FIC: New Ground 5/7 [Rose, Mickey and Jake]
Back to I / II / III / IV
V.
It looked all so domestic, so normal with the yard and the fence and above the house a zeppelin passed by. Something people can miss so easily because it wasn't remarkable in a grand way. It was just a home. Jake stopped his van in front of the house. "Sure this is it?"
"Darrell?" Rose asked over the phone, "Is this the place?"
"Said so in the files, Miss Rose."
"Okay, thanks for the help, Darrell." She disconnected the phone and nodded. "He said it is."
Mickey shook his head. "That kid is gone for you."
"Oh, shut up," she said with a shake of her head, frowning. It was clear she was already focused on the house. "We should go in now."
"Tell me again why you think it's Hinds." Mickey twisted in the passenger's chair to look at her. "Especially since he was nowhere near the Tower when the explosion happened."
"But he was," she told him. "Remember the fireman?"
"There were lots of firemen milling about last night, you've got to be more specific."
"I'm talking about a specific fireman, remember the bloke who helped me carry Pete out?" Mickey nodded. "He called me Miss Tyler."
Jake made a sound before saying, "Oh, well, if calling you 'Miss' is a crime now--"
"Think about it, even if I did get the occasional mention in the tabloids -- which is still weird by the way -- I doubt random fireman guy could pick me out in a line up especially with the smoke. And in all Torchwood there's only one person who calls me 'Miss Tyler' and that's --"
"Hinds." Mickey said. "I don't get it, he doesn't strike me as a greedy son of a bitch."
"It's not about the money. He has a daughter, Mick, she's dying of cancer."
Even Jake had nothing to say to that, but when she looked at Mickey again he had a dark expression on his face. She remembered how Mickey was, sometimes, he still had the bit of old Mickey in him, a hardline stance on good and evil. Human and inhuman. She opened her mouth then closed it again. What would she say? Defend Hinds?
"Plan of attack?" Jake asked, breaking the silence and pulling out a gun from under his seat. It wasn't the hi-tech weapons Torchwood had, but run of the mill pistols. Rose wished she could say this was the first time she'd ever seen a .45 caliber pistol up close.
"We're not going to attack," she said, "we're going to ask him some questions and--"
He groaned. "Ask questions? He's a bleedin' bomber!"
"We don't know that yet, innocent until proven guilty, remember--?"
"Since when?" Jake asked.
"--and I wasn't finished. While we go around asking Hinds some questions, you go by the back door and if there's any trouble, you're our back up."
"Well, not a bad plan, still rank it up there as pretty stupid though."
"Well, I wasn't planning to go detective today, was I?"
Mickey took the gun from Jake. "Kids, behave." He passed it to Rose. "Here."
Rose looked at the gun warily. "What's that?"
"It's a gun," Jake said in a tone reserved for children or special cases.
"I know what it is. I meant why are you handing me one?"
"Because this isn't like back home where you had the Doctor to talk his way out of anything, this world is harder than home and people here kill on sight." Mickey said seriously, holding the gun out. "It's better to be safe than sorry."
Rose looked at the gun, then to Mickey. She took the gun, her fingers curled around the handle in a familiar grip.
"Alright," Mickey said with a nod, "The way to hold a gun is-"
"I know how to hold a gun." Jack had taught her to use a gun once, during one of those lazy days after a particularly harrowing adventure. He'd pulled her into one of those vacant rooms the TARDIS had and proceeded to teach her some of the basics. The lesson hadn't gone far, however, because the Doctor appeared in the doorway looking murderous and threatened to throw Jack out of the TARDIS if he'd attempt it again. It was the longest row they'd had and only stopped when the TARDIS had crash landed in a planet and there'd been no time to return to that particular argument because they were too busy hopping for their lives.
"The safety's here, so don't forget to switch it off when you fire and squeeze the trigger when you shoot--"
"It isn't the first time I've fired a gun, Mickey." Rose said, exasperated.
"Rose, this is serious." His voice had gotten quiet, intense. "Things might get messy and we might have to take him out."
"I know."
"This isn't a joke, you might have to end up shooting him!"
"Mickey--"
But he went on, as if Rose didn't know the risks. "This'll be first time you'll be forced to kill a person!"
