Fic: Night Of The Harvester - Part 5
Title: Night Of The Harvester - Part 5-
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, OCs.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2555
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The people of Bounteous put the first parts of Jack and Ianto’s plan into action, moving everyone to where they will hopefully be safe when Harvester comes.
Written For: spook_me 2024, using Torchwood, Pumpkinhead / Jack O' Lantern.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Set in my Through Time and Space ‘verse.
Previous Part
The plans were set into motion the following day, since there was a great deal that needed to be done in advance of Harvester’s next visit, and not much more than a week to do it in. Each of the ‘safe’ farms would have to play host to four extra farm families, and all their workers, as many as forty per farm, as well as their meat and dairy herds, and a wide range of other animals, so they were going to be crowded. There was only so much pastureland available, half to two thirds of each farm being given over to crops and the occasional small fruit orchard. Even in such fertile ground, trees grew slowly, and faster-growing crops had been given priority in the first few decades, while the settlement was still getting established.
First, all the livestock from the farms that had so far not been targeted had to be rounded up and moved, not just the herd animals and poultry, although they were by far the most numerous, but also the working animals, the horses and dogs, and all the household pets, of which there were a surprisingly large number.
According to Jack, each colony ship sent out from earth in the early days of colonisation had carried everything the settlers might need when they arrived at their new home. As companion animals were known to have a beneficial psychological effect, a selection of popular pet species were always included, although most were kept in stasis pods for the journey, as were the other non-human creatures. There wouldn’t have been the space or enough food and water aboard a colony ship to carry so many living creatures otherwise. It must have been cramped enough for the humans during the eighteen months the journey had been expected to take, using the new faster than light drive that had been perfected in the late twenty-seventh century.
It took the best part of four days, with everyone who wasn’t needed in the fields working together, to get all the animals relocated. Those not involved in the actual herding, or the transportation of the smaller creatures, busied themselves building pens in pastures and fallow fields, and putting together sectional two-storey buildings, barns below and living quarters above, that the TARDIS had manufactured to provide temporary shelter for everyone.
Next, the elderly, the children, the injured, and the disabled packed what they would need for a few days away from home and were moved to their temporary accommodations. Any possessions the families considered valuable, mostly heirlooms brought from earth, holos, and anything fragile, was also gathered together and taken to safety with them.
Then, leaving their homes empty as a precautionary measure, just in case Harvester should show up seeking people to drain of life energy, the townsfolk filed into the TARDIS. Every one of them was amazed at how much room there was inside what appeared from the outside to be a modest two-storey cottage just outside of town. Rooms had been arranged, on both sides of five long passageways radiating out from the central console room, to house the temporary guests. No one had any complaints about the accommodations, instead marvelling at the comfortable furnishings and the large communal kitchens and dining rooms at the far end of each corridor.
Finally, with less than a day remaining, all that needed to be done was for sentries to be posted around each of the occupied farms, keeping well back from the fence lines and dirt tracks that marked where one farm ended and the neighbouring land began. It would be their job to watch for Harvester and, with the help of the TARDIS, to alert Jack and Ianto to his location as soon as he was sighted.
The rest of the adults and older children, having completed their own assigned tasks, joined their families where they would hopefully be safe, while those who had volunteered to stand watch made one last check of the empty farmhouses and outbuildings, making sure nothing and no one had been accidentally left behind.
The atmosphere grew increasingly tense as the afternoon edged towards evening. Doors to the empty houses and barns were all propped open, as were some windows, and the only living creatures to be found were a few native vermin, six-legged, tailless rodents with tufted ears and beady orange eyes. If Harvester sucked the life out of them, nobody would shed a tear. Like rats back on earth, they bred quickly, and they’d gnaw their way into every one of the colony’s grain stores and feed bins given half a chance.
“Looks like we’re as ready as we can be,” Ianto said, reporting to Tanisa and the other elders, fifteen men and women all told, gathered together in the console room of the TARDIS, seated at some of the tables, with cups of each individual’s beverage of choice in front of them.
