28.04.2009 - 18:15

The sun was sinking towards the horizon and glaring straight into their eyes as they reached UNIT's muster point just off the M4 to the north of Cardiff near the village of Tongwynlais. Castell Coch peeked out of the forest on the hill above them, its windows glowing orange with the reflected light of what promised to be a spectacular sunset, and below them the Taff Valley spread out into the concrete and brick sprawl of Cardiff. In another few hours it would just be a constellation of street lights.

Hopefully.

Order was being restored, slowly but surely, and if it weren't for Jack's ongoing absence Ianto would have written the whole thing off as a relatively false alarm and turned the car back around. Jack's disappearance, though, was a red flag he couldn't ignore. He knew what UNIT were thinking. His judgement was being called into question in committee rooms around the world, speculation that he was allowing his relationship to get in the way of his job well on its way to becoming established fact. He ignored them. They didn't know Jack like he did. They didn't know what Hart was capable of.

He'd sent a team to the Hub to secure it as soon as he reached Cardiff. They'd arrived half an hour before and found the place deserted. Not with no sign of Jack, of course. His coat had fresh bullet holes and blood and had been left in a pile on the floor. Whether Hart had cleared out when he heard UNIT coming or a while before, though, no one could say. The Rift monitor was stable, the cells were secure, and the weapons store and archives were locked down tight. The team had done a sweep for explosives but left quickly, claiming that the less they found there, the more worried they were that they'd walked into a trap. As much as he wanted them to stay there, Ianto couldn't argue. In the new Hub, it would have been different, but the old Hub had too many corners and shadows where anything and anyone could lie in wait. They'd pulled back to the new Hub to await further instructions and set up a fast response centre.

Ianto spotted Colonel Mace striding towards him and gave himself a moment to sigh heavily before he swung himself out of the car and approached him across the tuffety ground. He and the UNIT soldiers with him didn't look impressed, but that was hardly unusual. They greeted each other with stiff nods and turned to look down the valley towards the city.

"Dreadful business at the police station. And an explosion targeting Torchwood?" Mace huffed and shook his head. "Almost makes you miss the Sontarans."

"It's not going to drag out," Ianto said, mind running at a mile a minute over everything that could go wrong. "Hart isn't like that. He's got us on edge, but he doesn't have the patience to hold us there for long."

Mace nodded thoughtfully. "Time traveller, though."

"Means he can't watch us squirm." He rubbed at the back of his neck and checked his watch. Six thirty. After the evening news. What was Hart planning? Waiting for them to relax, or just for a spectacular sunset backdrop? Or maybe just dragging it out so that they were tired and arguing amongst themselves. "He probably knows we're here. Damnnit, Jack, where are you?"

"Still no sign of him?" The commander looked around to make sure they weren't going to be overheard and dropped his voice. "You don't think he's... You know."

Ianto sighed. They didn't have time for passive-aggressive pretence. "Run off with his ex? No, I don't. Wherever he is it isn't good, for us or for him."

"Alright. You know him better than I do. And I'll admit, I don't think he's the sort myself. Been around too long for that sort of nonsense."

Despite everything, Ianto couldn't help but smile at Mace's turn of phrase. It was so very UNIT - well-heeled public schoolboys at the top, scrappy council estate soldiers at the bottom. The lads behind them, checking over their weapons and systems or whiling away the time with a few hands of poker and a discussion about some reality TV result, would have used far shorter words to get the point across, but it was the same thing. "Isn't it usually about this time that the Doctor shows up to give us a headache?"

He laughed, a strange barking noise. "Don't even suggest it. Bumped into two of them last week. The woman and the skinhead one. In and out before we'd really noticed them. Left one hell of a mess, of course."

"Well, of course. Got to keep us on our toes." He checked his watch again and sighed. "Right. I'm ordering pizza. That always gets things moving." Mace laughed as he turned away and walked back towards the mobile command centre, and, feeling a touch lighter than he had before, he activated his comms. "Status update, everyone. Gwen?"

"All quiet here, Ianto, although some idiots have set fire to a bin out in Llandaff." She was on the move, like always, the clack of her boots on the polished floors at the police station and the low thrum of voices around her just audible over the comms. "We've pulled every officer in and increased patrols just in case."

"Good thinking. Is Christina still with you?"

"She's in the control room, keeping track of any reports of unusual activity. She's a bit good, isn't she?"

"Can I have that in writing for my monthly performance review, Gwen?" Christina laughed. "Nothing much here, Ianto. There have been a few scattered reports that might be Weevil activity, though. We've equipped the patrols with Weevil spray, just in case."