"It won't be."
Rose met Mickey's eyes and held the stare longer than necessary, and then opened the door.
"Let's go before Ianto realizes what we're doing."
*
Mickey pounded with three official knocks. Rose fiddled with the psychic paper and hovered to the side, peering in the window. Something caught her eye.
"Mickey," she said. He paused in mid-knock. Rose gestured to the window. "It's a firefighter's coat."
He looked at Rose. She understood and took out her gun at the same time Mickey did. He backed up a step and then prepared to kick down the door, the way it was always done in the movies. She'd seen the Doctor use the same move once or twice. Mickey let loose a vicious kick and Rose prepared to storm the doorway.
She should have known things were never that easy. Instead of the door knocking open with a bang and herself and Mickey entering the house like heroes, what they got was a shaking door and Mickey wincing going, "shit, damn," while he hopped from one foot to the other. "That always worked in the movies."
She grimaced in sympathy. "Makes you appreciate the sonic screwdriver now, doesn't it?"
"Remind me," Mickey said, through gritted teeth, "to request a universal key from R & D next time we try this out."
"Let's try the two of us," Rose suggested and stood next to him. Mickey looked like he didn't want to do it again.
"Fine, alright, sure," Mickey said reluctantly. He put his injured foot down then began counting, "One! two! three!'
Two legs shot out and hit the door and Rose immediately regretted it. A lancing pain shot up her leg. Her only consolation was that the door shook harder than it did before. There was a scraping sound and a loud squeak and the door opened to reveal Jake, eyebrows raised. "What are you two doing?"
"We were trying to kick down the door," Mickey said, offended, "And it would have worked too!."
Jake looked at them as if they were daft. "This is oak, mate, tough wood, only a bleedin' axe can break down this door!"
"Anyone here?" Rose asked, changing the subject.
"Haven't checked upstairs yet because my two partners seem to be idiots."
"Oi!" Rose and Mickey shouted as one.
"C'mon," Jake said leading the way. The house was quiet, eerily so. Rose thought that with all the racket they'd made they'd find Hinds glowering at them but there was no one. A firefighter's hard hat lay discarded on the carpet.
"Still think he's here?" Mickey asked.
"If he's not we could go and check the hospital," Rose said as Jake shook his head and said, "Clear."
Mickey moved to her left flank and checked the room to the left only to return with a shake of his head. Rose looked to the room at the center, she shared a glance with Jake and then Mickey then nodded. They moved forward and she covered their back just like she'd seen soldiers do.
Jake held the doorknob, looked to Mickey and then twisted it open. Mickey kicked the door open and surged forward, gun out.
"Rose," Mickey called out, quiet and urgent. Alarmed, Rose stepped forward and it was exactly what she had feared. Hinds was kneeling on the floor beside the prone form of a teenaged girl she supposed was Marie. The Phoenix glove was on the floor opposite Hinds.
"She's dead," Hinds said in a quiet, dull voice. "It didn't even bring her back all the way through."
Mickey's expression was complicated, as if he didn't know whether he pitied Hinds or hated him. His gun drooped to the floor.
"Get away from that!" Hinds shouted and Rose jumped in alarm at the gun in Hinds hands, he was aiming it at Jake who had frozen just as he was about to pick up the glove. "Stay back! It's useless!"
"Then you shouldn't mind if we take it, right?" Rose asked, softening her voice.
"No!" he snarled, and Rose had never seen him as ferocious as he was now. "I paid blood for it, it's mine by right!"
Rose flashed to all the bodies, people she'd seen around Torchwood but didn't really know. "You didn't pay for anything."
The gun swung to her and Mickey hissed her name, bringing his gun up. Rose didn't move back but cautiously, slowly, moved forward. "I just want to talk to you, yeah?" She passed her gun to Jake, who looked at her as if she'd gone mad. "Look, see? No gun. Hinds glared at her suspiciously but didn't do anything else so she took that as permission. "When did she die?"
"Hours ago, yesterday." He let out a laugh that sounded hysterical to her ears. "What does it matter? She's dead. Advanced alien technology, what a laugh! It's nothing - just gave me a few minutes with my daughter and then she's gone again."
"You can't trust these things," Rose said, taking another step forward, "There's always a catch."
