Silver'verse: 04 | The Guard
Aug. 17th, 2009 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_silver_storyTitle: Silver'verse
Chapter: 04 | The Guard
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
a_silver_story
Genre Alternate Universe, Fluff, a bit domestic, adventure
Rating: G - NC-17
Warnings:
Disclaimer: If I owned anything in this, I'd be a rich rich rich bitch. However, I am not a rich rich rich bitch so you may all, therefore, assume I own nothing. Which I don't. It all belongs RTD and the BBC, in case any of you didn't know.
Summary: Post CoE (begins 3010). Interactive Fiction: the readers have the ultimate say how the next chapter will continue via a poll at the end of each one. (Please remember that as a writer, I can do an RTD, ignore you all and piss off in a totally different direction ... but I wouldn't do that. Not really :p)
FIRST PART of SILVER'VERSE | The Ballad of Ianto Jones: Keeping Promises
FIRST PART of THIS FIC | Starting Over
PREVIOUS | Torchwood Index/Masterlist
04 |
Here are the results from last weeks voting!
Last week, you all went silly voting on the Galactic Guard. Only a few people went for the far more interesing option of the enemy baring down ... but that's okay. In reality, what I had planned for that was boring anyway ... hehehehehe I knew which one you were going to pick alllllll along :~P
The shuttle lurched again, juddering against the force field the incoming ships had wrapped around them.
“Just give us the ID!” Ianto shouted at Mrs. Cooper.
“Fine, fine! One Galactic Senate Dauntless, two Galactic Senate Scouts. Both armed, and heading this way.”
Jack let out the breath he’d been holding. “Thank god for that! It’s okay, Ianto. They’re on our side.” He tapped his comm unit with his finger. “Button? Yeah ... we have an ID – Guards of the Galactic Senate. Maybe they’re here to give us an escort?”
“Maybe, Captain.” Mrs. Cooper said, her words flat and sarcastic. “But then again, if they were here to escort you, why would they be firing up their main weaponry and aiming it in your direction?”
Jack and Ianto shared a shocked look, then simultaneously bolted for the bridge. Ianto hadn’t let go of Mrs. Cooper, practically ripping her from the wall, much to her distaste. She was lecturing them on respect for sentient technology all the way back to the control room. They were fast approaching the door, when the entire ship dropped on one side, vibrations and sound waves echoing through the entire craft. Ianto was thrown to the side, the weight of his heavy, metal body denting the wall, and Jack landed on top of him. They held each others’ gaze for a moment, before once again springing to their feet and closing the short distance between them and the control room.
Button was under the desk, crouched low. At first Ianto thought he was cowering, then realised he was actually pulling out wires and messing with the circuitry. He hissed in pain as it sparked and burnt his hand, shaking the pain out of it and carrying on.
“AutoPilot’s down! Trying to ... ah! ... trying to get it to switch to manual – no one considered a scenario where you might actually need to – ow! – manually switch the ship to – BASTARD! – manual. Have to override the system ...”
“Keep at it!” encouraged Jack. “I’ll try and open a line of communication before they fire on us again!” He moved to the far left console, hitting buttons and growling in frustration. Ianto looked at Mrs. Cooper.
“Is there anything you can do?”
“There isn’t much I can’t.” she replied.
“... in this situation?”
“I could refine and widen the range of the communication network so that you can talk to the assailants before they blow us all up?”
“Okay.” Ianto gave her a curt nod, and crossed to Jack. Unceremoniously, and ignoring Jack’s complaints, he ripped open part of the panelling and searched amongst the wires for those Mrs. Cooper would need. He hesitated. “Err ... did you want Leaf Green or Mint Green?” he asked her.
“Meadow Green.” Mrs. Cooper informed them.
“What’s that?” asked Button from his tangle of wires.
“Is Meadow Green the one with the flecks of yellow? – Mrs. Cooper 2.0.”
“No, that’s Dragon Green. Meadow Green is the one marbled with brown.”
“That’s not supposed to leave Torchwood!”
“Gotcha!” Ianto cried in triumph, pulling the other wire. “This is so much simpler when you’re just connecting mainframes ...”
Button let out a similarly victorious shout. “We’re manual!”
“Excellent!” Jack pulled the AutoPilot droid out of its fitting, dragging a chair over to the controls. “I’ll drive – Button, keep your eye on th-ah!”