"Good thinking. Owen, anything at the hospital?"

"Nothing really. UNIT came and fetched my Hoix an hour or two back. I almost miss the company." He huffed. "They've pulled in extra staff, so the hospital's running better than ever. I'd hate to see their overtime bill though."

"Let's hope it's all wasted effort," Tosh chimed in, echoing what they were all thinking. "It's much the same here, Ianto. We've done what we can to reinforce the systems, but we've not found any sign of tampering. I've even been through their code and it's all clean. Well, messy, but there's nothing malicious in there."

He smiled a bit at her obvious frustration at someone else's coding. She was never satisfied with her own, let alone other people's. "Keep checking, Tosh. You're on the backup systems?"

"Yes. After the incident with the Sleeper agents we've introduced reliable backups throughout the city. All key locations have radio transmitters, and the hospital radio broadcasting centre can switch onto a longer wave broadcast to cover the whole city. We're not going to be crippled again."

"Good." As long as Hart didn't know about all of that. If he did... There was nothing they could do about it. They had taken every precaution Ianto could think of, short of evacuating the whole city. This was the problem with fighting aliens and time travellers - they cheated. All too often, they'd nearly won before anyone even knew they were there. No wonder he felt a lot older than his passport said he ought to. "Remember, you all have any support you need. Just shout up. Even if this does turn out to be a false alarm, better we use it as a thorough training exercise than risk making mistakes."

"Yes Mum."

He sighed. "You're in Wales now, Christina. It's Mam."

"Yes ma'am." He didn't need to see her to know how she was spelling that. He rolled his eyes at her again and signed off, then pulled out his phone to order the promised pizzas.

# # #

28.04.2009 - 20:30

The sun dipped below the horizon at last, leaving the city basking in the warm twilight of a late spring evening. At the bottom of the field there were rabbits sheltering under the edge of the hedge, watching the gathered soldiers warily but, for the moment, happy to graze at a safe distance. The sky was still clear and blue and Venus was the only light in the sky - UNIT had set up a no fly zone over the city so long ago that even the vapour trails had faded away. Under normal circumstances, it would have been the perfect night for a stroll along the Bay or a drink or two in a pub beer garden. Circumstances were not normal, though.

Ianto clenched his jaw and crossed his arms, eyes fixed on the grey smudge of Cardiff in the distance, whilst behind him the UNIT soldiers and his own team from London scrambled to get ready. His comms were hooked up to one of the computers and broadcasting the sound of panting breaths as the Cardiff team sprinted for the roof of whatever building they'd been sent to. After hours of waiting, John Hart had finally got bored.

"Go on kids, run. You'll want to see this, I promise."

"Where is Jack?" Gwen demanded, barely out of breath despite the number of stairs she must have sprinted up. "Put him on now."

"Tsk. So bossy. Jack's fine. Does your boyfriend know about him yet?"

Ianto shrugged at Mace and kept quiet. So far, it seemed like Hart didn't know about any of the preparations or about the other Torchwood branch. Which was... odd. All Ianto could assume was that he had been time travelling and had skipped so much he'd missed bits. Like Jack's engagement to Ianto, clearly. Perhaps he'd been fixated on Gwen. He puzzled over that whilst they waited, until the team indicated - angrily - that they were in position on the roofs.

Hart sounded positively gleeful as the night sky lit up with explosions.

Cold dread settled into Ianto, slowing his reactions and fogging his mind. It took a while for him to recognise that the whole team were shouting at each other over the comms, that Gwen was taking charge and issuing instructions, that they were all alive. He rubbed a hand over his face and then leaned forwards to activate his microphone. "Gwen, where do you need us?"

She paused. "Fucking everywhere, love. We need to keep people calm and off the streets..."

"Weevils surfacing all over the city, Gwen," Ally chimed in. "I've got them right across the centre. Every hotspot is, well, hot. It's like they've been triggered by something."

"Yeah, I can hear it from here," Owen snarled. "Tosh, how's the servers?"

They leaped into action, rushing to restore order to the places they'd been monitoring all day. Ianto ran a hand through his hair as he struggled to understand how everything had gone so completely wrong so quickly.

# # #

28.04.2009 - 20:45

The convoy of hulking black vans loomed over the hill above them and began their descent towards the city. Ianto spread the map out on the bonnet, held it in place with his phone and a mug of coffee, and trailed his finger along the line of the main road. "Our priorities have to be getting the nuclear power station, the hospital and the communications systems back online. Gwen has the police on the street trying to keep people in their homes, but obviously not everyone is going to heed that." He tapped the main roads out of the city. "I think if we free up the main arteries for evacuation routes, and keep this one for rescue services... We can use the river as well. How many of your vehicles are amphibious?"

