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madbottoms) wrote2012-10-20 10:16 am
The Spirits Within 19/21 + epilogue
The Spirits Within
Characters: Jack, Ianto Owen, Tosh, Rhys, John Hart, the Doctor
Rating: PG
Warnings: Character death
Spoilers: Only if you’ve never seen Torchwood of Final Fantasy
Notes: See chapter 1 for notes and disclaimer.
Chapter 19
Ianto sat beside Jack as the Weevil swung slightly on the end of the cable. Their shoulders were pressed together, and Ianto liked the closeness of it. Having Jack there gave him strength and comfort. Around them the golden swirling of the shield protected them from all the unseen Phantoms he knew filled the emptiness of the impact rift. He just couldn't see them with his naked eye.
The Doctor's voice crackled over the com link, clearly more excited than Ianto had heard him be in years. "That's the one all right. The wavelength is a perfect match."
"We called those kind bugs," Jack said. "They're fast and very nasty."
"What Phantom isn't nasty?" Ianto asked.
"Point well made," he said. "Any idea what you are going to do now?"
Ianto looked at him. He wasn't going to like his answer.
Suddenly everything around them went pure white.
Ianto instantly put an arm up over his eyes to shield them, and the Weevil snapped down a dozen light filters even faster. The Weevil was then smashed sideways and into the cliff wall, throwing Jack and Ianto together on the small floor. Ianto felt his arm bend back, but not break. And his breath was knocked out of him.
The burst lasted for at least a second, then stopped.
"You all right?" Jack asked as he untangled his legs from Ianto’s and they helped each other back to their seats.
"I think so," he said. He tested his arm and shoulder. It hurt, but not bad enough to need anything. If he lived through this, he was going to be very sore tomorrow.
Jack had a small cut on his cheek, but he looked to be fine as well.
On the screen Ianto could not believe what he was seeing. The Weevil had managed to stay on the cable, but it was swinging wildly now, out over the rift and then back toward the cliff.
Jack frantically worked the small thrusters to stop the movement. They were just about to plough into the rocks again when he managed to slow the swing and stabilise them.
Below them, the Phantom rift had changed. The rough surface of the impact zone, where the tip of the meteor had been sticking up into the air, was now blasted even deeper into the Earth. And large cracks had opened up, twisting through the dirt like lightning bolts.
Ianto pointed at the meteor. At least half of it had been buried before, but was now exposed. And it, too, was splintered with cracks.
He checked his screens. An area that had been an anthill full of Phantoms now read deserted and lifeless.
"What happened?" Ianto asked.
Jack glanced up from his board to look at the rift. "That was the Hub Cannon. They're firing at the rift."
Ianto was stunned. "Didn't they see us down here?"
"I don't think General Hart would care," Jack said, "do you?"
Ianto had to admit he knew the general would take any opportunity to get rid of him and the Doctor. And since the Council had clearly given him permission to fire the Hub Cannon, by being here they were giving him his chance.
"Ianto?" the Doctor's voice broke into the Weevil. "Jack? Are you all right?"
Ianto was glad the Doctor was still there.
"A little shaken," Jack said. "Stand by."
Suddenly Ianto realised what he was seeing in front of him. The Phantoms inside the rift were gone. And the eighth spirit blip was not on his screen, as it had been a moment before. Maybe they had all gone into hiding.
"Doctor," he said, "can you track the eighth spirit?"
There was a long few seconds of silence then the Doctor's voice came back, weak and tired-sounding. "The eighth spirit has been destroyed."
Ianto looked out at the now-empty meteor rift in stunned silence. They had been so close. The spirit had been within fifty meters of him. Now it was gone. Dead.
"What are we going to do now?" he asked.
Jack shook his head. "Nothing. This mission is over. We have to get out of here."
"And go where?" Ianto asked. As far as he could see, there was no hope left.
Jack just shrugged and kept working. "Anywhere is better than the home base of a billion Phantoms."
He pointed out on the rift floor. As he watched, Phantoms, thousands of them, swarmed up out of the ground and from the sides of the meteor. The difference was now he could see them through the shielding with his naked eye. Somehow, the firing of the Hub Cannon had made them visible.
