Harm's Way (short story): Difference between revisions

== Summary ==

Landing in the back garden of a house in Pontcanna, the Torchwood team of Jack, Tosh, and Ianto retrieve an ‘artefact’. It is two metres long by one metre wide, and resembles a loaf of bread with a thick crust but translucent like amber, with a strong organic smell. The artefact is moved back to the Hub, and taken to the autopsy lab. Gwen has been given a morning off, which she has decided to spend having coffee with Rhys at a café. Rhys voices his concerns and worries, about her career choice (mainly the daily threat she faces to her life) and Jack phoning her, calling her back to work and cutting their meeting short doesn’t help matters.

Back at the Hub, Gwen suggests the artefact is a chrysalis with something organic and alive inside. This would explain the dead readings from the scan. Under UV light there appears to be some form of script writing on the shell, but before it can be translated, Gwen is proven right. The chrysalis splits open and a huge, multi-limbed creature breaks out. With lightning speed the creature knocks out Jack and leaves Owen hiding his bloodied face and moaning in a way that reminds Gwen of a child run over by a bin lorry. Ianto races to the armoury. Gwen leaves Toshiko to tend the wounded Owen and pursues the creature in the Hub. Ianto is brushed aside by the creature following a hail of bullets which seem to have had little effect. As the creature moves in on Gwen, her phone rings – the last thing she’ll probably ever hear, Rhys calling…..

Gwen lies unconscious in a hospital bed in a separate room at the hospital, linked to various machines when Rhys arrives. Jack joins him at the bedside. His “She’s gonna be alright” comments do little to pacify a very angry Rhys, who demands to know what happened.

Jack tells Rhys about the chrysalis that opened up and proved to be - hostile. The creature is trapped inside a highly localised time-field created by Tosh using the Rift manipulator. It is alive but moving very slowly. The effect will not last for long. The only weakness that has been identified in the creature’s armour is a soft, unprotected area of the palate that is exposed for a brief moment before it strikes. Jack is more concerned about the other creature on the loose in Cardiff. Leaving Rhys ‘grateful’ that Gwen is alive (albeit with a hairline fracture to her skull and some cracked ribs), Jack joins Owen and Ianto. The second creature has been found in Grangetown – heading towards the city, some nine foot tall and growing, according to police reports. As the creature causes devastation, turning over buses, and ripping cars in half, Toshiko hears the chaos as Jack tries to take control of the system. When the communications go down all she can get is the BBC News report suddenly brought to an end by the sound of a huge explosion and an image of a huge orange fireball …

In the hospital room, Gwen makes a recovery. Her first concern is Jack and the others. Ignoring Rhys' pleas to rest, she discharge herself. Rhys takes her back to the Hub via the paving stone lift.