"Enough." Mace stabbed at the map and smoothed out the section over the power plant. "I've got a hit squad of technicians on their way to the power station already to join your people. They'll get that stabilised or shut down."

"Good. Tosh and Owen are already on their way there, but they're going to need support." He tapped at his earpiece again. "Owen, how were things at the hospital when you left?"

"Not good, mate. They lost all power, including the backup generators. I reckon they'd been tampered with."

"We've not identified any Rift activity there over the last few months," Tosh chimed in between gasping breaths. "If it was Hart tampering with it, he wasn't just jumping in and out. This has been a long-term plan."

"I think you're right. Bombs across the city, the Weevil attack on the police, taking out the nuclear power station. This is all time travel stuff. He can set it all up in a day but spread it out over months or even years for us. We'd never notice it until it was too late." Kate Stewart joined them and Mace snapped to attention beside him, but Ianto just gave her a nod and went back to the map. "Ma'am. Owen and Toshiko are on their way to the nuclear power station from the hospital. There's nothing they can do there until the power is restored. What's the situation here?"

She took up a position on his other side and rested her hip against the bonnet. "We've got a field hospital being set up at the Celtic Manor resort and we're preparing to clear the city street by street. Evacuate the hospitals first, then move out from there and get anyone with injuries out to the hospital for treatment. Any word from Harkness yet?"

"Not yet." Ianto rubbed at the back of his neck, turned to face the city below them, and growled. "Come on. Where can they be?" His earpiece chimed again and he reached up to activate it. "Jack?"

"Sorry, pet, it's me," Gwen said. "I'm going back to the Hub to look for Jack. It's been too long since we last heard from him. I know the place better than UNIT, there must be something they've missed. Christina is in charge at the police station."

He straightened up to glare at nothing. "Gwen, do not go in there without backup. That's an order."

"Last time I checked, you weren't my boss. I'm not leaving Jack in there on his own with Hart."

He ran a hand through his hair. "We don't even know where he is! Look, just wait for backup. We can have a team with you in half an hour, tops."

"That's going to be too late. I'm not leaving Jack, Ianto. He wouldn't leave any of us."

"Gwen, he's my fiancé! Do you really think I'm not just as desperate to get to him as you are?" he exploded. "Stand down until we reach you."

"Gwen, he's right," Owen said. "We can't do this on our own. And if they're listening into the comms they know you're coming."

"Let them." There was a beep and Ianto knew she'd gone.

"Gwen? Gwen!" He slammed his hand down on the bonnet hard. "I need a team now," he snapped. "Gwen's gone in on her own to find Jack. General, what can you give me?"

Mace pointed him down the hill. "There's a unit ready to roll now. Four advance sweep soldiers, second car on the left."

"Thank you." He touched his finger to his earpiece as he set off running. "Tosh, Owen, I'm moving again."

"Do you want us to double back and join Gwen? Tosh has commandeered us a vehicle, but I don't think she'd get through the Weevils without me, even with it." Owen swore at something. "There's a lot of people on the streets, Ianto."

"No, you keep on. There's a UNIT unit on their way to join you at the power station, and you'll have all the backup you need. If the power station goes it's all over." The squad he'd been sent to join snapped to attention as he arrived, so he swung into the passenger seat. "We need to get to the Torchwood Hub as soon as possible. Tosh, can you clear the roads?"

"Not with this sort of chaos. People aren't paying any attention to traffic lights. Bits of the city are gridlocked with people trying to escape the explosions."

"We can get that moving," one of the soldiers offered. He raised his walky talky when Ianto nodded and barked out the instructions. "I need a clear run from the command site down to the Bay, now. Get me routing for Silver Surfer."

"Silver Surfer?"

"All of this group of vehicles are named after Marvel action heroes, sir," the driver explained. "The powers that be like to group things."

"Yeah, I know. There's an entire group of boats named after Lord of the Rings characters because I won a bet at conference one year." The outskirts of Cardiff sped past them outside the car, along with a steady, constant flow of traffic going the other way. The police waved them past and they picked up even more speed as they hit the dual carriageway heading towards Llandaff. "Stick with this road," he instructed. "Past the cathedral and down to Sophia Gardens, then you skip the city centre and you've got a straight drive down to the Bay."

"On it. The sweep team are clearing the junctions for us, so they can get us straight through when we get there."

One of the soldiers in the back leaned forwards. "Evacuations from the hospital have begun and they've closed the motorway two junctions out in each direction to get people out of the city more easily. Technical team have arrived at the power station, too. They're just awaiting instruction."