He had never seen anything like it. Where were they coming from? What was under there?
The Phantoms spread out over the bottom of the rift like kids over a playground at recess. And a large number of them were headed right at them.
"I sure hope the shield will hold," Ianto said, looking at the golden glow surrounding them.
Jack nodded as he checked the control panel. "For the moment it will. But I can't tell you for how long."
*~*
General Hart was stunned that Dr. Jones's ship and the Weevil hanging under it had somehow survived the first shot of the Hub Cannon. The ship had been just enough off-centre from the main force of the Hub Cannon, or it clearly never would have.
Of course, Dr. Jones and his friends might not be alive in there. There was just no telling what that much energy did to a human. It was designed to kill Phantoms.
As he watched, the Weevil stabilised itself. Now there was no doubt Dr. Jones had survived.
"One minute and ten seconds to second firing," Major Swanson reported. "All systems are go and stable. Awaiting your permission to continue."
"Fire when ready," he said. "And target that meteor directly. Let's take out the enemy's home base completely. They're under that rock somewhere. All we have to do is dig them out."
"Understood," Major Swanson replied. "Target the meteor."
"Targeting, sir," another soldier at tactical replied.
General Hart sat back in his chair, his hands folded on his lap. This had started out to be the worst day of his life. It was turning into a great day for all of humanity.
Around him the soldiers called out their reports as the time of the next shot got closer and closer.
*~*
"Incoming!" the Doctor shouted through the communications link.
Jack instantly reached over and pulled Ianto down. They had just enough time to get on the floor and brace themselves against each other and the equipment before the blast hit. Again, everything lit up a bright white. Jack could feel the Weevil swing on the end of the cable, and he held Ianto tighter in his grasp. He was sure they were in for another pounding.
And he wasn't disappointed.
The Weevil smashed into the wall of the rift, spinning them like they were a child's toy. Jack felt the skin on his leg break open against one machine. Blood dripped down his leg.
The impact passed quickly as the Weevil swung back out over the rift. He checked to make sure nothing on his leg was broken. It wasn't. Otherwise, he was okay. Then he climbed back into his chair and quickly got them stabilised.
Then he turned to see if Ianto was all right. He was holding his arm and rubbing his shoulder, but he claimed no problems. It was clear that, even with the protection of the Weevil, they couldn't take much more of this kind of beating. Jack had to get them out of there and quickly.
"Oh, my," Ianto said, staring out the window.
The last blast of the Hub Cannon had smashed the rift site even more, breaking it apart like an eggshell. As they watched, a mass of Phantom tissue seemed to bubble from the cracks in the rock, rolling outward and filling the area where the meteor had been before.
It clearly was a Phantom, Jack had no doubt. But a Phantom so big, so dense, it could have covered all of the old London area, and had bulk left over.
"Did the meteor just hatch?" he asked.
"It's the Phantom Vortex," Ianto said, his voice almost reverent in nature.
"You're kidding?" Jack said, staring at the massive, writhing behemoth that was flowing outward and upward, slowly filling the rift. That was a god? An alien god?
Suddenly, for the first time, Jack actually believed Ianto when he said everything came and returned to Vortex. When he had been with Ianto, in his dream, this monster was what he saw flowing up and into the hunk of planet being blown out into space. Now he understood what he had been talking about. Earth had a Vortex, and that alien planet had had a Vortex. And right now, he was looking at it.
Thousands of Phantoms, large and small, in all the sizes and shapes Jack was familiar with, were being reborn from the monster Phantom, pouring off and out of it.
"I think," Ianto said, turning to him, "that if you are going to get us out of here, now would be a good time."
He was right. Jack instantly jumped to work. But the moment he tried to start the Weevil back upward, he knew they were in trouble. The cable connection to the Weevil had been smashed twice into the rocks. The moment he started the retraction engine, it broke free.
For an instant they were weightless as the fall started, like an elevator dropping too fast.
Jack quickly fired the Weevil thrusters, letting the auto-systems of the vehicle control their decent.
"Oh, no," Ianto said as the walls of the giant Phantom loomed up over them. More and more smaller Phantoms were pouring off of it, replacing the ones killed before.
