisted on arranging as a tribute to an amazing woman.
Three years, ten months after arriving in Pete's world
Malcolm and Roger had assembled the 'dream team' of scientists and engineers again, and rebuilt the lever room at Torchwood with plenty of modifications.
The initial work was fairly straightforward, as they were covering old ground with the individual transporter buttons. The cannon however was a new theory and new technology. The pressure was on and the clock was ticking, more galaxies were fading and disappearing, and they were getting closer.
But this team were good, and did their best work when working to a deadline (a bad choice of words, deadline). And so, here they were in the abandoned warehouse again for an initial test of the new and improved dimensional transporter.
There was the same briefcase with the monitoring equipment inside and the new button on top, and this time Malcolm had a laptop with a control interface for the whole set-up.
"Being a 'cannon', we should be able to aim it," Malcolm explained to Pete and Rose. "Once the cannon is up to full power, we should have a window through which we can search for a specific energy signature."
"What kind of energy signature?" Rose asked, hoping he would say what she was thinking.
"Artron energy of course. If your statements on file are accurate, then there is only one person in that universe who stands any chance of helping us." Malcolm looked up from the laptop. "The cannon at Torchwood is up to full power, and I'm getting coordinates for a strong source of artron energy. It's either the Doctor or his TARDIS."
Rose looked at her father with hope in her eyes. Could this really be happening. What were they waiting for? 'Sod the briefcase, send me' she thought to herself.
"Coordinates locked, we think. Launching in five - four - three - two - one." The robot arm pressed the button and the briefcase disappeared.
Malcolm closed the laptop and put it on the seat of the Torchwood vehicle.
"Right then, who fancies a cup of tea then?" He reached into the foot well and pulled out a thermos and some paper cups.
"Cup of tea?" Rose said incredulously. "What about the transporter?"
"Oh, didn't I say? The new device takes half an hour to recharge itself. The universe isn't fractured like before so it takes more energy to get through."
Back in Dr. Stansfield's lab, they were reviewing the DVD from the briefcase. The lab mouse, Harriet was alive and well and running on her wheel at the back of the room.
"Ah, the case skidded along the ground for a while. Transfer of momentum from one location to another. We'll have to try and correct for that in future." Roger said, reading the data.
Rose and Pete were more interested in the video recording than anything else. Rose was scouring the screen for any hint of a brown suit or blue box. The camera was on a continuous rotation and showed cars, office buildings, people walking by.
"C'mon, where are you?" Rose asked.
"Our aim may have been off, he may have moved, or he may be just around the corner," Malcolm told her.
"Dad, I need to go there. I need to find him," she pleaded.
Pete looked at her, smiled and then spoke to Malcolm.
"Is all the data in, is it safe?" Pete asked.
"Apart from the momentum, it appears to work fine. I would suggest that Rose grabs her jacket and gets ready to go."
Rose looked at Pete with her brown puppy dog eyes. "Oh Dad! Can I go? Please? I'll come straight back, I promise."
"Indeed you will be right back Rose. The prototype transporter is set to return to its point of origin once recharged. It will be an intelligence gathering mission. This internet enabled phone will automatically log on to the internet and download data until you return. We would also like you to use the speed dial and attempt to make a call back to us here."
Pete could see she was literally bubbling with excitement. "Your Mum will kill me for this, but, what the hell, go grab your jacket from the ready room and meet us in the lever room."
Rose squealed and grabbed him in a hug. She kissed him on the cheek and ran out of the lab. Pete looked at the scientist in the room and focussed on Malcolm.
"I'm trustin' you on this," he said and walked out of the lab.
Rose was wearing her new leather jacket that Jackie had given her for Christmas. Her old black jacket brought back memories of that beach in Norway and she'd stopped wearing it. This new one was blue, a great fit and she loved it.
"Okay Rose, now remember you're a S.O.U agent and you have a mission to complete. Remember your training and stay focussed." Pete hugged her and kissed her forehead. "Good luck soldier."
"Thanks Dad, I'll see you in 30 minutes."
"Alright Rose, we're up to full power and locked onto the artron energy signature. You can launch when ready." Malcolm told her.
"OK, here we go!" She pressed the disk and disappeared.
Pete looked at the clock on the wall and started counting.
Rose reappeared 30 minutes later with a flash of light and a 'whop!', staggering forwards as she did so. Pete immediately noticed the disappointed look on her face. She handed the phone and transporter button to one of the scientists and walked into Pete's embraced.
"Never mind sweetheart. It was always a long shot that you'd find him on the first hop," he told her.
"So, how was the mission?"
"It went well; the equipment seemed to work Okay. It was weird being back 'home' after all this time."
Pete smiled at her. "Make your way down to Special Operations and write up your report. I'll come and find you when it's time to go home. We'll debrief tomorrow when the tech guys have analysed the data on the phone.
The conference room at Torchwood contained section heads from technical, scientific and field operation departments. Rose was present to give her report and Mickey was there because it was his home world.
"So Rose, there had been an incident with an alien ship and people having the fat 'sucked' out of them to make alien babies?" Pete asked her for the benefit of the meeting.
"That's what the police officer said at the barricade. I can't believe that I missed the Doctor, it's the kind of thing he would have been right in the middle of," Rose replied, a hint of sadness in her voice.
"Our scans showed that you were right on top of the artron energy. Is there anyone else that could have that amount of energy? Did anyone interact with you?" Dr. Stansfield asked.
