Twelve

Opening his eyes Ianto saw a cup being held out. From the smell it was generic coffee flavour number six.

'Going to need that first,' Ianto said, sitting and pointing at the long-spouted bottle by the recyc unit.

Putting down the cup Jack handed him the bottle then turned his back.

A few awkward moments passed and Jack heard the unit cycling. Turning he saw Ianto cleaning his hands with sanitiser.

Jack re-offered the coffee.

'How long was I out?' Ianto asked, enjoying the sensation of the coffee easing his throat.

'Twenty six hours.' Jack handed him a food bar.

'What!'

'Your back should be feeling a lot better as I used the wand several times while you were in the deepest part of sleep. And when you are ready you need to tell me how you got all this equipment here and don't tell me you did the impossible.'

'Magic then,' Ianto hedged, half chewing.

Jacks raised his eyebrows and Ianto began his explanation.

'As you know we were partially successful in getting a block of hydrogen condensate to dematerialise. We also found that we could hold the information in the array for a few moments, but every attempt led to the block dissipating into sub-atomic particles. Even stressing the power system of the ship to its uppermost limits the power core could not produce enough to move it into the next stage..'

'I recall,' Jack said recalled the six major dramas the experiment had caused.

'It was infuriating. We convert matter into energy all the time in replicators and field units like the one here.' Ianto pointed to the pile of stacked equipment to his right. 'In the case of the field units and replicators we give each base to start with a sort of molecular soup that can be converted to form real matter. Then it came to me, the answer was staring us in the face the whole time. We were trying to use energy from an external source. When in fact all the energy we needed was already there. E=Mc2. Energy and matter are the same. There is energy already intrinsically part of the sub-atomic particles.'

Jack listened, fascinated.

'To successfully complete the cycle every object needed something that could be converted to pure energy; that could then be utilised to enact each stage of the process.'

'So you by passed the sub-atomic particle idea?' Jack queried.

Ianto nodded, draining his coffee. 'Part of the process is to entangle the sub-atomic particles. The potential is there to harness the power inherently already there. It would be more elegant and efficient, but I didn't have time. I had to come up with something that would work with the tools I had.'

Ianto pulled his pack towards him and opened it. After several moments as he sifted through the contents he found what he was looking for and held up a small disk.

'I replicated these.' He handed the disk to Jack. 'Each one is made up of hydrogen condensate.'

Jack saw what appeared to be a cover on one side so he pulled it off. The surface was all covered in some kind of sticky residue.

'I had to make sure they wouldn't fall off,' Ianto told him.

'Every piece of equipment here is made up of complex composites which represent far more complicated matter than hydrogen,' Jack pointed out.

'Agreed. One of the earlier issues we overcame was this exact problem. Every time the system started up it scanned the object then recreated the particle. It then went on to the next particle treating it as a unique.'

'Like reinventing the wheel over and over?' Jack offered.

Ianto nodded 'Exactly, to overcome this Eugene spent days loading a matter dictionary into the scanner's memory bank. After he completed this all the programme had to do was find the first particle then just count the rest so it could then pass on the information into the array. Eugene had the next experiment all set to go. All I had to do was re-configure the array to use the discs of condensate and transform that as energy then directly translate any object from one location to another in sequence. To make it as simple as possible I set up equipment locations and list the target from the heaviest and bulkiest first.'

'You created a site to site transporter,' Jack pointed out, astonished.

'Technically no.' Ianto looked uncomfortable.

'Are you serious?' Jack burst out, flabbergasted.

'Eugene did all the hard work and he would have figured out the inherent power availability eventually.'

'So while doing four impossible things in one day, like staying alive, sending beacons, rescuing me, you came up with a solution to a puzzle that has been the goal of particle physicists for two hundred years.' Jack paused for a moment. 'How did you know it would work?'

'I didn't,' Ianto told him in all seriousness. 'I had no way to do a test run. Any number of things could have gone wrong. I might have been captured. If I had then it wouldn't have mattered if the transporter failed to work. It only counted once we reached here.'

'So you didn't know it had worked until you cut your way in?'

'I was pleasantly surprised and relieved it had all worked. In truth it was a long shot I didn't expect to work. When your choices are reduced to nothing it seemed like a good bet.'

'Long odds,' Jack said as he recovered.

'Billions to one against,' Ianto agreed

'You are missing one factor,' Jack said as he handed Ianto another coffee.

'Don't think so,' Ianto replied.

'It would appear your involvement reduced the odds to zero.'

'Not sure I agree. I was just lucky.'

'Lucky you were on the project,' Jack told him and picked up the clock. 'I figure this is counting down to something important?'