He let out a derisive laugh. "And what would you know about these things? You're an analyst! Pete Tyler's daughter!"
"Know more about them than you think."
"I just want my daughter to live!" he shouted, his gun wavering dangerously. His shoulders shook and Rose found it wasn't easy to look at him. He looked so raw. "She's the only one I have left!"
Her cautious step forward brought her close enough to touch his gun, but she wasn't daft enough to attempt that. "I'm sorry, I am, but she's dead."
"Don't say that!" he shouted and she froze when he shook his gun at her. "She is not-- she's..."
"Is this what your daughter would have wanted?" she asked. "If she were here, how do you think she would feel if she knew how many people died for her?"
"At least she'd live!"
"But she isn't, is she?" she returned, all kindness and softness gone in the face of memories of the death she'd seen. "All you've done is destroy lives for nothing. You can't bring her back! She's gone!"
Fury swept over his features and Rose knew she had overstepped her bounds, but she pressed on. "Everything ends, it's her time and you've done all you can...let her go, Hinds. Let her go."
"You!" he shouted, arm shaking, "You can't just..." His eyes flicked down to his daughter and suddenly a sob wrenched from his chest. "She's dead."
"I'm sorry..." she murmured and knelt beside him. Rose gently wrapped her hand on his gun and with a tug pulled it easily out of his grasp. Rose slipped the gun into Jake's waiting hands and Hinds collapsed on her shoulder. She stiffened for a second, then relaxed. She hadn't realized how long it had been since she was hugged by someone other than her mother.
Mickey left the room after that. Jake waited out the sobbing before pulling Hinds off of Rose and cuffing him. Rose found Mickey in Hinds' backyard, glaring at a pair of swings. "All he wanted was to save his daughter."
"He loved her," Mickey said. "But that's never enough to keep anything."
Rose looked at the swings. "Yeah."
*
UNIT
The aliens were called Latrans. They were not in any classified alien civilization in either UNIT or Torchwood's archives. On the other hand at least their names were easy to pronounce. They could almost pass for human, except for the skin color and the too-green eyes.
After they'd managed to establish communications with the Latrans Harriet nodded to Major Edwards, giving him permission to speak. He was UNIT, he was trained for such eventualities. Harriet envied him that; she hadn't exactly received instruction manuals when the Cyber War began and she found herself commander-in-chief of all Britain.
"I am Major Edwards of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce," he began, his voice steady. "Please identify yourselves."
The Latran leader looked at Edwards with disdain and began uttering something in a harsh guttural language. It took a few seconds for the translation program to kick in. "I am Kivon Linak, leader of the Latrans."
"Greetings from Earth-"
The harsh language cut Edwards off. Harriet didn't know if the harshness was the natural state of the language or something more. "I will only speak to your Earth leader."
Bridge and Edwards glanced at her ready, she supposed, to cover for her. Harriet would have none of that. She helped lead Britain to its freedom. She would not shirk that duty now. Harriet stepped forward, "I am the leader of this country," she said, holding her identification for the Latran to see, "President Harriet Jones and I proudly represent this planet."
"Yes, we see." Kivon rumbled.
"What is the purpose of your visit?"
"You have something of ours," Kivon said.
A murmur of relief passed through the room. "Then it would only be our pleasure to return your missing property, Kivon."
"I do not doubt that, the device has done what it was supposed to do and now we are here for our true purpose."
A sliver of fear passed through her. "And what is that purpose?"
"Why," Kivon looked at them with something like politeness and civility, "Invasion, of course."
*
The Torchwood operatives arrived five minutes later in black vans and trucks. Operatives in black tactical gear appeared sweeping the area, making sure there were no anachronistic devices or any other evidence of what had occurred.
Rose watched one of the operatives load Hinds into one of the black vans. She'd just had a three minute shouting match with Ianto about the merits of following orders and got an additional week in her suspension for her trouble, never mind that she'd helped catch the real bomber.
"Now why are you frowning?" Jake asked.
"Additional suspension."
"What did you expect? This is Ianto, if any bloke's born with the book in hand, it's him."
Hinds meant well and did it out of love, but a lot people died for it. It shouldn't be an excuse.