The ship seemed to plummet, spinning violently and causing the lights to flicker. Fire extinguishers in the ceiling pumped out their gases and powders, trying to still the onslaught of sparks that had begun cascading from the computer equipment. The gravity created by the ship spinning so fast held them all in their places, pressing them painfully into the walls or floor. Ianto had impulsively grabbed the console in front of him, ignoring the pain as sparks burnt into his synthetic skin and the pressure of the forces pinning him to the damaged system. Jack had managed to maintain a grip on the steering controls, trying desperately to concentrate on steadying the out-of-control craft and ignoring the pain in and around him. Button was trapped on the floor beneath the main console, eyes scrunched shut as he thought of all the much better places he could have been at that moment.
After what must have been only a few seconds, Jack managed to steady the shuttle, all of the groaning in the aches and pains they had suffered from what had felt like hours of unbearable force. The systems began to re-stabilise with a little help from Mrs. Cooper, and the sparking systems were calming down and control was being re-claimed.
“Everyone okay?” Jack asked, glancing at them both. Ianto nodded in the midst of talking to Mrs. Cooper, and Button gave him a reassuring smile as he heaved himself to his feet. The ship lurched and shuddered again.
“Aftershock?” asked Ianto.
“They’ve captured us in their tractor beam again.” Button told him, crossing to the radar. “They’re still gaining.”
“Okay.” said Jack, assuming an authoritative tone. “The main thing is that we don’t panic. The chance is pretty huge that this is simply a case of mistaken identit –”
“Captain Jack Harkness?” a voice called out from the console. Button froze, half way back to crouched under the main controls and in the middle of replacing a panel.
“Comms online.” Mrs. Cooper informed them.
“This is Captain Jack Harkness. What do you want, and why are you firing on my craft?”
“I am under orders, sir.” came the response.
“Orders from whom?”
The voice chuckled. “High up. Very high up. Very, very interested in seeing you, are those high up.”
Ianto swallowed. “Why?”
“Who’s that?” the voice said, sounding a little cold.
“That’s my plus one.” Jack retorted. He moved his hands back to the main controls, turning the ship to face their attackers.
“The rumours aren’t true, then?”
“Rumours?” pressed Ianto, frowning. Button, from his position under the console couldn’t see Jack’s face, but knew he would be averting his gaze from Ianto's intense, sapphire-blue eyes.
“Captain Jack Harkness – the man who cannot die. Travelling across the stars alone, too frightened to stay in one place for too long, and too terrified of his past to look back at the damage he’s caused ...”
“How poetic.” interrupted Ianto, sarcasm dripping from his words. “Look ... we’re headed to the Galactic Senate. Can’t those ‘High Up’ wait until then?”
“It’d be a black mark on Senator Jura’s record should he be ... dealt with ... there.”
Jack groaned. “They made Jura a senator? What the hell did they do that for?”
“She proved her worth.” the voice seemed to shrug. “Time and time again, she proved her worth ... and now, she’s Deputy Minister of the Senate.”
“Who’s Jura?” mouthed Ianto.
“Lady Macbeth.” Jack mouthed back. Ianto frowned, but asked nothing more. The Captain stood and moved closer to the communication console.
“You’re an assassin.” he said simply. “What a wonderful job you’ve got ... killing a man who cannot die.”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe you cannot die?” said the voice, incredulity seeping into its tone.
Jack gave a dramatic sigh. “Open the video link, let’s see if I can’t show you.”
“No! Jack! No!”
“Jack don’t!”
He ignored Ianto and Button’s protests – even the sarcastic tone of Mrs. Cooper’s criticisms that were about to come pouring out of her mouth. The window that lead to the outside view of the three ships darkened and flickered, and a man wearing a black uniform with gold piping appeared on the screen. His breast was studded with several stripes and medals – but Jack could tell even from the video that they were fake. “Go on then.” the man goaded. “Don’t die.”
Button was suddenly struck by inspiration. He jumped with the shock of it and whacked his head on the computers above his head in the cramped space. “Ow ow ow!” he whispered, quiet as possible. He had a feeling the assassin – whoever it was on the screen – didn’t know there was a third person on board. Especially not a third person in such close proximity to the main controls of the entire craft. Desperately he signalled to Ianto to throw Mrs. Cooper to him. Ianto gave him a ‘one moment’ signal.