'When that reaches zero we have to take the ship back,' Ianto told him.

'More impossible things?' Jack joked not surprised.

'Well, we are on a roll. In two days, one hour and five minutes the Torchwood will drift behind a small proto-moon. It means the ship will be out of communication from the tugs coming towards us and their main base deep within the system,' Ianto said, tearing into a food bar.

Jack creased his forehead in confusion 'But this whole system is one communication blind spot.'

''For us. However the slavers have some possibly alien tech or found a way to modify their communication system. They have a system capable of line of sight communication. The slavers on board this ship can currently talk to their base and the ships heading towards us because of that reason.'

'I assume they have managed to create a safe corridor as well,' Jack added.

'That makes sense,' Ianto agreed. 'Even with a safe corridor the PerdianSystem reduces everything to sub-light speed. They have three bases. One of the closer moons where there is something apparently called BetaTauriRift. Not sure what it is but it provides access to the slave markets on VegaValissian which is where the crew have been taken.'

'The smallest base is within the ring of asteroids that marks the outer limit of the entire solar system. It is here they ensnare passing vessels, which brings me to our current situation. There was a lot of unease amongst some of the slavers about the size of this vessel and its crew. It's far bigger than anything they have so far taken. It's the newest design out of Space Industries and from what I can gather is way beyond anything they have encountered before. As a consequence they have had to call for help from their main base. Two tug ships with techs on board are on their way to see if they can get the ship up and running. If not I gather it will be towed back to the main base and taken apart.'

'Our crew?' Jack asked softly.

'They didn't go without a fight.' Ianto said proudly. 'To say the slavers were unprepared for the number of crew on board would be an understatement. The slavers' reckless decision to attack this ship meant they didn't have enough control collars. I gather it was the group without collars that led the battle.'

'The slavers from the beginning must have the biggest threat if the slavers boarding part was small to begin with,' Jack added.

'There are twenty eight slavers, sorry twenty seven,' Ianto corrected himself. 'One their commander came to an untimely end during your rescue.'

'You sure?' Jack checked.

'His last words where aaaaaaaaaaah as he fell head first down the elevator shaft. I had sent the lift down to catch his fall so that sound I heard might have been him landing soft as a feather rather than his brains being smashed out.'

'Twenty seven against two,' Jack said thinking out loud.

'Three,' Ianto corrected him. 'There's a slave on board, Olaf Peterson, who was tech specialist from the Tsiolkovsky. He's wearing a slave collar and he gave me these.'

Jack took the offered pad co-ordinates for each of the slaver bases including the main base.

Ianto took the pad back. 'I should also report my first action was to send three distress beacons aimed towards different beacons. All have messages detailing everything including the co-ordinates of the bases within the system. If we fail the Torchwood is hopefully the very last vessel these bastards are ever going to take.'

'I imagine that the crew will be looking for us. If I was them I would be tearing it apart,' Jack pointed out.

Ianto's face broke into the first genuine smile Jack had seen since Ianto had boarded. 'They are going to be far too busy.'

'What did you do?' Jack asked hoping this time Ianto would give him a detailed reply.

His hands over his ears the slaver in engineering screamed at his slave to turn off the alerts blaring out at full volume. Even through the ear pads they were making his head ring.

'Sir,' Olaf replied and punched in a sequence of numbers in a desperate attempt to make any effect. The panels that had come on line that had been a ploy to get their attention to rescue the Space Command Officer on the bridge had become dead again within thirty minutes of their first activation but it didn't stop his overseer still believing their futile attempts might work.

Engineering went deathly quiet then within seconds the calm voice of the computer bean to intone, 'Warning, warning, warning,'

Both of them knew what this meant and they grabbed whatever surface they could. Seconds later their feet left the floor. Then a new announcement blared out, 'Gravity restored,' and they hit the ground with a thud.

The lift door opened and the computer voice announced, 'Vomit rocket, do you dare ride?'

'I've ensured their life on board is going be the most uncomfortable possible,' Ianto said.

'I thought life support was part of the lock down.'

'Life support does not include a whole subset of systems,' Ianto explained gleefully. 'Gravity for example…replicator function…I couldn't touch the first level systems because there is a layer of encryptions seemingly a mile deep so I set up a worm programme that effects all the secondary systems. It means every time they input a single command, like touching a panel, it causes something to happen elsewhere seemingly unconnected. You press a lift button and somewhere else a door closes on another deck and then won't open. You try and open the door and suddenly you are floating against the ceiling. They will also be very thirsty and hungry. Although each replicator will produce food it's the hottest and saltiest food and beverages in the Home System. There is one replicator that will produce only water but it's up to them to find it.'

