Harm's Way (short story)

Summary
'Part One' Issue 8 (6 pages)

Landing in the back garden of a house in Pontcanna, the Torchwood team of Jack, Tosh, and Ianto retrieve an ‘artefact’ that has appeared. Some two metres long by one metre wide, and resembling a loaf of bread with a thick crust but translucent like amber, with a strong organic smell. The ‘artefact is moved back to the Hub, in a van acquired by Owen, and taken to the autopsy lab. Gwen has been given a ‘morning off’, which she has decided to spend having coffee with Rhys at a café. Rhys voices his concerns and worries, about her career choice (mainly the daily threat she faces to her life) and a call from Jack calling her back to work and cutting their meeting short doesn’t help matters.

Back at the Hub it is Gwen who suggests the artefact is a chrysalis with something organic and alive inside, which would explain the dead readings from the scan. Under UV light there appears to be some form of script writing on the shell, but before it can be translated, Gwen is proved right and the chrysalis splits open and a huge multi-limbed creature breaks out. With lightening speed the creature leaves Jack knocked out after being thrown against a wall and Owen hiding his bloodied face and moaning in a way that reminds Gwen of a child run over by a bin lorry. Ianto races to the armoury while Gwen, leaving Toshiko to tend the wounded Owen, pursues the creature in the Hub. Ianto is brushed aside by the creature following a hail of bullets which seem to have had little effect and as the creature moves in on Gwen, her phone rings – the last thing she’ll probably ever hear, Rhys calling…..

'Part Two' Issue 9 (6 pages)

Gwen lies unconscious in a hospital bed in a separate room at the hospital linked up to various machines when Rhys arrives. Jack soon joins him at the bedside, his “She’s gonna be alright” comments do little to pacify a very angry Rhys who demands to know what happened.

Guided by Toshiko back at the Hub to another Rift disturbance, Owen and Ianto meanwhile have discovered another chrysalis in the middle of a building site. All around the open shell are the torn-apart remains of workers bodies.

Jack explains to Rhys about the chrysalis they found, that opened up and proved to be - hostile. The creature is currently trapped inside a highly localised time-field created by Tosh using the Rift manipulator. The creature is alive but moving very slowly. The effect will not last for long. The only weakness that has been identified in the creature’s armoury is a soft, unprotected area of the palette that is only exposed for a brief moment before it strikes out. But Jack is more concerned about the other creature on the loose in Cardiff and, leaving Rhys ‘grateful’ that Gwen is alive (albeit with a hairline fracture to her skull and some cracked ribs), Jack joins Owen and Ianto. The second creature has been located in Grangetown – heading towards the city, bigger than the first, some nine-foot in size and growing according to police reports. As the creature causes unstoppable devastation, turning over buses, and ripping cars in half, Toshiko can hear the chaos as Jack tries to take control of the system. When the communications go down all she can get is the BBC News channel’s report suddenly brought to an end by the sound of a huge explosion and an image of a huge orange fireball …

'Part Three' Issue 10 (7 pages)

In the hospital room, several hours after her admission, Gwen makes a recovery. Her first concern is Jack and the others and against Rhys pleas to rest, he helps her discharge herself and takes her back to the Hub via the paving stone lift to Toshiko.

Jack is trying hard to motivate a badly injured Owen into getting up out of the gutter. They had got split up from Ianto in the fracas and Owen had taken another knock. Ianto arrives and helps Jack get Owen in the back of the SUV where Owen is treated with a broad spectrum range of antibiotics from the glove compartment for his infected wounds. Leaving Owen with Ianto, Jack goes after the second creature.

From inside the Hub Toshiko tells the others what she has leant from the glyphs on the casing. It appears that the two creatures are rivals, opposites of each other. She believes that they have both come through the Rift not as flotsam and jetsam but for a purpose. Toshiko believes they are contestants, sent through the Rift to settle there differences. Jack listens hard to what Toshiko is saying as the military arrives (possibly UNIT). These aliens need each other. Gwen suggests letting them get on with it. Jack takes a little convincing to release the creature in the hub, but with the sound of the second creatures challenge cry ringing in his ears and the containment field in the hub about to break any time soon Jack gives the command.

Released, the first creature makes its way up the gantry to the open space where the pavement stone lift in pursuit of its opponent while the Gwen, Rhys and Toshiko play catch up. At the Millennium Stadium the second creature responds, crying out to the other and very soon the two creatures are locked in ferocious battle. The first creature although smaller turns out to be more vicious than the other more powerful creature. Black blood is spilled around the stadium as the two fight it out. The second creature is momentarily distracted by the arrival of Gwen and Rhys on the other side of the stadium. Seizing the advantage the first creature strikes and makes the kill. Torchwood watch as the dead creature glows – a blood-red luminance spreading across its body before it fades away. The first creature is drawn to Gwen and as it moves in for the kill a second time that day a single shot rings out. Jacks last bullet in his Webley revolver fires into the creatures mouth, hitting the soft palette and through to the creatures unprotected brain. Like the second creature this too glows red and faded from existence – just as if they never existed. As the casualties and damaged is assessed it is Rhys that observes that “Sometimes there are just too many people in harm’s way”. Jack reminds him that “We look after our own at Torchwood, as well as everyone else.”

Characters

 * Jack Harkness
 * Gwen Cooper
 * Owen Harper
 * Toshiko Sato
 * Ianto Jones
 * Rhys Williams

Continuity
to be added