Give the Pixie More Liquor!

Prologue--Astonishing



Part I—Echo
In the very grand scheme of things, Earth is physically a small planet around a minor star in an insignificant arm of a spinning galaxy. And while this fact has rankled countless of Earth’s inhabitants through the millennia, they still accept it in some small part of their brains.

However, in a different light on the grand scheme of things, Earth is spectacularly important. There is something about the tiny, spinning ball of blue that brings out both the conquering and protective instincts of various races. Through the millennia, Earth has been noticed or ignored depending upon the race looking at it. From the notices came legends of gods and monsters that outlasted civilizations and apocalypses.

Now, it was being noticed because it housed something that did not belong to it. Something which had been lost to its owners (and their conquerors) for millennia. Something which had been found and was now being held in the fragile hands of this puny, human world’s denizens.

The Kovarian knelt before her master on a desolate moon. They waited here for their chance to ravage Earth and all its denizens.

“My Lord,” she said.

A twitch of the figure above and before her was the only signal it had heard.

“The gateway is nearly ready. We shall send Gray through and he shall seize the Tesseract from its captors. He will open a hole in the fabric of space and time and our forces, our Chitauri, shall take this planet.”

The figure lifted a hand and flicked it, acknowledging her information and dismissing her in one movement.

The Kovarian stood and turned. She passed the ranks of the Chitauri, chittering to each other in the way of hive-minded creatures. Only their hive leaders were absolutely silent. Silent, and able to blend in by being shiveringly unable to remember once they were out of your sight. She walked quickly to the room their newest ally was waiting.

“It is time,” she said as she entered the room.

Gray of the Shane looked up at her. He had been sitting on the ground, his staff resting across his folded legs as he meditated.

“Are you ready to fulfill your end of the bargain?” she asked.

He grinned at her, his scarred face giving the expression a layer of menace.

“And so it begins,” he said.
****

Ianto Jones waited patiently on the helipad, the wind from the landing helicopter whipping the clothing of the guards, but not Ianto or his suit. He kept his gaze, shielded by sunglasses despite the late hour, steadily on the open door of the helicopter, waiting for his boss to alight.

Gwen Cooper came out first, her landing making a soft sound even over the noise of the rotors. Ianto sighed inwardly; the woman would never be capable of covert missions. Hopkins followed her, his landing soundless.

“What have we got, Jones?” Hopkins asked as he headed inside the research facility.

Ianto automatically fell into step on Hopkins’ left side and didn’t wait to be sure Gwen was following them.

“That’s the problem, sir, we don’t know,” Ianto replied. “Dr. Sato read an energy surge on the Tesseract four hours ago.”

“Dr. Sato is not authorized for live testing.”

“She wasn’t testing, sir. The surge was a spontaneous event.”

“It just turned itself on without warning?” Gwen asked.

That’s what spontaneous means, Ianto thought, but held his silence. “Dr. Sato says that if it keeps doing this, we may not be able to control it.”

“How long until the facility is cleared?” Hopkins asked.

“All personnel and essential equipment will be evacuated within the hour.”

“Do better.”

“Sir,” Ianto said, peeling off from them to go work his formidable organizational skills on the evacuation.

“Sir, if we don’t get the Tesseract under control, there may be no such thing as ‘minimum safe distance’,” Gwen said as they descended the stairs down into the main labs.

“So, you think we should tell everyone to go home? Or perhaps tuck themselves under their desks and cover their heads with their arms?”

“Of course not, but—”

Hopkins managed to fix her with a harsh stare as he sure-footedly marched backwards down the stairs. “Then until there is irrefutable proof to the contrary, we will continue to act as though the world is going to continue turning. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Be sure all the Phase 2 equipment is on the next truck out.”

“Yes, sir,” she repeated, peeling off at a landing to go fulfill his orders.

Hopkins swept into the main lab, situated in the very bowels of the complex.

“Talk to me, Dr. Sato,” he snapped as he approached the diminutive scientist.

Toshiko Sato, whom he had (via Ianto’s intel) snatched from the claws of a UNIT cell after the Brecon Beacons debacle (and Ianto still hadn’t forgiven him for letting UNIT get their hands on Sato for even an hour), turned to face him, unfazed by his demeanor. She had gone toe-to-toe with a god, after all. Hopkins had liberated the taser she had used on Boe from UNIT and kept it in a clear box on his desk. R&D desperately wanted their hands on it to see Dr. Sato’s alterations to the device, but he kept them at bay. If R&D had the specs in their system, it would only be a matter of time before the Doctor would have them, and that was one headache he didn’t need: the Doctor with his hands on a taser that could take down a god.

