20 – Intergalactic Thugs
W/C: 2572
Warnings/spoilers/content: violence and profanity, spoilers for DW2.0 The Christmas Invasion
Summary: 12:30AM until 5AM
Characters: Ianto, immortal-Jack, Tosh, Owen, Mr. Llewellyn, Sycorax
Ianto's New Timeline: December 25, 2005 (3rd month)
A/N: There is a slight overlap between the last chapter and this one-right around midnight. The writers of Vampire Diaries came up with that stupid line, I'm just putting it to good use.
DECEMBER 25, 2005, 12:30-5 AM
"JACK, IT'S STARTING." I called him over and we watched the monitor with anticipation.
We watched avidly as a BBC reporter announced the late breaking news at a press conference. "Scientists in charge of Britain's mission to Mars have re-established contact with the Guinevere One space probe. They're expecting the first transmission from the planet's surface in the next few minutes."
Mr. Llewellyn took the podium and spoke in excited tones. "Yes, we are. We're, we're back on schedule. We've received the signal from Guinevere One. The Mars landing would seem to be an unqualified success."
From within the sea of press, an eager reporter shouted out a challenge. "But is it true that you completely lost contact earlier tonight?"
"Yes, we had a bit of a scare." Mr. Llewellyn faced the crowd and admitted their near disaster nervously. "Guinevere seemed to fall off the scope, but it, it was just a blip. Only disappeared for a few seconds," he insisted. "She is fine now, absolutely fine. We're getting the first pictures transmitted live any minute now. I'd better get back to it, thanks." He rambled breathlessly and then ran quickly off the stage.
A sophisticated, well-coiffed newsreader began her play-by-play of the live feed. "The first photographs…" She hesitated, unable to make out the image. "This image is being transmitted via mission control, coming live from the depths of space on Christmas morning."
After a few moments, the wavy static cleared and lo and behold, we got our first glimpse of the Sycorax. They had a white boney head shaped like a goat's skull with fiery red-eyes that shone through the eyeholes of what looked like an ugly mask. Then, it growled and gurgled on live television. At twelve-thirty AM the shit officially hit the fan.
She hardly missed a beat. "The face of an alien life form was transmitted live tonight on BBC1." We had several data streams coming in so we switched between the BBC and the American newsfeed.
The American news anchor declared her opinion proudly. "On the 25th of December, the human race has been shown absolute proof that alien life exists."
"How much do you wanna bet," asked Jack, his tone dripping with scorn, "that by next week nobody will admit to seeing any aliens?" He just shook his head in disgust. I had to agree, it was ridiculous how people insisted on remaining ignorant of reality.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER THE WARNING ALARM BLARED, signalling the rollback of the cog door. To my utter surprise (not), in walked Tosh and Owen, looking jumpy and fearful. I was in the kitchen making myself another cuppa. I nodded and said a little psalm of thanks to The Powers That Be that I'd gotten dressed.
Jack smiled at them. "Good thing I put some underpants on." He chuckled and walked barefoot across the steel grating, picked up his coffee cup, leaned his hip against the desk and took a sip of his sinfully good coffee.
AROUND 1 AM, TOSH CALLED OVER HER SHOULDER, still sitting at her desk. "Jack… I'm picking up chatter. A top-level meeting has been called at UNIT headquarters." She was flipping between several different feeds trying to absorb as much information as humanly possible in the time remaining.
"Any mention of us?" Jack asked hopefully.
"Torchwood has not been requested as of yet." Tosh replied, all business. Jack stood behind her, rested his hands lightly on her shoulders.
"I'm picking up a video feed. It's overriding several satellite data streams." Tosh announced at a lower volume.
"How are they able to do that?" Owen wondered aloud.
"They must be piggy-backing." Jack suggested. "Advanced technology," he added with a shrug. "Probably broadcasting all around the world by now."
"Finally," she sighed. "I'm picking up an audio feed. Translation software is on." A group of Sycorax filled the screen. Their words were harsh and unmistakably aggressive.
"Sounds a bit like Klingon." Owen quipped.
"I'm not familiar with that." Jack replied seriously.
Tosh grinned, Owen snorted and I slid an arm around Jack's shoulder. "It's a joke Jack. Klingons are from Star Trek. It's a movie."
Jack rolled his eyes in disgust. "Oh, I hate science fiction movies! They always get it wrong." We'd heard this particular rant numerous times before. It was one of Jack's pet peeves. "This one time…" he began.
