REVELATIONS
TWENTYTWO
It was dumb luck, really. Dumb luck combined with the brilliant mind of Toshiko Sato.
Tosh had been looking at different ways to potentially track the TARDIS. She'd been thinking specifically about fluctuations in spacetime; Jack had once told her The Doctor's ship manipulated a time vortex, which she imagined to be a type of wormhole.
In reality, it was more like the TARDIS found her. Tosh had been poking around, using whatever tools she had at her disposal to search for spacetime disturbances, when she detected something incredibly unusual and extremely powerful moving towards a planet in a different part of the galaxy; a planet that just happened to be the homeworld of a species in their database.
The pieces of the puzzle fell together in real time as she watched, stunned.
"Gwen, Ianto, I think I have something."
The three looked at the main wall screen, which was displaying a star chart. "I believe I know where the TARDIS is, and it's somewhere familiar in a surprising sort of way – it's at the Shrake homeworld."
"Oh my God," gasped Gwen.
"Exactly," replied Tosh. "They're rated a ten on the 'bad guys' scale; you can't get much worse than that."
"Can we go there?" asked Ianto.
Tosh shook her head. "No, unfortunately Sunjammer, although an inter-stellar ship, is not designed for FTL travel. Even at maximum speed, it would be too slow."
Disappointment hung heavily in the air as the three looked at each other.
"But, I think I might have an idea," Tosh's face suddenly brightened and she chuckled softly. "While we can't travel there physically, we could use a subspace transmission…
"Look, we don't know much about the Shrake other than to stay away from them, but according to the database besides being unquestionably murderous they are an extremely secretive and highly paranoid race."
She scrutinized Ianto. "Do you think you could come up with a message or two that might distract them – maybe make it easier for Jack to do what he needs to do?"
Gwen looked at her curiously. "You mean you want to mess with them?"
Tosh nodded happily.
Ianto flashed the two women a wicked grin. "Oh yeah… I think I can manage it!"