“The Tesseract is misbehaving,” she said, pulling him out of his reverie.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“No joke. As soon as we shut her off, she goes around us and turns herself back on.”

“How?”

Tosh gave a small shrug, her eyes alight with the thrill of science. “She’s a source of pure energy, Director. And she’s ready to wake up.”

Hopkins watched the Tesseract glow in its harness, slashes of blue light flinging into the air and then disappearing in a heartbeat. “Is it safe to be this close?” he asked.

“Perfectly. She’s throwing off some low levels of gamma radiation; nothing to worry about.”

Hopkins turned to look at her, his eye narrowed. “Gamma radiation can be dangerous.”

Tosh waved him off. “I’ve read the Harper files front to back, Director. We are nowhere near that kind of exposure.”

Hopkins sighed. “Where’s Hart?”

Tosh laughed. “The hawk? He’s in his nest, of course.”

Hopkins looked up into the scaffolding, spotting his sniper. He pressed his finger to his comm. “Hart, report.”

He watched as John Hart hopped up, kicked a coiled rope over the edge of his perch, then slid down it easily. Always with an entrance, that one.

“Report, Hart,” Hopkins said as the other man joined him.

“Sato is clean. Doesn’t do anything but run equations and coo at the results. And she has even less patience for flirting over the comms than you do,” Hart replied.

The two men walked closer to the Tesseract.

“And the rest?”

“Clean. No IMs, no sketchy e-mails. No visits to non-work related websites. Not a single LOLcat. If there’s any tampering with this thing, it’s not happening at this end.”

“At this end?” Hopkins asked, looking at Hart.

Hart barely kept himself from rolling his eyes. Sure, he’d had an…unorthodox upbringing, but he wasn’t a moron. Did no one get the whole ‘sees better from a distance’ thing?

“Yeah,” Hart said. “This thing is a door to the other side of the universe, right?”

Hopkins nodded.

“Doors open from both sides.”

Hopkins had just opened his mouth to answer when the Tesseract seemed to pull in on itself before sending a shockwave outwards. Hart barely took the time to glance at the opened doorway before tackling the director to the ground and covering him with his body. He looked around, cursing silently as he realized Tosh had been the only one with the brains to duck for cover. The rest were staring open-mouthed at whatever was behind him. He carefully turned his head to see what had come through.

The figure of a man was crouched in front of where the rift had opened, and Hart found himself hoping that when the mist cleared, the man would be naked, a la The Terminator. As the guards rushed forward, the man stood and Hart realized that not only was the man fully clothed, he was armed and had a seriously mad look on his face.

“Fuck,” Hart breathed as he and Hopkins stood up.

“Sir, please put down the spear,” Hopkins said to the man.

It took all Hart’s training (read: Jones’ beating into him what was appropriate protocol) to not turn to his superior and say, “Seriously?” The restraint saved his life, as the man with the spear fired energy reminiscent of the Tesseract’s straight at them. For the second time that day, he tackled the director to the ground.

The guards fired and were quickly taken out by the energy from man’s spear and his throwing knives. Hart gained his feet and reached for his gun as the man grabbed him.

“You have heart,” the man said.

Before Hart could make an obvious joke, the man pressed the spear to his chest. He felt a wave of cold wash through and invade his body, and then he felt trapped inside his own head, his body waiting for orders from the man.

Hopkins took advantage of the man’s distraction while corrupting TORCHWOOD’s agents to pull the Tesseract out of its harness, hissing as it burned his gloved fingers. He quickly put it into a secure carrying case, intent on getting it the hell out of the base.

“Please don’t,” the man said, his back still to Hopkins. He turned, a pleasantly feral grin on his scarred face. “I still need that.”

“This doesn’t have to get any messier,” Hopkins said without turning around.

“Of course it does. I’ve come too far for anything less.”

Hopkins turned to face him.

The man spread his arms wide. “I am Gray, of the Shane. And I am burdened with glorious purpose.”

“Gray?” Tosh said, rising from where she had been trying to help her colleagues. “Brother of Boe?”

Gray hissed and glared at her.

“We have no quarrel with your people,” Hopkins said.

“An ant has no quarrel with a boot,” Gray replied, smiling.