Jack moved to the centre of the room, raising his semi-automatic PlasmaBullet to his temple. “Sure you’ve got the guts to watch?” he challenged the video screen.
“One second ...” the fake Guard replied. “Go ahead – I’ve got my popcorn.” To prove his point, he popped a couple of kernels in his mouth and crunched them loudly. Nervous laughter could be heard around him.
Jack shrugged nonchalant. “Okay then.”
He pulled the trigger, and Ianto moved forward and caught him, using the distraction of the movement to slide Mrs. Cooper across the floor to Button. Button scooped her up, apologising profusely and instantly beginning to mutter his plans to her. He dared himself to glance and Jack, and found Ianto knelt by his side, nursing the body and rocking slightly. He tried his best to concentrate on wiring up Mrs. Cooper, but the fear of Jack possibly not coming back was beginning to set in.
“Woooooo! He actually did it!” hollered the assassin. “He actually believed he can not die!”
Ianto indulged in smirking a little, and patiently waited for his Captain. He made sure he paid no attention to Button and Mrs. Cooper’s bickering, trying to maintain the facade of there being only two people in the room. Of course there was every chance the enemy were using some form of heat-signature detection – in fact it was very likely they had done a sweep of the ship in some form. Unless they were looking for vital life signs ... in which case Ianto wouldn’t show up on the scan. All of him was artificial ...
Dragging in the first gulp of air, Jack shuddered back to life, clinging on to Ianto with a bruising grip. Their eyes met, and Ianto gave him a reassuring smile and a miniscule nod, helping him back to his feet and standing by to support his weight. The whooping and hollering from the other ship had come to an abrupt end. The fake Guard was regarding them, face serious, his skin a little paler.
“See!” panted Jack, finally pushing himself away from Ianto.
The assassin hesitated, then turned to an unseen lieutenant. “Destroy the ship.”
The video flickered off.
“Shit.” said Ianto, both he and Jack still frozen to the spot.
“Yep.”
“Button can’t survive that.”
“Nope.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence!” came a disgruntled voice from the vicinity of their feet.
Jack and Ianto looked at each other.
“This is an Ambassadorial craft. We have no weapons – no real defence.” Jack assessed.
“He’s been paid to kill you. Debate or reasoning won’t help.”
“Unless you can make a better offer.” Mrs. Cooper piped up.
Jack and Ianto looked at each other again, Ianto's eyebrow quirking in the way that made Jack want to screw him senseless. Ianto obviously realised his Captain’s intentions, forcing his unruly eyebrow to behave itself and rolling his eyes. “What offer could we make? What do we have to offer?”
“Your eyes have sapphires in them.” Mrs. Cooper reminded them. “And black diamonds. And mercury.”
“Sapphires? Black diamonds?” the cold voice hissed through the comms unit, evidently still listening. “Perhaps ... we could come to some sort of arrangement ...?” The video screen flickered back to life, their newfound enemy raising an intrigued eyebrow and giving a cruel half-smile.
“Shut up!” Jack shouted, suddenly enraged. “Don’t you DARE! He’s not ... he’s not ... spare parts! He’s not spare parts!”
Ianto's cyber-muscle was strong enough to hold Jack back from stooping and grabbing the little computer and throwing it across the room. Button poked his head out from under the main control unit. ‘Go with it!’ he mouthed, signalling he was nearly done with whatever he and Mrs. Cooper were trying to achieve.
“Not spare parts?” repeated the fake Guard. “Pity. We’ll just have to prise them out of his skull when he’s dead and floating through space with the rest of the debris.”
“Wait! Wait!” Ianto demanded, taking a step forward and fixing the video image with a cold, hard stare. “If I give you the gems - shut up, Jack! – if I give you the gems, you will leave us alone?”
“I may consider calling my men off.”
“Consideration isn’t good enough.” replied Ianto. “We need a definite answer – a bargain.”
“You can’t ...” murmured Jack, his voice hurt. “You can’t ...”
“Shush, Jack.” It occurred to Ianto that maybe Jack wasn’t aware of Button’s efforts at the mysterious something beneath the console, and now wasn’t really the time to bring his attention to it. “How can we be certain we can trust you?”
“But I bought you those! For you! Especially!” hissed Jack, biting back his upset.