Jack ignored everything.
He had to focus on getting them down. More than likely they were going to be killed by Phantoms, but at least that would be better than being smashed on the rocks below.
Somehow, just as the fuel was about to run out for the small machine, he lodged the Weevil into some massive boulders near one wall of the rift. For the moment, the monster Phantom had not reached that far, but all the other smaller Phantoms pouring off it had. And they were banging into the Weevil's shield one after another, making it spark and light up.
Then, just when Jack didn't think anything could get any worse, the Hub Cannon fired again, knocking them to the floor for the third time.
After the white light had cleared, Jack helped Ianto up again. The Weevil had stayed wedged in the rocks, and most of the smaller Phantoms were gone from the rift. The rift floor itself was being shattered. Massive cracks were everywhere.
But the big alien Vortex was still there, flowing and pulsating in all its ugly glory.
“The Hub Cannon doesn't seem to hurt it," Ianto said.
From where Jack stood, feeling like he was almost under the thing, he was right. The mother of all Phantoms seemed to be getting stronger, not weaker.
*~*
General Hart looked at the massive Phantom on the screen. The Hub weapon had killed all the smaller Phantoms for miles around, and exposed this big one. But a second, direct shot from the Hub Cannon hadn't seemed to stop it or destroy it. And he didn't like the thought of that at all.
"Do you have a reading as to exactly what that thing is?" he asked, turning around to look at Major Swanson.
"I don't, sir," he said.
"Well, find out!" he shouted. "And start the next firing sequence. Another shot might just do the trick."
"Yes, sir," Major Swanson said.
Hart turned back to the screen to watch. Thousands of smaller Phantoms were pouring off the bigger one, spreading out over the floor of the rift like ants after their nest had been stepped on. Well, he was going to step on it again and again until none of them came out.
"Sir, incoming message."
He glanced at his board and realised it was Dr. Jones. He was clearly in the Weevil, which had broken free of the Myfanwy and now rested in some rocks near one wall. The Myfanwy had managed to almost crash-land a short distance from the rift, safely out of the line of fire.
Behind him he could see Captain Harkness. Amazing they had made it out of the city alive.
He smiled to himself. This was going to be interesting. He must hear what he had to say. He punched the receive button. "General Hart," Dr. Jones said, his voice breathless, "you have to cease fire immediately."
"Oh, I do? And why would that be?"
"What you are looking at in the rift is the living spirit of an alien's homeworld. Their planet was destroyed, and part of it landed here. This is not an invasion, and never has been."
He laughed. "I see, Dr. Jones. What have we been fighting all this time? Ghosts?"
The men around him laughed at his joke.
"Yes," Dr. Jones said.
That silenced the control room.
He stared at him. Dr. Jones clearly believed what he was saying, of that there was no doubt.
"So these ghosts, as you call them, are coming out of this Vortex thing the Doctor sold the council on, is that right?"
"General Hart, you have to listen."
"Alien Vortex, Earth Vortex," Hart said, shaking his head. "Doctor, even if I believed such nonsense, the fact remains that the Earth is under attack from an aggressor who must be destroyed at all costs."
"The cost may be the entire planet, sir," Ianto said, his gaze burning from the hologram image. "Firing at the alien Vortex will only make it stronger."
"Well," Hart said, laughing at his insane idea, "since you are under the alien's influence, I will take your protest to mean that we are in fact pursuing the correct course of action."
"I am not controlled by the aliens!"
"I suggest," Hart said, "that you take your last few minutes and prepare to meet your Vortex."
He clicked off the connection and then turned to Major Swanson. "Continue to fire until the invader has been destroyed. Step up the pace. I want one shot every two minutes from now on."
"Yes, sir," the major said.
He stared at the image of the massive alien filling the rift. Nothing could stand up against the might of the Hub Cannon. And now that he had dug this creature out of its hiding place and into the light, he would blast it into dust.
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;-)
Hart damn!
nobody is able to challenge him except Jack, Ianto and the Doctor?
the board is holed up in a corner? they do not follow the fight?
I feel there will be a heroic action of our heroes ... this is a tautology!
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