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Disclaimer, no more mine now than it ever was before.
Set just a few weeks after Home for Christmas, so Jack is pregnant, but not yet too noticeably.
http://amythest-n-ice.livejournal.com/4573.html
Link to Prt 7 Home for Christmas
http://amythest-n-ice.livejournal.com/4956.html
Link to Prt 9 Returned
Taken
******************
Ianto wandered into the console room with Bobby balanced easily on one hip, and saw the Doctor dashing around the console madly, flipping switches and pulling levers. He looked up and saw them in the doorway.
"Ianto, where's Jack?" The Doctor yelled.
"Kitchen, why?"
"This is not going to be one of our better landings, and the internal comms seem to have fried. You all need to hang on to something." He called.
Ianto turned on his heel without another word, and dashed back to the kitchen.
"Jack, we need to move, now. The Doctor says we're looking at a rough landing."
"Hell. Bobby's nursery is shielded better than anywhere else. Run." Jack said.
They bombed down the short corridor to the nursery, and got inside, slamming the door shut to complete the shielding. Ianto put Bobby safely into his crib, and he and Jack sat on the floor to the side of the crib. Bobby sensed that something wasn't right, so he sat quietly in his crib, his hands wrapped around the bars. A few minutes later, they felt the floor shudder slightly, then again, harder. After a moment when there was no further indication of shaking, Jack got to his feet.
"Ianto, stay here with Bobby."
"No, you stay here. I'm not risking having you slammed into any walls out there. The Doctor will never forgive me if anything happens to that baby you're carrying."
"Great, just what I need, someone else wrapping me in cotton wool." Jack sighed, but he didn't argue any further. He wouldn't like it if anything happened to his unborn child either. Bobby held up his arms to Jack as Ianto slipped from the room.
"Mama, up." He demanded. Jack complied, picking him up and sinking into the rocking chair in the corner of the room.
Ianto cautiously entered the console room just as the Doctor was picking himself up off the floor, mopping blood from his forehead with a handkerchief.
"Are you OK?" Ianto asked, grabbing an emergency kit from inside one of the roundel storage units and popping the lid, picking up a dermal patch and sticking it over the cut to stop the bleeding.
"Yeah, fine, what about the rest of you? Where are Jack and Bobby?"
"In the nursery, everyone is fine. What the hell happened?"
"We were hit by a temporal storm, threw us out of the vortex. The TARDIS is going to need some time to run her self repair routines, so we might as well see where we are." The Doctor said fiddling with the screen controls for a moment. The screen eventually flashed to life, and they saw a meadow of long blue grass, dotted with flowers, and the sky overhead was an interesting shade of peach.
"Hah, Burdian Minor, excellent. Just the place for a nice break while the TARDIS repairs herself." The Doctor crowed, grinning hugely.
"Oh yes?" Ianto asked, doubtfully.
"Yes. Peaceful agricultural society. Wonderful people, grow some of the most popular fruits in this part of their galaxy."
"Right, I'll go and tell Jack it's safe to come out then." Ianto sighed.
Jack looked up as Ianto came back into the nursery, raising an eyebrow in question.
"We've landed, somewhere called Burdian Minor. We hit a temporal storm or something and the TARDIS needs time to repair herself. The Doctor is very excited, I think we're going for a walk." Ianto relayed.
"Burdian Minor? Oooh, I hope its Snowberry season, I love Snowberries." Jack said, letting Ianto take Bobby so he could get up from the rocking chair.
They got to the console room and found the doors already standing open. Stepping out into the warm sunshine, Jack slipped an arm around the Doctor's waist and leaned over to kiss him lightly on the lips.
"I assume it was only your head you hit, nothing vital damaged?" Jack smirked, getting a dig in at his lover, reveling in the fact it was usually the Doctor insulting the humans.
"Yes, only my head. Come on, we can go for a walk into the town, pick up some fresh fruit, and give the old girl a chance to work on her damaged systems."