“I know,” said Ianto sadly. “but ... what has to be done ...”
“You should listen to him, Captain.” said the Guard, smug smile plastered over his face. “Actually ... he’s not bad-looking is he? Is he, gentlemen?” he called out to his room of unseen companions. An appreciative murmur greeted them from the speakers. “No ... not bad at all.”
Ianto quirked his eyebrow before he could stop himself. “What are you suggesting?”
“Why don’t you ... come aboard? I’m sure we could ... discuss our situation and maybe come across a viable ‘solution’?”
Taking two steps closer to the screen, Jack was shaking with barely-contained rage. “You ... you ... you will not touch him! Not now, not ever! You ... you y- ... y-”
The figure on the screen smirked. “Jealous? Nothing to be jealous off. We’re only going to be diplomatic aren’t we ... erm ...?”
“Button.” said Ianto. “I’m Button. It’s a pet name, but I won’t answer to anything else.”
Jack stared at him, flicked his gaze to the screen, then turned back to Ianto. “No.” he said simply. “No. It’s not ... what ... just ...”
“So he can have the sapphires, then?”
Torn, Jack grabbed Ianto by the elbow and dragged him out of earshot and into the corridor. It was only then his partner let how frightened he was show.
“I’m scared, Jack.” he murmured. “He’s trying to ... to kill us. I’m just stalling. I swear ... just stalling. Until Button finishes what he’s doing ... and .... and I’d rather be pretending to be sorting this out ... like he wants ... than prising my eyes out.”
Jack allowed him a surreptitious glance at Button, hard at work under the console. He caught his eye, and was given a ‘two minutes!’ signal. “Okay ...” he breathed. “We’ll ... pretend. We’ll go along with it.”
Ianto slipped his politely professional mask back on, and strode purposefully through the entrance to the control room. “We’ve reached a ... compromise.” he began. “Unfortunately, we think it would be much easier to delegate the conditions of this compromise across such a poor-quality video link ...” Slight smile, quirked eyebrow, suggestively parted lips ... “... if you catch my drift ...”
The Guard swallowed. “Certainly.”
Ianto couldn’t help but let himself roll his eyes. All men were the same, he realised.
“We’ll ready the teleport ...”
“Ahh ... slight problem. Teleport makes me vomit.” Ianto improvised, knowing that if they were teleporting him out, they’d be looking for life signs that weren’t Captain Jack and end up beaming out the real Button.
“GOT IT!” shouted Button, finally emerging from under the console, Mrs. Cooper in hand. “Call me butter, ‘cause I’m on a roll!”
FIN
Hmmmm .... so people ... PICK YOUR OPTION ...
Next Part | Previous Part | Torchwood Index | Request a Convo/Prose Fic
Chapter: 04 | The Guard
Author:
a_silver_storyGenre Alternate Universe, Fluff, a bit domestic, adventure
Rating: G - NC-17
Warnings:
SPOILERS FOR COE! DON'T READ!
Disclaimer: If I owned anything in this, I'd be a rich rich rich bitch. However, I am not a rich rich rich bitch so you may all, therefore, assume I own nothing. Which I don't. It all belongs RTD and the BBC, in case any of you didn't know.
Summary: Post CoE (begins 3010). Interactive Fiction: the readers have the ultimate say how the next chapter will continue via a poll at the end of each one. (Please remember that as a writer, I can do an RTD, ignore you all and piss off in a totally different direction ... but I wouldn't do that. Not really :p)
FIRST PART of SILVER'VERSE | The Ballad of Ianto Jones: Keeping Promises
FIRST PART of THIS FIC | Starting Over
PREVIOUS | Torchwood Index/Masterlist
04 |
Here are the results from last weeks voting!
Last week, you all went silly voting on the Galactic Guard. Only a few people went for the far more interesing option of the enemy baring down ... but that's okay. In reality, what I had planned for that was boring anyway ... hehehehehe I knew which one you were going to pick alllllll along :~P
The shuttle lurched again, juddering against the force field the incoming ships had wrapped around them.
“Just give us the ID!” Ianto shouted at Mrs. Cooper.
“Fine, fine! One Galactic Senate Dauntless, two Galactic Senate Scouts. Both armed, and heading this way.”