“Then there is nothing more we can do except wait,” said Lorrenz Makerra, the Senior Elder, a tall, spare man with deep-set brown eyes in a dark, seamed face, silvery, thinning hair, and a slight stoop, as if he was always expecting to bang his head on the lintel of every door he passed through. He was tall enough to make that a distinct possibility. “And perhaps pray to whatever gods we might believe in for the safety of our friends and neighbours.”
“You and your people will all be safe in here,” Jack assured them.
“Of that I have no doubt.” Setting her cup down, Tanisa rose from her seat, approaching the two men. “At this moment, I should think there is no safer place in the entire colony. Yet it feels wrong to shelter here in your great ship, protected from harm, while the two of you risk your very lives for the sake of people who are not your own.”
The rest of the group nodded, murmuring their agreement.
“It’s our choice,” Jack reminded them. “No one is forcing us to do this, we’re doing it because we’re the only ones who might stand a chance against Harvester, if it comes down to a direct confrontation, which it most likely will. We have more powerful weapons than you do, plenty of experience in using them to defend ourselves and others, and as I’m sure Tanisa has told you, we’re a lot harder to kill.”
“Not that we stay dead for long even when we ARE killed,” Ianto finished for his husband. “Hopefully, that will be all the advantage we need.”
“Then we wish you good fortune. May the gods, if such beings truly exist, stand beside you this night, and lend you their strength.” Lorrenz leaned back in his chair, folding his bony hands together on the table in front of him. “Whether or not you will succeed is out of our hands, but however this night’s events unfold, we owe you a debt of gratitude we might never have the means to repay. We ourselves shall not sleep this night. It is our duty to sit vigil until morning, and to greet you on your return, whether that be in victory or defeat.”
“Let’s hope it won’t be the latter,” Jack muttered. For once he wasn’t smiling.
Ianto bowed, nudging his husband to do likewise. “You honour us, all of you.”
Tanisa waved one hand as though brushing Ianto’s words aside. “What we do is a small thing, compared to what you will be attempting. Yet it is all we can offer.” She clasped both of Ianto’s hands briefly, and then Jack’s. “Be safe, and please, take no unnecessary risks. If it becomes a choice between your lives and Harvester’s defeat, we would far rather you both return safely.”
“Whatever happens, we will see you all in the morning,” Jack said. “Count on it.” Hefting the plasma rifle the TARDIS had provided him with, and checking the two laser pistols holstered at his hips, he turned to Ianto. “Well, I think it’s about time we got into position, don’t you? The sun will be setting in less than an hour.”
“When the first moon rises, that is when Harvester will come,” Bessica Sullmon, a small, wizened woman with a bird’s nest of white hair, said in her thin, reedy voice. She was a woman of few words, and considered something of a seer, so everyone paid attention on the rare occasions she did choose to speak.
Ianto dropped to one knee beside the comfortable armchair she’d chosen. “Thank you, wise one. We will be ready.”
Bessica smiled, resting her hand briefly on the top of his head, “Yes. You will. When the moment comes, you will know. Blessings upon you, child, and on your husband. Go now.”
“Yes ma’am.” Standing up, Ianto reached for the Big Gun he’d chosen as his main weapon, slinging the carrying strap around him, then checked the pair of pulse pistols in their holsters, and the shoulder bag that held, among other essentials, extra ammunition for both the pistols and the bulky projectile weapon. Jack slung a similar bag over his own shoulder, and with one last look at the fifteen elders, he nodded a farewell and led his husband out the door, feeling the comforting presence on his TARDIS in the back of his mind. She would remain with both of them throughout whatever was to come, unless they were killed, when their connection with her would be temporarily severed.
‘Wish us luck.’ Ianto’s thought echoed in Jack’s mind as he spoke with their sentient time- and spaceship.
‘Always, my dear Ianto,’ the reply came through just as clearly. ‘Although I hope luck will not be needed.’
OoOoOoO
The two immortals made their way out into the farmland beyond the town on foot, since the only mechanical vehicles the settlement owned were a fleet of elderly solar-powered tractors and harvesters that didn’t travel much faster than walking pace. Neither man spoke much as they walked, there was little to say; they both knew what they were about to attempt would be dangerous, and having never seen Harvester in the flesh, they couldn’t do more than guess at what might happen when they confronted him. Nevertheless, they were committed to doing whatever they could to free the small colony from the monster that had already taken so much from them. Once they’d learned about Harvester, and the toll he’d already taken on the colony, leaving the people to their fate had never crossed their minds.