"Rose!" Mickey ran to her, coming off the phone.
"What is it?"
"The explosion did more than break the Phoenix glove out, it also activated a signal."
Rose froze, knowing the answer before she asked. "What sort of signal?"
"It's signaling a ship and it's on its way here."
"It's not," Rose said.
"What?" Mickey asked, startled. "'Course it is, it's why Ianto wants us back--"
"Mickey, it's already here."
"What?"
Rose pointed up to the large shadow over the clouds, hovering and poised to strike. And then the concussion wave hit.
UNIT
"For what reason are you doing this?"
"You have plenty of land, resources," Kivon said. "Do not worry, your people will be kept in good condition."
"And you think we'll just allow you to invade us?" Edwards asked.
"You will resist but it will be futile," Kivon said in an almost dismissive rumble. "We have scanned your technology and you have nothing that can challenge us. Surrender or die - that is your only option."
The hell they would, they've survived almost genocide before and they didn't just lie down and take it. "There must be another option, we can establish an alliance-"
"With you?" Disdain seeped even through the translation. "I think not, we do not consort with lowly beings."
"We'll stop you." Edwards said, "We're not as helpless as you think."
"You are as helpless as we think," There was a flash of light around the room.
Harriet looked around the room. "What was that?"
"We have cut off all your communications with the outside world. You will find that you cannot leave that room nor can you send and receive any messages," Kivon said in his deep, rumbling voice. "You will learn the consequences of defying me. I will keep you alive long enough to bear witness to your civilization's end."
*
That's the difference then, Rose thinks after the wave strikes, shattering glass and shaking structures. Where panic and hysteria would be the norm in her world, here there are barred windows, underground bunkers and rifles. And there was a steeliness among the people that reminded Rose of the times she and the Doctor ventured to worlds at war.
Rose pulled herself up, staring at the ship. It was different from the Sycorax ship; the ship above them had clean lines and even more, she suspects, powerful weapons.
"Think it's an invasion?" Mickey asked.
"I don't think it could be anything else," Rose answered and brushed pieces of glass off her jacket. Jake was staring at the ship, mouth hanging open.
"That's a spaceship!"
Despite the situation, Rose couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, yeah it is."
"A spaceship!"
"Jake, mate," Mickey said, pulling him up, "get it together. We have to go back to the Tower."
"Know a shortcut back to the tower?" Rose asked but Jake was still gaping at the ship. She poked at him. "Jake!"
"What?"
"Do you know a shortcut to Canary Wharf?"
Jake spared her a glance. "'Course."
*
They arrived to the loud blaring of alarms and the war room covered in flashing red lights.
"For God's sake, shut off that alarm!" hollered Ianto at the center of the mess of computers. The alarms went on for another minute until they shut off. "Thank you! Now, can anyone tell me if we've established contact with UNIT or the President?"
"No, sir, still static." a voice from the corner shouts.
"What's going on?" Rose asked the person beside her. Just like the tent outside, the war room was cramped. She couldn't help her elbows digging into someone's rib.
"A few minutes ago we lost communication with UNIT and the President."
"Any chance they were teleported to the ship?"
"We thought so too," said the unfortunate person whose rib she was abusing, "but so far no energy surges."
Just as she was about to reel off another question one of the screens flickered and an alien face loomed in the screen. Of all the aliens she'd seen Rose supposed this one didn't look so bad. A point in its favour was the fact that he or she didn't have tentacles, only redder skin and green-green eyes.
"Have you seen them before?" Mickey asked from behind her, wedged uncomfortably in the corner.
Rose shook her head. "No, but I think we're off to a bad start if they've got the ship in our atmosphere."
Jake snorted. "Oh, yeah, you think so? -Oi! Watch the elbow!"
She ignored him and watched as Ianto spoke to the alien. It was strange hearing words spoken a second or two late. There was the strange itch at the back of her skull again. Rose ignored it, instead she took out her phone and dialed Jackie's number. The least she could do is secure her parents' safety.
Rose was too intent on listening for Jackie to pick up that she missed the sound of a strange high toned beeping and then the immediate quiet. A second later Rose realized it was a little too quiet for this sort of alien invasion and just as Jackie's 'Hello?' came on Rose had looked up - only to find the alien on screen pointing at her. "You."