Jack let out the breath he’d been holding. “Thank god for that! It’s okay, Ianto. They’re on our side.” He tapped his comm unit with his finger. “Button? Yeah ... we have an ID – Guards of the Galactic Senate. Maybe they’re here to give us an escort?”
“Maybe, Captain.” Mrs. Cooper said, her words flat and sarcastic. “But then again, if they were here to escort you, why would they be firing up their main weaponry and aiming it in your direction?”
Jack and Ianto shared a shocked look, then simultaneously bolted for the bridge. Ianto hadn’t let go of Mrs. Cooper, practically ripping her from the wall, much to her distaste. She was lecturing them on respect for sentient technology all the way back to the control room. They were fast approaching the door, when the entire ship dropped on one side, vibrations and sound waves echoing through the entire craft. Ianto was thrown to the side, the weight of his heavy, metal body denting the wall, and Jack landed on top of him. They held each others’ gaze for a moment, before once again springing to their feet and closing the short distance between them and the control room.
Button was under the desk, crouched low. At first Ianto thought he was cowering, then realised he was actually pulling out wires and messing with the circuitry. He hissed in pain as it sparked and burnt his hand, shaking the pain out of it and carrying on.
“AutoPilot’s down! Trying to ... ah! ... trying to get it to switch to manual – no one considered a scenario where you might actually need to – ow! – manually switch the ship to – BASTARD! – manual. Have to override the system ...”
“Keep at it!” encouraged Jack. “I’ll try and open a line of communication before they fire on us again!” He moved to the far left console, hitting buttons and growling in frustration. Ianto looked at Mrs. Cooper.
“Is there anything you can do?”
“There isn’t much I can’t.” she replied.
“... in this situation?”
“I could refine and widen the range of the communication network so that you can talk to the assailants before they blow us all up?”
“Okay.” Ianto gave her a curt nod, and crossed to Jack. Unceremoniously, and ignoring Jack’s complaints, he ripped open part of the panelling and searched amongst the wires for those Mrs. Cooper would need. He hesitated. “Err ... did you want Leaf Green or Mint Green?” he asked her.
“Meadow Green.” Mrs. Cooper informed them.
“What’s that?” asked Button from his tangle of wires.
“Is Meadow Green the one with the flecks of yellow? – Mrs. Cooper 2.0.”
“No, that’s Dragon Green. Meadow Green is the one marbled with brown.”
“That’s not supposed to leave Torchwood!”
“Gotcha!” Ianto cried in triumph, pulling the other wire. “This is so much simpler when you’re just connecting mainframes ...”
Button let out a similarly victorious shout. “We’re manual!”
“Excellent!” Jack pulled the AutoPilot droid out of its fitting, dragging a chair over to the controls. “I’ll drive – Button, keep your eye on th-ah!”
The ship seemed to plummet, spinning violently and causing the lights to flicker. Fire extinguishers in the ceiling pumped out their gases and powders, trying to still the onslaught of sparks that had begun cascading from the computer equipment. The gravity created by the ship spinning so fast held them all in their places, pressing them painfully into the walls or floor. Ianto had impulsively grabbed the console in front of him, ignoring the pain as sparks burnt into his synthetic skin and the pressure of the forces pinning him to the damaged system. Jack had managed to maintain a grip on the steering controls, trying desperately to concentrate on steadying the out-of-control craft and ignoring the pain in and around him. Button was trapped on the floor beneath the main console, eyes scrunched shut as he thought of all the much better places he could have been at that moment.
After what must have been only a few seconds, Jack managed to steady the shuttle, all of the groaning in the aches and pains they had suffered from what had felt like hours of unbearable force. The systems began to re-stabilise with a little help from Mrs. Cooper, and the sparking systems were calming down and control was being re-claimed.
“Everyone okay?” Jack asked, glancing at them both. Ianto nodded in the midst of talking to Mrs. Cooper, and Button gave him a reassuring smile as he heaved himself to his feet. The ship lurched and shuddered again.
“Aftershock?” asked Ianto.
“They’ve captured us in their tractor beam again.” Button told him, crossing to the radar. “They’re still gaining.”
“Okay.” said Jack, assuming an authoritative tone. “The main thing is that we don’t panic. The chance is pretty huge that this is simply a case of mistaken identit –”
“Captain Jack Harkness?” a voice called out from the console. Button froze, half way back to crouched under the main controls and in the middle of replacing a panel.
