Rose Tyler: Earth Defense
(11/ God only knows at this point.)
"Oh please, please, please darling Rose," Harry had grabbed onto Roses' arm, asking in desperation if he could join them out on the field. He had never been interested in the world outside his laboratory until she brought Jack home with her like a giant puppy dog that could chat up a brick wall. If pressed, Rose would admit that she loved her boys more than anything else in the world, however if they did not learn how to get along, she was going to smack the both of them. She didn't know what it was about Jack and Harry but they were heartily determined to not like each other or at the very least, glare at each other most ferociously. Harry decided that he wished to compound this with his presence on a run. "Just this once, let me go out in the field and see the action that they keep bringing back to me."
"Oh bollocks. Fine. You can come, just behave." Harry made a motion that he was putting a collar on himself and handing her the leash but she only snorted and gave the same directive to Jack.
She knew she should have said no, Emma told her she should say no, quite vehemently, which was why Emma only watched her with accusatory eyes as Harry and Jack glared at each other with manly old woman disapproval. Only Johnson was unaffected, snuggling his AK and nodding off as they drove to the spot where some Cybermen were rumored to escaped to and set up a factory. The tall, skinny, weedy looking bloke that drove the van that Rose always called 'You' and never learned his name properly because it hurt that she couldn't call him "Doctor", kept shooting nervous glances to the back of the van as to ascertain the threat level growing behind him.
Rose knew why Harry didn't like Jack, Harry didn't like Jack because Jack knew more than he did, the mystery, was why Jack didn't like Harry. Though, to be truthful, it would probably be more of question if Jack did like Harry, considering. When they reached the site that people had been disappearing at, everyone exited the vehicle in an orderly, if rather scurrying fashion, excepting the two slinging testosterone at each other. Rose sighed rolled her eyes before kicking Harry out in front of her and saying, "You'll find your feet at the end of your legs. You may care to move them."
"Right, as the only one of us not cleared to use an explosive or incendiary device of any type, I volunteer to take the rear." Harry said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and grinning charmingly up at them all. Jack twiddled his thumbs and rolled his eyes upward in innocence. Emma and Johnson exchanged a weary look somewhere along the lines of 'Oh god our commander may possibly be a twit.' Rose merely smiled and tipped her head to the side, sliding near Harry to finger his sleeve.
"Right then. When the monsters sneak up behind us and eat you, be sure to scream." She leaned away from Saxon before patting him on the cheek and whirling to stride in the front. Saxon flopped his mouth open a few times before tagging on to Johnson, flashing him a look of absolute terror before glomming on to his arm and wiggling to the middle, leaving Emma and Johnson in the end as Jack lengthened his stride to catch up with Rose. Rose batted at Jack's hands as he lifted her purple jacket to check on her guns where they were strapped under her shoulders, tucked up against her ribs. She was comfortable with them now that she barely noticed when Jack fiddled with them. She should have been more cognizant about where his hands were going, however as long as they didn't go too far, she didn't mind so much.
Rose let Jack enter the room first, as he, for the most part, shoved her out of the way behind a wall and strode into danger with one hand on his vortex Manipulator which could port him out of the area in an instant. Rose looked behind her and stifled a scream as she came face to face with a man frozen in time and water, hands stretched out like he were reaching for the way out, grasping at the air like it could rescue him. She threw her hand to her mouth in surprise, biting down on her sweater sleeve.
"Rose! What's- well, what have we got here?" Jack asked, leaning around her to see while flipping open his manipulator to do a quick scan. "Interesting. Very, intereresting."
"It's Cryon isn't it. An instantaneous cryogenic crystallization." Rose asked, leaning forward to touch the statue then lick her fingers. "Blech, tastes like satsuma."
"Did you really just lick that?" Jack asked, staring at her.
"Safe enough." She said, giving him a smile as he stared.
"Seriously? Licked it." Emma said, snugging up to Rose's back while leaning over her teammate to take some readings off the statue. "Gross. Oh. Hallo there, I'm getting a heartbeat."
"What, from inside the ice?" Saxon asked, budging up into the corridor with them. Johnson stayed outside, guarding the rear as the science nerds all clambered over the new discovery.