*
On to Part VI
V.
It looked all so domestic, so normal with the yard and the fence and above the house a zeppelin passed by. Something people can miss so easily because it wasn't remarkable in a grand way. It was just a home. Jake stopped his van in front of the house. "Sure this is it?"
"Darrell?" Rose asked over the phone, "Is this the place?"
"Said so in the files, Miss Rose."
"Okay, thanks for the help, Darrell." She disconnected the phone and nodded. "He said it is."
Mickey shook his head. "That kid is gone for you."
"Oh, shut up," she said with a shake of her head, frowning. It was clear she was already focused on the house. "We should go in now."
"Tell me again why you think it's Hinds." Mickey twisted in the passenger's chair to look at her. "Especially since he was nowhere near the Tower when the explosion happened."
"But he was," she told him. "Remember the fireman?"
"There were lots of firemen milling about last night, you've got to be more specific."
"I'm talking about a specific fireman, remember the bloke who helped me carry Pete out?" Mickey nodded. "He called me Miss Tyler."
Jake made a sound before saying, "Oh, well, if calling you 'Miss' is a crime now--"
"Think about it, even if I did get the occasional mention in the tabloids -- which is still weird by the way -- I doubt random fireman guy could pick me out in a line up especially with the smoke. And in all Torchwood there's only one person who calls me 'Miss Tyler' and that's --"
"Hinds." Mickey said. "I don't get it, he doesn't strike me as a greedy son of a bitch."
"It's not about the money. He has a daughter, Mick, she's dying of cancer."
Even Jake had nothing to say to that, but when she looked at Mickey again he had a dark expression on his face. She remembered how Mickey was, sometimes, he still had the bit of old Mickey in him, a hardline stance on good and evil. Human and inhuman. She opened her mouth then closed it again. What would she say? Defend Hinds?
"Plan of attack?" Jake asked, breaking the silence and pulling out a gun from under his seat. It wasn't the hi-tech weapons Torchwood had, but run of the mill pistols. Rose wished she could say this was the first time she'd ever seen a .45 caliber pistol up close.
"We're not going to attack," she said, "we're going to ask him some questions and--"
He groaned. "Ask questions? He's a bleedin' bomber!"
"We don't know that yet, innocent until proven guilty, remember--?"
"Since when?" Jake asked.
"--and I wasn't finished. While we go around asking Hinds some questions, you go by the back door and if there's any trouble, you're our back up."
"Well, not a bad plan, still rank it up there as pretty stupid though."
"Well, I wasn't planning to go detective today, was I?"
Mickey took the gun from Jake. "Kids, behave." He passed it to Rose. "Here."
Rose looked at the gun warily. "What's that?"
"It's a gun," Jake said in a tone reserved for children or special cases.
"I know what it is. I meant why are you handing me one?"
"Because this isn't like back home where you had the Doctor to talk his way out of anything, this world is harder than home and people here kill on sight." Mickey said seriously, holding the gun out. "It's better to be safe than sorry."
Rose looked at the gun, then to Mickey. She took the gun, her fingers curled around the handle in a familiar grip.
"Alright," Mickey said with a nod, "The way to hold a gun is-"
"I know how to hold a gun." Jack had taught her to use a gun once, during one of those lazy days after a particularly harrowing adventure. He'd pulled her into one of those vacant rooms the TARDIS had and proceeded to teach her some of the basics. The lesson hadn't gone far, however, because the Doctor appeared in the doorway looking murderous and threatened to throw Jack out of the TARDIS if he'd attempt it again. It was the longest row they'd had and only stopped when the TARDIS had crash landed in a planet and there'd been no time to return to that particular argument because they were too busy hopping for their lives.
"The safety's here, so don't forget to switch it off when you fire and squeeze the trigger when you shoot--"
"It isn't the first time I've fired a gun, Mickey." Rose said, exasperated.
"Rose, this is serious." His voice had gotten quiet, intense. "Things might get messy and we might have to take him out."
"I know."
"This isn't a joke, you might have to end up shooting him!"
"Mickey--"
But he went on, as if Rose didn't know the risks. "This'll be first time you'll be forced to kill a person!"
"It won't be."