"I have to ask, if the TARDIS can repair herself, why do you spend so much time repairing her?" Ianto asked.
"Oh easy, one, she can't fix everything herself, there are some systems that were added after I got her that she can't fix, and two, Jack and I LIKE tinkering with the machinery." The Doctor grinned, plucking Bobby out of Ianto's arms and bouncing off down the path through the meadow, pointing out flowers, trees and flying insects to the slightly bemused child.
"Right, that way then." Jack grinned, making sure the door was shut firmly and following the Doctor down the path. Ianto sighed, and hurried to catch up with the others as Jack's longer stride easily caught him up to his mate.
They entered the town, and the Doctor frowned slightly.
"I would have expected it to be a little busier than this." He mused, looking at the sparsely populated streets. There were a few children running along the narrow alleys between the houses, and one or two women, but that was it.
"Maybe everyone else is in the fields right now. I know last time I was here, when they were harvesting the men were out from dawn until dusk, and they markets were run at night to stop the heat spoiling the delicate fruit." Jack shrugged, looking around at the white painted houses.
They walked further along the street, heading for the square in the center of the town. Jack fell a little behind the others, and didn't have chance to make a sound as a strong, hairy arm reached out of one of the narrow alleys, clamping over his mouth and nose and dragging him into the shade of the alley. He tried to struggle, but a knife blade to his throat convinced him that would be a bad idea. He knew he would survive being killed, or rather, he would come back, but they had no idea what a death and resurrection would do to the baby in his womb, and Jack didn't really want to find out by trying it. He went still, and allowed the dirty, burly man to drag him further down the alley, away from the others.
The Doctor could see the glint of a fountain ahead of them and turned to grin over his shoulder. The grin quickly slid off his face.
"Where's Jack?" He asked.
"What?" Ianto turned too, and stared down the empty street behind them. He walked back to the corner they had just come around, and looked down that street too, but other than a couple of the native women, there was no one in sight.
"Jack." He called, breaking the hush of the streets. There was nothing, and he turned back to the Doctor, wide eyed and shaking.
"He isn't there." He said quietly. The Doctor settled Bobby securely into Ianto's arms and pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, changing the settings and scanning for any sign of his mate, there was nothing, and another scan picked up no indication of his wrist computer.
"Jack." He tried yelling, but the only reply was his own voice echoing back to him down the narrow lanes. He spun at a soft touch on his arm, and looked down at a young native woman with dark curly hair, tanned skin, and dark eyes.
"He will not answer, the slavers have taken him, one of the children saw it happen. Your friend was a little apart from you two, and they took him." She whispered, looking down at the dusty ground.
"Slavers?" The Doctor asked, his voice tight, angry.
"They came a half year ago, they have taken all of the strong and the fit men. They have made it so no visitors come any more to buy our produce, and we can do nothing to fight them." She said.
"Half a year? What are they doing here, where are they taking the people they abduct?" He demanded, gripping her arm tightly. She winced, and whimpered a little, but didn't try to pull away from him.
"We do not know, none have returned once they have been taken. Some of the children, those trained as trackers, have tried to follow the men and those they have taken, but when they get so far from the village, there is a flash of light, and they are gone."
"A transmat, or some other kind of transport beam. Where, where does this happen, can any of these trackers lead me to the place where they saw the light?" He demanded.
"If you wait in the square, by the fountain, I will see if any of them are willing." She said. The Doctor nodded, and released her arm. She bobbed her head and hurried away down the lane.
"Don't you mean lead us to the place they saw the light?" Ianto asked quietly.
"No, I'm taking you and Bobby back to the TARDIS, I have to know that he's protected while I look for Jack, and I trust you to do that. Once we find out if one of the boys is willing to help, I'll take you back, and we can go from there."
"I can head back alone, save wasting time."