“Comms online.” Mrs. Cooper informed them.
“This is Captain Jack Harkness. What do you want, and why are you firing on my craft?”
“I am under orders, sir.” came the response.
“Orders from whom?”
The voice chuckled. “High up. Very high up. Very, very interested in seeing you, are those high up.”
Ianto swallowed. “Why?”
“Who’s that?” the voice said, sounding a little cold.
“That’s my plus one.” Jack retorted. He moved his hands back to the main controls, turning the ship to face their attackers.
“The rumours aren’t true, then?”
“Rumours?” pressed Ianto, frowning. Button, from his position under the console couldn’t see Jack’s face, but knew he would be averting his gaze from Ianto's intense, sapphire-blue eyes.
“Captain Jack Harkness – the man who cannot die. Travelling across the stars alone, too frightened to stay in one place for too long, and too terrified of his past to look back at the damage he’s caused ...”
“How poetic.” interrupted Ianto, sarcasm dripping from his words. “Look ... we’re headed to the Galactic Senate. Can’t those ‘High Up’ wait until then?”
“It’d be a black mark on Senator Jura’s record should he be ... dealt with ... there.”
Jack groaned. “They made Jura a senator? What the hell did they do that for?”
“She proved her worth.” the voice seemed to shrug. “Time and time again, she proved her worth ... and now, she’s Deputy Minister of the Senate.”
“Who’s Jura?” mouthed Ianto.
“Lady Macbeth.” Jack mouthed back. Ianto frowned, but asked nothing more. The Captain stood and moved closer to the communication console.
“You’re an assassin.” he said simply. “What a wonderful job you’ve got ... killing a man who cannot die.”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe you cannot die?” said the voice, incredulity seeping into its tone.
Jack gave a dramatic sigh. “Open the video link, let’s see if I can’t show you.”
“No! Jack! No!”
“Jack don’t!”
He ignored Ianto and Button’s protests – even the sarcastic tone of Mrs. Cooper’s criticisms that were about to come pouring out of her mouth. The window that lead to the outside view of the three ships darkened and flickered, and a man wearing a black uniform with gold piping appeared on the screen. His breast was studded with several stripes and medals – but Jack could tell even from the video that they were fake. “Go on then.” the man goaded. “Don’t die.”
Button was suddenly struck by inspiration. He jumped with the shock of it and whacked his head on the computers above his head in the cramped space. “Ow ow ow!” he whispered, quiet as possible. He had a feeling the assassin – whoever it was on the screen – didn’t know there was a third person on board. Especially not a third person in such close proximity to the main controls of the entire craft. Desperately he signalled to Ianto to throw Mrs. Cooper to him. Ianto gave him a ‘one moment’ signal.
Jack moved to the centre of the room, raising his semi-automatic PlasmaBullet to his temple. “Sure you’ve got the guts to watch?” he challenged the video screen.
“One second ...” the fake Guard replied. “Go ahead – I’ve got my popcorn.” To prove his point, he popped a couple of kernels in his mouth and crunched them loudly. Nervous laughter could be heard around him.
Jack shrugged nonchalant. “Okay then.”
He pulled the trigger, and Ianto moved forward and caught him, using the distraction of the movement to slide Mrs. Cooper across the floor to Button. Button scooped her up, apologising profusely and instantly beginning to mutter his plans to her. He dared himself to glance and Jack, and found Ianto knelt by his side, nursing the body and rocking slightly. He tried his best to concentrate on wiring up Mrs. Cooper, but the fear of Jack possibly not coming back was beginning to set in.
“Woooooo! He actually did it!” hollered the assassin. “He actually believed he can not die!”
Ianto indulged in smirking a little, and patiently waited for his Captain. He made sure he paid no attention to Button and Mrs. Cooper’s bickering, trying to maintain the facade of there being only two people in the room. Of course there was every chance the enemy were using some form of heat-signature detection – in fact it was very likely they had done a sweep of the ship in some form. Unless they were looking for vital life signs ... in which case Ianto wouldn’t show up on the scan. All of him was artificial ...
Dragging in the first gulp of air, Jack shuddered back to life, clinging on to Ianto with a bruising grip. Their eyes met, and Ianto gave him a reassuring smile and a miniscule nod, helping him back to his feet and standing by to support his weight. The whooping and hollering from the other ship had come to an abrupt end. The fake Guard was regarding them, face serious, his skin a little paler.