Rose met Mickey's eyes and held the stare longer than necessary, and then opened the door.
"Let's go before Ianto realizes what we're doing."
*
Mickey pounded with three official knocks. Rose fiddled with the psychic paper and hovered to the side, peering in the window. Something caught her eye.
"Mickey," she said. He paused in mid-knock. Rose gestured to the window. "It's a firefighter's coat."
He looked at Rose. She understood and took out her gun at the same time Mickey did. He backed up a step and then prepared to kick down the door, the way it was always done in the movies. She'd seen the Doctor use the same move once or twice. Mickey let loose a vicious kick and Rose prepared to storm the doorway.
She should have known things were never that easy. Instead of the door knocking open with a bang and herself and Mickey entering the house like heroes, what they got was a shaking door and Mickey wincing going, "shit, damn," while he hopped from one foot to the other. "That always worked in the movies."
She grimaced in sympathy. "Makes you appreciate the sonic screwdriver now, doesn't it?"
"Remind me," Mickey said, through gritted teeth, "to request a universal key from R & D next time we try this out."
"Let's try the two of us," Rose suggested and stood next to him. Mickey looked like he didn't want to do it again.
"Fine, alright, sure," Mickey said reluctantly. He put his injured foot down then began counting, "One! two! three!'
Two legs shot out and hit the door and Rose immediately regretted it. A lancing pain shot up her leg. Her only consolation was that the door shook harder than it did before. There was a scraping sound and a loud squeak and the door opened to reveal Jake, eyebrows raised. "What are you two doing?"
"We were trying to kick down the door," Mickey said, offended, "And it would have worked too!."
Jake looked at them as if they were daft. "This is oak, mate, tough wood, only a bleedin' axe can break down this door!"
"Anyone here?" Rose asked, changing the subject.
"Haven't checked upstairs yet because my two partners seem to be idiots."
"Oi!" Rose and Mickey shouted as one.
"C'mon," Jake said leading the way. The house was quiet, eerily so. Rose thought that with all the racket they'd made they'd find Hinds glowering at them but there was no one. A firefighter's hard hat lay discarded on the carpet.
"Still think he's here?" Mickey asked.
"If he's not we could go and check the hospital," Rose said as Jake shook his head and said, "Clear."
Mickey moved to her left flank and checked the room to the left only to return with a shake of his head. Rose looked to the room at the center, she shared a glance with Jake and then Mickey then nodded. They moved forward and she covered their back just like she'd seen soldiers do.
Jake held the doorknob, looked to Mickey and then twisted it open. Mickey kicked the door open and surged forward, gun out.
"Rose," Mickey called out, quiet and urgent. Alarmed, Rose stepped forward and it was exactly what she had feared. Hinds was kneeling on the floor beside the prone form of a teenaged girl she supposed was Marie. The Phoenix glove was on the floor opposite Hinds.
"She's dead," Hinds said in a quiet, dull voice. "It didn't even bring her back all the way through."
Mickey's expression was complicated, as if he didn't know whether he pitied Hinds or hated him. His gun drooped to the floor.
"Get away from that!" Hinds shouted and Rose jumped in alarm at the gun in Hinds hands, he was aiming it at Jake who had frozen just as he was about to pick up the glove. "Stay back! It's useless!"
"Then you shouldn't mind if we take it, right?" Rose asked, softening her voice.
"No!" he snarled, and Rose had never seen him as ferocious as he was now. "I paid blood for it, it's mine by right!"
Rose flashed to all the bodies, people she'd seen around Torchwood but didn't really know. "You didn't pay for anything."
The gun swung to her and Mickey hissed her name, bringing his gun up. Rose didn't move back but cautiously, slowly, moved forward. "I just want to talk to you, yeah?" She passed her gun to Jake, who looked at her as if she'd gone mad. "Look, see? No gun. Hinds glared at her suspiciously but didn't do anything else so she took that as permission. "When did she die?"
"Hours ago, yesterday." He let out a laugh that sounded hysterical to her ears. "What does it matter? She's dead. Advanced alien technology, what a laugh! It's nothing - just gave me a few minutes with my daughter and then she's gone again."
"You can't trust these things," Rose said, taking another step forward, "There's always a catch."