Over the past few days, they’d discussed whether or not to divide and conquer; there were a lot of farms, spread out over an area of more than seventeen square miles, and they had no way of knowing where Harvester might strike first. They could cover a lot more ground if they separated, but then they might find themselves too far apart to provide backup when it was needed. Whoever encountered Harvester first would be completely on their own, and neither of them wanted to be in that position. Together they would be stronger, and they’d also have more firepower available than either of them would alone, so in the end sticking together and backing each other up had seemed the more sensible option. If the worst should happen and they should fall, at least they’d fall together.
“It’s not going to be much fun if we have to run several miles through the fields in the dark before the battle even begins,” Ianto murmured, thinking out loud. “We’ll be worn out before we even start, assuming we do have to fight.”
Jack swallowed the rest of the snack bar he’d been munching and wiped his fingers on his trouser leg. “Oh, I think fighting is inevitable; Harvester isn’t going to just shrug and leave if we ask him to. It’s been eighteen years, he’ll be hungry, after that long hidden away wherever he goes between visits. Maybe he has a lifepod somewhere, or a stasis unit, something like that. Whatever, we know he comes back ready to feed, and from what we’ve heard, both from the colonists and the grubs, I don’t imagine he’s someone who’s easy to reason with.”
“That’s a safe assumption. I can’t help wondering how the grubs managed to make a pact with him in the first place.”
“They got lucky; he was probably too weak after he crashed here to be much of a threat at first, but that’s changed over the last ten thousand years. Nowadays the grubs are doing everything they can to placate him. They’re even more scared of him than the people are.” Jack smiled thinly. “Good thing we’re not so easily frightened.”
Ianto snorted. “What does that make us, foolhardy?”
“I prefer to think of us as valiant heroes, defenders of the weak, fighters for truth and justice, bane of evil monsters everywhere.”
“Of course you do.” Ianto sounded amused.
Jack flashed one of his widest, whitest grins at his husband. “Not worried, are you? We’ve taken on bigger monsters than this one and lived to tell the tale. Besides, we’re well armed.”
“We’ve been lucky so far, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to start getting overconfident. There’s no way of knowing whether our weapons will even have any effect on Harvester.”
By now Jack and Ianto were approaching a spot roughly in the centre of the farmland, where the corners of four farms met. It was as good a place as any to wait, and better than most, since it meant that wherever Harvester first showed himself, they should be able to get there in no more than an hour, hopefully before he could turn his attention to another farm. In unison, they both glanced at the sky; the sun was already edging down below the horizon, and soon it would be dark.
Digging two sets of night-sight goggles from his shoulder bag, Ianto passed one to Jack. “Here. Don’t put them on just yet though; you’ll dazzle yourself.”
“I know that; I’m not a complete idiot.”
Ianto couldn’t keep from smirking. “No comment.”
“Cheeky.”
Reaching a large tree stump in the corner of the field they were crossing, they sat down on it, and Ianto dug in his bag again. Producing a flask of hot coffee he’d prepared before they left the TARDIS, he poured them each a cup.
“We’re out here to battle a monster, and you brought coffee with you?”
“Why not? Everything’s better with coffee. We can do with the caffeine to keep us awake while we’re waiting, and anyway, you can talk. You brought snacks.”
“Got to keep our energy levels up. I brought water too. Hydration is important if we’re gonna be running around half the night, fighting monsters.”
“Well, if you’d rather drink water.” Ianto made to pour Jack’s coffee back into the flask.
“No, gimme!” Jack reached for the thermos cup, an almost panicked expression on his face.
“That’s what I thought. There should be just enough for us to have one cup now, and one when the job is done. We’ll probably need the caffeine boost by the end of the night.”
Jack nodded. “No doubt.”
They fell silent again, sipping their coffee as dusk settled like a soft blanket over the surrounding fields, gradually deepening to full night.
