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Fic - A Question of Jurisdiction 2/3
Title: A Question of Jurisdiction 2/3
Characters: The Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventure casts
Rating: G
Spoilers for: Doctor Who – The Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords & The Sarah Jane Adventures - Invasion of the Bane
Not a licensed tie-in. All characters property of the BBC.
Part 1
"Citizens, rejoice!" the Master enthused into his microphone. "Your lord and Master will punish all terrorists who work against your duly elected leader!"
Her eyes got a little wider as the announcement boomed from every speaker. Then her chin lifted just a bit and she shouted back, "People of Earth, rejoice! The Master can be defeated! I've seen it!"
"LIAR!" the Master shrieked. The Toclafane jeered at her, flashing their knives but not approaching. Like war criminals the universe over, they were waiting for orders.
Her chin went up another notch. "The Doctor has defeated you before. He will again. You never win in the end."
"Master." The Doctor's thin, reedy voice was so rarely heard these days that everyone stopped in shock to stare at him. "Master. Look at her. She's old. How much of a threat could she be?"
The Master's jaw dropped. "Are you begging?" he asked, incredulously. Then delightedly, almost eagerly. "Are you going to beg me for her life? Really?"
The Doctor looked him steadily in the eyes. "Yes."
The Master grinned, rubbing his hands together. "Now what can I ask you to do for her?"
"Anything."
But the sound system only went one way; she couldn't hear them. From her side there would only be sudden silence and the hum of the Toclafane. So she went on, shifting so that they could see the microphone taped discretely to a sloping rafter near her head. "Citizens of Earth, the Master can be defeated. Hope walks the Earth."
Francine gasped. Rumors had filtered back; they knew it was Martha's code name.
"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" the Master screamed.
"Hope walks the Earth," she repeated stubbornly, and as the Toclafane moved menacingly towards her, she whipped her arm from behind her back, a revolver in her hand.
UNIT standard issue, circa 1985 Jack thought. So she was one of the UNIT Three. He'd spent a century researching the Doctor and knew that three women had served as his assistant when he worked for UNIT, but the organization was fiercely protective of its own. He knew of them, but not their identities. There was something else too, a huge, bulky bracelet around her wrist, flashing with blue lights. It was familiar but he couldn't quite place it.
The Toclafane laughed, that insane childish giggle. "Guns don't hurt us, little lady," one told her.
"But we'll hurt you," another promised.
"Pretty lady."
"Not so pretty soon."
"No," she said softly, raising the gun. "No, I don't think so."
It passed the approaching Toclafane and stopped under her chin. The sound of the shot went unheard as the Doctor screamed in anguish and the Master in frustration.
Acaleian dead-man switch! Jack suddenly remembered as the tiny body fell, leaving a smear of red across the papers and photos behind and above her. The blue lights were no longer pulsing in time to a heartbeat but stuttering and turning mauve. Can be wired to multiple detonators too-
The cameras went white, then showed static as the top of the building exploded. Multiple detonations. Maximum destruction to the inside, but minimum to the surrounding buildings. They'd been well set.
If she'd hoped to take out the Toclafane, she had failed. They raced through the fireball, whining their displeasure.
"I wanted to kill!"
"I wanted to hurt and cut and kill!"
"So noble, and still nobody ever taught her how to dress," the Master mused. "Honestly, Lucy, who would wear a striped minidress over tights?"
"Mutton dressed as lamb," Lucy agreed twitchily, attempting to smile.
"Oh, stop sniveling," the Master snapped as he passed the stunned, tearstreaked Doctor. "I would have killed her in the end anyway."
"I wanted blood and death and pain!" a Toclafane was still complaining.
The Master turned to Jack with a bright, unhinged grin. "Oh, I think I can make it up to you," he told his pet monster.
It took Jack four days to die.
Each time.
***
"She bought time with her life," Jack mused, looking at the CCTV still. "He thought he'd taken out the leader of the resistance and stopped looking. It was months before he realized they'd just gone deeper underground, and in the meantime, three alien races answered her call. Fighting them slowed the killing on the ground."
"Sir?"
Jack shook himself back to the present. "What do we know about her and those kids?"
"The children are unknown. I've started running facial recognition software on them. She is Sarah Jane Smith, a journo." Ianto's voice became a little bit hesitant.
Gwen called from her monitor "Running scans on that name now."
"There's more." Jack knew that tone.
"She... was a person of interest to Yvonne at Torchwood One. We caught her snooping around one of our projects. You know what that meant."
"Yes." Jack snapped disapprovingly. It meant a disappearance. If the subject was lucky, they would show up in a few days stinking of alcohol and blurry from retcon. But very, very few were lucky. Yvonne liked having test subjects. Gwen fussed that retcon was unethical. She didn't know about the previous alternatives.
