Fic: Galactic Adventurers
Title: Galactic Adventurers
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2050
Summary: Jack and Ianto never know what they might stumble across next while exploring out on the rim.
Spoilers: Nada. Set in my Ghost of a Chance ‘Verse.
Written For: Challenge 460: Thirst at fan_flashworks.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood or any of the characters.
To work for Torchwood, you needed to be an adventurous sort, ready to face whatever came your way with an open mind, fast reflexes, and nerves of steel. Growing up, Ianto had never considered himself particularly adventurous, definitely hadn’t believed he had nerves of steel. Fast reflexes? Possibly. An open mind? Maybe. Probably. But the rest? He’d always preferred things quiet, calm, orderly, predictable. Sure, he’d run with a gang on the estate when he was a teen, getting into all kinds of trouble, but that had been unavoidable. You had to fit in, act like one of the lads, otherwise you became a target, picked on, sneered at, relentlessly bullied…
He’d left Newport as soon as he was able, headed to London, not because he was looking for adventure, because that never crossed his mind, just to get away from the dead-end life of slaving in a factory, and earning hardly more than minimum wage, which, along with marrying the girl down the street and popping out a bunch of kids, was about all he could look forward to. He’d wanted something better than that for himself, a good job with decent pay, a chance to BE someone instead of being a nobody, and he’d thought he’d found it at Canary Wharf. He’d had the office job, the nice flat, friends who had no reason not to believe him when he said he was the son of a master tailor, and he’d had Lisa, the kind of woman who would’ve never given him a first glance back on the estate, never mind a second. Stunningly beautiful, elegant, and sophisticated, she was so far out of his league it had taken him two months to pluck up the courage to ask her out.
From then on, he’d been living the dream, until it had all fallen apart in fire, and blood, and mind-numbing terror as alien monsters had rampaged through Torchwood Tower, intent on killing or converting everyone they encountered. He’d lost almost everything that day, his job, his friends, his colleagues, even the future he’d been making plans for, and he’d fled back to Cardiff with his half-converted lover, bound and determined to save her, no matter what it took, desperately trying to salvage something for himself from the wreckage of his life.
That hadn’t worked out either. Despite utilising all of Torchwood Three’s resources, in the end he’d had to accept that Lisa was too far gone to save. He’d watched in shock as his new colleagues had put an end to the monster she’d become, and he’d fully expected to face a firing squad himself; that was Torchwood’s usual punishment for an act of treason, and harbouring a partially converted Cyberwoman must certainly have counted as such. But instead of executing or retconning him, Jack had kept Ianto on, worked to integrate him with the team.
As a team building exercise, the trip to the Brecon Beacons had been less than ideal, but it had taught Ianto a few things about himself. Faced by rural cannibals and a fridge full of human body parts, his nerves had trembled, faltered, strung taut as guitar strings, but mostly held. He’d helped Tosh escape, survived being tenderised, picked himself up, and kept going, and in time, he’d discovered more of a thirst for adventure within himself than he would have ever suspected. Chasing and capturing Weevils, battling hostile aliens intent on invading the planet, dealing with all manner of peculiar technological devices, falling in love with his very male boss… Who knew adventure could be so much fun?
Of course, he’d died before he’d had the chance for much in the way of adventuring, but Jack was the stubborn sort, even more so than Ianto himself, and had worked tirelessly, searching for a way to bring him back. Then, when he’d finally succeeded in restoring Ianto’s wandering soul to his carefully preserved body, kept in cryogenic suspension for years, off they’d gone together, out into space, in search of the kinds of adventure they could have never found on earth.
And it was good. Better than good, really. Such a vast universe to explore, so many worlds to visit, so many wonders to see, so many new things to try: Food and drink, music, sports, and other pastimes… Every day was an adventure! Some of it was the quiet, stress-free kind, strolling unhurriedly through space stations and alien marketplaces, playing tourist on some of the most breathtakingly beautiful and culturally diverse planets in the universe, or exploring undiscovered planets. Some of it was the dramatic, death-defying kind, battling space pirates, defending the innocent, delivering food and medical supplies to colonies hit by plagues, or natural disasters, pitting themselves against all manner of unearthly dangers.
