Fic: Torchwood and Stargates (PG)
Author’s Note: This story is set in the world of “Stargate: SG-1”, though it is definately AU. It features characters that are the property of MGM/ Gekko Corp/Double Secret Productions/ etc. Only five of the characters (Professor Alex Sanders, Doctors Riley Hunter, Jon Martinson, Walker Michaels, and Sarah Taylor) are original creations of the author, and should be treated as such. The story is set sometime between Seasons two and three of the show. The show “Torchwood” is property of BBC Wales, and all mentions of canon characters such as Captain Jack Harkness, etc, or canon locations, such as Torchwood 3, etc, are in no means attempts to plagiarise said characters or locations.
Glossary
Stargate: Interplanetary transportation device.
SGC: Stargate Command, located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
SG-1: An exploratory team made up of Colonel Jack O’Neill, Major Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, and a rebel Jaffa named Teal’c.
Jaffa: Servants of the Goa’uld, they carry the symbiotes to maturity.
Goa’uld: Parasitic aliens that take over human hosts and pose as gods from the ancient legends.
Torchwood:A secret organisation set up by Queen Victoria to collect alien technology and protect Earth from alien attack. Members of Torchwood have the highest imaginable security clearances in the world; they can go anywhere and everywhere, including 10 Downing Street and the White House. Torchwood 3 (canon) is based in Cardiff, Wales. Torchwood 2 is based in Glasgow, Scotland.
Torchwood 2: A branch of Torchwood located in Glasgow, Scotland. It is comprised of Doctors Riley Hunter, Jon Martinson, Walker Michaels, and Sarah Taylor. Often referred to as the ‘geek squad’ by Torchwood 3’s Owen Harper. (Non-canon characters). Riley and Walker are the 'commanders' of the lot, though usually Walker lets Riley take the lead.
PFFs: Personal Force Fields; scavenged from alien tech by Torchwood 3.
Mandarin Glossary
Jì Liáo Láng: Lonely Wolf
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‘Well, this turned out to be something of a wild goose chase.’ said a young man as he opened the door of Rosie’s Diner in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was followed by three other people: two women and a man, all in their early to mid thirties. They sat down at a booth, and a waitress began to walk over to them to take their order. ‘It wouldn’t have been if we’d gotten tha right place tha first time, Jon.’ replied one of the women, a short blonde with an annoyed look in her brown eyes. Jon reddened slightly in embarrassment, focusing his dark green eyes on anything but the woman who had spoken.
‘Aww, look, Sarah! You’re makin’ Jon blush!’ drawled the second man, a look of amusement on his face. ‘Wonder how red he’ll get? What do you think, Riley?’
‘I think that we should leave the poor man alone so he can order his food, Walker.’ the other woman replied, a willowy red-head who moved with a dancer’s grace. She spoke with a mild Scottish burr, while the rest of her team’s accents were more pronounced. ‘I’ll have the bacon and eggs; scrambled please.’ she told the waitress, who jotted her order down, as well as the rest of the orders of Torchwood 2’s “geek squad', as they had been named by Torchwood 3’s Owen Harper. All four at the table had one or more degrees in varying fields: Riley was an archaeolinguist (she studied dead languages); Sarah was a computer science major, Walker had his PhD in biochemistry, and Jon was an expert in xenobiology. Torchwood 2 had been sent to Colorado Springs in an attempt by Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood 3 to track down the reason as to why the area hadn’t been affected by the Cybermen attacks a few years ago, nor why it had so few sightings of alien activity.
‘Now, what I think’s causin’ this “dead zone”, as Sarah so aptly named it,’ Riley began, looking around at her team. ‘is some sort of device made up of an alien mineral. The readings taken from the GeoSats indicate that there’s something nearby that’s givin’ off massive amounts of energy that aren’t native to this planet.’ She lowered her voice as a waitress moved past, and then continued on. ‘Our job is to figure what could be giving off these readings and why it…’
Riley trailed off, her attention caught by four people who had just entered the diner. Two, an older man in his early fifties and a younger woman, looked to be military types, even in civvies. Of the other two, one was a massive man with skin the colour of chocolate and an expressionless face, and the other man was the one who had caught Riley’s eye. He seemed familiar, and as he turned her way, she got a good look at his face. Riley grinned, causing Jon to turn around to see what she was looking at.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, confused. ‘Someone you know?’