Jack was about to ask for an explanation when he realised Ianto had mostly likely overridden some of the controls using his device he changed the subject. 'Weapons?'

'Locked down in the armoury. The current status of the ship means that store is completely restricted. The security aspect of either mutiny or hostile boarding has meant it's gone into apocalyptic mode. To reset the system we will need the codes held by the head of security and four other senior officers or a return to space dock. So to take back the ship slavers I will send a cease and desist order to the computer, then you use your code over and we fight back.'

Jack mulled over the information Ianto had given him for several moments before answering.

'The slavers might be out of their depth but they are not stupid. They know there are two crew members free. One has the codes to unlock the main flight controls, communication systems and life support. The other one has led them a merry dance to hell and back. The fact you were able to rescue me and disrupt the ship means you are no ordinary crew member but possibly one of the command crew. If I was in their shoes I would be waiting for a counterattack. Any return to normal status would be a signal that this was about to begin,' Jack told him.

They both sat in silence, thinking.

'We do have one weapon,' Jack said. 'I say we use that to our advantage to its fullest.'

Ianto looked confused. 'I told you the weapons are out of reach.'

'Commander Jones, it's all around us and you've led the way,' Jack told him. 'They have already lost the initiative. You are using the secondary systems against them and their loss of me.'

'I should tell you I sealed the inner core bulkheads which will make it extremely difficult to follow the route back to the bridge,' Ianto told him

Jack smiled. 'We don't need to take the bridge; we need to take Engineering and this is what I suggest we do.'

The discussion over and plans made, Ianto sat as far away from Jack as he could manage. For the past few hours he had spent fashioning a weapon. It was basically a lump of metal with sharp bits jutting out, and now finished his hands were idle. Ianto wished his mind would remain as still as he was sitting right now because there was nothing to distract him from Jack's revelations about his dad.

No matter how hard he tried, all he could recall was his dad being by his side for months. His dad had been there the moment he woke up in the morning to when he fell asleep at night. Later Rhianna told him dad had refused to leave his side for months.

Maybe Harkness was lying? But why bother? It would be so easy to check. Maybe he only imagined his father being with him all the time. Or maybe the enquiry and the court martials were months after the Diligence had returned. It was entirely possible, Ianto admitted to himself, he was more out of it than he recalled because that first year was a complete blur of pain, incapacity and surgeries.

'I've set up the pad. Would you like a game of chess?' Jack broke the silence.

Ianto turned and glared at him. 'Don't.'

'Not chess, something else?' Jack offered.

'I meant don't start on about how sorry you feel and how much you've changed.'

'Ianto, I just want to break the tension in here.'

'Stop using my first name and with all due respect for your role of Captain, fuck you,' Ianto snapped.

'So everything I did after you were found was just a way to save my own skin,' Jack said in an out breath.

Ianto smiled grimly. 'Set up from start to finish and people have fallen for it. So you can drop the act.'

'It's not an act,' Jack said in his own defence.'You have no idea how shamed I felt and feel.'

Ianto turned towards Jack fully now and started to slow clap. 'It's brilliant.'

'I'm trying to say I'm sorry.'

'What you did put betrayal and backstabbing into a whole new category but does match exactly the type of human being I think you are. Even here you are still trying it on, making it seem as if you value what I've done. Well I don't buy it because when I needed you to hear you told me my skills and experience were worth nothing to you. Then you proceeded to strip me of everything that made it possible for me to function until I ended up dead by design. So you can take your forgiveness and shove it!'

A painful silence descended between them as both men retreated into each other.

'There is way no out for me is there?' Jack said dejected.

'Anything that comes your way sir will be a future wasn't that was the whole point of the plan to rob me any kind of future. Susie will be well pleased her plan succeeded beyond her wildest imagination.'

'You are wrong about what happened on board. It was a set up by Susie alone.'

Ianto laughed derisively. 'Right, I read the report. You figured it all out a little too quickly. The only way you could have put two and two together is because you already knew who I was. When it began to fall apart and I lived you set about to frame Susie for the entire event.'

'Has it occurred to you that when I learned the truth I might actually be horrified about what happened? That I would want to hold those who hurt you responsible and bring them to justice? That my actions might cause me to re-evaluate every aspect of who I was?

'No,' Ianto replied bluntly.

'Why is it so hard to accept that I've changed?' Jack asked, holding out his open hands with an edge of desperation in his voice.

'Because you are the same man.'

Jack felt a tide creep up his body as he looked at the man hunched over as far away as he could get. He was damned no matter what. Jack made a decision; if he was damned then he might as well be dammed for the truth.

'You want to know how I put two and two together so quickly?'