Sometimes the death-defying was less than successful and resulted in actual death, which wasn’t what either of them would have called fun, but Ianto supposed that could be classed as an occupational hazard. Not that either of them stayed dead for long even on the worst occasions, but in time even that became just another part of the adventure, to be avoided wherever possible and put up with when unavoidable.
It made for a varied and exciting life. There was never any shortage of work, hauling cargo from place to place, and there were usually plenty of entertainments on offer wherever they ended up. Well, except when they were out on the rim of known space, on one of their occasional voyages of discovery. There was precious little in the way of civilisation out there. In fact, most of the time there wasn’t much of anything, and that included life.
They were out on the rim now, ridiculously far from the nearest colonised planet, poking around, searching for deposits of various minerals and metallic elements on uninhabited planets, moons, and asteroids for one of the big mining conglomerates. They were being paid well for their time, and for the risks they were taking, and would also get a share of any profits, but that wasn’t why they’d taken the job. Sometimes, it was simply fun to go, as Star Trek used to say, where no man had gone before, and see things that, as far as anyone knew, no other living being had ever laid eyes on.
But sometimes, what they found wasn’t too happy about it.
“I thought you said this planet was uninhabited!” Ianto yelled at his husband as they ran flat-out across the undulating, grassy plain towards where they’d landed one of the Wanderer’s shuttles.
“It’s supposed to be!” Jack yelled back. “Nothing was registering on the shuttle’s scanners except for plant life!”
“That…” Ianto flung one arm out, pointing behind him, “is not a plant!”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Jack argued. “It could be! Mobile plants do exist! I’ve even met some!”
“And how many of them have ten-inch-long teeth?”
“No idea, you’ll have to check the lifeform databases when we get back to Galactic Central.”
“I don’t need to; I can tell you the answer right now,” Ianto panted. “NONE! Plants don’t HAVE teeth, not even the carnivorous ones! They don’t need them”
“Then why did you ask?”
“I was making a point! Now shut up and run; it’s gaining on us!”
A few hundred yards behind them, the alien was in hot pursuit, formidable teeth gnashing, and dozens of short, stumpy legs scuttling away beneath a segmented yellowish-brown body that bore a disturbing resemblance to a string of sausages, propelling it across the ground deceptively fast.
Even so, thanks to adrenaline and the perfectly understandable motivation of not wanting to get eaten, they made it to their shuttle well ahead of their pursuer. Diving inside, they scrambled for their seats, strapped themselves in, and were airborne before the sausage creature could even attempt to stop them.
“That was too close for comfort!” Ianto said from the pilot’s seat as the shuttle soared upwards, leaving the rolling plains far behind. “Mark this planet as one to avoid.”
“But there’re significant deposits of berethium down there!”
“And that’s where they’ll stay, as long as there’re fifty-foot-long, multi-legged sausage monsters guarding them.”
“We only saw one, and we don’t know that it was guarding anything,” Jack said, digging his heels in. “It might just be a stranded traveller.”
Ianto arched an eyebrow. “Really? I didn’t notice you trying to communicate with it.”
Jack shrugged. “It didn’t seem like it was in the mood to talk.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Maybe we should have another try.”
“Go ahead if you want, but don’t expect me to go with you. I know when I’m not welcome, even if you don’t.”
“What happened to your thirst for adventure?”
“I left it back on the planet. Right now, my only thirst is for a restorative cup of coffee. I’m parched. All that running is thirsty work.”
Jack rummaged in the shuttle’s emergency supplies. “Sorry, no coffee; you’ll have to make do with water until we get back to the Wanderer.”
“That’ll do for now, but as soon as we’re back aboard, I’m making coffee, and then we’re going to do a thorough scan of the planet, figure out why we didn’t detect our friend down there, and put up warning beacons to prevent anyone else who might pass this way from landing and getting themselves eaten.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t have eaten us.”
“You saw the teeth, Jack! No way that thing was a herbivore.”
“Fine.” Jack passed a bottle of water to his husband. “Have it your way. It was a vicious carnivorous sausage monster.”
“Thank you.” Breaking the seal, Ianto took a drink; it wasn’t the much-needed coffee, but the water was cold and refreshing, and probably better for quenching his thirst than coffee would have been.