Ianto relayed that the Tosh and Owen. "How soon will you be with them?"

"We can see it from here," Tosh told him. "And I'm already into their systems. I think I know what we need to do, but I'll have to get inside to do it."

"Tosh, you're amazing. Remember, UNIT are at your disposal. Whatever you need, they can get it done." They sped over another junction. "We've just passed the cricket ground. Five minutes to the Hub."

"You might yet get there before her. She had to go through the city centre and down Lloyd George Avenue."

"She's on a motorbike," Christina interjected apologetically. "I didn't know whether I was supposed to argue with her, or where to start."

"It's alright. There's no arguing with her when she's made her mind up." He looked out of the window again. "Still a way out," he lied. "I'll keep you posted." Once he'd disconnected the comms he pointed ahead of them and to the left. "Head for the Coal Exchange and park up outside."

"Sir?"

"Next left, then turn right, and it's the big building taking up the whole block." He dragged his phone out and flicked through protocols. "There's a back entrance to the Hub through the basements."

The three in the back seat checked over their weapons with reassuring little clicks and tuts, and a moment later they were piling out of the car and into the street. There were people milling around down here, especially towards the end of the street at Mermaid Quay. The destruction was all up in the city centre, miles away, and with the phone networks taken out people could only guess at what was causing the plumes of smoke to rise on the horizon. Queues of cars were starting to build down Lloyd George Avenue where the police were holding them back. It felt wrong. This far from the city the sirens were just audible, and the sea breeze was refreshingly cool on one of the first summer nights, bringing with it the smell of saltwater and fish and keeping the smoke at bay. Ianto could just go home, close the curtains and know nothing about it. One of their neighbours would probably wake in the morning having slept through the whole thing.

He envied them.

Some of the bystanders recognised the authority implied in the dark UNIT uniforms and the sullen-looking army vehicle they'd exited and crossed the street to demand answers. Ianto fended them off as well as he could. "There's been an attack on the city." "Stay down by the Bay and await instructions." "Listen to this nice, harried looking policeman over here" when someone finally spotted what was going on and came over to intervene. They were ushered back down into the Plass, where someone had already found a tea urn and a packet of biscuits, to await instructions and news. Some of them had gone back into the darkened bar to carry on their night out. What else could they do?

The Coal Exchange building was cluttered with bits of stage dressing, ready for some production or other. They picked their way carefully between boxes and crates and over sheets of plywood, and through to the little door hidden in a back corner of the backstage area, down into Torchwood's old emergency room.

# # #

28.04.2009 - 21:15

Their thick rubber soles deadened some of the sound of their steps, but far from enough down the empty tiled corridors. Ianto tuned the soldiers' quiet discussions out as he navigated through the controls to the security. "Everything is offline," he murmured. "Looks like they've taken it all down, but that'll work in our favour for this." The locks down the corridor disengaged and he pointed. "Okay, we'll go in silence from here in. The stairs go straight down about a thousand steps, and there's no handrail. Go single file, keep your back to the wall. I'll lead, because I've got the key. There's a door right at the bottom. Once we reach that, we cover each other. Okay?"

They indicated their agreement with jerky nods and the quiet click of rifle cartridges being slotted into place. His squad consisted of three men and one woman, all of them quietly efficient in a way he found both deeply reassuring and pant-shittingly terrifying. He was glad they were on his side. The corridor down to the Hub from the Coal Exchange looked as it should - which was deserted. That route in was only used in utmost emergencies since the Coal Exchange became an entertainment venue. Another little headache Cardiff Council had foisted on Torchwood during the redevelopment of the Bay area. And in return, they'd ignored every warning about the area being dangerous, and then complained to Torchwood when people started dying. It was a miracle that Jack had managed to convince them to change the plans for the power station, and one Ianto was, in that moment, beyond grateful for.

His rubber soles made almost no sound in the layer of dust over the floor, and his torch light caught in cobwebs and on the occasional rusted and broken end of a long-redundant heating pipe. It went on for a long way, farther than it ever felt on the surface. He could picture the route, between faded Victorian grandeur to one of the trendy wine bars and street cafés that did battle with the Cardiff weather and the obstinate traffic. Down here there were no convenient markers to judge their progress, only more and more tunnel and darkness that finally gave up one of the huge iron doors and the first signs of 21st century habitation. There was a security pad on the wall beside it that required his thumb print and ID card to get in, which dated it back at least a couple of years, but they'd kept up the maintenance since he left enough that the heavy door swung open without a sound.