TBC in Part 6
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, OCs.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2555
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The people of Bounteous put the first parts of Jack and Ianto’s plan into action, moving everyone to where they will hopefully be safe when Harvester comes.
Written For: spook_me 2024, using Torchwood, Pumpkinhead / Jack O' Lantern.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Set in my Through Time and Space ‘verse.
Previous Part
The plans were set into motion the following day, since there was a great deal that needed to be done in advance of Harvester’s next visit, and not much more than a week to do it in. Each of the ‘safe’ farms would have to play host to four extra farm families, and all their workers, as many as forty per farm, as well as their meat and dairy herds, and a wide range of other animals, so they were going to be crowded. There was only so much pastureland available, half to two thirds of each farm being given over to crops and the occasional small fruit orchard. Even in such fertile ground, trees grew slowly, and faster-growing crops had been given priority in the first few decades, while the settlement was still getting established.
First, all the livestock from the farms that had so far not been targeted had to be rounded up and moved, not just the herd animals and poultry, although they were by far the most numerous, but also the working animals, the horses and dogs, and all the household pets, of which there were a surprisingly large number.
According to Jack, each colony ship sent out from earth in the early days of colonisation had carried everything the settlers might need when they arrived at their new home. As companion animals were known to have a beneficial psychological effect, a selection of popular pet species were always included, although most were kept in stasis pods for the journey, as were the other non-human creatures. There wouldn’t have been the space or enough food and water aboard a colony ship to carry so many living creatures otherwise. It must have been cramped enough for the humans during the eighteen months the journey had been expected to take, using the new faster than light drive that had been perfected in the late twenty-seventh century.
It took the best part of four days, with everyone who wasn’t needed in the fields working together, to get all the animals relocated. Those not involved in the actual herding, or the transportation of the smaller creatures, busied themselves building pens in pastures and fallow fields, and putting together sectional two-storey buildings, barns below and living quarters above, that the TARDIS had manufactured to provide temporary shelter for everyone.
Next, the elderly, the children, the injured, and the disabled packed what they would need for a few days away from home and were moved to their temporary accommodations. Any possessions the families considered valuable, mostly heirlooms brought from earth, holos, and anything fragile, was also gathered together and taken to safety with them.
Then, leaving their homes empty as a precautionary measure, just in case Harvester should show up seeking people to drain of life energy, the townsfolk filed into the TARDIS. Every one of them was amazed at how much room there was inside what appeared from the outside to be a modest two-storey cottage just outside of town. Rooms had been arranged, on both sides of five long passageways radiating out from the central console room, to house the temporary guests. No one had any complaints about the accommodations, instead marvelling at the comfortable furnishings and the large communal kitchens and dining rooms at the far end of each corridor.
Finally, with less than a day remaining, all that needed to be done was for sentries to be posted around each of the occupied farms, keeping well back from the fence lines and dirt tracks that marked where one farm ended and the neighbouring land began. It would be their job to watch for Harvester and, with the help of the TARDIS, to alert Jack and Ianto to his location as soon as he was sighted.
The rest of the adults and older children, having completed their own assigned tasks, joined their families where they would hopefully be safe, while those who had volunteered to stand watch made one last check of the empty farmhouses and outbuildings, making sure nothing and no one had been accidentally left behind.
The atmosphere grew increasingly tense as the afternoon edged towards evening. Doors to the empty houses and barns were all propped open, as were some windows, and the only living creatures to be found were a few native vermin, six-legged, tailless rodents with tufted ears and beady orange eyes. If Harvester sucked the life out of them, nobody would shed a tear. Like rats back on earth, they bred quickly, and they’d gnaw their way into every one of the colony’s grain stores and feed bins given half a chance.
“Looks like we’re as ready as we can be,” Ianto said, reporting to Tanisa and the other elders, fifteen men and women all told, gathered together in the console room of the TARDIS, seated at some of the tables, with cups of each individual’s beverage of choice in front of them.
