One woman and her Dog episode 2
"Your people really do work fast when they've made a mistake." Sarah said pointedly.
"Well, technically we didn't make a mistake. We were working well within our mandate. Finding anything remotely alien and taking it for the advancement and security of Great Britain."
"Yeah, but I can't believe you've got my front door replaced in under 20 minutes" Sarah replied, as she went to the kitchen to refill her coffee cup. "You want another?"
"No thanks. Coffee makes me hyperactive."
"From the Doctor's message, I don't think I want that." Sarah laughed lightly.
"So, K9" Jack whispered as Sarah left the room. "How are the Doctor and Rose doing?"
"Both the Doctor Master and Miss Tyler are, at last meeting fully functional, to the peak of their respective species faculties. Mr Smith was also functional."
"Who the hell is Mr Smith?"
"Mickey Smith, friend/colleague of Rose Tyler. At last meeting, travelling companion in Tardis."
"Mickey the idiot? In the Tardis? Wow. Leave them alone for a minute and they're taking any old stray on board. No offence pooch."
"No offence taken. Query? Pooch?"
At that Sarah returned from the Kitchen, "What were you two whispering about?"
"Oh, nothing much."
"Captain Harkness was querying the wellbeing of Doctor and Miss Tyler."
"Can't keep a secret can you pooch?" Jack asked in mock annoyance. K9 whimpered slightly.
"The three of them were fine when I last saw them." Sarah butted in. "I'm assuming they were responsible for dealing with the Cybermen as well."
"Did the Cybermen give you any problems?" Jack asked genuine concern on his face for this new ally.
"Nope. K9 took care of the lot of them. Didn't you K9?" Sarah stooped to rub K9 behind his ear.
"Affirmative. Cybernetic organisms required level 3 defensive level. Threat level was negligible."
"Negligible to you K9, but I felt under threat." Sarah Jane said as she sat down. "They seemed a lot more formidable this time around. Last time I met them, my jewellery box would have been enough to terrify them. You would never have thought that the big bad Cybermen were allergic to gold, once upon a time. Would you?" Sarah laughed, "Of course, there were far more of them this time."
"Yeah, on behalf of Torchwood. Sorry."
"What did Torchwood have to do with it?"
"Well, they were kind of, well, slightly responsible for it all. Fortunately it seems the Doctor arrived in the nick of time to stop it all. If he hadn't, the world would have been overrun by Daleks right now."
"No, it was Cybermen that attacked, not Daleks."
"Oh, I forgot, you weren't in London. There were a couple of million Daleks on the move as well. Seems they were having a fun old time playing kill the cyberman."
"Daleks and Cybermen? Killing each other? I suppose the winners would have gotten the prize. Our planet."
"That's the long and the short of it."
"When I saw the Cybermen flying off, obviously against their will, I just knew the Doctor had something to do with it though." Sarah laughed again.
"Yeah, it must have been a sight to behold. The Doctor hasn't been seen since though. I'm kinda worried about him."
"He'll be fine. So will Rose. The Doctor never lets anything happen to his travelling companions."
"Well, I did die, the last time I saw him."
"What? You died?"
"Yeah, the Daleks killed me. But then I woke up a few minutes later, and the Tardis was just leaving. I was stranded."
"Maybe you were just stunned." Sarah began.
"Daleks? Stunning people? I don't think they're even capable of that."
"No, you're probably right. I remember meeting Davros, their creator; he didn't seem like the kind of person that would build in a stun setting to a weapon."
"You met Davros? Wow, you really did get around with the Doctor, didn't you?"
"Quite a bit. Though that time we were sent to Skaro by the Timelords to wipe the Daleks out before they even got going."
"A pre emptive strike. Makes sense, they must have known the time wars were coming."
"The what? Time wars?"
"Yeah, three massive wars between the Daleks and the Timelords."
"I'm assuming the Timelords won them all."
"The first two were draws. The third one? Everybody lost. The Doctor most of all."
"Now what is that supposed to mean?"
"The Doctor destroyed the entire Dalek fleet, or at least he thought he did. But to do it, he had to destroy Gallifrey's main power source, the Eye of Harmony. It killed the Timelords, all of them."
"Oh my God. That's what he meant." Tears welled in Sarah Jane's eyes. "I can't believe I told him off for dumping me on Earth when he was called back to Gallifrey. He said, everybody else died." Sarah Jane fell silent.
"He did what he thought he needed to do, for the sake of the entire Universe." Jack knew his words wouldn't help Sarah Jane's de facto grief for the Doctor's loss, and empathy for the pain that her dear friend must have felt, every day since it happened.
"Apologies Mistress. New information available. Further EMP readings detected from area in Ethiopia. Field is expanding, and increasing in intensity. All local communications and electrical apparatus is now non responsive. A Global SOS was despatched as the field intensity began to grow. Message intercepted."
Both Jack and Sarah Jane now had their focus directed to K9. "What was the message?"
"Playback commencing." K9 replied.
A new voice came from K9, crackling as though it were a radio, slightly out of tune. "Help us. They are everywhere. Our military forces are ineffective against them. Their armour, it's impenetrable. Help us, please……." The message broke off.
"Who else received that K9?" Jack asked.
"Unknown, signal was very weak. Had my transceiver array not been directed towards the area in question, I may not have received the message. It is therefore possible that we are the only recipients of the message."
"We have to do something. Have your boys repaired my phone line yet?" Sarah Jane jumped to her feet, snatching the phone from its cradle, a dial tone greeted her ears. She dialled the number and waited patiently for an answer. "When the phone was picked up she immediately spoke, "General Benton please. No, I need to speak to him now. It's a matter of international security." She stopped momentarily, hearing something, that Jack could tell from her face, she didn't want to hear.
"Listen up, you jumped up secretary. I want to speak to General Benton, NOW. Tell him it's a U.N.I.T level 10 threat, code red 13."
The voice on the other end of the phone immediately stopped it's protestations, Sarah heard a click on the line as her call was transferred.
Another voice spoke, "Benton speaking. Who is this, and if this is some kind of joke, we already have a location for your call, and we will track you down."
"Oh stop threatening me Steven. It's Sarah Jane."
"Sarah? It's good to hear from you again, but you know you didn't have to declare a planetary invasion alert to get through to me" Benton laughed.
"I wasn't joking. K9 detected a massive EMP in an area of Ethiopia, it's now expanded and grown in intensity, he picked up a distress call from their Government, we don't know yet if anyone else received it. Someone, or something, is attacking them."
"I'm sending a car for you. I'm going to call all UNIT offices in Africa to get more information, can you ask K9 to keep monitoring the situation?"
"You don't need to ask, he already is. Thanks Steven. This is big." Sarah hung up and saw Jack with a mobile phone in his hand.
"Doesn't hurt to have extra back up. All available Torchwood personnel are on high alert now. We've got intelligence Gathering equipment like you wouldn't believe."
"The more the merrier." Sarah Jane replied, with all of the enthusiasm that her fear would allow…
To be continued…