bbmcowgirl: I'm glad you're liking it! Yes, Jack is trying to protect Astra, but she's also not actually a part of the team yet. She's just there temporarily. :)
Lutherian: Hi! Glad you're liking it to!
Pirate treasure 2
The military plane touched down in Dublin, less then an hour after take off. As they disembarked, Jack was smiling. He looked over at the others. Gwen was wobbling and looking slightly green. Ianto was trying to hold her up. He didn't look so good either. Taye came up to her and offered assistance, but she waved him off.
Ianto looked up, "I don't think she wants anything to do with Military men at the moment."
Taye looked at Jack, "What did I do?"
Jack laughed, "You're used to Military planes!"
"I was in the Navy! I was on a boat!"
"I was a pilot in the Second World War," Jack said.
Taye stopped and looked at him, "Seriously?"
Jack nodded, "Yeah. Come on, let's get the SUV. Let those two recover."
-T-O-R-C-H-W-O-O-D-
They returned twenty minutes later. Jack was in the front seat of the SUV, Taye seated beside him. They pulled up to where Gwen and Ianto were sitting with their luggage, "You two coming?" He asked through an open window.
Gwen muttered something to Ianto who nodded, but Jack wouldn't hear what they said. They picked up the bags and put them into the back of the SUV, then climbed into the back seat, "Feeling better?" Taye asked, looking back at them.
"Till Jack starts driving..." Gwen said.
"I heard that PC Cooper!"
She sighed, "Jack, I haven't been PC Cooper since I met you!"
Jack looked at the GPS system, Ianto had put the direction to Rossaveal in the system before they'd left. He pulled the SUV onto the open road and sped along.
Gwen looked out the window at the green grass going past, "I hate the Countryside..."
Ianto looked at her, "Yeah..."
Jack looked back at them, "No carnivores out here!"
Gwen shook her head, "Not what I meant."
"JACK!" Taye yelled.
Jack looked back at the road and swerved the SUV to miss a mass of debris in the middle of the lane. The SUV came to a stop a few meters ahead of the debris.
"That doesn't look like a car..." Gwen said, looking out the back window.
Jack turned the car off and opened his door. They all followed suit and got out of the car, "You're right... That doesn't look like car."
They pulled their weapons and made their way slowly towards the car. Ianto tapped his ear piece, "Astra, get all Traffic and Air reports from Ireland..." He proceeded to tell her their location.
"On it!" Came her voice in their ears.
As they approached the debris, there appeared to be no sign of life within it. They circled it slowly, looking for any section of the debris large enough to hold a person.
"There was an unidentified flight over that area picked up by both Civilian and UNIT scanners. Civillian scanners lost track of it when it went too low and UNIT has that area marked as suspicious," Astra reported.
"How'd you get that?" Jack asked.
He heard her laugh, "I asked your friend Martha."
"Why didn't you hack in?" Jack asked.
"Gee Jack, you seem to think I'm some sort of wonder kid... I'm not that good to hack into UNIT!"
Jack sighed, "Ok Astra, thanks..." He pulled away a large piece of metal that may have once been a piece of the hull. Underneath looked to be a space where a body had once been, "UNIT's already cleaned up the body..." He tapped his ear piece, "Do some more digging Astra, find out what they did with the body."
"Right Jack."
Gwen knelt down and picked up a gold chain from the wreckage, "UNIT missed something," She held the chain up for the other's to see. Hanging from it was a Gold Dumbloon.
"Your friend Martha says that it was a Sycorax, apparently the silliest looking race in the universe..." Astra interrupted.
Jack laughed, "Yes, The Sycorax are the silliest looking race in the universe. Why haven't they cleaned up the debris?"
"She doesn't know."
"Astra, we found another dumbloon," Taye said.
"Really? Have Ianto upload the date from the Microchip to me. We might have all we need for the maps, but there's messages on the map which I'm trying to decipher." Gwen handed to chain to Ianto who walked back to the SUV with it.
"Astra, tell Martha to tell UNIT to move the asses and clean this mess up," Jack ordered.
