Fic: Ingenuity
Title: Ingenuity
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Tosh, Owen, Team, OCs.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Another bunch of aliens attempt to invade earth, but they didn’t take into account Torchwood’s ingenuity.
Word Count: 1061
Written For: My own prompt ‘Torchwood, Team or any, Using oranges as bowling balls to knock down invading aliens’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
All Torchwood agents learned early on that just because something was small that didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t dangerous. There were plenty of alien races that were shorter than the average human, but lack of height didn’t make the more aggressive ones any less likely to attempt invasion, or any easier to deal with when they did.
“What’ve we got, Tosh?” Jack shouted over the blaring of the Rift alert as he approached the tech expert’s workstation.
Fingers tapping rapidly at her keyboard, Tosh called up the coordinates of the Rift spike. “Not sure yet, but it’s registering as something alive. It’s out at the Ferry Road Retail Park somewhere. Hold on a minute while I narrow it down… Got it, the Asda Superstore. There should be cameras inside, let me pull up visuals…” She frowned as her screens blurred out. “That’s odd.”
“What’s up?”
“Something’s jamming the store’s CCTV system. I can’t get a clear picture.”
Jack leaned over Tosh’s shoulder. “Don’t think I like the sound of that. Whatever or whoever came through must be using jamming technology of some description; could mean our guest is up to no good.”
“Make that guests, plural,” Tosh said as several more Rift events registered at the same location. “Invasion?”
“I’d say that’s a distinct possibility. Either that or a robbery.” Jack raised his voice. “Okay, kids, gear up and check your guns! Looks like we’re going shopping!”
OoOoO
The Asda superstore was suspiciously silent when they arrived; there were plenty of cars in the car park, but nobody was entering or leaving the supermarket, and all the lights were out, making the interior look shadowy and somehow ominous even though it was only mid-afternoon. The Torchwood team made their way as quietly and unobtrusively as they could around to the back of the building, where they let themselves in through a staff door using a handy alien lock-picking device. Slipping inside and closing the door behind them, keeping low they crept into the public part of the store and cautiously made their way along the aisle that ran alongside the rows of shelves. It didn’t take them long to find what they were looking for.
All the store’s customers and staff had been herded into the dairy section located at one end of the store, where they stood clustered together and unmoving under the watchful eyes of a dozen two-foot tall blue, scaly creatures armed with vicious-looking alien weapons. A dozen more of the invaders were clustered around a curious piece of machinery that they appeared to be constructing from components they must have brought with them.
“What d’you think that thing is?” Owen hissed.
“At a guess, either a weapon, or a way of opening a stable wormhole between their planet and here,” Jack murmured. “Either way, we can’t let them complete it.” He looked from one member of his team to the next. “Suggestions anyone? Preferably something that doesn’t involve a firefight.”
All of the team were armed, but opening fire with so many civilians between them and the invaders was obviously out of the question. If possible, they needed to stop the invasion, if that’s what it was, without incurring any civilian casualties.
“There are ways to put an enemy out of action without risking killing anyone’s life; all it takes is a little ingenuity,” Ianto whispered. “We’ve got plenty of ammunition to hand.” He gestured at the shelves of fresh produce around them. “How’s your fastball?”
Jack grinned. “I like the way you think. Okay people; arm yourselves, quietly as possible.”
Keeping out of sight of the aliens, the team filled abandoned shopping baskets with assorted fruit and vegetables, then got into position, spread out behind the racks of produce in order to avoid making themselves easy targets, and also to keep any of the invasion force from getting past them if they tried to escape. There were no exits from the part of the store the invaders had chosen as their base of operations; they no doubt thought that made it easily defensible, and it did, but it also meant that with Torchwood blocking the only way out, there was no way for them to escape except the way they’d arrived, via a Rift portal.
“Everyone ready?” Jack hissed, his voice reaching his team through the Bluetooth earpieces they were all wearing. “Now!”
Owen’s well-placed potato hit the nearest alien smack in one of its bulbous eyes, doing significant damage, and then the small beings standing guard were being subjected to a rain of potatoes, apples, swedes, and turnips while Ianto and Tosh concentrated on the construction group. Oranges and grapefruit made excellent bowling balls, taking the aliens’ legs right out from under them as if they were nothing more than a bunch of living skittles. Melons proved unwieldy and less accurate but helped to add to the confusion.
The aliens scarcely knew what was happening. Some of them tried to hide behind their captives, who up to this point had simply been standing there as if frozen to the spot, but as one of Jack’s missiles hit an alien standing off to the side, it dropped the silvery box it was holding, which shattered on contact with the tiled floor. The erstwhile shoppers, waking from some kind of technologically-induced trance, looked around themselves in confusion, spotted the aliens, screamed, and then chaos ensued, which turned out not to be such a bad thing, since several aliens got trampled underfoot in the stampede.
Half a dozen of the would-be invaders, took refuge behind the still unfinished device, firing their weapons at anything that moved, but they weren’t too good at hitting moving targets and most of their shots missed, although the lasers did set fire to one man’s coat and two shopping bags, and fried a display of onions. Ianto lobbed his biggest melon over the top of the device and Tosh used the last of the oranges to pick off the aliens as they broke cover. The battle was over in hardly more than five minutes, without Torchwood firing a shot.
Jack sent Owen and Tosh to retcon the shoppers, who were unable to escape since the aliens had somehow jammed the doors. As the rest of the team rounded up the surviving members of the invasion force, Ianto quipped, “Fruit obviously doesn’t agree with them.”