"Seen it before." Rose said, shaking her head. "Been in it before. Dead boring, but not really that bad. Makes you taste satsumas for a week though."
"That sounds awful." Emma breathed, wrinkling her nose at Rose.
"I do hate satsuma's." Saxon nodded, leaning forward to sniff the acrid chemical smell that accompanied the satsumas. "There's an underlying scent of Huon particles and tang of Tachyons. Rose. I don't know what those are. Rose, why do I know that?"
"Haven't a clue, but you're right." Rose said, brushing him off as he grabbed her elbow. "Give off."
"Right. Tachyons I've heard of." Emma said, keeping up with the conversation, for the most part. "But what are Huon particles?"
"They're sort of...teleporting particles?" Rose was distracted as she began patting down her pockets, clearly searching for something. Jack picked up the explanation at that point.
"They are all over time and space and when they clump together they have a tendancy to teleport whatever they are infused in, to the nearest clump." Jack explained, complete with hand motions that were only slightly restricted by the tailored fit of his coat. "The question is-Why are they in something that freezes the body?"
"Dunno." Rose said, before running her hand down the leg of the statue with one hand to check out it's foot. It appeared to be standing on something, Rose tugged, but it was firmly underneath their foot. She looked down and it looked as though the papers were blown out in a circle underneath him. "I think, that he was transported here. The cryogenic freezing takes a few seconds. Feels rather like your limbs are going numb and then asleep. It's quite pleasant actually."
"Pleasant? Sounds right dreadful." Emma shivered, peering closer to her scanner and moving it around the frozen man.
"Aha!" Rose exclaimed, her hand that was rummaging around in her coat pockets emerging victorious with a baggy of white crystals clenched in her fist. "Salt. Counteracts the particles but it'll take some time for him to thaw out. Mean time, check out these papers."
"The ones under his feet?" Jack asked, fingers flicking to the creases in his pants to adjust them so he could crouch next to her. "I don't recognize this writing."
"I do." Rose said, her voice strangled, as she recognized the whorls and circles of Gallifreyan She could recognize the language, but there was something a little off, as if it had been xeroxed multiple times as some of the lines were broken and faded. "Haven't a clue how to read it, but I do know it."
"Bag and tag 'em, Graham." Jack said, standing back up and grimacing as he resettled his long coat. "Make sure you get all of them."
"Why me?" Emma grumbled, even as she immediately put her stuff away to start gathering up papers. She did her best not to touch them and slid them into a file that she had brought with her. The other scientists looked at her for a moment before continuing their discussion.
"So what've we got." Rose said, tipping her head to the side as she placed her hands on her hips. "Cryon tech, Gallifreyan writing. Sounds like someone is collecting."
"But what can they make with all of this?" Harry asked, picking up a piece of the paper up between his forefinger and thumb gingerly. His eyebrows shot upward and he lifted the paper closer to his face, lifting his elbow above Emma's head so he didn't smack her in the face with it. "Especially with plans for a transporter."
"You can read that?" Rose asked, practically shoving Emma and Jack out of the way to get to Harry. "Harry, how can you read that?"
"You called me Harry!" Saxon said, looking up at Rose with a grin on his face. When she motioned towards the papers in his hands he looked down, startled. "What, oh! Yes. Quite easily so. Why, can't you?"
"Saxon, that is Gallifreyan. How can you read that?" Rose asked.
"What happened to Harry?" Saxon asked, a frown tugging at the bottom of his lip. "I liked Harry. And it's in English, isn't it?"
"There's circles and dots." Emma said helpfully. "I don't even think there are even letters in there."
"Oh. How peculiar." Harry peered at the paper as if he were trying to force a disconnect between his eyes recognizing the writing and his brain understanding it. He shrugged before facing the papers to Rose and tapping them with his forefinger. "Still. Transporter. Looks dimensional."
"Really?" Rose asked, interested as Emma skirted the frozen man to continue on the way. The younger woman was trained with the guns that lay under her own leather jacket and was actually better with them than Rose. "Dimensional, you say."
"Got another one here." Emma called back, pulling her scanner out from where she had tucked it. "No papers this time."
"I'm outta salt." Rose said to the next frozen form, following her friend to check on the the woman . "Sorry."