"There was one woman, red hair, preoccupied with a rubbish bin, just before the transporter brought me back."
Roger checked the data log on his laptop. "Yes, that would be it. Do you know who she was? Could she have been the same species as the Doctor?"
"No, the Doctor was the last of his kind. I don't understand this," Rose told them.
"Hmm. The internet data on your phone indicates that the Doctor thwarted a star shaped alien craft from invading the Earth in 2007, by their calendar, and prevented an alien ship from crashing on London in 2008, so he's certainly still active on Earth," Chrissie Anderson announced.
"Oh my God! That first one must have been just after the Canary Wharf incident!" Rose exclaimed.
"We'll have to try another jump. If we can't find the Doctor, this mystery red head may know where he is," Malcolm added.
"Malcolm, from the data we gathered from the phone, I think I might be able to set up a video link through the cannon. If the Doctor is near any kind of media screen then we should be able to talk to him," Chrissie said.
"Good work Chrissie. I think that may be a way to proceed," Malcolm replied.
Pete tapped his hands on the table. "Right then, lets get up to the lever room and get started."
In the lever room, they were using video imaging equipment to try and contact the person who was literally 'crackling' with artron energy.
"Where is he?" Rose asked Malcolm as she stood in front of the camera, looking at the blank video screen.
"We're not sure at the moment. Ah, it's the TARDIS, quick, try and lock it down." On the screen, Rose could see the familiar roundels of the TARDIS. Oh God she'd missed that ship.
She saw someone briefly on the screen. "DOCTOR!" she shouted, but the image was gone.
"Was that the red haired woman?" Chrissie asked. It had only been a fleeting glimpse.
"Recalibrating," Malcolm announced, "He's not on Earth, er, parallel Earth anyway, he seems to be in some sort of passenger transport vehicle which is shielded against some form of intense radiation."
"Can you open a channel to the on-board communication system?" she asked.
"We are just establishing a carrier wave through the cannon now." Malcolm walked over and looked at the video screen in front of Rose. "Ah, there we are, just a bit of fine tuning and…."
The view of a small flight cabin appeared on the screen. Rose immediately recognised the back of the Doctor's oh so fantastic sticky up hair.
"DOCTOR! DOCTOR!" she called out.
The image flickered and faded as they lost the lock on the signal. Rose looked desperately at her Dad.
"That was him. He was there. Get him back, quick," she pleaded.
"I'm sorry Rose," Malcolm said. "The intense radiation is interfering with the signal. We'll have to wait until he leaves the planet so that we can get a stronger lock on him."
Rose had tears of disappointment stinging her eyes. "I was so close to talkin' to him."
Pete came over and hugged her. "Don't worry Sweetheart, we've proved it works. It's only a matter of time before we have you two together again."
He wasn't crazy about the idea of losing his new daughter, and he knew Jackie would be hell to live with for a long time. But Rose's happiness was also important to him, and if that meant her moving to another universe to be with the man she loved, then so be it.
"Okay everybody, go grab some lunch and then we can try again," Pete said.
After lunch, the team reassembled back in the Lever Room. Malcolm was really excited about the search results from the cannon. The artron energy source was back on the alternate Earth, in London and was strong and stable.
"WHOP!"
Rose vanished in a flash of light. The 'dream team' were monitoring the phones data. After the first jump they had worked out how to stream data through the cannon by using the energy of the anomaly as a carrier wave and modulating the signal on top of it.
As the communication department lead, Chrissie was monitoring the incoming information.
"Director, Dr. Taylor, something's wrong!" she called out.
Pete immediately thought of pulling Rose back. "What is it? Is Rose in danger?"
"No, nothing like that. It's the time stamp on the web pages, they are from 2007, their calendar."
"What! Are you sure? Is it archive data you're accessing?" Malcolm asked as he came over to look at the screen.
"No, its real-time streaming, Rose has travelled into the past!"
"Fascinating! That's an unexpected property of the dimension cannon; we will have to work out how to aim in time as well as space."
Pete didn't like the sound of this. 'Unexpected' when your daughter is in another dimension is not a good word.
"Is Rose OK? Will she be able to get back?" He asked Malcolm.
"Oh yes, she's connected to us through the cannon. The return function will still work as designed."
Chrissie cut in. "There's a live news feed from 'SKY NEWS'. It seems to be reporting on the star shaped alien ship attacking London. We know the Doctor was there, I think she may have hit the bullseye this time."
"WHOP!" The room was filled with a flash of light and Rose ran forwards, tears running down her cheeks, she looked devastated.
"Dad?" She ran forwards towards Pete. He enveloped her in his arms.
"What is it sweetheart? What's the matter?"
Her breathing was erratic with sobs, she could hardly speak.
"He's... dead. The Doctor, he's dead. It's all wrong Dad, it's all gone wrong over there."
Pete shut down the project for the meantime while the 'dream team' worked on the time anomaly and how to navigate it, and Chrissie correlated the new data.
Rose had calmed down and was in Pete's office with Mickey, giving a report. She was a S.O.U agent after all, and she put her emotions to one side while she recalled the events of her mission.
"She was there again, the red head. She said her name was Donna, I didn't get her last name."
"Good work agent Tyler," Pete said with a proud smile.
"There was something else Dad. She had something on her back. I couldn't see it when I looked at it, but it was there when you glanced away. I've seen something like it before; the Doctor called it a perception filter."