“Maybe it’s a burrower,” Jack said, opening a bottle of water for himself as they left the planet’s atmosphere and Ianto set course to intercept the Wanderer, in orbit above the planet. “If it lives underground, the berethium deposits might have hidden its presence from our scanners. If we set them to ignore the berethium…”
Ianto nodded. “You can do that while I make the coffee.” Setting his empty bottle aside, he guided the small craft towards the Wanderer’s shuttle bay, gliding smoothly in as the barn door slid closed behind them, before setting the shuttle down on its pad, automatic clamps locking it securely in place. They had to wait for the bay to repressurise, but as soon as it did, they headed out, Jack towards the bridge and Ianto to the galley.
“Coffee is served,” Ianto announced, entering the bridge a short while later with two steaming travel mugs and a large thermos jug. “Any luck with the recalibration of the scanners?”
“Oh yes,” Jack said darkly, reaching for the nearest mug. “And I was right, our sausage-y friend does live underground, along with all his buddies.”
Leaning over Jack’s shoulder, Ianto stared at the screen which showed a patchy image of what appeared to be a network of underground tunnels, peppered with dozens of moving heat signatures.
“Hah! Now will you agree to the warning beacons?”
“Looks like I don’t have a choice. Inhabited planet, pre-industrial civilisation, not to be interfered with. They might look like mobile strings of sausages, but that doesn’t mean they’ll never develop intelligence. Maybe they already have. Whatever the case, they have the right to evolve at their own pace, and in their own way.”
“Well, let’s hope they never advance far enough to develop space travel. Carnivorous sausage monsters rampaging through space doesn’t bear thinking about.” Ianto slid into his seat and took a drink from his mug, sighing contentedly. “Ah, that hits the spot!”
“Mmmmm,” Jack agreed, sipping from his own mug and sliding bonelessly down in his seat. “Not that I don’t still enjoy the adventure, but if there’s one thing I’ll never lose my thirst for, it’s your coffee.”
“Just my coffee?” Ianto arched an eyebrow.
“The coffee, and the man who makes it,” Jack corrected himself. “One without the other would be unthinkable.”
“That’s better. Wouldn’t want to think you were losing interest so soon, it’s only been a couple of centuries.”
“Losing interest?” Jack laughed. “I can promise you that’s never going to happen.”
The End
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2050
Summary: Jack and Ianto never know what they might stumble across next while exploring out on the rim.
Spoilers: Nada. Set in my Ghost of a Chance ‘Verse.
Written For: Challenge 460: Thirst at fan_flashworks.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood or any of the characters.
To work for Torchwood, you needed to be an adventurous sort, ready to face whatever came your way with an open mind, fast reflexes, and nerves of steel. Growing up, Ianto had never considered himself particularly adventurous, definitely hadn’t believed he had nerves of steel. Fast reflexes? Possibly. An open mind? Maybe. Probably. But the rest? He’d always preferred things quiet, calm, orderly, predictable. Sure, he’d run with a gang on the estate when he was a teen, getting into all kinds of trouble, but that had been unavoidable. You had to fit in, act like one of the lads, otherwise you became a target, picked on, sneered at, relentlessly bullied…
He’d left Newport as soon as he was able, headed to London, not because he was looking for adventure, because that never crossed his mind, just to get away from the dead-end life of slaving in a factory, and earning hardly more than minimum wage, which, along with marrying the girl down the street and popping out a bunch of kids, was about all he could look forward to. He’d wanted something better than that for himself, a good job with decent pay, a chance to BE someone instead of being a nobody, and he’d thought he’d found it at Canary Wharf. He’d had the office job, the nice flat, friends who had no reason not to believe him when he said he was the son of a master tailor, and he’d had Lisa, the kind of woman who would’ve never given him a first glance back on the estate, never mind a second. Stunningly beautiful, elegant, and sophisticated, she was so far out of his league it had taken him two months to pluck up the courage to ask her out.
From then on, he’d been living the dream, until it had all fallen apart in fire, and blood, and mind-numbing terror as alien monsters had rampaged through Torchwood Tower, intent on killing or converting everyone they encountered. He’d lost almost everything that day, his job, his friends, his colleagues, even the future he’d been making plans for, and he’d fled back to Cardiff with his half-converted lover, bound and determined to save her, no matter what it took, desperately trying to salvage something for himself from the wreckage of his life.