The End
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Tosh, Owen, Team, OCs.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Another bunch of aliens attempt to invade earth, but they didn’t take into account Torchwood’s ingenuity.
Word Count: 1061
Written For: My own prompt ‘Torchwood, Team or any, Using oranges as bowling balls to knock down invading aliens’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
All Torchwood agents learned early on that just because something was small that didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t dangerous. There were plenty of alien races that were shorter than the average human, but lack of height didn’t make the more aggressive ones any less likely to attempt invasion, or any easier to deal with when they did.
“What’ve we got, Tosh?” Jack shouted over the blaring of the Rift alert as he approached the tech expert’s workstation.
Fingers tapping rapidly at her keyboard, Tosh called up the coordinates of the Rift spike. “Not sure yet, but it’s registering as something alive. It’s out at the Ferry Road Retail Park somewhere. Hold on a minute while I narrow it down… Got it, the Asda Superstore. There should be cameras inside, let me pull up visuals…” She frowned as her screens blurred out. “That’s odd.”
“What’s up?”
“Something’s jamming the store’s CCTV system. I can’t get a clear picture.”
Jack leaned over Tosh’s shoulder. “Don’t think I like the sound of that. Whatever or whoever came through must be using jamming technology of some description; could mean our guest is up to no good.”
“Make that guests, plural,” Tosh said as several more Rift events registered at the same location. “Invasion?”
“I’d say that’s a distinct possibility. Either that or a robbery.” Jack raised his voice. “Okay, kids, gear up and check your guns! Looks like we’re going shopping!”
OoOoO
The Asda superstore was suspiciously silent when they arrived; there were plenty of cars in the car park, but nobody was entering or leaving the supermarket, and all the lights were out, making the interior look shadowy and somehow ominous even though it was only mid-afternoon. The Torchwood team made their way as quietly and unobtrusively as they could around to the back of the building, where they let themselves in through a staff door using a handy alien lock-picking device. Slipping inside and closing the door behind them, keeping low they crept into the public part of the store and cautiously made their way along the aisle that ran alongside the rows of shelves. It didn’t take them long to find what they were looking for.
All the store’s customers and staff had been herded into the dairy section located at one end of the store, where they stood clustered together and unmoving under the watchful eyes of a dozen two-foot tall blue, scaly creatures armed with vicious-looking alien weapons. A dozen more of the invaders were clustered around a curious piece of machinery that they appeared to be constructing from components they must have brought with them.
“What d’you think that thing is?” Owen hissed.
“At a guess, either a weapon, or a way of opening a stable wormhole between their planet and here,” Jack murmured. “Either way, we can’t let them complete it.” He looked from one member of his team to the next. “Suggestions anyone? Preferably something that doesn’t involve a firefight.”
All of the team were armed, but opening fire with so many civilians between them and the invaders was obviously out of the question. If possible, they needed to stop the invasion, if that’s what it was, without incurring any civilian casualties.
“There are ways to put an enemy out of action without risking killing anyone’s life; all it takes is a little ingenuity,” Ianto whispered. “We’ve got plenty of ammunition to hand.” He gestured at the shelves of fresh produce around them. “How’s your fastball?”
Jack grinned. “I like the way you think. Okay people; arm yourselves, quietly as possible.”
Keeping out of sight of the aliens, the team filled abandoned shopping baskets with assorted fruit and vegetables, then got into position, spread out behind the racks of produce in order to avoid making themselves easy targets, and also to keep any of the invasion force from getting past them if they tried to escape. There were no exits from the part of the store the invaders had chosen as their base of operations; they no doubt thought that made it easily defensible, and it did, but it also meant that with Torchwood blocking the only way out, there was no way for them to escape except the way they’d arrived, via a Rift portal.
“Everyone ready?” Jack hissed, his voice reaching his team through the Bluetooth earpieces they were all wearing. “Now!”
Owen’s well-placed potato hit the nearest alien smack in one of its bulbous eyes, doing significant damage, and then the small beings standing guard were being subjected to a rain of potatoes, apples, swedes, and turnips while Ianto and Tosh concentrated on the construction group. Oranges and grapefruit made excellent bowling balls, taking the aliens’ legs right out from under them as if they were nothing more than a bunch of living skittles. Melons proved unwieldy and less accurate but helped to add to the confusion.
The aliens scarcely knew what was happening. Some of them tried to hide behind their captives, who up to this point had simply been standing there as if frozen to the spot, but as one of Jack’s missiles hit an alien standing off to the side, it dropped the silvery box it was holding, which shattered on contact with the tiled floor. The erstwhile shoppers, waking from some kind of technologically-induced trance, looked around themselves in confusion, spotted the aliens, screamed, and then chaos ensued, which turned out not to be such a bad thing, since several aliens got trampled underfoot in the stampede.
Half a dozen of the would-be invaders, took refuge behind the still unfinished device, firing their weapons at anything that moved, but they weren’t too good at hitting moving targets and most of their shots missed, although the lasers did set fire to one man’s coat and two shopping bags, and fried a display of onions. Ianto lobbed his biggest melon over the top of the device and Tosh used the last of the oranges to pick off the aliens as they broke cover. The battle was over in hardly more than five minutes, without Torchwood firing a shot.
Jack sent Owen and Tosh to retcon the shoppers, who were unable to escape since the aliens had somehow jammed the doors. As the rest of the team rounded up the surviving members of the invasion force, Ianto quipped, “Fruit obviously doesn’t agree with them.”
The End