"We'll come back for them. All of them." Emma said, a bit of steel in her voice as she stared down the hallway. They were all frozen in various poses of escape, one even poised as if they were climbing up a ladder, that had been placed carefully on their side, as if they had been caught and lowered down gently with care. There were twenty in all, of various ages and ethnicity as well as from different lifestyles. On one end, there was a streetwalker, that was frozen in the act of twisting away from an unseen attacker and on the other, a corporate business man frozen in the middle of a dead sprint away from the exit. Rose made sure to say that she was sorry to every frozen human that they passed that she couldn't help each and every one of them at the moment. When they came through to the end of the tunnel, the frozen mannequins were more spaced out, as if there were more time between each snatch leading to the end. At the farthest end, the woman looked to be dressed in fashions from the nineteen fifties.
"They've been at this for a really long time, I see." Rose said, fingering the smooth casing over the bright fabric with whorls and paisley. The woman was frozen halfway into a scream of terror and was leaning backward so far as to almost unbalanced, clenching the top of her dress closed. "Oh god, think of the paperwork for the reintegration of these people. Oh, m'head."
"Oh, don't lie." Emma said, rolling her eyes. "You're just going to make me do it, aren't you."
"Now you've got it." Rose said, clapping her friend on the shoulder and giving her the smile that showed a little bit of teeth and her tongue tucked up against the inside. "C'mon Grahams, I'd help."
"Such a lie." Emma said, before grabbing her arm and thrusting her behind Jack. She nodded to Johnson for him to go first as she pulled out her smaller but no less intimidating modded hyper beamed pistols. Rose linked her fingers through the loops of Jack's coat because much as she hated it, she was heir of Vitex and daughter of the head of Torchwood. Priority number one, as far as any team she took to the field was concerned, was to get her out alive. It was frustrating and annoying and she really wanted to tell Pete where to shove it, but the look on Jackie's face when she'd come home with a broken arm and the subsequent hysteria made her acquiesce.
"Johnson, cover Graham, Harry stay out here. Jack and I'll go in next. Harry, if you see anything, scream like a little girl. Otherwise, be very, very quiet and hide " Rose cautioned, rolling her eyes as she pushed Harry down and out of the way. Harry held up a finger for patience, then mimed zipping his lips. Rose strengthened her gaze on him. "Do you understand me, Harry?"
Harry mumbled through closed lips, moving his facial features like he would, had he been speaking normally. Rose gave him an exasperated look, pinching his forearm. Saxon flashed her a hurt look before miming reopening his mouth to say, "Yes, Marm."
"Oh god, just zip it back up, Saxon." Rose hissed, horrified of that word.
"Saxon, you screw up and I'll kill you." Jack whispered casually, stroking his blaster at his side.
"Welcome to the field." Johnson whispered, winking at the man shrunk behind the statues and raised a heel to smash the lock. He glided aside to let Emma into the room with her modded guns out and ready as he was able to fire over her smaller frame.
It was cold, and had the sterile smell of a laboratory that was wallowing in it's own stink for far too long. Rose found the computer first, the strange pictographic shapes she remembered from her stay on the frozen planet. The same things that were printed on her toast in the morning that she was quite confident were curses in Cryon from the toaster. She paused for a moment, her hand poised over the controls as she tried to recall exactly what buttons to push and where to put her hands in order to unfreeze the people in the hallway.
"We're clear. Looks like nobody's been here in a while." Emma said, putting her guns away. "There's a bunch of wires and some junk at the back of the hallway, and some holes from laser fire in the walls, but other than that, no clue as to what happened."
"Somebody go get Saxon then, I'm gonna need him for the control panel. Jack, you too." Jack gave her a mock salute and she made a face at him, returning to the computer while letting her hair shade her face as she worked. A chill, more than what the cold room could account for, danced along her spine and she turned slightly to look behind her. Something scuttled out of sight. She slid her right hand under her jacket to wrap her hand around the even colder metal strapped to her side and turned casually. "If you come out, I'm not gonna have t'shoot you."