That hadn’t worked out either. Despite utilising all of Torchwood Three’s resources, in the end he’d had to accept that Lisa was too far gone to save. He’d watched in shock as his new colleagues had put an end to the monster she’d become, and he’d fully expected to face a firing squad himself; that was Torchwood’s usual punishment for an act of treason, and harbouring a partially converted Cyberwoman must certainly have counted as such. But instead of executing or retconning him, Jack had kept Ianto on, worked to integrate him with the team.
As a team building exercise, the trip to the Brecon Beacons had been less than ideal, but it had taught Ianto a few things about himself. Faced by rural cannibals and a fridge full of human body parts, his nerves had trembled, faltered, strung taut as guitar strings, but mostly held. He’d helped Tosh escape, survived being tenderised, picked himself up, and kept going, and in time, he’d discovered more of a thirst for adventure within himself than he would have ever suspected. Chasing and capturing Weevils, battling hostile aliens intent on invading the planet, dealing with all manner of peculiar technological devices, falling in love with his very male boss… Who knew adventure could be so much fun?
Of course, he’d died before he’d had the chance for much in the way of adventuring, but Jack was the stubborn sort, even more so than Ianto himself, and had worked tirelessly, searching for a way to bring him back. Then, when he’d finally succeeded in restoring Ianto’s wandering soul to his carefully preserved body, kept in cryogenic suspension for years, off they’d gone together, out into space, in search of the kinds of adventure they could have never found on earth.
And it was good. Better than good, really. Such a vast universe to explore, so many worlds to visit, so many wonders to see, so many new things to try: Food and drink, music, sports, and other pastimes… Every day was an adventure! Some of it was the quiet, stress-free kind, strolling unhurriedly through space stations and alien marketplaces, playing tourist on some of the most breathtakingly beautiful and culturally diverse planets in the universe, or exploring undiscovered planets. Some of it was the dramatic, death-defying kind, battling space pirates, defending the innocent, delivering food and medical supplies to colonies hit by plagues, or natural disasters, pitting themselves against all manner of unearthly dangers.
Sometimes the death-defying was less than successful and resulted in actual death, which wasn’t what either of them would have called fun, but Ianto supposed that could be classed as an occupational hazard. Not that either of them stayed dead for long even on the worst occasions, but in time even that became just another part of the adventure, to be avoided wherever possible and put up with when unavoidable.
It made for a varied and exciting life. There was never any shortage of work, hauling cargo from place to place, and there were usually plenty of entertainments on offer wherever they ended up. Well, except when they were out on the rim of known space, on one of their occasional voyages of discovery. There was precious little in the way of civilisation out there. In fact, most of the time there wasn’t much of anything, and that included life.
They were out on the rim now, ridiculously far from the nearest colonised planet, poking around, searching for deposits of various minerals and metallic elements on uninhabited planets, moons, and asteroids for one of the big mining conglomerates. They were being paid well for their time, and for the risks they were taking, and would also get a share of any profits, but that wasn’t why they’d taken the job. Sometimes, it was simply fun to go, as Star Trek used to say, where no man had gone before, and see things that, as far as anyone knew, no other living being had ever laid eyes on.
But sometimes, what they found wasn’t too happy about it.
“I thought you said this planet was uninhabited!” Ianto yelled at his husband as they ran flat-out across the undulating, grassy plain towards where they’d landed one of the Wanderer’s shuttles.
“It’s supposed to be!” Jack yelled back. “Nothing was registering on the shuttle’s scanners except for plant life!”
“That…” Ianto flung one arm out, pointing behind him, “is not a plant!”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Jack argued. “It could be! Mobile plants do exist! I’ve even met some!”
“And how many of them have ten-inch-long teeth?”
“No idea, you’ll have to check the lifeform databases when we get back to Galactic Central.”
“I don’t need to; I can tell you the answer right now,” Ianto panted. “NONE! Plants don’t HAVE teeth, not even the carnivorous ones! They don’t need them”
“Then why did you ask?”
“I was making a point! Now shut up and run; it’s gaining on us!”
A few hundred yards behind them, the alien was in hot pursuit, formidable teeth gnashing, and dozens of short, stumpy legs scuttling away beneath a segmented yellowish-brown body that bore a disturbing resemblance to a string of sausages, propelling it across the ground deceptively fast.