“Are you planning to step on us?”

Gray laughed. “I come with glad tidings of a world made free.”

“Free from what?”

Gray eyed Hopkins from head to toe. “Free from freedom. Free from organizations like yours stealing in and out in the night to control people’s choices. All in the name of freedom,” he spat. “Once you accept that freedom is a lie, you will know peace,” he said, before turning and touching the spear to Tosh’s heart. The scientist had been trying to sneak up on him, but she was caught in the same trance as Hart once the spear touched her.

“See, I don’t think peace means what you think it means,” Hopkins said.

“Sir,” Hart called out to Gray. “He’s trying to stall you. This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of Welsh countryside on us. He means to bury us,” Hart said as he joined his new commander.

“Like the pharaohs of old. It’s too bad, Hart. The Queen will miss you.”

Hart twitched at the mention of his long-time partner. Hopkins smiled, realizing Hart was still in there somewhere.

“He’s right,” Tosh interrupted, her gaze on a terminal. “The portal is collapsing upon itself. We have maybe five minutes before it goes critical.”

“Agent Hart,” Gray said softly.

Hart pulled his sidearm and shot Hopkins twice in the chest. Hart, Tosh and Gray moved past the director’s prone form, Hart snagging the case with the Tesseract as he passed. He quickly handed it off to Tosh, knowing he’d need his hands free for combat if they meant to get out of the facility. We’ll have to get past Cooper…and Ianto, he thought. He fought down the need to speak those names to Gray. He found he had some control; while he couldn’t stop his body from following orders, he could keep it from following through with his usual precision. He led the way to the garage.

“We need these vehicles,” Hart said to Gwen as they entered the garage. Tosh climbed into the passenger side of a truck as Gray leapt into the bed, crouching down.

“Who’s that?” Gwen asked.

“Didn’t tell me,” Hart replied as he made his way to the truck.

Hart’s hand was on the door when Gwen’s radio crackled to life.

“Cooper! Do you copy? Hart’s been—”

Gwen missed the rest of Hopkins’ message as she dove for cover. Hart fired three rounds at her before jumping into the truck and starting it. Gwen fired after them before jumping into a jeep. “Are you all right, sir?” she asked into her radio.

“Took two in the vest. Hart’s got the Tesseract. Don’t let them get out of the base with it. I’m calling an evac; this whole place is about to come down,” Hopkins replied.

Gwen swore violently as she threw the jeep into gear and pursued Hart. She sped around other evacuating vehicles, dodging shots from Gray’s spear and the wrecked cars that weren’t as lucky. She managed to get ahead of the truck, then threw the emergency brake and spun around so she was facing it, firing through her windshield. Hart returned fire without hitting her or her tires. Hart finally forced her out of the way and sped up the exit ramp. She followed closely and shouted in fear as the complex collapsed almost on top of her. She grabbed her radio as she skidded to a halt, the rear of her vehicle under debris.

“They got out. Does anyone copy? I’m going to have to dig out,” she said, as she began to kick her way out of the mangled jeep.

Hopkins hurried out onto the landing pad. “We’ll follow,” he replied to Gwen, spotting Ianto leaning halfway out of the chopper to give him a hand in.

“He’s got Hart,” Hopkins shouted as the chopper took off.

Ianto nodded and shouted, “Follow the vehicle out of the south entrance!” to the pilot.

The helicopter quickly honed in on the truck, moving the opposite direction of all the other escaping vehicles. The pilot flew ahead, flanking the chopper. Hopkins and Ianto leaned out the side, firing at the truck with their sidearms.

“Fuck,” Ianto said as he watched Gray take aim at the chopper with his spear. He grabbed Hopkins’ arm and pulled him out of the chopper seconds before the blast hit. They both landed hard, then came up firing at the truck as it sped away.

“Director! Director Hopkins, do you copy?” Gwen shouted through the radio.

“The Tesseract is with a hostile force,” Hopkins replied. “I have men down. You?”

“A lot of men still under; I don’t know how many survivors,” she replied.

“Sound the general call. I want everyone not pulling survivors from the wreckage looking for the Tesseract.”

“Copy,” Gwen said.

“Jones and I are getting back to base. This is a Level 7 event. As of right now, we are at war.”

Ianto sucked in a breath. “What do we do?”

Hopkins gave him a grim smile. “Praying wouldn’t be out of the question. But first, we have calls to make.”




Part II--Never Kill a Boy on the First Date