Chapter 9

There were two possible routes now that they were down the manhole, but as one was clouded in darkness they chose the more obvious route in which they could follow the light through.

Jack was ahead leading them through the narrow tunnel. The light was faint but it was enough to see where he was going. The others stayed close behind using Jack as a guide as he was blocking the only source of light.

It was only a short tunnel and they were filing through into the room as Owen tagged on to the end of the line. The room was very bright and the sudden change of light affected their eyes as they walked further in. Jack was squinting, Gwen was blinking rapidly, Tosh was shading her eyes with her hand and Ianto was trying to avert his eyes from the source of the light. Owen was hit straight in the eyes by the intense brightness; his hands went immediately to his face as he tried to block it out.

"Oh gee, couldn't they find a dimmer bulb?" Owen joked finding his own way of dealing with the light as he walked into the room.

As they begun to get used to the light, they took a closer look at where there were.

Tosh found the spotlight and, to everyone's relief, was able to locate the off switch. There was a drastic change to the room; everything was easier to see, proving that the main source of the brightness had been the spotlight.

Gwen noticed the metal hand and ankle cuffs that had been incorporated into the wall. She examined them and found that they were still warm; they must have just missed them.

Ianto found a set of controls and a small computer screen which had been left on. Intrigued he clicked a button and a page popped up, its heading; Tegana Harkness. He read the first paragraph before he said anything. He discovered that Tegana had alien origins; he wasn't entirely surprised but seeing it written down just seemed to put it into a larger perspective.

Jack knelt down; he picked up the tracking watch and held it in his hand, now he really had lost Tegana. He looked up and saw another corridor, not thinking about anyone else, he proceeded to walk towards it.

"Jack come look at this." Ianto said feeling that as the guardian, Jack should know what was being said of his adopted daughter. Ianto looked up from the screen and frowned, he couldn't see Jack anywhere.

"Oh great, not again," Gwen commented having realised the same thing.

"Come on, let's go find Jack." Owen said making it sound as though he was referring to a small child, then the grown man he really was.

"Why can't he tell us when he's about to disappear?" Tosh groaned joining the others as they went in search of Jack.

Tegana briefly glanced along the table, there seemed to be a map of some sort and a smaller piece of paper with a plan on it. Well at least that's what it looked like, for it had a list of numbers labelled: 'steps'.

Nathan looked around in this new room; it was almost a warm light and much kinder to their eyes. He examined the walls which had a red hue and didn't look at all like the earth they were supposedly made of.

The alien let go of their wrists and walked over to a large keypad and typed something in, then turned back to them.

"I am Arikahs. I am the ambassador of my planet Arika. Our planet is going to implode and we have come to find another, we have tried to use the humans of this planet to create a clean area for which our escape ship can land. Unfortunately we have had a slight disruption, apparently we cannot control the whole population, it's just the teenage humans that we seem to be able to control."

"You can't just come here and expect to take over the planet, that's not the way it should've been done." Tegana reprimanded.

"That's just it we can't take over the planet, we've underestimated our plan." Arikahs replied.

"Well that serves you right, you can't expect to turn up and take over." Nathan interjected.

Arikahs frowned and then looked away, down at the maps, pretending he hadn't heard Nathan. Tegana picked up on this and moved towards him.

"Nathan is right, you know." Tegana ventured, knowing that this was the last thing Arikahs wanted to hear. "You wouldn't like it if the humans decided to land on Arika and then take over your planet, would you?" Tegana was trying to make him see what he was doing wrong.

"That's different; humans don't know anything about other planets and their inhabitants." Arikahs said bluntly.

"They can learn. That's what humans are good at, adapting, evolving to fit the changes, I mean look at Nathan, a few hours ago he would have laughed if I had said aliens were real but now… I think we can safely say that he'll believe they're real for now on." Tegana contradicted Arikahs, somehow feeling quite proud of herself at the same time.

Arikahs looked annoyed yet he knew that Tegana had made a relevant point in which he would have to consider before he carried out the ending to the plan. That had been clear enough, although just how much he would consider it was a different matter entirely.

"Alright, you, raise your hands!" Jack pointed the gun towards Arikahs, making the alien jump ever so slightly backwards and raise his hands as an automatic response to the sight of a gun.

"Dad!" Tegana exclaimed when she realized who had come through the door.

"No! Don't shoot him, he isn't hurting us!" Tegana ran to her father, her hands flying out in front of her to try and stop him.

Jack looked at Tegana and then at the gun, he didn't want to put his gun down but he had heard Tegana and knew she was right.

Tegana tried to lower Jack's hand, it was harder then it looked, Jack's arm was locked in position as he had been taught and so it wouldn't move. Jack let his arm drop, Tegana was glad that he hadn't shot Arikahs, she knew how he could get when he had a gun in his hands. He still had the gun in his hand but at least it was pointing at no one.

Tegana was worried that Arikahs was going to take this scene in the wrong way and all the persuading she had just done was going to be all in vain and there was something else on Tegana's mind now that her father was in view.

"Dad, why did you never tell me I was only half human?" Tegana asked with the immediate danger over with, Tegana could go back to the query that had been at the front of her mind ever since Arikahs had told her.

"What?" Jack replied sounding just as surprised as she had been.

"Arikahs told me that I was half human and half Zakothian, so I'm waiting for an explanation." Tegana told her father, thinking he hadn't heard her properly.

"I…I didn't know." Jack stammered.

"How can you not have known if my was an alien or not!" Tegana said not understanding quite how surprised her father was at this news, he must've known surely.

"Tegana, I never knew who your mother was…"

Tegana frowned at her father, waiting for the extra explanation that was to follow, she could never have imagined what she was about to be told.

"And I never knew who your father was either." There he had said it, he had told her. It had taken 10 years but she now knew the truth.

Tegana stared at Jack. She wasn't Jack's daughter, things had changed.

Well another chapter and hopefully some more reviews…hint, hint!