“Then there is nothing more we can do except wait,” said Lorrenz Makerra, the Senior Elder, a tall, spare man with deep-set brown eyes in a dark, seamed face, silvery, thinning hair, and a slight stoop, as if he was always expecting to bang his head on the lintel of every door he passed through. He was tall enough to make that a distinct possibility. “And perhaps pray to whatever gods we might believe in for the safety of our friends and neighbours.”
“You and your people will all be safe in here,” Jack assured them.
“Of that I have no doubt.” Setting her cup down, Tanisa rose from her seat, approaching the two men. “At this moment, I should think there is no safer place in the entire colony. Yet it feels wrong to shelter here in your great ship, protected from harm, while the two of you risk your very lives for the sake of people who are not your own.”
The rest of the group nodded, murmuring their agreement.
“It’s our choice,” Jack reminded them. “No one is forcing us to do this, we’re doing it because we’re the only ones who might stand a chance against Harvester, if it comes down to a direct confrontation, which it most likely will. We have more powerful weapons than you do, plenty of experience in using them to defend ourselves and others, and as I’m sure Tanisa has told you, we’re a lot harder to kill.”
“Not that we stay dead for long even when we ARE killed,” Ianto finished for his husband. “Hopefully, that will be all the advantage we need.”
“Then we wish you good fortune. May the gods, if such beings truly exist, stand beside you this night, and lend you their strength.” Lorrenz leaned back in his chair, folding his bony hands together on the table in front of him. “Whether or not you will succeed is out of our hands, but however this night’s events unfold, we owe you a debt of gratitude we might never have the means to repay. We ourselves shall not sleep this night. It is our duty to sit vigil until morning, and to greet you on your return, whether that be in victory or defeat.”
“Let’s hope it won’t be the latter,” Jack muttered. For once he wasn’t smiling.
Ianto bowed, nudging his husband to do likewise. “You honour us, all of you.”
Tanisa waved one hand as though brushing Ianto’s words aside. “What we do is a small thing, compared to what you will be attempting. Yet it is all we can offer.” She clasped both of Ianto’s hands briefly, and then Jack’s. “Be safe, and please, take no unnecessary risks. If it becomes a choice between your lives and Harvester’s defeat, we would far rather you both return safely.”
“Whatever happens, we will see you all in the morning,” Jack said. “Count on it.” Hefting the plasma rifle the TARDIS had provided him with, and checking the two laser pistols holstered at his hips, he turned to Ianto. “Well, I think it’s about time we got into position, don’t you? The sun will be setting in less than an hour.”
“When the first moon rises, that is when Harvester will come,” Bessica Sullmon, a small, wizened woman with a bird’s nest of white hair, said in her thin, reedy voice. She was a woman of few words, and considered something of a seer, so everyone paid attention on the rare occasions she did choose to speak.
Ianto dropped to one knee beside the comfortable armchair she’d chosen. “Thank you, wise one. We will be ready.”
Bessica smiled, resting her hand briefly on the top of his head, “Yes. You will. When the moment comes, you will know. Blessings upon you, child, and on your husband. Go now.”
“Yes ma’am.” Standing up, Ianto reached for the Big Gun he’d chosen as his main weapon, slinging the carrying strap around him, then checked the pair of pulse pistols in their holsters, and the shoulder bag that held, among other essentials, extra ammunition for both the pistols and the bulky projectile weapon. Jack slung a similar bag over his own shoulder, and with one last look at the fifteen elders, he nodded a farewell and led his husband out the door, feeling the comforting presence on his TARDIS in the back of his mind. She would remain with both of them throughout whatever was to come, unless they were killed, when their connection with her would be temporarily severed.
‘Wish us luck.’ Ianto’s thought echoed in Jack’s mind as he spoke with their sentient time- and spaceship.
‘Always, my dear Ianto,’ the reply came through just as clearly. ‘Although I hope luck will not be needed.’
OoOoOoO
The two immortals made their way out into the farmland beyond the town on foot, since the only mechanical vehicles the settlement owned were a fleet of elderly solar-powered tractors and harvesters that didn’t travel much faster than walking pace. Neither man spoke much as they walked, there was little to say; they both knew what they were about to attempt would be dangerous, and having never seen Harvester in the flesh, they couldn’t do more than guess at what might happen when they confronted him. Nevertheless, they were committed to doing whatever they could to free the small colony from the monster that had already taken so much from them. Once they’d learned about Harvester, and the toll he’d already taken on the colony, leaving the people to their fate had never crossed their minds.