"We had her in custody for only a few hours when UNIT showed up. It was made quite clear to Ms. Hartman that Ms. Smith was completely untouchable, or they would shut Torchwood down with extreme prejudice, and they could wield more clout than she could. One of their people, a Brigadier, even accompanied Yvonne to the cells so she couldn't give the order for a retconning."
"The UNIT Three," Jack whispered to himself.
"The what, sir?"
"Nevermind. Something about the Doctor, and his assistants while he worked at UNIT."
"Yes, there were three, sir, and Ms. Smith was one of them. The others are Doctor Elizabeth Shaw, recently retired from the Shaw Research Foundation, and Josephine Jones, nee Grant, who followed her husband around the world until he died. I believe she lives somewhere in on the Amazon now."
"You know who they all WERE?" Jack asked, torn between outrage and admiration.
"It was fairly simple," Ianto said, a bit condescendingly. "After we released Ms. Smith, Yvonne simply took an interest in any civilian woman who had any connection with UNIT. They told us who they were by who they warned us away from."
"I've got something on Smith," Gwen called. A moment later, she amended it to, "I've got a lot!"
"Tell me."
"In addition to being seen breaking into the Bane factory, she was at the Deffrey Vale School when it blew up. Filed a cover story about student vandals who stole her car and faulty wiring."
"We found a great deal of odd technology in the ruins of that school," Tosh pointed out.
"Many of the stories she filed are coming up with Torchwood flags," Gwen pointed out. "Especially in the last year or so."
"Ever since the destruction of Torchwood One," Ianto said.
"There was a vacuum. She must have filled it."
"Speaking of filled," Tosh said ruefully. "I've got an initial report on the Bane."
Jack looked at her, and Gwen, printing and collating reports on the Smith woman. They seemed to be back to normal. "Anything that can still affect you?"
"I don't think so, not if the source has been blown up."
"Still I'll feel better if we're sure. Owen needs to run tests."
"If they're still affected, he might lie to let them loose in the general population," Ianto objected.
"Seeing anything else out there on CCTV? Any problems out in the population?"
"No."
"Then I'm not going to assume he's lying. Go let Owen loose. Try not to hit him again." Jack took a look at the frozen image still up on Ianto's screen. By this time's standards Sarah Jane was getting old, but by Jack's she was as hot and smoking as the building behind her. This might be fun. "Print up everything you've got on Smith. I'm going to go talk to her."
Part 3
Characters: The Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventure casts
Rating: G
Spoilers for: Doctor Who – The Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords & The Sarah Jane Adventures - Invasion of the Bane
Not a licensed tie-in. All characters property of the BBC.
Part 1
"Citizens, rejoice!" the Master enthused into his microphone. "Your lord and Master will punish all terrorists who work against your duly elected leader!"
Her eyes got a little wider as the announcement boomed from every speaker. Then her chin lifted just a bit and she shouted back, "People of Earth, rejoice! The Master can be defeated! I've seen it!"
"LIAR!" the Master shrieked. The Toclafane jeered at her, flashing their knives but not approaching. Like war criminals the universe over, they were waiting for orders.
Her chin went up another notch. "The Doctor has defeated you before. He will again. You never win in the end."
"Master." The Doctor's thin, reedy voice was so rarely heard these days that everyone stopped in shock to stare at him. "Master. Look at her. She's old. How much of a threat could she be?"
The Master's jaw dropped. "Are you begging?" he asked, incredulously. Then delightedly, almost eagerly. "Are you going to beg me for her life? Really?"
The Doctor looked him steadily in the eyes. "Yes."
The Master grinned, rubbing his hands together. "Now what can I ask you to do for her?"
"Anything."
But the sound system only went one way; she couldn't hear them. From her side there would only be sudden silence and the hum of the Toclafane. So she went on, shifting so that they could see the microphone taped discretely to a sloping rafter near her head. "Citizens of Earth, the Master can be defeated. Hope walks the Earth."
Francine gasped. Rumors had filtered back; they knew it was Martha's code name.
"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" the Master screamed.
"Hope walks the Earth," she repeated stubbornly, and as the Toclafane moved menacingly towards her, she whipped her arm from behind her back, a revolver in her hand.
UNIT standard issue, circa 1985 Jack thought. So she was one of the UNIT Three. He'd spent a century researching the Doctor and knew that three women had served as his assistant when he worked for UNIT, but the organization was fiercely protective of its own. He knew of them, but not their identities. There was something else too, a huge, bulky bracelet around her wrist, flashing with blue lights. It was familiar but he couldn't quite place it.
The Toclafane laughed, that insane childish giggle. "Guns don't hurt us, little lady," one told her.
"But we'll hurt you," another promised.
"Pretty lady."
"Not so pretty soon."
