Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
CHAPTER ONE
They took their first tentative steps outside shortly after they discovered the planet had turned into a giant desert. A gust of wind blew from the northeast, causing sand to fly up everywhere. Gwen coughed. "Most definitely not on earth anymore."
Mickey held up his remote. "It's impossible at this point. I mean, this planet seems to have certain earth-like qualities, like oxygen, and there's a water source back there somewhere, but like I told Jack, there's less oxygen here. Wherever 'here' is. But it just can't be Earth."
"It's boiling," Martha said, taking off her jacket. "I doubt anyone lives here."
"Well, we have to figure out a way to get back home again," Jack said, stepping out of the Torchwood doors and taking off his coat as well.
"The atmosphere is smothering," Gwen said after they walked a few feet. She held her arm up over her mouth. "I doubt we're going to find life anywhere."
Mickey shook his head. "Actually, the parameters for life seems to be in place. I mean, we haven't smothered to death, have we?"
Before long, a large tan building appeared in the distance.
"That looks like UNIT," Martha shouted, walking a little bit faster. "It can't be."
They hurried to follow her. Her long strides caused sand to fly up in large, thick clouds around them. They were quickly becoming coated in it. At this pace, it didn't take too long to arrive at the back of the building. "It looks exactly like UNIT," Martha said in awe.
"If it is some kind of interplanetary UNIT headquarters, I'm not too eager to go inside. We don't get along very well," Jack said.
"But so far it's the only sign of life," Ianto pointed out. "They're as good as we get, and as long as we don't advertise where we're from, we should be all right."
"How will we get inside?" Martha asked.
"Those people seem to know what they're doing," Gwen said, pointing at a tall man and woman who were walking past them. As if they didn't even see Jack and everyone else, they punched a code into the keypad and walked inside, letting the door shut on its own. They weren't far behind the two other people. Jack caught the door as it started to swing shut and let the rest of them inside first.
As the man and woman headed straight down the corridor, Jack and his crew took a right. There were offices all up and down the corridor, and they saw someone walk down their direction.
"It is UNIT!" Martha whispered excitedly. "Look at his uniform!"
The man stared at them suspiciously and then stopped. "Explain your purpose." Jack stepped in front of his crew and held out his hand. "I'm Jack Harkness, and we're lost. We were hoping you might be able to point us in the right direction."
The man squinted at him and held out his gun. "Where's your badge?"
"I, uh... I told you. We're lost." Jack held his hands up. Call it habit, or self-defense. He noticed everyone else followed suit.
"You shouldn't be inside without a badge. How did you get in?"
"We followed two officers in. We just... need to figure out where we are so we can get home again."
The officer gestured towards the left with his gun. "Get inside my office. Now."
Jack sighed and held up his hands in surrender.
Mal held his gun out at arm's length as the officer did the same. "Drop your weapon. You're in violation of the law."
Mal ignored him. It's what he'd been doing for years, anyhow.
"You honestly intend on shooting an officer? A fellow UNIT officer, for that matter?"
Damn. That's what acting on instinct got you. He should have remembered he was wearing the uniform.
"Let me see your badge."
Mal fished out a fake badge that had been given to him by their lookout. Speaking of which, where was Johnson? He was starting to feel like they'd been duped. He put his gun back into his holster and held the badge out to the officer, who took it and examined the picture.
"Now, see, the interesting thing about all this is... you look awfully familiar. Like I've seen your face in an - oh, yes. You were the one who tried to kill an Operative on Miranda, weren't you?"
Mal's heart sank as the soldier reached into his pocket and pulled out a Wanted poster. Yep, that was him all right. And Talitia had assured him this job'd be easy.
"Well, that man looks an awful lot like you. And you're in a military-regulated uniform. You know what the penalty is on New London for impersonating an officer?"
As skilled as Mal was at outdrawing someone, he wasn't so good at talking his way out of things. He usually ended up shot at.
The officer raised the radio to his lips but was cut off by a crackling, deep voice.
"We've got a Code I."
The officer pushed them into the office and shut the door. "You realize it's a major security breach to enter the facility without a badge."
"Yes, we do, and we're sorry," Jack said. "If there's anything we can do... we seem to have ended up here by accident."
"Your ship run out of fuel?" the agent said, absently. He pulled out his desk drawer and turned his computer on. The name card on the front of his desk read 'Sargeant Samuel Donaldson'.
"Not quite, but for the sake of argument, let's say yes," Jack said.
"And you can't find your way back to the ship."
"Right." Smith looked him up and down, and it honestly looked as if he were going to help them. Finally he said, "I'm not so sure I buy your story. New London is a small place. Can't get lost." Jack wanted to tell Donaldson that the story wasn't his; he'd conjured that one up all by himself.
He raised his radio to his lips. "We've got a Code I."
"Hell, I've got a Code I," came a voice a few seconds later. "And mine's an, er, really interesting one."
"UNIT, as competent as ever," Martha whispered to Jack.
He snorted.
"Mine's worth money, if you know what I mean."
Sargeant Donaldson looked up, suddenly interested. "Oh, yeah?"
"It's Malcolm Reynolds, sir."
"I'll be right with you."
He stood and pointed at them on their way out. "Don't touch anything." Within seconds, he was out the door, and it slammed behind him.