He let out a derisive laugh. "And what would you know about these things? You're an analyst! Pete Tyler's daughter!"
"Know more about them than you think."
"I just want my daughter to live!" he shouted, his gun wavering dangerously. His shoulders shook and Rose found it wasn't easy to look at him. He looked so raw. "She's the only one I have left!"
Her cautious step forward brought her close enough to touch his gun, but she wasn't daft enough to attempt that. "I'm sorry, I am, but she's dead."
"Don't say that!" he shouted and she froze when he shook his gun at her. "She is not-- she's..."
"Is this what your daughter would have wanted?" she asked. "If she were here, how do you think she would feel if she knew how many people died for her?"
"At least she'd live!"
"But she isn't, is she?" she returned, all kindness and softness gone in the face of memories of the death she'd seen. "All you've done is destroy lives for nothing. You can't bring her back! She's gone!"
Fury swept over his features and Rose knew she had overstepped her bounds, but she pressed on. "Everything ends, it's her time and you've done all you can...let her go, Hinds. Let her go."
"You!" he shouted, arm shaking, "You can't just..." His eyes flicked down to his daughter and suddenly a sob wrenched from his chest. "She's dead."
"I'm sorry..." she murmured and knelt beside him. Rose gently wrapped her hand on his gun and with a tug pulled it easily out of his grasp. Rose slipped the gun into Jake's waiting hands and Hinds collapsed on her shoulder. She stiffened for a second, then relaxed. She hadn't realized how long it had been since she was hugged by someone other than her mother.
Mickey left the room after that. Jake waited out the sobbing before pulling Hinds off of Rose and cuffing him. Rose found Mickey in Hinds' backyard, glaring at a pair of swings. "All he wanted was to save his daughter."
"He loved her," Mickey said. "But that's never enough to keep anything."
Rose looked at the swings. "Yeah."
*
UNIT
The aliens were called Latrans. They were not in any classified alien civilization in either UNIT or Torchwood's archives. On the other hand at least their names were easy to pronounce. They could almost pass for human, except for the skin color and the too-green eyes.
After they'd managed to establish communications with the Latrans Harriet nodded to Major Edwards, giving him permission to speak. He was UNIT, he was trained for such eventualities. Harriet envied him that; she hadn't exactly received instruction manuals when the Cyber War began and she found herself commander-in-chief of all Britain.
"I am Major Edwards of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce," he began, his voice steady. "Please identify yourselves."
The Latran leader looked at Edwards with disdain and began uttering something in a harsh guttural language. It took a few seconds for the translation program to kick in. "I am Kivon Linak, leader of the Latrans."
"Greetings from Earth-"
The harsh language cut Edwards off. Harriet didn't know if the harshness was the natural state of the language or something more. "I will only speak to your Earth leader."
Bridge and Edwards glanced at her ready, she supposed, to cover for her. Harriet would have none of that. She helped lead Britain to its freedom. She would not shirk that duty now. Harriet stepped forward, "I am the leader of this country," she said, holding her identification for the Latran to see, "President Harriet Jones and I proudly represent this planet."
"Yes, we see." Kivon rumbled.
"What is the purpose of your visit?"
"You have something of ours," Kivon said.
A murmur of relief passed through the room. "Then it would only be our pleasure to return your missing property, Kivon."
"I do not doubt that, the device has done what it was supposed to do and now we are here for our true purpose."
A sliver of fear passed through her. "And what is that purpose?"
"Why," Kivon looked at them with something like politeness and civility, "Invasion, of course."
*
The Torchwood operatives arrived five minutes later in black vans and trucks. Operatives in black tactical gear appeared sweeping the area, making sure there were no anachronistic devices or any other evidence of what had occurred.
Rose watched one of the operatives load Hinds into one of the black vans. She'd just had a three minute shouting match with Ianto about the merits of following orders and got an additional week in her suspension for her trouble, never mind that she'd helped catch the real bomber.
"Now why are you frowning?" Jake asked.
"Additional suspension."
"What did you expect? This is Ianto, if any bloke's born with the book in hand, it's him."
Hinds meant well and did it out of love, but a lot people died for it. It shouldn't be an excuse.
"Rose!" Mickey ran to her, coming off the phone.
"What is it?"
