Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Aliens, Team Torchwood and Co.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Aliens are trying to invade Cardiff by seizing control of the Hub.
Word Count: 1252
Written For: oneill’s prompt ‘Any, Any, Are you hoping for a miracle?’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
Another alien invasion attempt, Ianto sighed; must be Tuesday. This one was going a bit more successfully for this particular band of aliens than was usually the case; they’d managed to get inside the Hub via the invisible lift after sending most of the team off on a wild goose chase, but the Hub hadn’t been left unmanned.
So, now Ianto was tied up, sitting on the sofa, and held at gunpoint. Well, alien weapon point really; the things the aliens were carrying didn’t look like any kind of gun he’d ever seen. Perhaps they were lasers, which would mean he was being held at laser point. Did lasers have points? Working that out probably wasn’t terribly important right now, but it gave him something to think about.
The lead alien abruptly kicked Ianto’s foot. “Pay attention, human! I was speaking to you!”
“Were you? Oh, so sorry, I was thinking about my to do list. I hope you realise how much extra work you’re adding to it.”
“You will give me the access codes to your weapons store, and to the rest of this facility!”
Ianto considered that. “No, actually I won’t.”
“If you do not cooperate, you will be killed!”
“That would be rather counter-productive, don’t you think? Kill me and you’ll never find out what you want to know. Not that I plan on telling you anything anyway.” Ianto smiled pleasantly at his captors. “I only take orders from two people; my boss, and the Queen of England. You’re not on the list.”
“Why are you not afraid? Our research has proved that humans fear death! Are you hoping for a miracle?”
“Hoping? No, not really. Hoping would imply that I’m not sure whether or not I’ll get one. Expecting would be more accurate.”
The leader turned away. “This one is not right in the head, perhaps that is why it has been left behind while the others follow our false distress call.”
Ianto continued to smile blandly, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He could feel a gentle tugging at the ropes binding his wrists behind him, and soon they were free, though he kept his arms in the same position so the aliens wouldn’t notice. Something cold was pushed into his hands; his gun. Clever Flufflet! He shifted his feet, tucking them a little further beneath the sofa, and soon felt Dizzy go to work on the rope around his ankles. The aliens’ weapons might look fancy, but their method of restraining a captive was decidedly low-tech.
Even after his ankles were free, Ianto didn’t move. The rest of the team would be getting into position; Jack had known from the start that the distress signal was a fake, but had wanted to draw the invaders inside the Hub before confronting them so that Torchwood wouldn’t need to Retcon half of Cardiff this time. He and the others planned to re-enter the Hub through the garage and a secret passageway off the sewers.
The rest of the Hub’s defence force were also awaiting the signal to move, having kept themselves out of sight up to this point while the ‘invasion force’ had searched the areas of the Hub they didn’t need security codes to access. George was in one of the autopsy bay drawers, Myfanwy in her aerie, which none of the invaders had bothered climbing up to, and Nosy was hidden in its ball pit. Down in the cells, Janet, Brad, and Frank would be out of their comfy cells by now and ready to storm the Hub along with Owen, Andy, and Mickey as they came up from the sewer entrance.
All forty aliens were starting to argue among themselves; things weren’t going as smoothly as their leader had led them to expect and they were becoming increasingly restless. The one in charge yelled at them in their own language, trying to restore order, and that was when the ‘Go’ signal was activated. The computers throughout the Hub suddenly came to life as Tosh used her PDA to take them out of sleep mode. Further distracted, the aliens turned to look, and Ianto took advantage of their inattention to surge to his feet, shooting his guard right through his middle eye as he turned, killing him instantly, only to be pierced by laser fire himself a split second later as the leader gunned him down. Maybe ‘gun’ was the right word for their weapons after all.
Chaos ensued. The aliens started shooting, trying to hit the monsters that suddenly appeared among them. A headless human swung a heavy implement that knocked them off their feet, breaking bones. A massive winged creature plucked one of their number from the ground, soaring upwards only to drop him from a considerable height onto several of his fellows. A trio of vicious creatures with razor sharp teeth and claws tore into the invaders as a terrifying, jet-black monster with spiky fur and huge green eyes coiled around two of them at once, squeezing the life from them. Dodging about among the monsters were the Torchwood team, disarming and taking prisoner the aliens who had foolishly thought they could invade earth by seizing control of the Torchwood Hub.
The battle was over in hardly more than five minutes, leaving half of the invasion force either dead or seriously wounded and the rest securely bound. The only casualty on the human’s side was the aliens’ original captive, who lay near the sofa where he’d been held for interrogation.
Torchwood’s commander forced the alien leader to what passed for knees in his species, gesturing to the fallen human. “You killed my Ianto,” he snarled. “I should execute you for that, but lucky for you, I have other plans which require you to be alive.”
“It was defective, wrong in the head,” the alien stated coldly. “It believed it would be saved by a miracle. It was wrong.”
“Was he? What do you call this? You outnumbered us three to one, and yet we still won.”
“But the one you call your Ianto is dead.”
The deceased man on the floor suddenly convulsed, gasping, and sat up. All colour drained from the alien leader’s face. “Impossible! I killed you!”
“Yes, you did, and it bloody well hurt!” Ianto got to his feet. “Not to mention you’ve ruined my suit. Look at it! There’s a hole burned right through! Do you have any idea how much this cost?” He turned his attention to the alien who’d held him prisoner not so long ago. “On the other hand, how’s that for a miracle?”
Jack leant down close to the leader of the failed invasion. “A little something you and your people might want to remember if you ever get the urge to invade earth again. We can’t die. No matter what you do to us, no matter how many times you try, we will always get back up again, and then we will kill you. Now, we’re going to put you and what’s left of your people back on your ship and you’re going to leave. But if you ever come back, we won’t be so nice about it. Understand?”
White faced, the leader of the ill-fated invasion nodded.
An hour later, the invaders’ ship was gone and the Hub was almost back to normal, thanks to everyone pitching in to help with the cleanup.
Funnily enough, after that day, the number of invasion attempts each year dropped to almost zero.
The End