"No, that would give them the opportunity to take you too, and I wouldn't know anything about it. I have to make sure you're safely back inside the TARDIS before I go after Jack." The Doctor said firmly. Ianto saw the dark rage lighting his eyes, and didn't protest. Part of him pitied the people who had taken Jack, but most of him wanted to do what the Doctor obviously wanted, to kill them all.
Ianto sat on the edge of the fountain, trailing his free hand in the water as he watched the Doctor pace angrily from one side of the square to the other.
"Mama?" Bobby asked in a tiny voice, tears filling his eyes. The Doctor spun around in front of Ianto and crouched down in front of him, stroking the side of Bobby's face lightly with his thumb.
"We'll have mama home soon Bobby. Very soon." He said. Bobby held out his arms to the Doctor, wanting his father to hold him, so the Doctor sat down beside Ianto and took him.
“Papa.” The baby said, burying his face in the Doctor’s neck and crying. The Doctor stroked his back soothingly, kissing the top of his head gently.
“I know baby, I want your mama back too.” He whispered.
The young woman who spoken to them before reappeared in front of the Doctor, a boy of about 11 or 12 beside her.
“My brother, Kareem, will take you to where he saw the slavers vanish.” She said.
“Thank you. First we must return to my ship, to make sure my son is safe.” The Doctor said, kissing Bobby’s head again.
“The women here will look after him, if that is your wish.” She offered.
“No, thank you for your kind offer, but I would rather know for sure he was secure within our ship.” The Doctor said, rising.
“Bobby, go to Uncle Ianto now.” The Doctor said, passing the still whimpering child back to the other man, and pulling out his sonic screwdriver once more.
“I want to keep a scan going while we walk, make sure no one gets the drop on us on the way back to the TARDIS.” He explained when he saw Ianto’s puzzled look.
They reached the TARDIS unmolested, covering the ground within fifteen minutes, moving at a good clip. The Doctor made sure that Ianto and Bobby were securely locked inside, then turned to his young guide.
“OK, Kareem, lead on, show me where the slavers vanished.” He said.
The boy nodded silently, and set off at a run toward the distant tree line, the Doctor easily keeping pace with the fleet young native. It took them half an hour, even at a run, to reach a clearing where the boy stopped running and refused to go any further.
“Here, here they vanish in lightning.” The boy said, gesturing at the clearing. A quick scan with his screwdriver showed indications of transmat activity less than half an hour previously, which pretty much had to be Jack and his abductors.
“Thank you Kareem.” He said.
“What will you do now, they have vanished in their light, and taken your friend with them.”
“I will use this, to try to make their light take me to where they are.” He said, holding up the device.
“You will rescue our people too, when you are there?”
“I will try, Kareem.” He said.
“Then, I will go with you, help you rescue our people, and your friend.” He said, his chin held high.
“I can’t put you in danger that way.” The Doctor protested.
“I am old enough to choose for myself, and I choose to help rescue them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“All right, come on then.” He said, moving to the middle of the clearing, still scanning as he went. Kareem walked cautiously a couple of steps behind, until the Doctor stopped moving, then he stepped up beside him.
“Right, stay still while I try to activate their transmat.” He warned, fiddling with the settings on his screwdriver.
“Yes, got you.” He crowed as the bright light of a transmat swallowed them whole. When the light faded, they were obviously nowhere near where they had started out. The terrain around them was mountainous, stretching as far as the eye could see.
“The foothills of the
“How far would this be from your town?” The Doctor asked.
“It is on the other side of the continent.”
“Wow, no wonder they use a transmat, the trip would take hours in a ship. What could they possibly want here?”
“I do not know, the area is of little interest to our people, nothing really grows here.”
“Right, let’s take a look then.” The Doctor said, leading the way carefully in the direction his scans indicated a lot of life signs.
They crested a small rise carefully, keeping low, and saw men roped together, carrying buckets in and out of a cave entrance, full out, empty in. The rocky contents of the buckets were dumped on a conveyer belt where a dozen more men were tied, sorting through the rocks.
“A mine, they’re using the men to mine.” He breathed, his anger ratcheting higher.