‘From a long time ago, yes.’ Riley murmured, barely noticing that the waitress had returned with their food. ‘Oh! Thanks.’ She looked up again, but saw that the man and his companions had sat down at a table in the far corner of the restaurant. ‘Excuse me?’ she said to the waitress, who had turned to leave. ‘Could you give this to the man in the glasses who just sat down over there?’ After scribbling a short note on the back of a business card, she handed it to the waitress who took it bemusedly. ‘Thanks.’
Riley watched the waitress go, and then turned to her food. After a few seconds, she looked up and saw that her team was staring at her. ‘What?’ she asked, pausing with her fork half-way to her mouth.
‘Care to explain what that was all about?’ Walker asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘An old friend.’ was Riley’s reply before she started eating once more.
‘Want ta tell us his name?’ Sarah poked her in the arm, eliciting a muffled yelp from her leader.
Riley swallowed and gave Sarah an annoyed look. ‘If you’re goin’ to be poking me, no. If you promise to stop, I might.’
‘Fine. No more pokin'. Now, his name?’
‘His name is Daniel Jackson. We met in Professor Alex Sanders’ Ancient Languages class at UCLA; this was before I went to Oxford, mind you. Daniel had some crazy theories about the pyramids; most people just ignored him. A few years ago, he sort of dropped off the face of the Earth: no new papers, no news about his whereabouts, nothing. He used to write to me sometimes, once every month or so. It’s been over three years since he’s written. Not one peep as to where he’s been or what he’s been up to.’ Riley ate another bite of her bacon and watched idly as the waitress finally reached Jackson’s table.
‘ ’Scuse me, but I was asked to give this to ya,’ the waitress told Daniel, holding out a business card. Daniel looked at it in surprise, setting down his fork.
‘Who gave it to you?’ he asked, his blue eyes focusing on the woman.
‘Some Scottish chick over at C-18.’ was the reply before the waitress left, the card now in Daniel’s hand.
‘What is it?’ asked O’Neill, stealing a piece of bacon from Daniel’s plate and munching on it happily.
‘A business card, apparently.’ Daniel replied looking at the small white rectangle held in his hand. A logo was embossed on the front: a simple uppercase ‘T’ made up of interlocking hexagons, the word ‘TORCHWOOD’ written underneath. Daniel studied it for a moment, and then flipped it over. A short message was inscribed on the back:
“ Daniel
It’s been a while since we’ve spoken. I’m in town on business, and saw you come in. Maybe we could get together and catch up? Call me at: 555-3920. Talk to you later Jì Liáo Láng.
Yours truly,
Dr. Riley Hunter,
Torchwood ”
Daniel stared at the message, and then looked up at the other members of SG-1. ‘Well. This is…odd, to say the least.’ he said, passing the card to Jack, who took it and read it. ‘Have any of you ever heard of “Torchwood”?’
‘Only that it’s classified.’ O’Neill replied, shaking his head and handing the card back to Daniel. ‘Some sort of British organisation; that’s about it. So, who’s this ‘Riley Hunter’ person, anyways?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Daniel said, taking the card and putting it in his pocket. ‘The name sounds familiar; I used to have a friend at UCLA who would write to me occasionally with that name, but that was a few years ago, before I came here. She was a transfer student from Scotland.’
‘Maybe you should see what she wants.’ Sam chimed in. ‘You never know; it could be important. What class did you have her in?’
‘Ancient Languages with Professor Sanders. She was studying to be an archaeolinguist.’ Daniel said. ‘She used to call me “Jì Liáo Láng” when we had to work together on something.’
‘And that means… what?’ O’Neill asked after he drank some coffee.
‘Translated literally from the Mandarin, it means “Lonely wolf”.’ Jackson replied. ‘I was kind of a loner during college; you know how it is.’
‘I do not, Daniel Jackson.’ rumbled Teal’c, raising an eyebrow. ‘I have never been to college.’
‘Usually, college is a time for social interaction with other people.’ Sam explained.
‘Yeah, and Danny-boy here was a geek.’ O’Neill grinned, laughing.
‘Was not!’
‘And you were how old when you entered UCLA?’ O’Neill asked, doing a fair imitation of Teal’c’s famous quizzical eyebrow.
‘Sixteen…’ Daniel muttered, glaring at O’Neill. ‘So?’
‘See? Geek.’