"The explosion did more than break the Phoenix glove out, it also activated a signal."
Rose froze, knowing the answer before she asked. "What sort of signal?"
"It's signaling a ship and it's on its way here."
"It's not," Rose said.
"What?" Mickey asked, startled. "'Course it is, it's why Ianto wants us back--"
"Mickey, it's already here."
"What?"
Rose pointed up to the large shadow over the clouds, hovering and poised to strike. And then the concussion wave hit.
UNIT
"For what reason are you doing this?"
"You have plenty of land, resources," Kivon said. "Do not worry, your people will be kept in good condition."
"And you think we'll just allow you to invade us?" Edwards asked.
"You will resist but it will be futile," Kivon said in an almost dismissive rumble. "We have scanned your technology and you have nothing that can challenge us. Surrender or die - that is your only option."
The hell they would, they've survived almost genocide before and they didn't just lie down and take it. "There must be another option, we can establish an alliance-"
"With you?" Disdain seeped even through the translation. "I think not, we do not consort with lowly beings."
"We'll stop you." Edwards said, "We're not as helpless as you think."
"You are as helpless as we think," There was a flash of light around the room.
Harriet looked around the room. "What was that?"
"We have cut off all your communications with the outside world. You will find that you cannot leave that room nor can you send and receive any messages," Kivon said in his deep, rumbling voice. "You will learn the consequences of defying me. I will keep you alive long enough to bear witness to your civilization's end."
*
That's the difference then, Rose thinks after the wave strikes, shattering glass and shaking structures. Where panic and hysteria would be the norm in her world, here there are barred windows, underground bunkers and rifles. And there was a steeliness among the people that reminded Rose of the times she and the Doctor ventured to worlds at war.
Rose pulled herself up, staring at the ship. It was different from the Sycorax ship; the ship above them had clean lines and even more, she suspects, powerful weapons.
"Think it's an invasion?" Mickey asked.
"I don't think it could be anything else," Rose answered and brushed pieces of glass off her jacket. Jake was staring at the ship, mouth hanging open.
"That's a spaceship!"
Despite the situation, Rose couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, yeah it is."
"A spaceship!"
"Jake, mate," Mickey said, pulling him up, "get it together. We have to go back to the Tower."
"Know a shortcut back to the tower?" Rose asked but Jake was still gaping at the ship. She poked at him. "Jake!"
"What?"
"Do you know a shortcut to Canary Wharf?"
Jake spared her a glance. "'Course."
*
They arrived to the loud blaring of alarms and the war room covered in flashing red lights.
"For God's sake, shut off that alarm!" hollered Ianto at the center of the mess of computers. The alarms went on for another minute until they shut off. "Thank you! Now, can anyone tell me if we've established contact with UNIT or the President?"
"No, sir, still static." a voice from the corner shouts.
"What's going on?" Rose asked the person beside her. Just like the tent outside, the war room was cramped. She couldn't help her elbows digging into someone's rib.
"A few minutes ago we lost communication with UNIT and the President."
"Any chance they were teleported to the ship?"
"We thought so too," said the unfortunate person whose rib she was abusing, "but so far no energy surges."
Just as she was about to reel off another question one of the screens flickered and an alien face loomed in the screen. Of all the aliens she'd seen Rose supposed this one didn't look so bad. A point in its favour was the fact that he or she didn't have tentacles, only redder skin and green-green eyes.
"Have you seen them before?" Mickey asked from behind her, wedged uncomfortably in the corner.
Rose shook her head. "No, but I think we're off to a bad start if they've got the ship in our atmosphere."
Jake snorted. "Oh, yeah, you think so? -Oi! Watch the elbow!"
She ignored him and watched as Ianto spoke to the alien. It was strange hearing words spoken a second or two late. There was the strange itch at the back of her skull again. Rose ignored it, instead she took out her phone and dialed Jackie's number. The least she could do is secure her parents' safety.
Rose was too intent on listening for Jackie to pick up that she missed the sound of a strange high toned beeping and then the immediate quiet. A second later Rose realized it was a little too quiet for this sort of alien invasion and just as Jackie's 'Hello?' came on Rose had looked up - only to find the alien on screen pointing at her. "You."
*
On to Part VI