“What is mine?” Kareem asked.
“Dig precious rocks and minerals from under the ground. Diamonds, in this case.” The Doctor said after another scan.
“So, we go and free them now?” Kareem asked, starting to get up. The Doctor grabbed his wrist and pulled him down again.
“Wait. Just because we can’t see any of their abductors, doesn’t mean they aren’t there. We need to know how they are guarded, how many of the slavers are down there, what sort of weapons they have….” The Doctor trailed off, seeing Jack being hauled out of a small hut set to one side of the pit. There was a bruise darkening on the side of Jack’s face, suggesting that his mouth had run away with him at some point, or he had tried to get away, and the Doctor had to quell the urge to go down there and just grab Jack. They had taken his mate and unborn child, and they had laid a hand on his love. They would pay, but he wasn’t going to be stupid about it.
The men waved something at empty air to the other side of the pit, and a cloaked ship shimmered into view. Jack was pushed inside, and three of the men followed him, the door closing and the ship quickly lifting off.
“No, damn it Jack.” He whispered, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment, and then he pulled himself together. If they had taken Jack to a ship in orbit, he was going to have to get back to the TARDIS to reach him, and he wasn’t going to leave these people enslaved here and this mine in operation. Scanning again, he realized that the three men going with Jack had left only three in charge of the slaves.
“Kareem, can you get down there, without being seen, and start untying people. Cut the ropes if you have to, but tell them all to stay where they are until I say so, then they can all run at once.”
“What are you going to do?”
“They must have explosives down there somewhere, to have opened up the mine. I’m going to find them, and get ready to wipe this place off the face of the planet. Do you know how many of your people have been taken in all?”
“No. Many is all I know.”
“Then there may be more on their ship, or somewhere down here. Never mind, we’ll do what we can. Go on, start cutting them free. Get inside the mine, if you can, and tell everyone inside there to get as close to the entrance as they can, without being seen.”
“Yes.” The boy said, darting away. The Doctor watched him for a moment, to make sure he was all right, and the men he was freeing were doing as he asked, and then he headed off to locate the explosives. He was going to make sure that there was no way they could start this place up again. He located the explosive in a locked safe behind the hut Jack had been pulled from, the one were the three remaining guards were laughing and joking. He stilled at something he heard one of them chuckling, and his rage climbed another notch. So their Captain liked pretty males did he? If he so much as breathed on Jack, then it would be the last thing he ever did. He easily opened the safe with his trusty screwdriver, and started loading the explosives and fuses into his pockets. He jumped out of his skin as Kareem ghosted up beside him when he crept round the corner of the hut.
“The men are all untied, and the ones inside the mine are freeing the ones deeper, and telling them to move closer to the entry. There were three more slavers inside the mine, but the men dealt with them, so they will not be a problem when you are ready.”
“Good, thank you.” The Doctor said, starting to plant the explosives and fuses first around the hut, and then he headed over to the mine entrance, nodding to the men gathered inside as he started to carefully position the explosives to cause a massive cave in.
“All right, start leading everyone up the cliffs out of the mine, lead them back to where we appeared, and I will join you soon.” The Doctor told Kareem.
“What of the other guards?” One of the men asked.
“If you took care of all the guards in here, then there are only three remaining.” The Doctor said.
“There are usually six out there.” One protested.
“Three of them left in their ship with my mate. There are only three left. Go, I will make sure they don’t try to stop you leaving.” The Doctor said tightly. The men obediently started to file out, moving carefully to try to avoid attention. At a signal, the men who had been outside the mine, at the conveyer belt, started to follow too, and this was what drew the attention of the guards inside the hut. They dived out with their guns drawn, aiming at the escaping slaves.