“See!” panted Jack, finally pushing himself away from Ianto.
The assassin hesitated, then turned to an unseen lieutenant. “Destroy the ship.”
The video flickered off.
“Shit.” said Ianto, both he and Jack still frozen to the spot.
“Yep.”
“Button can’t survive that.”
“Nope.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence!” came a disgruntled voice from the vicinity of their feet.
Jack and Ianto looked at each other.
“This is an Ambassadorial craft. We have no weapons – no real defence.” Jack assessed.
“He’s been paid to kill you. Debate or reasoning won’t help.”
“Unless you can make a better offer.” Mrs. Cooper piped up.
Jack and Ianto looked at each other again, Ianto's eyebrow quirking in the way that made Jack want to screw him senseless. Ianto obviously realised his Captain’s intentions, forcing his unruly eyebrow to behave itself and rolling his eyes. “What offer could we make? What do we have to offer?”
“Your eyes have sapphires in them.” Mrs. Cooper reminded them. “And black diamonds. And mercury.”
“Sapphires? Black diamonds?” the cold voice hissed through the comms unit, evidently still listening. “Perhaps ... we could come to some sort of arrangement ...?” The video screen flickered back to life, their newfound enemy raising an intrigued eyebrow and giving a cruel half-smile.
“Shut up!” Jack shouted, suddenly enraged. “Don’t you DARE! He’s not ... he’s not ... spare parts! He’s not spare parts!”
Ianto's cyber-muscle was strong enough to hold Jack back from stooping and grabbing the little computer and throwing it across the room. Button poked his head out from under the main control unit. ‘Go with it!’ he mouthed, signalling he was nearly done with whatever he and Mrs. Cooper were trying to achieve.
“Not spare parts?” repeated the fake Guard. “Pity. We’ll just have to prise them out of his skull when he’s dead and floating through space with the rest of the debris.”
“Wait! Wait!” Ianto demanded, taking a step forward and fixing the video image with a cold, hard stare. “If I give you the gems - shut up, Jack! – if I give you the gems, you will leave us alone?”
“I may consider calling my men off.”
“Consideration isn’t good enough.” replied Ianto. “We need a definite answer – a bargain.”
“You can’t ...” murmured Jack, his voice hurt. “You can’t ...”
“Shush, Jack.” It occurred to Ianto that maybe Jack wasn’t aware of Button’s efforts at the mysterious something beneath the console, and now wasn’t really the time to bring his attention to it. “How can we be certain we can trust you?”
“But I bought you those! For you! Especially!” hissed Jack, biting back his upset.
“I know,” said Ianto sadly. “but ... what has to be done ...”
“You should listen to him, Captain.” said the Guard, smug smile plastered over his face. “Actually ... he’s not bad-looking is he? Is he, gentlemen?” he called out to his room of unseen companions. An appreciative murmur greeted them from the speakers. “No ... not bad at all.”
Ianto quirked his eyebrow before he could stop himself. “What are you suggesting?”
“Why don’t you ... come aboard? I’m sure we could ... discuss our situation and maybe come across a viable ‘solution’?”
Taking two steps closer to the screen, Jack was shaking with barely-contained rage. “You ... you ... you will not touch him! Not now, not ever! You ... you y- ... y-”
The figure on the screen smirked. “Jealous? Nothing to be jealous off. We’re only going to be diplomatic aren’t we ... erm ...?”
“Button.” said Ianto. “I’m Button. It’s a pet name, but I won’t answer to anything else.”
Jack stared at him, flicked his gaze to the screen, then turned back to Ianto. “No.” he said simply. “No. It’s not ... what ... just ...”
“So he can have the sapphires, then?”
Torn, Jack grabbed Ianto by the elbow and dragged him out of earshot and into the corridor. It was only then his partner let how frightened he was show.
“I’m scared, Jack.” he murmured. “He’s trying to ... to kill us. I’m just stalling. I swear ... just stalling. Until Button finishes what he’s doing ... and .... and I’d rather be pretending to be sorting this out ... like he wants ... than prising my eyes out.”
Jack allowed him a surreptitious glance at Button, hard at work under the console. He caught his eye, and was given a ‘two minutes!’ signal. “Okay ...” he breathed. “We’ll ... pretend. We’ll go along with it.”