"Not now Jack!" Both Owen and Tosh exclaimed in unison.
He held up his hands in surrender. I gave his shoulder a little squeeze.
Owen leaned over the chair in front of him, squinted at the alien text flicking across the screen. "How long until this thing is finished?" He asked Tosh.
"Thirty minutes max," Tosh assured him confidently.
I was at my own station, right next to Tosh. I was searching through UNIT's live feed trying to glean every drop of useful information I could. "I've got a trajectory…" I told them. Their heads flipped up and all eyes fell on me and my screen. "And projected arrival time is about five hours."
"Just what you thought," said Jack. He patted me on the shoulder and bobbed his chin up and down.
"I've got to admit it… you've been right so far." Owen nodded and squished his lips together in approval. He stood behind Tosh, his arms crossed in a defensive stance. Unfortunately that only meant things were going to get ugly, fast.
Tosh attempted to ease her steadily rising stress levels by taking a few slow deep breaths in and out. Noticing this, Owen uncrossed his arms and began massaging her shoulders. Jack looked on approvingly and said nothing.
A beeping sound made Tosh's eyes fly open. "An alert is coming in on the Torchwood network. They've called in Torchwood One Jack." Her voice was tight and clipped.
A second beeping sound indicated the translation program had finished its task and all eyes panned across to that terminal.
"Here it is…" she announced. She read the translation aloud. "People. That could be slaves or cattle. You belong to the Sycorax. We own you. We now possess your land, your minerals, your precious stones. You will surrender or they will die. Sycorax strong, Sycorax mighty, Sycorax rock… they think they're awesome?" Tosh scoffed at their arrogance.
"So their idea of colonization is enslaving most of the population and killing the rest?" Owen asked the room.
"Seems so," offered Jack.
"They said they will die. They're talking about the A Positive people, aren't they?" Tosh asked fearing the answer.
THERE WAS A LULL AROUND 2 AM and it was stretching our nerves to the limit. The silence was especially unbearable for Jack so he started telling stories to get our minds off of things. He'd been reminiscing about his least favorite alien thugs of all time. He had a top ten list and he was working his way through it with one humorous account after another. While his heart was in the right place, his stories weren't reassuring anyone and they certainly weren't humorous to anyone but him. "Oh, but my favorite alien thugs were those rogue Judoon. They'd broken off from their squad and just kind of went berserker on a couple of sectors. It wasn't pretty. They were completely insane and very thorough. If you pissed them off they wouldn't just kill you. First, they'd kill everyone you'd ever met and make you watch. Then they'd totally kill your ass." He chuckled to himself. "Ah… good times." He sighed.
Owen leaned closer to Tosh and murmured in her ear. "I never know if he's telling the truth." She frowned and shrugged but after a brief moment, her eyes went wide with fear. Suddenly, she was quite afraid he was telling the truth after all.
Jack sat with his eyes closed, a smile on his lips completely oblivious to their reaction. He sat that way for a few moments immersed in his memories then his eyelids rolled back and he turned to me. Jack flicked an eyebrow high, suggestively. "Let's go find a nice horizontal surface… and I can show you how insanely hot you are," he offered.
I smirked. "I'd love to but I don't think now's the time, Jack."
He pouted. He'd been hoping for a different answer.
Owen was trying his best to comfort Tosh but was at a complete loss for words. She rubbed the heels of her hands into her tired eye-sockets and Owen looked on uselessly. Jack's eyes panned over us, first Tosh then Owen and finally me. He looked at us closely, trying to see how we were really holding up under our thin facades. "Why don't' we all take some down-time?" he suggested loudly. He grabbed my hand and before I could utter a protest, he was pulling me out through the cog door. "We need some fresh air. It'll be awhile until we see the light of day. So let's take a little walk." He was talking quickly, trying to convince me. He didn't realize I needed none.
WE RECONVENED AT 5 AM, looking no better and certainly no more rested. Owen and Tosh made their way down to the medical bay in silence. She sat on the end of the metal slab looking small and fragile. She was scared, so scared in fact that she was coiling in on herself. "I'm going to hook your IV up first so we can start the nutrients bag."
"What do you mean? Why do I need that?" She was as jumpy as a skittish colt in a lightning storm.
"You haven't eaten. You haven't slept." He explained calmly. "You're run down and your body's about to be put through the ringer. You need some supplements."