"Aye Aye Captain."
-T-O-R-C-H-W-O-O-D-
Astra was sitting at her desk, typing away at her computer. There was something in the maps that just wouldn't come up. She'd tried running it through Tosh's translator program, but the system had crashed. She sighed and ran a diagnostic over the system before trying again. Since Astra had taken this temp job it was her job to maintain everything now, she'd tried teaching herself how their entire system worked.
She leaned back in her chair and stretched. Looking at the time, it was early afternoon and the team had been gone since early morning. Ianto had organized them tickets to Ireland and transportation for the SUV. Trust them to not go anywhere without it. She checked the diagnostic. Not even ten percent of the way. She got up and made her way to the kitchenette. Scrounging around in the fridge she found some juice and the makings of a good sandwich.
She made her way back to her desk, juice in one hand and sandwich in the other. Myfawny screeched above her, indicating she wanted food too.
"Tonight girl, before I go home!" Astra called to the pterodactyl.
Taking a bite from the sandwich she looked at her computer screen. Two more minutes and the diagnostic would be done. Looking at the CCTV she noticed someone heading straight for the Tourist Office. Sighing she put her sandwich down and headed upstairs. How she was going to pull off know about Cardiff, she wasn't really sure.
As the secret door closed the office door opened. Astra made her way behind the desk. The man looked at her curiously, "Where's Ianto?"
"He's out today. I'm Astra. How can I help you?"
"I'm actually looking for Gwen."
"And you are?"
"Rhys Williams. Her Husband."
"Right..." Astra looked embarrassed, "I should've known that, she talks about you all the time."
"She left a garbled message on my phone and I was wondering what's going on. I haven't been able to reach her for a few hours."
Astra nodded, "Right, give me sec. She disappeared to the back office and dialed Gwen's phone. No pick up. Then she tried Jack's. Again, no pick up. Looking in a draw, she found the comms set that Ianto kept there and connected it to the network.
Tapping it, she tried once again to reach the team, "Guys?"
"Yeah Astra?" Jack's voice came back, "Everything Ok?"
"Yeah, alls fine, but Rhys is here looking for Gwen. Apparently the message she left didn't come out very well."
"Tell Rhys we're in Ireland," Gwen said.
"How much does he know?" Astra asked.
"Everything," Came Gwen's reply.
"Ok, thanks guys. Talk to you later."
She walked back out to where Rhys was waiting, "Sorry about that, the phone's seem to be out of area. They're actually in Ireland. Left this morning."
"Ireland? You're kidding right? What's up this time, Leprechauns?" Rhys asked.
"No... that would probably be simpler. Space Pirates after treasure."
Rhys nodded, "Right... I'm not quite sure when I'm going to get used to this... I'll uh... let you get back to work."
"Nice meeting you."
"You too, Gwen mentioned that Jack had hired someone new."
Rhys left and Astra closed the office for the day. She headed back downstairs to her sandwich and the map. The system came back fine from the diagnostic, so she ran the map through the translator again, this time, bit by bit.
The program couldn't translate every word, but you could get the general gist of what was being said.'Danger... Guarded... Unbeatable forces... Immortality...' And more about the dangers and perils of perusing the treasure.
Flicking through the CCTV channels to make sure everything was Ok through the hub, she noticed movement around Jack office. Getting up, she carefully made her way around the hub, trying to make as little noise as possible. As she reached the door, she heard a gun being cocked behind her head.
"Shit..." She whispered.
"I see Jack listened to me when I said he needed a blond," The voice said. Astra didn't say a word, "Don't be scared now. I'm a friend of Jack's and have just come for the maps."
"Jack hasn't ordered the release of the maps to anyone."
The voice laughed and he grabbed her arm and spun her around so she was facing him, "Well, see I have a tendency to not listen to Jack. I do what I want."
"Who are you?"
"Captain John Hart. Jack and I go way back."
Astra nodded, she'd heard of him, "So far back you nearly killed Owen and Gwen and pushed Jack off a roof top. I've heard of you."
