Dan Abnett - Border Princes

‘You heard me, Tosh. Did you see the mess we left behind us tonight? Forty-plus civilians with their lives bent out of shape. At least three dead. Hardly a covert operation.’

‘We had to react fast,’ said Toshiko. ‘It was right on us. We had to improvise.’

‘And excuse me,’ said Owen, ‘but plus, we were getting our arses handed to us.’

Jack shook his head wearily. ‘I expect more. A lot more. This is Torchwood, not amateur theatre.’

He turned away.

‘Oi!’ cried Gwen.

‘Save your “oi” for sometime when I care,’ Jack told her over his shoulder, walking back into his office.

Gwen glanced at the others and then sprang up to follow Jack. ‘Oi!’

‘I’m not kidding around, Gwen,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t “oi” me just now.’

She marched into his office anyway. He was sitting down behind his glass-topped desk.

‘Where do you get off?’ she asked.

‘Wanna close the door?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Do you suppose I might want you to close the door?’

‘I couldn’t give a toss, frankly. Where do you get off?’

Jack looked up at her. ‘You tell me.’

‘We got beat to shit tonight. Beat to shit. I know Tosh is hurt worse than she’s letting on, and James must be banged up a treat. Owen too, but he’s playing it all macho.’

‘Good old Owen.’

‘What is your bloody problem?’

Jack sat back. ‘We should have been on top of that. We should have closed it down quick and clean, before anyone knew. In and out. That mess is going to be in the Western Mail tomorrow, Gwen. Mystery riot. Deaths. We can’t paper over it. Fast bug out. No time to wipe memories or fake deaths. Just a big old mess.’

‘We did the best we could, and-’

‘That’s what I’m saying. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.’

‘I had an “and” then, by the way,’ she said.

‘So “and” me.’

‘And we won, I was going to say.’ said Gwen. ‘We stopped it. We got it contained, even though it nearly killed us.’

Jack shrugged and rose to his feet. He looked at her. ‘You know what I think? I think you’re pissed at me, Gwen Cooper, because I called you amateurs.’

‘Actually, no I’m not,’ Gwen replied. ‘I’m perfectly well aware of my amateur status. So’s Tosh and James and Owen. See, the thing is, as far as we’re aware, there are only amateurs in this line of work. ’Cept you, maybe. The things we have to deal with, Jack. The bloody things we have to deal with. We’re only ever going to be amateurs, Jack.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Jack said.

Gwen sighed and shook her head. ‘Sometimes…’ she said.

‘Sometimes what?’

‘Sometimes you can be the biggest arse imaginable.’

‘That all you got?’ Jack asked, sitting back down. ‘You done?’

‘I think I am.’

‘I think you are too. Walk away and check on the others. Don’t come back until my headache’s gone.’

‘How will I know when your headache’s gone?’

‘I won’t be armed.’

‘Funny. Ha ha.’

‘Look at my face.’

‘Rather not,’ she said, and swept out.

Halfway up the stairs to the medical area, she stopped in her tracks. Rather not ? What was she, six?

‘Just bruising,’ said Owen, swinging the med-light away.

‘Just bruising?’ Toshiko echoed.

‘OK, nasty, nasty bruising, but just bruising all the same.’ Owen took another look at her throat. The pale skin was discoloured with brown fingermarks. ‘Big bastard did a number on you.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Can I put my top back on now?’

Owen glanced back at her with a grin. ‘Unless there’s anything else you want me to examine?’

Toshiko shook her head and reached for her sweater. ‘Check James, please.’

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said James. He had stripped down to his jeans and was lying back on the exam bed. Owen had covered the stainless-steel surface with clean paper roll, but still he felt vulnerable. ‘I feel like I’m waiting for my Y-shaped incision,’ James complained.

Owen adjusted the lights. He palpated the green-black bruises and contusions on James’s white torso.

‘You really took a knock, didn’t you, mate?’ Owen said.

‘Ow! Will I — ow! — live?’

Owen didn’t reply. He waved his Bekaran deep-tissue scanner over James’s torso and stared at the graphic displays.

‘You’ve cracked a rib on the left side. I’ll bond it for now, but go easy. No heavy lifting. Oh, and your left elbow’s knackered up. Nothing fractured, but you’ve got serious tissue swelling. Hang on.’

He played the device over James’s arm. ‘Get that packed in ice and don’t tit around with it.’

‘Yes, Doctor.’ James sat up.

They heard the metal creak of a locker opening. Gwen was up by the sink, going through the drug store for something to put on her hands.

‘Let me do that,’ Owen said.

‘I can do it,’ Gwen replied. ‘Check yourself over.’

‘Me?’ asked Owen. ‘I’m fine. I’ve had worse on an average Friday night off duty.’ He sat down on a swivel chair, rode its castors across the tiled floor to the lower lockers, and leaned over. He winced, paused to take the side-arm out of his waistband and set it on the cabinet top, and then leaned over again and opened a drawer under the instrument rack. He produced a bottle of Scotch, screwed off the top, and took a swig.

‘Medication, that’s what I need,’ he said, enjoying the burn.

‘You should put that back in the Armoury,’ said Toshiko, nodding at the gun.

‘I will,’ said Owen, ‘though it’s scragged anyway. Broken.’ He looked at James, who was buttoning up his shirt.

‘Sorry about, you know, pointing it at you,’ Owen said.

‘No sweat. You weren’t yourself.’

Owen frowned. ‘Still, bugger only knows how you disarmed me. Very kung fu.’

‘It must’ve felt like it to you,’ said James, ‘but I was just flailing around. I think the thrall of the Amok made us all a bit slow. I only realised I’d knocked it out of your hand when I saw it on the ground.’

Dressing her hands, Gwen leaned on the rail and looked down at them. ‘My head still hurts like a bastard,’ she said.

‘Mine too,’ said James. Toshiko nodded.

‘All in all, that wasn’t nice, was it?’ Gwen asked.

‘Scale of one to ten?’ asked James.

‘Twenty-seven,’ they all answered.

‘What’s up with Jack?’ asked Owen, taking another swig from his bottle.

‘Who knows?’ replied Gwen. ‘And right now, who cares?’

‘Coffee?’ asked Ianto.

Jack had walked upstairs to the Boardroom, and was sitting in darkness, looking down into the Hub.

‘That’d be good,’ he replied quietly.

‘Rough night?’

‘End of the World.’

‘Analogously?’

‘No, just almost.’

Ianto set the coffee down on the table beside Jack.

‘They’ve been through the wars,’ said Ianto.

‘I guess. They’re gonna have to get used to it.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘More wars coming,’ said Jack.

Ianto left him alone. Jack Harkness took the small, black tile out of his lap and looked at it. It was a piece of exotic technology that had been in his possession since the day he’d joined Torchwood.

The display hadn’t changed. It had been blinking the same read-out for six weeks.

Jack Harkness didn’t know exactly what the read-out meant, but he didn’t need a doctor to know it wasn’t in any way good.

They made last orders in a bar on Mermaid Quay. James got them in, but Toshiko and Owen had to carry the drinks because James was busy with the rubberised ice-pack around his elbow.