"I thought I'd have a full English this morning. You know, sort of a last meal?" She tried for casual and failed tragically.
"I wouldn't eat if I were you." He said cryptically.
We were coming down the stairs and overheard his warning. "I totally agree Tosh. You definitely don't want a bunch of food sitting in your… GI tract while you have no control of your body." I finished awkwardly. I had no idea what would happen but I didn't want Tosh to suffer any more than she had to.
She blanched, visibly and pursed her lips. "Right. IV it is then. Hook me up doctor." She nodded at Owen. It was at times like this that we were all thankful for Owen's professional demeanor. Once he finished, Tosh stood up and dusted herself off. "Well, I'm off to the loo." She snorted. She was getting a little punchy.
We heard the unnaturally loud ring tone of Jack's office phone and everybody jumped. I whipped over to Owen's phone and re-directed the call to the med bay. "Hallo?" I answered the call like one does in a supper secret underground base.
"Gimme Jack." He grunted out the demand. I handed the phone to Jack who smiled his thanks.
"Something's brewing, something big." His contact told him. "Yvonne's got her knickers in a knot and the alien tech department is running frantic. I don't know what they're doing exactly. But they're making something or assembling something big. I thought you should know boyo."
"Thanks. I owe you one." Jack handed out IOUs almost as often as he called them in. Sometimes longevity could really work in your favour. Jack had lots of time to accumulate favours owed.
"You do." He rang off abruptly.
"It's starting. One is starting to boil." Jack told us.
"What are they doing?" Owen looked at me, not Jack.
Resigned, I smiled and nodded. "Some kind of alien tech. Basically, a really big gun."
Jack frowned. "Big enough to take out the Sycorax ship?"
I shrugged. "Maybe. But…" I thought, ran my tongue over my teeth. "I don't think it's stealthy enough to be used for a full frontal attack."
"I'd love to know what all they have hidden away at One." Owen mused while he fiddled with the Velcro restraints. It was a quarter to and time was running out.
Tosh stood at the railing, entertaining a happy fantasy. "Maybe you won't have to sedate me. Maybe Torchwood One will blow 'em out of the sky before they ever have a chance to use their blood control technology…" No one could have missed the desperately hopeful lilt in her voice. I shook my head slightly, apologetically. She stomped down the stairs making her reluctance known.
"Just think of it as a nice day off Tosh, complete with a little happy juice that Owen's cooked up for you." Jack tried to find the bright side of the empty glass. He got a death-ray glare for his troubles.
Owen patted the now fully padded autopsy table and Tosh complied. The first thing he did was push a little happy juice to help take the edge off. We'd turned on the monitor in the med bay so we could sit with Tosh and watch for the next transmission at the same time. He didn't strap her in yet but he stood at the ready. Between the three of us, we'd already decided on a the emergency procedure for restraining Tosh. "UNIT's getting a signal." Jack announced nervously. "Looks like the PM's issued an answer to their demands."
"Oh, shit." I swore under my breath. "They didn't like that." I nodded at Owen. Tosh and Jack had been keeping an eye on me too so they both caught my signal. Tosh's hands flew to her face and a tear started to form in the corner of her eye.
"Hey, now. Take it easy, Tosh. We'll be here the whole time. I promise. We won't leave your side." Jack was smoothing a hand around her slight shoulders. She laid herself down onto the thickly padded metal table. I held her hand as Owen wrapped the restraints around her wrists and ankles. We were all paying such close attention to Tosh that we missed the chaos erupting on the screen as a third of UNIT's personnel began making their way to the nearest rooftop.
A blue ring of energy suddenly appeared around Tosh's crown and Owen gasped. "Fuck." He declared as he pulled the final strap around Tosh's middle. He pushed the remaining sedative into the end of her IV tube and prayed it would be enough. She struggled, her brown eyes remained blank empty pools and the straps didn't give. Her eyes remained open but there was no reaction of any kind. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, FUCK!" Owen was freaking out.
Jack nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly. Then he turned to leave, hesitated, "I'll be right back," he told us. Owen grunted and I nodded. He returned a short time later holding three sturdy tumblers and a rather large bottle of whiskey even by his usual standards. He poured, generously. Owen threw it back and put the glass on the nearest counter. He was pissed that his latest creation—aptly dubbed the super-duper-alien-happy-juice—wasn't working. The sedation was completely ineffective. It was only 6 AM. It was going to be a very long day.
Continued in… 21 – Zombies for Christmas