"Who is Malcolm Reynolds, I wonder?" Gwen asked.
"I don't know, but I like the man already," Jack responded. "Good distraction."
"I'm wondering what's going on with UNIT," Martha said with a frown. "This seems odd. While UNIT is coded back on Earth, it's not on lock-down like this one seems to be. We used to have people come in all the time. Granted they had to be kept out of the Classified areas, but other than that, people could come and go as they liked as long as they were with an UNIT employee. And this can't be a Classified area, because there wouldn't normally be a door anywhere near where they were keeping secret stuff. I wonder if they've found something top secret?"
"Who wants to find out?" Jack stepped over to the door and tried to open it. "It's locked. We're not prisoners. At least not the last time I checked. What is going on here?"
"Get me a paper clip off his desk," Gwen said, holding out the palm of her hand. "I learned this when I was in the PTC."
Mal's radio crackled. Timing was everything, he thought with a sigh. "Sir? Whereabouts?" It was Zoe.
"Oh, so you have accomplices," the officer said, as another man came to stand next to him. Although UNIT uniforms were specialized, he could recognize that the second man was a sargent by the decoration. Although he'd never worn any, the other guys did.
"Sir, I found him. And there are possible accomplices."
Mal hoped Zoe was smart enough to pick up on the fact that in this case, his radio silence meant that he was being interrogated. Even if Jayne didn't get it, hopefully Zoe did. And if she wasn't smart enough to take the cash and run, maybe they'd come after him, guns blazing.
"How is it my base keeps getting infiltrated? I've got a group of civilians in my office. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Mr. Reynolds?"
"Captain Reynolds, actually."
The sargeant just smiled. "We've been waiting to arrest you for quite some time, Mr. Reynolds. Or they have, actually. You wouldn't believe the money they're offering."
He heard the gunfire as if from far away at first, and then coming closer. The two UNIT officers turned around quickly, aiming their weapons towards the noise. He used the distraction to pull out his own gun. He made quick work of shooting the first officer in the back, and the second one just barely had time to turn around before he shot him, too.
A few minutes later, Zoe and Jayne appeared from behind the wall of a corridor. "It was an ambush, sir," she explained, lowering her gun and putting it back into her belt.
"And there weren't no money, 'neither," Jayne added. "Feels like we've been cheated."
Another failed job, then. They were starting to get used to this. Mal sighed and tried to decide what to do. Get back to the ship first, of course. Kaylee must be going out of her mind by now with worry. And Inara really needed to get to Persephone.
They followed him back down the corridor towards the door they'd walked into, hoping no one had realized what had happened yet. When they opened the door, the sunshine hurt their eyes. The sun was so bright it seemed to burn straight through their clothing.
They took off their UNIT uniforms, revealing their dusty civilian clothes. As they began to walk back, Mal heard voices. At first he thought the radio was now picking up signals from the ship, but then he saw a group of people. Looking very lost.
"I wonder if they could help. They don't look like they'd lock us away or anything," Martha said.
Three people were approaching, and Jack recognized two of them as the people who had opened the door for them earlier. He walked up towards them and explained that they were lost and needed to get home.
"Can't help you, sorry," one of the men said. He was tall and wore a long brown coat with a gun belt and boots.
"Please. You're the only people we've seen on this planet so far. Do you have some sort of way to travel to a more populated area?"
"I've got a ship. Finest in the 'verse."
"I dunno, maybe you could take us somewhere with more people and we can figure out a way back to Earth. Or find someone who knows."
"Earth don't exist anymore," Jayne said. "How stupid are you?"
"Yes it does," Martha argued. "We live there."
"Earth got used up long time ago," Mal said. "I fought in a war about it and everything, so... pretty sure Earth don't exist. Or else we fought in the wrong war, huh, Zoe?"
"Thinkin' the same thing myself."
"You got some way of payin'?" Mal asked.
"All I've got are pounds," Ianto said.
"Pounds?"
"Never mind. Look, we've all got jobs and specialties. Why don't we come and work on your ship with you?" Jack said. He was making this up as he went along, but he always did. "We work on your ship for you, and you drop us off where we can get help. Deal?"
The man narrowed his eyes suspiciously, holding his hand over his gun belt. "What specialties you got?"
"I'm a doctor," Martha said. "And Gwen works for the police, and Mickey can get you out of any scrape. He's good at reading technology and stuff. Ianto does a bit of everything. And Jack --"
"I lead the operation." He held his hand out to the man. "And who are you?"
"Name's Malcolm Reynolds. Captain, to most people. We don't need a doctor as we've already got one on board, and we certainly don't need any officers."
Mickey stepped forward and pulled something out of his bag. "See this?"
Captain Reynolds frowned at him. "Yes."
"It's a device I paid large money for back on Ea-- where I used to live. Anyway, I bet if you trade it in, you can get a large sum for it. It detects strange signals from far away, keeps you out of danger."
"I don't have time to play." But Mal was looking at it, as if it had somehow caught his attention.
"I'll let you have it if you'll let us on board."
He paused and looked at his companions as if waiting to see what they had to say. When they didn't say anything, the captain said, "Can't believe I'm sayin' this, but welcome aboard."