Even so, thanks to adrenaline and the perfectly understandable motivation of not wanting to get eaten, they made it to their shuttle well ahead of their pursuer. Diving inside, they scrambled for their seats, strapped themselves in, and were airborne before the sausage creature could even attempt to stop them.
“That was too close for comfort!” Ianto said from the pilot’s seat as the shuttle soared upwards, leaving the rolling plains far behind. “Mark this planet as one to avoid.”
“But there’re significant deposits of berethium down there!”
“And that’s where they’ll stay, as long as there’re fifty-foot-long, multi-legged sausage monsters guarding them.”
“We only saw one, and we don’t know that it was guarding anything,” Jack said, digging his heels in. “It might just be a stranded traveller.”
Ianto arched an eyebrow. “Really? I didn’t notice you trying to communicate with it.”
Jack shrugged. “It didn’t seem like it was in the mood to talk.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Maybe we should have another try.”
“Go ahead if you want, but don’t expect me to go with you. I know when I’m not welcome, even if you don’t.”
“What happened to your thirst for adventure?”
“I left it back on the planet. Right now, my only thirst is for a restorative cup of coffee. I’m parched. All that running is thirsty work.”
Jack rummaged in the shuttle’s emergency supplies. “Sorry, no coffee; you’ll have to make do with water until we get back to the Wanderer.”
“That’ll do for now, but as soon as we’re back aboard, I’m making coffee, and then we’re going to do a thorough scan of the planet, figure out why we didn’t detect our friend down there, and put up warning beacons to prevent anyone else who might pass this way from landing and getting themselves eaten.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t have eaten us.”
“You saw the teeth, Jack! No way that thing was a herbivore.”
“Fine.” Jack passed a bottle of water to his husband. “Have it your way. It was a vicious carnivorous sausage monster.”
“Thank you.” Breaking the seal, Ianto took a drink; it wasn’t the much-needed coffee, but the water was cold and refreshing, and probably better for quenching his thirst than coffee would have been.
“Maybe it’s a burrower,” Jack said, opening a bottle of water for himself as they left the planet’s atmosphere and Ianto set course to intercept the Wanderer, in orbit above the planet. “If it lives underground, the berethium deposits might have hidden its presence from our scanners. If we set them to ignore the berethium…”
Ianto nodded. “You can do that while I make the coffee.” Setting his empty bottle aside, he guided the small craft towards the Wanderer’s shuttle bay, gliding smoothly in as the barn door slid closed behind them, before setting the shuttle down on its pad, automatic clamps locking it securely in place. They had to wait for the bay to repressurise, but as soon as it did, they headed out, Jack towards the bridge and Ianto to the galley.
“Coffee is served,” Ianto announced, entering the bridge a short while later with two steaming travel mugs and a large thermos jug. “Any luck with the recalibration of the scanners?”
“Oh yes,” Jack said darkly, reaching for the nearest mug. “And I was right, our sausage-y friend does live underground, along with all his buddies.”
Leaning over Jack’s shoulder, Ianto stared at the screen which showed a patchy image of what appeared to be a network of underground tunnels, peppered with dozens of moving heat signatures.
“Hah! Now will you agree to the warning beacons?”
“Looks like I don’t have a choice. Inhabited planet, pre-industrial civilisation, not to be interfered with. They might look like mobile strings of sausages, but that doesn’t mean they’ll never develop intelligence. Maybe they already have. Whatever the case, they have the right to evolve at their own pace, and in their own way.”
“Well, let’s hope they never advance far enough to develop space travel. Carnivorous sausage monsters rampaging through space doesn’t bear thinking about.” Ianto slid into his seat and took a drink from his mug, sighing contentedly. “Ah, that hits the spot!”
“Mmmmm,” Jack agreed, sipping from his own mug and sliding bonelessly down in his seat. “Not that I don’t still enjoy the adventure, but if there’s one thing I’ll never lose my thirst for, it’s your coffee.”
“Just my coffee?” Ianto arched an eyebrow.
“The coffee, and the man who makes it,” Jack corrected himself. “One without the other would be unthinkable.”
“That’s better. Wouldn’t want to think you were losing interest so soon, it’s only been a couple of centuries.”
“Losing interest?” Jack laughed. “I can promise you that’s never going to happen.”
The End