Ianto slipped his politely professional mask back on, and strode purposefully through the entrance to the control room. “We’ve reached a ... compromise.” he began. “Unfortunately, we think it would be much easier to delegate the conditions of this compromise across such a poor-quality video link ...” Slight smile, quirked eyebrow, suggestively parted lips ... “... if you catch my drift ...”
The Guard swallowed. “Certainly.”
Ianto couldn’t help but let himself roll his eyes. All men were the same, he realised.
“We’ll ready the teleport ...”
“Ahh ... slight problem. Teleport makes me vomit.” Ianto improvised, knowing that if they were teleporting him out, they’d be looking for life signs that weren’t Captain Jack and end up beaming out the real Button.
“GOT IT!” shouted Button, finally emerging from under the console, Mrs. Cooper in hand. “Call me butter, ‘cause I’m on a roll!”
FIN
Hmmmm .... so people ... PICK YOUR OPTION ...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 10:14 pm (UTC)As usualy, I've voted in the poll for the next part ;)
Hehe.
Bad news: I'm going away this week without internet access :( :( :(
I can't believe I have to survive until next MONDAY without silver'verse or worse....*gulp* IM'verse!!!! Noooooo! D: D:
Still, at least monday will be an epic day!! :)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 10:23 pm (UTC)Hahaa.
Dammit why'd it end there!? All high tension and omg what's going to happen!?
Bless Ianto. He's awfully good at being the distraction. And as for Jack..*le sigh*
Owieee. (L)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 10:44 pm (UTC)Awww! Poor Jack. So protective of his Ianto. *huggles them together*
“Call me butter, ‘cause I’m on a roll!”
hehe Oh Button! He's so adorable!
Ooo! That was a hard choice for the poll. lol
no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 11:09 pm (UTC)These guards are relentless aren't they? Or just stupid...
Can't wait for the next part...
no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-17 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 12:48 am (UTC)I picked the aliens!
I like aliens.
But still great chappie.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 05:10 am (UTC)Typo: “No.” he siad simply. “No. It’s not ... what ... just ...”
And in the poll, it should be 'What were Button and Mrs. Cooper'
... Sure you're not concussed from that book? I've never noticed a typo in your fics before :/
Either way, I love Ianto's 'distraction' xD
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 05:01 pm (UTC)And I've no idea how that 'was' got in there. On the actual site I made the poll it says "were". I had to go through the java coding and alter it there :S
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 06:03 pm (UTC)And also, if Ianto's body is so heavy that he makes a dent in the ships walls when he falls:
' Ianto was thrown to the side, the weight of his heavy, metal body denting the wall, and Jack landed on top of him. '
then wouldn't he crush Jack when they're having sex? O.o or are the walls just really crappy metal?
Or was he thrown so hard that it would have severely injured, if not killed, a human, but his body was harder than the metal that the ship was made of?
Just a little question xD
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 06:20 pm (UTC)Or Jack Pancake.
Mmmm .... Jack pancakes ....
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 11:37 pm (UTC)Alright, I admit, stupid moment, sorry :P
Jack pancake... Doesn't sound too bad xD
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 05:17 pm (UTC)The assassin hesitated, then turned to an unseen lieutenant. “Destroy the ship.”
...instead, you implement that idea in the first place.
“Call me butter, ‘cause I’m on a roll!”
Oh, dear, that's cute and all...but we're relying on a person with lines like that to save the day?
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 06:23 pm (UTC)Honestly, I'll be hiring you as my assassin if I ever need one if you're taking the first offer :P
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 07:03 pm (UTC)Rather someone with those kind of lines than a plot written by RTD ;)
Touché. You win this round.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 07:07 pm (UTC)*does evil happy dance*
... life removal community.
IT'S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAAAAAAAAAAD.
We'll be having to call our wheelie bins "temporary waste holding units on cylindrical maneuverability enhancers" next !
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 07:12 pm (UTC)That's too much of a mouthful for me. And not in the good way.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 07:14 pm (UTC)*pouts* my coke bubblesies just went up my nose :(
S'all your fault
*sulks*
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 08:13 pm (UTC)You'll just need an Ianto-and-napkin combo to help clean up the mess. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 11:40 pm (UTC)*ahem* sorry ... what were you saying?