Rose edged towards the corridor, kicking aside a metallic hand that was blasted off of an arm. It looked rebotic, and that put her teeth on edge, but as it was not actually attached to anything, she let herself lean over farther. She was so focused on finding out what was scurrying around the corner, that she didn't notice a cord lifting itself to wrap up on her leg. From that one single cord, an entire head of a Cyberman rose from the wreckage, shaking scraps of metal and burned out cording off as it rose up. Rose gave a scream and fell back, but it was too late, as wires thick as her wrist flew out of the Cyberman to wrap around her head, holding her in place while the front part opened.
"Everyone down!" Emma yelled, while hitting the quick release on the preacher gun that Johnson always carried on his back since the Cyberman invasion. They all hit the floor as well as they could, Harry diving behind a console that theoretically shouldn't have housed him, Johnson shooting at the power source that the cables were connected to, doing his best to take it out before the Cyberman could take her over.
The thing about the Preacher gun is, that when the gun was developed, the only way that Cybermen were caught was all in one piece, but the thing about Cybermen is, they evolve. They find their weaknesses and they make them better. The Preacher gun takes out the emotional inhibitor, but when it is just a head and cords to a power source, the chip was somewhere on the floor, mangled and crumpled and no longer attached, the gun is not quite as effective as it should be. Rose struggled with the metal wires pulling her head inexorably towards it.
"I've got no Doctor." Rose cried, using all of her strength to keep it off of her. "I've got no TARDIS, and no sonic bloody screwdriver. But hell if I'm losin' to you!"
With a final heave, Rose managed to evade it's thrust towards her face by sheer will power alone. Jack finally jumped into the fray, after having scooted around Johnson as the large man continued to fire at the power source. From behind the console, Harry made a happy gurgling sound while he lunged forward, shoving Emma to the side. His hand was clenched with his arm outstretched, a thin beam of yellow light streaming from his fist. The Cyberman head began to spark and Rose, giving a little cry of pain and startlement as the sparks burned her heands, threw the head away from her, smashing it against the wall. She fell backwards, landing inelegantly on her rear as she pulled her hands to her chest to curl around them in pain.
"Who needs sonic?" Saxon asked, smugly cradling the short silver wand like one would cradle a beloved toy. "When you've got laser. I found it behind the cabinets over there. Can I keep it?"
"Take it back to Torchwood, but put salvage rights on it for the armory." Rose winced as Jack grabbed her forearm to pick her up off the floor, pulling her way too far into his personal space, flush up against his chest, so that he could check out her hands. He turned them this way and that and then flipped up the casing on his manipulator. A golden dust mote floated out and over her palms, healing the cuts easily and efficiently. She remembered the last time she'd seen them and grinned. "Nanogenes, right?"
"Brilliant and gorgeous. Have I told you how attractive that is?" Jack said, running his hand down her back as she got a little light headed and wavered from the energy depletion after a single Nanogene did its work. "Sure you don't just want to come with me to the future?"
"The twenty first century is when everything changes." Rose said, grinning cheekily at him amd looping an arm around his neck as her legs were a little shaky. She reached up a finger to tap him on the nose as she was so relieved not to have a large mechanical face trying to eat hers, she was feeling a bit light headed. "You told me that once. Why would you ever want to miss that?"
"Just about had your face eaten off and you still find away to needle that you are right." Jack said, laughing. "Never pass up a chance to brag, do you?"
"Grab 'em with two hands." Rose said as Jack leaned her up against the console. "And don't think I'm not noticin' where you're grabbin', Jack."
"I'm just checking for injuries!" Jack said in a mock offended voice as he offered her a wide grin. "Could be broken, don'ch'ya think?
"Yes, yes very lovely. But look! It's laser!" Saxon said, running the silver wand through his hands lovingly.
"Careful with that Saxon, wouldn't want to give the brave Captain ideas." Emma said, bumping Harry's shoulder with her own while she reattached Johnson's Preacher gun. Saxon looked alarmed an then hastily tucked away the screwdriver in his coat pocket before Jack turned around to look at him with interest.
"Do you smell like that naturally? I've always wanted to ask." Rose asked, leaning forward and almost toppling off of the control panel where Jack had set her. She grabbed the lapels of his coat in her fists and dragged him close so that she could lay her head on his chest. "Really, you smell like cupcakes."