“You might want to put them down, now. The explosives around that hut you’re standing next to, they’ll just be enough to kill all of you, but they won’t hurt the people who ARE just leaving over there. Put them down, on the floor inside the hut, close the door on them, and sit your asses down on the ground NOW. Usually, I don’t like killing, it doesn’t sit very well with me, but you took something important, something very precious to me, so if you even twitch in a way I don’t like, I will blow you back to whatever Gods you choose to believe in.” The Doctor said. The men looked at him, saw something in his eyes that scared the hell out of them, and they obeyed, shutting their weapons inside the hut, and sitting down in the dirt.
“Good, I thought you might be semi intelligent. So, you don’t belong here, would one of you care to tell me why you are here, why you enslaved the locals to dig up a bunch of diamonds? No? You might as well you know, I will find out from you, or I will go up to your ship and take the information directly from you computers.”
“We had engine problems, last time we passed through this system.” One of them started grudgingly. He ignored the glares of his cohorts, and carried on.
“We landed here to repair, and our scans picked up a great wealth in diamonds in the ground here. After we had repaired our ship, we delivered the cargo we had been carrying, and our captain decided to come back here, and get the diamonds, to carry a cargo that would be wealth for us for a change, instead of wealth for the owners of cargo.” He said petulantly.
“And why take slaves? You could have brought equipment to mine the diamonds for you, and no one would have noticed, or cared that you were here.”
“That would have raised questions, and cost money. The slaves cost us nothing.” One of the others shrugged.
“Well, it has cost you everything now. All the diamonds will be lost when I blow this place up, and you will lose your freedom too.”
“You plan on killing us then?” The third asked.
“No, I will turn you over to the justice of those you have wronged here. You have taken their men, damaged their business with the rest of the system, people are frightened and hungry, and you have done this. They will decide your punishment.”
“And if they execute us? You will have handed us to them.”
“I don’t care. Come on, it’s almost time to move. You, tie the other two up, nice and securely, hands behind their backs. I will be checking when I tie you up, so don’t try anything.” He warned. The youngest of the guards obeyed, standing up slowly, gathering some of the cast off ropes, and tying his cohort’s hands behind their backs. He then docilely stood with his back to the Doctor and allowed his own hands to be tied. The Doctor checked the other two were secure, and pulled them to their feet.
“Let’s move.” He ordered them.
They made good time to the transmat point, and the men from the town quickly tugged their former captors into the middle of the group so that they would have no chance to escape. The Doctor activated the fuses on the explosives, and then as the mine began to crumple, he activated the transmat. As soon as they reappeared on the correct side of the continent, he dispatched the men back to the town with their prisoners, and set off back to the TARDIS at a run.
Ianto was pacing the console room when the Doctor burst in.
“Where’s Bobby?” The Doctor asked, a little breathless.
“Asleep in his nursery. He cried himself out calling for Jack. Where is Jack?”
“Somewhere in orbit. They took him up in a transport ship to their main vessel. We need to get up there and locate their ship, and then we can get aboard and take him back.” The Doctor said, running for the console and starting to throw switches and levers, pressing buttons madly.
“Old girl, I hope you’re up to flying, Jack needs you now.” The Doctor said, taking a deep breath and throwing the switch to dematerialize them. When they reappeared in orbit, the Doctor started scanning for the other ship.
“There.” He said, gesturing ahead of them at the dark, grim looking ship before them. Even as the Doctor’s hands were moving over the controls to jump them aboard that monstrosity, it blew apart in a fireball that probably lit up the night sky on the planet below.
“Nooooo. Jack.” The Doctor screamed, burying his face in his hands, and crumpling to his knees on the grating around the console. Ianto turned away from the Doctor’s grief as harsh, keening cries of denial came from the other man. Tears cascaded down Ianto’s own face, his heart breaking for the Doctor, and the small boy in the nursery, both of whom had just lost the center of their worlds.
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From:
no subject
Would I really do that?
As you asked SO nicely, next chap (which was already written, evil grin) coming right up.
From:
no subject
This really does beat the essay I'm supposed to be writing (although I suppose if I'd spent as long writing as I have messing around looking for fics to read it would have been done days ago!)