'More truth Jack? How much more is there?'

'One hell of a lot more than you think you know.'

Ianto glowered at him 'The truth according to Jack Harkness would be the smallest book in the universe. Name it the least honourable man in history and you might have a winner.'

'You should know I was so angry when I found you had used the holo-suites during a level one ship emergency, I was ready to space you myself. So furious Andy had to restrain me.'

'Then when Owen announced the truth, that you were not the person we thought you were, such were the depths of the deception played on me I actually tried to find a way to prove him wrong. I even argued with Tosh that the scenario was just a way of you trying to gain our sympathies.'

'When it was clear just how desperate your circumstances were due the corruption of your medical information Hopkins sent myself and Tosh to search your quarters. Searching your quarters didn't reveal your medical data crystal. Tosh thought you might have a digital copy on file. When she turned on your desk screen she found you left your journal up and running.'

Jack forced himself on. 'You used the letter 'S' for a ship's name and along with the insignia on your travel bag Tosh found a match.'

Ianto listened and heat seemed to creep up from his lower back and began to build across his shoulders and chest.

'After your data crystal was found Hopkins ordered I listen to the rest. The information laid out in your journal was explosive. It exposed a web of deceit, events, meetings I had been told had never happened, reports from Crew Resources were complete fictions. Records had been changed; your food card is just one example. Only one group of people on board any ship have access to do any of those things: a member or members the command crew. Once I realised the enormity of what your journal revealed and that any one of command was the guilty party I had to trust someone. You mentioned Tosh was the only person who ever spoken to you so I figured I could trust her. Tosh suggested Owen.'

'Around this time Tosh found direct evidence that it was Suzie. I already had my suspicious but even then I didn't want to believe because Susie was my life. Seven years we were together I would have trusted her with my life and she used that love and trust as a weapon. When she was confronted I had to stand there and listen while she tore away every feeling I ever had.'

'So we had proof, but none we could use. If you died or the journal got deleted we would have had nothing and Susie would have gone free. Even closing it would deny us access so Tosh and I had to find a way to protect the information even if he was deleted or accidently closed. We made a copy.'

'You saved it and made a copy. That's impossible,' Ianto said shaking his head.

'No it's not. We found a way to keep your journal safe via a back door.'

Jack saw the fear growing on Ianto's face as his eyes became rounder and rounder.

'I get it. I finally get it.' Ianto rose onto his knees and pointed at Jack. 'You blackmailed him!'

'Who?' Jack asked, confused.

'My father! What was the deal? He speaks up for you and you remain silent about the device?'

'I may be may be many things but I am not a blackmailer!' Jack shouted back in outrage. 'The only two people who know about the device's existence outside of yourself and the person who gifted it to you are myself and Tosh. Hell even Owen doesn't know. She wanted to hand it over to Captain Hopkins because she recognised how dangerous it was in the wrong hands. I argued you were the only person who could be entrusted. You had that device the whole time on the Diligence you could have done anything you wanted in revenge but you didn't. Despite everything all you did was use it to hide your holo-suite use and make my life a little bit difficult.'

Jack spoke into the silence. 'Tosh and I never breathed a word. You can ask her. Your father has no idea either of us know.'

'You might as well know the rest,' Jack said after several long moments.

'There's more?' Ianto burst out, reeling.

''Your journal held the clue that you might know how to save the ship. You didn't say much, but it was enough.'

'So that's when you asked me to save the ship?' Ianto checked.

'And you did.'

'How much..?' Ianto asked.

'How much did I listen to?' Jack finished Ianto's question. 'All of it. I did so for one reason: I needed to hear every word because I failed you on every level it's possible to fail. Not just as an officer of Space Command but as a human being.'

'Finally I did so to make the connection with you I should have made when you first came on board. I wanted to inscribe every word so I would never forget what I did. That my refusing you those ten minutes I caused you to lose everything.'

Jack held out his hands again. 'I swear I have never told a living soul about the device. Tosh and I did everything in our power to ensure none knew of its existence. I've done everything in my power to bring those who did this to you to justice including myself.'

'I know you don't want to hear this but I'm sorry for every hateful action and word. I'm sorry for the pain I caused, I'm sorry you lost five years of your life and your career. If I could turn back the clock…I would spend the rest of my life trying to find a way to do so but time is a cruel mistress and we have to live with our mistakes. A good, kind, generous man was destroyed by my actions; your life was ruined because I couldn't give you ten minutes of my time. Would the universe have stopped turning, would the ship have imploded if you demonstrated your skills? Susie was right; I was caught in my own sense of outrage I didn't want to see. I'm sorry.'

Ianto, his whole being shaking, turned his back on him.