‘As amusing as this is, sir, Daniel, we really need to get back to the base. General Hammond’ll kill us if we’re late for our briefing.’ Sam interjected.
‘Indeed. He will likely be very annoyed with us if we are not present at the indicated time.’ Teal’c said, standing up.
O’Neill stole one last piece of bacon from Daniel’s plate and stood as well, putting on his coat. ‘C’mon, Daniel. You can figure out who your secret admirer is later.’ He went over to the counter and paid their bill, grumbling slightly at the total. Daniel drew the business card out of his pocket and examined it as he stood, trying to see if it held any hidden message. Sighing slightly, he put the card away again and followed the others, passing the table where the crew of Torchwood 2 sat.
Riley watched Daniel leave with the others, and then turned back to her team. ‘Right,’ she began, tapping the plastic tabletop with a finger. ‘We’ll need some equipment. Everyone’ll need psychic paper in case of emergencies. It’d probably be a good idea to have a few stunners on you as well. Jon, now might be a good time to test those PFFs that came in last month. They’re in my 'case. Probably wouldn’t hurt to have vests as well; you never know.’
‘Do ya really think we’ll need all this stuff?’ Sarah asked sceptically.
‘I hope not, but it never hurts to be prepared. After all, we will be goin’ unannounced into a secure military base. Now, as to the assignments: Jon, you and Sarah are back up; wait in the van until we call. If we don’t check in with you after a half-hour, go with Plan 86-J.’ Riley told the others.
’86-J. Got it. Then what?’ Jon said, blowing on his coffee to cool it down.
‘If all goes well, we won’t need to bother with that.’ Riley continued on. ‘Walker and I will go ‘round back and try to find out what’s givin’ off those readings. If we can't figure it out, we'll come back to the van and go in the front.'
'Why don't we do that first?' Walker inquired.
'It's more fun this way.' Riley grinned recklessly.
A few hours later
' "Fun." I distinctly remember you saying, "This will be fun." ' Walker grumbled, staring up at the grey concrete that made up the ceiling of the SGC holding cells.
'Yeah, well, at least we've got Plan 86-J.'
'Which involves us sitting here until we get rescued.'
'Yep.'
'Brilliant. And what do you propose we do 'til then?' Walker asked, getting up and wandering over to the door, his grey eyes examining the sturdy hinges. Riley shrugged and continued to fiddle with her watch. 'Right. I just sent the signal to the others; hopefully they'll receive it.'
'Remind me again about the range on that thing?' Walker looked out the small window set into the door.
'Ah. Right.'
'100 feet, yeah? And that's without being 24 levels underground.'
Riley looked sheepishly at the watch, and then glanced at the door. 'Well, Jack will enjoy this when we tell him.'
'Yeah. Owen will tease us mercilessly,' Walker replied gloomily. 'The "Geek Squad" messes up again.'
'Ah, I don't know,' Riley said. 'Maybe we'll get out. D'you still have your psychic paper?'
'Nope.'
'PFF?'
'Can't see how that would help, but no.'
'Anything?' Riley asked, frustrated.
'Well, I've got about two quid fifty pence in change, a few lint balls, and an old sweet. Want it?' Walker asked, digging through his pockets.
'Um, no, I'm good.' Riley replied. 'Let's see. I've got 3 pence, a pencil stub, and an extra business card.' Riley shook her head frustrated. 'Go ahead, say it: we are truly and royally screwed.'
'Yep. Hang on,' Walker craned his neck to see out of the window better. 'I can see Jon and Sarah coming this way.'
'Are they prisoners or coming of their own free will?' Riley asked, getting up from her chair.
'Looks like they're coming of their own free will,' Walker replied. 'Hold on, they're comin' in.'
Walker backed away from the door as a beep and a clunk announced the opening of the door. Sarah and Jon came in, grinning widely at their commanders' predicament. 'Finally.' Walker muttered. 'Where've you two been?'
'Nice to see ya too, Boss.' Jon replied, sarcasm dripping from his voice. '86-J works again. Maybe we should make that S.O.P. when it concerns you two.'
'Can it, Martinson.'
'Make me.'
'Boys...' Riley snarled, pushing between the two men. 'Now is not the time nor place to get into a testosterone fest.' She turned to Sarah. 'Come to get us out, or join us?'
'Get ya out, of course.' The blonde replied. 'Come on, there are people who want ta meet ya.'
'Really? Fantastic.'