Over the past few days, they’d discussed whether or not to divide and conquer; there were a lot of farms, spread out over an area of more than seventeen square miles, and they had no way of knowing where Harvester might strike first. They could cover a lot more ground if they separated, but then they might find themselves too far apart to provide backup when it was needed. Whoever encountered Harvester first would be completely on their own, and neither of them wanted to be in that position. Together they would be stronger, and they’d also have more firepower available than either of them would alone, so in the end sticking together and backing each other up had seemed the more sensible option. If the worst should happen and they should fall, at least they’d fall together.
“It’s not going to be much fun if we have to run several miles through the fields in the dark before the battle even begins,” Ianto murmured, thinking out loud. “We’ll be worn out before we even start, assuming we do have to fight.”
Jack swallowed the rest of the snack bar he’d been munching and wiped his fingers on his trouser leg. “Oh, I think fighting is inevitable; Harvester isn’t going to just shrug and leave if we ask him to. It’s been eighteen years, he’ll be hungry, after that long hidden away wherever he goes between visits. Maybe he has a lifepod somewhere, or a stasis unit, something like that. Whatever, we know he comes back ready to feed, and from what we’ve heard, both from the colonists and the grubs, I don’t imagine he’s someone who’s easy to reason with.”
“That’s a safe assumption. I can’t help wondering how the grubs managed to make a pact with him in the first place.”
“They got lucky; he was probably too weak after he crashed here to be much of a threat at first, but that’s changed over the last ten thousand years. Nowadays the grubs are doing everything they can to placate him. They’re even more scared of him than the people are.” Jack smiled thinly. “Good thing we’re not so easily frightened.”
Ianto snorted. “What does that make us, foolhardy?”
“I prefer to think of us as valiant heroes, defenders of the weak, fighters for truth and justice, bane of evil monsters everywhere.”
“Of course you do.” Ianto sounded amused.
Jack flashed one of his widest, whitest grins at his husband. “Not worried, are you? We’ve taken on bigger monsters than this one and lived to tell the tale. Besides, we’re well armed.”
“We’ve been lucky so far, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to start getting overconfident. There’s no way of knowing whether our weapons will even have any effect on Harvester.”
By now Jack and Ianto were approaching a spot roughly in the centre of the farmland, where the corners of four farms met. It was as good a place as any to wait, and better than most, since it meant that wherever Harvester first showed himself, they should be able to get there in no more than an hour, hopefully before he could turn his attention to another farm. In unison, they both glanced at the sky; the sun was already edging down below the horizon, and soon it would be dark.
Digging two sets of night-sight goggles from his shoulder bag, Ianto passed one to Jack. “Here. Don’t put them on just yet though; you’ll dazzle yourself.”
“I know that; I’m not a complete idiot.”
Ianto couldn’t keep from smirking. “No comment.”
“Cheeky.”
Reaching a large tree stump in the corner of the field they were crossing, they sat down on it, and Ianto dug in his bag again. Producing a flask of hot coffee he’d prepared before they left the TARDIS, he poured them each a cup.
“We’re out here to battle a monster, and you brought coffee with you?”
“Why not? Everything’s better with coffee. We can do with the caffeine to keep us awake while we’re waiting, and anyway, you can talk. You brought snacks.”
“Got to keep our energy levels up. I brought water too. Hydration is important if we’re gonna be running around half the night, fighting monsters.”
“Well, if you’d rather drink water.” Ianto made to pour Jack’s coffee back into the flask.
“No, gimme!” Jack reached for the thermos cup, an almost panicked expression on his face.
“That’s what I thought. There should be just enough for us to have one cup now, and one when the job is done. We’ll probably need the caffeine boost by the end of the night.”
Jack nodded. “No doubt.”
They fell silent again, sipping their coffee as dusk settled like a soft blanket over the surrounding fields, gradually deepening to full night.
TBC in Part 6