John laughed, "Ahh, so they remember, well don't make yourself the next on my list of conquests from this team."
Astra looked around carefully and spotted something on Jack's desk. Walking out from between John and the wall she made her way over, "What do you think you're doing?"
"Oh, Jack didn't return the barbecue sauce to the kitchen. My sandwich was a bit bland," She replied as she picked the bottle up.
He stared at her stunned, "You'd risk walking away from a guy with a gun, for a sandwich?"
"You have no idea how hungry you get, sitting around here all day, but if you follow me, I'll give you the maps."
John smiled his charm smile and followed Astra away from Jack's office. He kept his hand on the gun, but re holstered it. As they reached the center of the hub, Astra turned back at him and squirted the sauce at him.
"WHAT?"
They both heard Myfawny screech over head, "You didn't think I was that stupid, I was just going to give you the maps right? Jack would kick my ass all over Cardiff if I did."
The pterodactyl flew close to John's head and grabbed him by the shoulders. John dangled there, struggling to get away. The gun dropped from his hands and clattered on the metel floor, "I could make it worth your while girl!" He tried his charm smile on her.
"Won't work mate. You held a gun to my head," Turning away she added, "I haven't fed her yet."
Myfawny pulled John up higher towards the roof of the Hub and circled to area. Astra grabbed a scanning device and when they came low again, ordered Myfawny to put him down. Ianto had a found a way to train her to do simple things and everyone had been trying to get her to comply. She dropped him from a few feet up and he landed in a heap. Astra walked up to him and removed his weapons, "Did you enjoy your trip? I'm sure Jack would of loved a postcard."
"You little bitch!" John growled as Astra hauled him to his feet and pushed him towards the vaults. He still had a smug look on his face as they moved, as if he knew something she didn't and he attempted to break free. Pushing the smaller girl against the wall of a cell, he went to kiss her, but she'd heard about his paralyzing lip gloss and kneed him in the nuts. As he went down she grabbed his wrist and took off his Vortex manipulator. She walked out of the cell and closed the door.
"Janet, you have company."
The Weevil just growled as she walked past. Before settling at her desk once more, she went and dealt with feeding the pterodactyl including giving her the reward they gave her for when she completed commands correctly.
He comms activated on the way back, "Astra we're in Galway County and we're nearly at Rossaveal, you got anything else for us?" Jack asked.
"No, sorry. I had a few issues here. I got something from the sentences that run through the maps finally though."
"Go on."
"It warns of some sort of guardian protecting the treasure. Be careful. I'll let you know when I know more. Maybe the translator can get more from another run. The map of the city is still going. I'll send Ianto the details when it comes up with a location."
"Ok, go home Astra get some rest, we're not going to be there for a few hours yet and then we'll just crash for the night."
"Will do. Oh, we had a visitor tonight."
"We did?" Ianto asked.
"Yeah, some guy bu the name of Captain John Hart. Was after the maps."
Jack laughed, "Sounds like him. What did you do to him?"
"I got Myfawny to scare him a bit. He's in the vault at the moment."
"You mean she actually listened to the commands?" Taye's voice came over shocked.
"Yeah, yeah she did."
"You took his vortex manipulator right? And all his weapons?" Jack asked.
"Yes Jack. I took everything."
"Ok, be careful and keep a CCTV feed to your PDA when you go home."
"I will, bye guys."
Astra started cleaning up for the night, while watching the CCTV from the vault. John was trying to talk his way out, but she had the sound muted. Grabbing her coat, she headed out for the night.
-T-O-R-C-H-W-O-O-D-
Jack pulled the SUV up next to a small diner on the main street of Rossaveal. The team got out and headed in. It was a quaint little place. A few booths lined the side of the place, a large counter with stools on the other side. In the middle were smaller tables, draped in green table cloths. At the far end was a duke box and a sign pointing towards the rest rooms.
They made their way over to the corner booth and slid in. Taye grabbed a menu and looked at what they had to offer, "So, we eat, go back to the hotel and call Astra, right?" He said, scanning the menu.
Jack nodded, "That's the plan."