"No," she said softly, raising the gun. "No, I don't think so."
It passed the approaching Toclafane and stopped under her chin. The sound of the shot went unheard as the Doctor screamed in anguish and the Master in frustration.
Acaleian dead-man switch! Jack suddenly remembered as the tiny body fell, leaving a smear of red across the papers and photos behind and above her. The blue lights were no longer pulsing in time to a heartbeat but stuttering and turning mauve. Can be wired to multiple detonators too-
The cameras went white, then showed static as the top of the building exploded. Multiple detonations. Maximum destruction to the inside, but minimum to the surrounding buildings. They'd been well set.
If she'd hoped to take out the Toclafane, she had failed. They raced through the fireball, whining their displeasure.
"I wanted to kill!"
"I wanted to hurt and cut and kill!"
"So noble, and still nobody ever taught her how to dress," the Master mused. "Honestly, Lucy, who would wear a striped minidress over tights?"
"Mutton dressed as lamb," Lucy agreed twitchily, attempting to smile.
"Oh, stop sniveling," the Master snapped as he passed the stunned, tearstreaked Doctor. "I would have killed her in the end anyway."
"I wanted blood and death and pain!" a Toclafane was still complaining.
The Master turned to Jack with a bright, unhinged grin. "Oh, I think I can make it up to you," he told his pet monster.
It took Jack four days to die.
Each time.
***
"She bought time with her life," Jack mused, looking at the CCTV still. "He thought he'd taken out the leader of the resistance and stopped looking. It was months before he realized they'd just gone deeper underground, and in the meantime, three alien races answered her call. Fighting them slowed the killing on the ground."
"Sir?"
Jack shook himself back to the present. "What do we know about her and those kids?"
"The children are unknown. I've started running facial recognition software on them. She is Sarah Jane Smith, a journo." Ianto's voice became a little bit hesitant.
Gwen called from her monitor "Running scans on that name now."
"There's more." Jack knew that tone.
"She... was a person of interest to Yvonne at Torchwood One. We caught her snooping around one of our projects. You know what that meant."
"Yes." Jack snapped disapprovingly. It meant a disappearance. If the subject was lucky, they would show up in a few days stinking of alcohol and blurry from retcon. But very, very few were lucky. Yvonne liked having test subjects. Gwen fussed that retcon was unethical. She didn't know about the previous alternatives.
"We had her in custody for only a few hours when UNIT showed up. It was made quite clear to Ms. Hartman that Ms. Smith was completely untouchable, or they would shut Torchwood down with extreme prejudice, and they could wield more clout than she could. One of their people, a Brigadier, even accompanied Yvonne to the cells so she couldn't give the order for a retconning."
"The UNIT Three," Jack whispered to himself.
"The what, sir?"
"Nevermind. Something about the Doctor, and his assistants while he worked at UNIT."
"Yes, there were three, sir, and Ms. Smith was one of them. The others are Doctor Elizabeth Shaw, recently retired from the Shaw Research Foundation, and Josephine Jones, nee Grant, who followed her husband around the world until he died. I believe she lives somewhere in on the Amazon now."
"You know who they all WERE?" Jack asked, torn between outrage and admiration.
"It was fairly simple," Ianto said, a bit condescendingly. "After we released Ms. Smith, Yvonne simply took an interest in any civilian woman who had any connection with UNIT. They told us who they were by who they warned us away from."
"I've got something on Smith," Gwen called. A moment later, she amended it to, "I've got a lot!"
"Tell me."
"In addition to being seen breaking into the Bane factory, she was at the Deffrey Vale School when it blew up. Filed a cover story about student vandals who stole her car and faulty wiring."
"We found a great deal of odd technology in the ruins of that school," Tosh pointed out.
"Many of the stories she filed are coming up with Torchwood flags," Gwen pointed out. "Especially in the last year or so."
"Ever since the destruction of Torchwood One," Ianto said.
"There was a vacuum. She must have filled it."
"Speaking of filled," Tosh said ruefully. "I've got an initial report on the Bane."
Jack looked at her, and Gwen, printing and collating reports on the Smith woman. They seemed to be back to normal. "Anything that can still affect you?"
"I don't think so, not if the source has been blown up."
"Still I'll feel better if we're sure. Owen needs to run tests."
"If they're still affected, he might lie to let them loose in the general population," Ianto objected.
"Seeing anything else out there on CCTV? Any problems out in the population?"
"No."
"Then I'm not going to assume he's lying. Go let Owen loose. Try not to hit him again." Jack took a look at the frozen image still up on Ianto's screen. By this time's standards Sarah Jane was getting old, but by Jack's she was as hot and smoking as the building behind her. This might be fun. "Print up everything you've got on Smith. I'm going to go talk to her."
Part 3