Even if they had set off the proximity alarm in the Hub, it would have been almost drowned out by the cacophony of alarms and sirens already blaring through the confined space, echoing off every surface. Myfanwy swooped down over them, adding her enraged shrieks to the ear-splitting din, and he had to throw a hand out to stop one of the soldiers shooting at her. She climbed back up to her eyrie and Ianto mentally apologised to her. The volume was uncomfortable, and although it was a good cover for their progress through the Hub it was also a cover for anyone lying in wait for them. He led the way, scanning every shadow for anything out of place, nerves on edge and instincts screaming at him. The entrance they had used emerged down on the bottom level, close to the kitchenette, and offered some shelter from the view of anyone watching the main doors but denied them any vantage point. He held a hand up to indicate that his group should stay where they are and gestured out into the open, then shifted forwards as slowly and carefully as he could to get a better view.

Papers and personal possessions were strewn between the desks, illuminated by the emergency lighting and the flashing alarms around the room. He kept to the edge of the walkways, heading for Jack's office, and as he rounded the corner he saw the first sign of anyone else in the Hub. Lying in the doorway, stretched out towards him, was a boot. Just from the angle he knew what he was going to find, but he wasn't ready to acknowledge that. He raised his gun and checked the elevated gangways for observers, then beckoned one of the UNIT soldiers forwards to cover him. Once he'd taken all the precautions he could he crept forwards once more and raised his gun, searching Jack's office for traps. Only once he was sure it was safe did he hurry forwards to Gwen's side. She was on her back, like she'd been flipped over, and her eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling. Her gun was under the desk where whoever killed her had kicked it, safely out of her reach. It looked like she'd tried to get to it. He checked her pulse, pointlessly, and then closed her eyes gently and gritted his teeth.

A footstep caught his attention. Amid the noise and the shock, his instincts took over and he hunched his shoulders. It was on one of the upper gangways, probably near the hothouse. He clenched his gun tightly and removed the safety, then stood up and turned back to the door. There was a darker shadow and the hint of movement. The soldiers who had accompanied him were all where he expected them to be, awaiting his orders.

He didn't hesitate.

As soon as he'd got his shot off he threw himself back into the office behind the desk, the best protection he could reach easily. Gunshots echoed in his ears, both the high pitched crack of the UNIT issue rifles and the low crump something bigger and far more deadly. Glass shattered, Myfanwy shrieked again, and bullets ricocheted off metal. He checked that he was clear and from the doorway he could see that the UNIT troops were safely sheltered in their entrance, exchanging fire with a man on the gantry. He was happily keeping them down with a spray of machine gun fire every time one of them moved, even though he couldn't possibly hit any of them. But whilst his attention was on them… Ianto took a deep breath to steady his hands and brace himself. His first shot caught the intruder in the shoulder and distracted him. Before he could swing around and find Ianto, a shot from one of the UNIT rifles put him down for good.

"Sir, are you alright?" one of the UNIT soldiers called out.

"Fine." He kept his eye on the upper gantry and beckoned them out. "Cover me."

"With all due respect, sir…" the soldier changed the cartridge in his rifle and gestured to his team. "You stay here. We've got this."

Ianto couldn't really argue with that, so he slunk back into the office. By the time the soldiers reported in he'd got Gwen covered with the blanket from the sofa and was settled at Jack's desk, working through the various systems and filtering out the alarms that needed dealing with from the ones that were already under control. His hands shook on the keyboard as he got the comms network back up and reached for his earpiece. "This is Ianto," he said, voice steadier than he'd dared to hope. "I'm at the Hub. We've neutralised an intruder… Gwen's dead."

"Shit. Shit!" Owen was the first to break the shocked silence. "Are you okay, mate?"

"Yes. There's one other life sign at the Hub, down in the Archives. I'm going to take a team down there. What's the situation on the surface?"

"It's not going to be good as long as the Weevils are abroad."

"I know." Someone swore again. "Keep me posted. I'll see if I can do anything about… anything."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and turned his attention back to the screen, which was still showing the one human life-sign down in the archives. Something moved and he sighed heavily. "Weevils incoming. The ones from the cells have escaped and are coming our way." He tapped through the system and frowned. "There's some sort of signal being broadcast through the Rift Manipulator…" The soldiers readied their guns and Ianto pointed at the door. "Those won't kill them, but they'll put them down. Get them back in the cells and report back up here."

They hurried off and Ianto turned his attention to the broadcast signal. With any luck, it was just sending the Weevils insane. As it was Torchwood, it was probably broadcasting an invitation to every invasion force in the next five galaxies. He sighed and concentrated his attention on stopping it. The dead could wait, whilst the living probably couldn't.