"Anything good?" Gwen asked, leaning over to get a look at the menu.
Jack snatched the menu away from them and held it between himself and Ianto, "Ooooh... I want-" Jack was interrupted by a blast outside the diner window.
The team jumped up and looked outside just in time to see three blowfish walking up to the SUV. Ianto and Gwen groaned, they both remembered the last time that they'd seen Blowfish, "I hate those bloody things..." Gwen muttered.
Jack lead them out of the diner, guns drawn and pointed right at the blowfish, "What are they doing here?" Taye asked.
"They probably have a way to track to dumbloons," Jack suggested.
"Is that really safe?" Gwen asked, "We have four back at the hub."
"Give us the coin!" The lead blowfish demanded.
Around them, people were running, screaming, through the main street of Rossaveal. The blowfish pirates turned to Jack and the team, "Well well well... If it isnit Team Torchwood!"
"Are they all as condacending as each other?" Gwen muttered to Ianto.
He nodded.
"It's just Torchwood," Jack corrected them.
"Where are the maps?" The Blowfish leader asked.
Jack shrugged, "What maps?"
"The treasure maps, we've been following you."
Jack shook his head, "We're on vacation!"
Gwen, Taye and Ianto looked at each other, then back at the Blowfish as it swung it's gun around to point at Jack, "Don't be coy with me Human!"
"Who said I was human?"
"THE MAPS!" The Blowfish leader screeched.
"No can do!" Jack said, pointing his revolver right back at the Blowfish leader. Gwen, Taye and Ianto each had the Blowfish underlings in their sights.
One of the Blowfish made a run to the SUV, Gwen and Taye opened fire while Ianto held his gun towards the other underling. Jack shook his head at the Blowfish leader, "Bad boss," He said as the Blowfish went down under the hail of bullets from Gwen and Taye, "Now there's one less of you." Gwen and Taye looked back to the Blowfish leader and his one remaining underling, "What'll it be?" Jack asked.
Gwen tapped her earpiece, "Astra, any idea where the Blowfish came from?"
"Blowfish?" She asked, "Uhh... No... what am I looking for?"
"Look in the database for an alien we've dubbed Blowfish," Ianto said, "Then see if you can find their ship."
"I'll see what I can do..."
"We're having someone track down your ship right now and once we find it we'll have someone go raid it," Jack said.
The Blowfish looked at his underling, "We're going," The leader said.
Jack nodded and motioned for them to be on their way. They watched as the two Blowfish picked up their fallen comrade and walked away a few steps. Suddenly they dropped the dead blowfish and grabbed two civilians who'd been watching from the other side of the street. They both screamed.
"Let them go! Or I will shoot!" Jack said.
"And risk hitting them?" The Blowfish asked, laughing.
"I won't hit them," Jack said. He motioned to Taye to take the underling, Taye fired. His bullet hit the blowfish lust a little off center in the head, but the blowfish went down, carrying the hostage with it. The woman screamed as she scrambled to her feet. Jack yelled her her to go with Gwen, who was already trying to help the woman.
"Oh, gee, look, now there's only one Blowfish!" Jack said.
"Just give me the maps!" The Blowfish insisted.
"No. Wrong answer!" The teenage boy in the blowfish's grasp struggled, but the blowfish held him there, "Let the boy go."
"No," The blowfish started to drag the bow towards the SUV.
"They don't learn do they..." Jack commented, but unnoticed by the Blowfish, Ianto had moved to an area where he had a clean shot. His eyes met Jack's momentarily. Jack nodded slightly. Ianto nodded back in return, then looked directly at the Blowfish. Then he fired. The blowfish fell forward and the teenager ran from his grasp. Taye grabbed him and took the boy over to where Gwen was with the woman.
Ianto came over to Jack, "I've been wanting to do that since we met the first one!"
Jack smiled and patted him on the shoulder, "Good shot," He looked around the street, "We better start cleaning up..."
That's part two. i'm working hard on finishing Part 3 for you. I hope you enjoy! Don't forget to review. Reviews make me a very happy person