19
Sparks - and arcs of electricity - are everywhere here. Toshiko jumps back as she is electrocuted - Owen runs in and pulls her out, slams the door shut on the erupting fires.
"Where's the back up? Where's the back up?" Jax yells.
He and Mickey are frantically flipping buttons - the ship whirs to a semblance of life - -
"Back up reads at 20%.." Martha calls out to her husband "Can you get us down?"
"I'm gonna have to glide her in!" he says calmly.
"Will that work?" Martha glances over at him with open worry.
"Long as that landing strip is made of fluffy pillows..." Mickey shrugs back.
Jax flips a switchs for main coms "Everybody to the upper decks! Strap yourselves to something!"
We can see it, a long strip, which halfway along becomes a kind of hanger. Torchwood arcs at it uncomfortably fast.
Mickey is fighting the stick with extreme concentration as Martha pulls out a seat as well, straps in.
Rhys, Owen and Rose pull harnesses not unlike "Batman the Ride" seats from the ceiling, help the others in.
And Torchwood HITS the ground - the landing gear folds and snaps under the weight - the ship keeps going, now inside the hanger, heading towards the entrance to the facility, slowing, fishtailing and coming about a full one eighty – it goes beyond the strip and crashes down into the pedestrian area, so that the nose is sticking back out at the runway but the body of the ship is hidden from it.
There is a moment of quiet.
"I am a leaf on the wind." Mickey sighs with relief "Watch…"
A massive harpoon CRASHES through the windshield and Ianto is suddenly there yanking him from his chair. It's as thick around as a telephone pole.
Mickey has time to open his mouth in surprise that he is not dead before yelling starts.
"Mickey!" Martha moves to him and grabs in to her as Ianto wraiths back into the bowels of the vessel, Jax looks back at him with shock.
"Gotta go!" Jax rips them away and to the floor as another projectile slams through the window into the wall above them.
We see the ship that has fired the harpoons as Munchers start out of it. A second Muncher vessel enters frame from above, about to land next to it.
The cargo bay door opens - just the little door housed inside the ramp - and Rhys comes out with his biggest gun.
He looks up, toward the edge of the runway, but no Munchers have arrived yet. "Go!"
The entire crew piles out, all heavily laiden with weapons.
"Head inside!" Jax orders as they start to run.
A small double-sized doorway leads to the "Black Room", which is the entrance proper to the facility.
Jax hits a button and huge, thick, blast doors open from the sides and the top and bottom, creating the effect of a square hole getting bigger. The hall itself is smaller than the black room, but still has the arrows on the ceiling, that point to an elevator some fifty feet away.
"Come on." Jax yells as they enter "Rhys, rearguard."
Martha slows, looking around her."Sir. This is a good hold point"
"We all stay together" Jax barks.
"No. They have to come through here; they'll bottleneck and we can thin 'em out. We get pushed back there's the blast doors." She argues as Mickey carries a box of ammo past.
"I can rig 'em so they won't re-open once they close." Toshiko says with more confidence that she feels given the look on her face.
"Then shut 'em and hide til…"Jax argues.
Martha cuts him off as she steps into his personal space, "We need to draw them til it's done. This is the place. We'll buy you the time."
Rhys speaks to Mickey as they carry more weapons in "Move those crates back there for cover - and make sure they ain't filled with anything goes boom."
"Move the gorram crates! Come on!" Rhys yells as we hear savage screaming from the hanger - they're approaching. Jax moves to the door, Rhys beside him.
Munchers rush toward them.
Jaxk turns to Rhys. "Tell me you brought 'em this time"
Rhys smiles grimly, tosses Jax a grenade as he pops his own and fastballs it at the Munchers.
It explodes in their midst, smoke and man-parts flying about. Jax rolls his a shorter distance, then slams the door shut.
It explodes, raining a bunch of equipment - and part of a catwalk - right in front of the door.
In the black room, the door nearly buckles from the explosion. Everyone takes positions behind the crates. Martha stands calmly, her back to the door, loading her sawed-off. Jax glances at her as he moves back "Martha... are you OK here?"
She looks up at him. "Do the job, sir."
"You hold. Hold till I'm back." Jax orders and he takes off - passes Ianto, the two of them holding a look for as long as they can as hands brush. Then he's in the elevator and gone.
Rhys moves over to Martha. "Captain's right. Can't be thinking on revenge if we're gonna get through this. The ship will sail again."
"You really think any of us are gonna get through this?" She asks as she looks over at her husband currently helping load weapons.
He looks back at their army: A pilot, companion, a doctor, a mechanic and a more-than-usually freaked out Ianto.
A beat, and he looks back at Martha with forlorn hope "I might..."
.
.
.
.
The elevator stops and Jax makes his way to the island of screens and machines in the centre of the space.
The first thing he takes in is that every broadwave port has been destroyed.
The second… Eugene is lying dead, eyes open, half draped on his equally still lovebot. A trail of blood shows he crawled from his chair.
Jax comes close. Nothing. He starts to move away again and the lovebot Gwen turns her head, her eyes focusing with an audible whir. She speaks with surprisingly realistic expressiveness, and a warped, computery version of Eugene's voice.
"Jax." Jax stops and turns to look at her, noticing a gap in her teeth for the first time "Guy killed me, Jax. He killed me with a sword. How weird is that? I got... a short span here... they destroyed my equipment but I have a back-up unit... bottom of the complex, right over the generator. Hard to get to. I know they missed it. They can't stop the signal, Jax. They can never stop the signal."
She turns back, powering down.
Recording over.
A beat, and Jax takes off.