"Hold on a second." Johnson frowned and leaned forward, brushing Rose's long blond hair out of the way for a moment, exposing a puncture mark on her neck with the needle still embedded in her skin. "Neurological numbing toxin from the Cyberman. Slows down the brain and makes it easier to assimilate humans. Must've shot her while they were fighting."
"Thought she was acting a bit funny." Emma said, relieved as she took over the care of Rose, pulling out the needle and easing the older woman back gently. "Wait, Rose took the serum last week, why'd she be loopy now?"
"Ah." Jack said, shifting and looking a bit guilty. "That would be the Nanogenes. They do exactly what it says on the tin, the "heal all". They have a tendency to fix everything, not just the most immediate threat."
"Great." Emma said, rubbing her forehead with her hand. "Well, the good news is, it should wear off in about twenty minutes. Mean time, Johnson, see what you can do about the Cyberman now. Saxon, take a look at these documents and see if you can figure out how to turn this thing off and unplug it if possible."'
"No need to figure it out, I've got it!" Rose said, tipping sideways and falling off of the console. All of them leapt forward to help her, but she glared at them and pulled herself halfway on top of the console to hit some buttons and turn different dials. On the other side of the door, there were suddenly footsteps, then screaming as the frozen people in the next room began to wake up and find that they could not move at the moment. They would in a few moments and Jack headed out to charm the room. Rose rested her head on her arms and collapsed against the console. "Instantaneous metagenetic flux from cryogenesis!"
"Rose, calm down." Emma said, sitting her back against the hard wall. Rose shook her off. Golden tendrils of light floated out from her eyes in a nimbus. Emma stared at her in trepidation. "Rose, your eyes look a bit funny, you've got, like stuff comin' out of 'em."
"Don't be ridiculous." Rose said seriously, clapping her hands to her eyes and closing them. When she uncovered and opened them, the tendrils were gone and her eyes were back to their warm brown color, instead of a brilliant, shining gold. "Nothing there, see?"
Rose seemed to be recovering by the second, getting more befuddled by the controls but more herself. Jack seemed to be doing all right, explaining everything as best as anyone was able and they had a secondary team en route to come pick them up and to take them back and when they appeared, Jack came back, rubbing the top of his eyebrows with his forefinger and thumb. Rose leaned across the console, leaning forward on her elbows with her head in her hands and back bent. She was not looking forward to the clean up paperwork for this mess.
Rose could feel a hand ghost along her rear, but whether it is from Harry or from Jack, she isn't quite sure, so she straightens up quickly and glares with all the force she can muster in the general direction of the rest of the team. She's fairly certain that it wasn't Emma but Johnson has a peculiarly innocent look about him that makes Rose question whether or not he did it just to stir up trouble. Saxon, ignoring her ire, came up behind her and placed an arm across her shoulders.
"Oh, get off, Saxon." Rose said, exasperated, but secretly amused as he had the same huggy tendencies as the Doctor as well, the ability to invade space like they denied it even existed.
"Been trying, Rose." Saxon said in his husky, mellow voice."But you just won't cooperate."
"Right. I'm about to pop you one." Rose said, her face set. Jack hid a giggle behind a hand and Emma busied herself checking that they'd picked up all the documents that they were taking on the first run while Johnson checked to make sure he had all of his guns. They all laughed as Rose went to go out the door and shouted, "And I will break the next person that touches me!"
Emma ran up behind her, ruffled her hair all out of place and then took off down the now crowded corridor, practically leaping over the other Torchwood team, laughing uproariously as Rose made chase.
AN: Have I mentioned how much I love writing this team? Because I do. SO VERY MUCH. Also, I would like to point out the fact that Emma is not stupid. Next to you and us, she'd probably make us look like all we were doing was mashing crayons into our mouths, it's just that Rose and Harry are stupidly smart. Also. Harry and his laser screwdriver! Yay!
Oh hey, and in case you haven't noticed, this is Mr. Plot with his cousin Plotty McPlotplot. They are pleased to make your acquaintance. He may have run away from me at some point and therefore I apologize for the absurd length of this chapter.
Please leave feedback on what you would like to see, adventures you'd like to have them go on, usw. I am always open to suggestions. Really, I'm just begging for reviews in a classier package. I have cookies?