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“You,” said Jack, “are a loose canon.”
Ace stuck her tongue out at him, and he rolled his eyes in fond exasperation. Owen took a turn a little too hard, and Ace was jolted in her seat.
“Careful about the explosives,” muttered Tosh, as said explosives were almost tipped over her. Ace grinned, peering out of the window. The thick forests were thinning, and through them a village was revealing itself.
Owen rolled down the window as he approached it. “‘scuse me,” he said, out of it, to an elderly couple, “I don’t suppose there’s anywhere we could get some rooms for the night?”
The woman blinked at him. “The Gore Crow,” she said, and pointed around the lake, to where a lonely building stood. “Mind not to drink the beer, though.”
“Thanks,” he replied, and drove off. Ace was itching to stretch her feet after the multi-hour drive, and once they’d pulled up she hopped straight out and began pacing to regain feeling.
Inside, once they’d got all their luggage out, including Ace’s bag of Nitro-9, Jack went up and rapped on the bar. A woman came out, keeping a hand on the counter, and at Jack’s request poured him a pint of ale, feeling the shape of the tap before she did.
“Really,” said Owen. “It’s not even three yet.” He promptly ordered his own.
Ace, personally, went over to the wall as Jack began to ask for some rooms. A grey-haired man in a cosy jumper walked out and blinked at her.
“Are you lot travellers?”
“Business only,” she clarified. “Interesting scabbard you have here.”
“It was a gift from Peter,” he said. “Three rooms, is it, Elizabeth?”
“Yes,” she answered, and he went away, presumably to fix their rooms. Ace turned back to Jack and the others, but flinched. The woman - who from everything Ace had seen seemed blind - was staring past the others, and looking directly at her, something weighty in her gaze.
It only lasted a moment before Jack bumped against a doorframe, and she looked away, but something uncomfortable still stirred in Ace’s gut.
A new distraction presented itself soon, though, when Tosh, in the other bed in their room, once they’d got it, got up and started pacing for a signal. Ace ignored her for a few moments till she realised it wasn’t a normal phone, and was instead one of her fancy gadgets that didn’t need a human-made signal to work. She went to grab Jack, who played a little disappointed that her bursting into his room was for tech issues and not a heated affair, but he grew more serious once he was given the gadget and couldn’t get through to Ianto or Gwen.
While they fussed around with that, Ace went downstairs with Owen, who talked to the grey-haired man about the local military ground, pausing to nod briefly at a new woman in the lounge, writing in a notebook, who ignored his advances entirely. As he did that, Ace found herself returning to the scabbard. Seeing Elizabeth then, napping in a chair by the mantelplace, holding an - apparently very boring - book in braille, it was hard to feel nervous of her. She was just… a woman.
Making sure to be quiet, she padded past her, and something about the scabbard calling to her, she reached out to brush her fingers along it, then recoiled immediately with a hiss of pain. Elizabeth blinked awake in a moment, and turned her head. For a moment, her gaze seemed to lock onto Ace.
“You feel it, don’t you?”
Despite herself, Ace touched it again. “It’s cold.”
Elizabeth looked back to the bar, where her husband and Owen were. “Every so often, I get the strangest feeling about it.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“That it’s waiting for something. Stupid, really.”
Ace backed away slowly, then out of the building. She panted in the cool air outside, next to a new car in the small stretch of gravel that counted as a carpark, as Owen came out after her.
“Fuck was that about?”
Ace turned her gaze, a tad embarrassed. “I don’t know.” She dug her teeth into her lip. “But I don’t think it’s good, somehow.” Owen sighed and strode away. Ace glanced back at the hotel, noticing the same woman who’d been writing watching her through the window, and started jogging after him. “This place gives me the creeps.”
The training ground was full of soldiers, but Owen steered right through to central command, ignoring anyone who looked at them funny. He found the first trailer with an open door, strode in, and addressed the fiercest-looking woman there.
“I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge here.”
“That’ll be me,” she said, unfriendly gaze kept on them, “and I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
“No need,” cut in Ace. “We’re Torchwood.”
She stared at them. “What?”
“We’re Torchwood,” repeated Owen hotly. “Are you new here, or what?”
Bambera raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “Zbrigniev, get these two out of here.”
“Hang on,” said Ace, as she started being pressed out, “something’s off here. You have to know it - your tech’s malfunctioning, isn’t it, and you don’t why. That’s why we’re here; it’s our job -”
The door was slammed in her face. She glanced at Owen, who was scanning their surroundings, and the soldiers in it, distrustfully.
“I say we get out before we’re kicked out.”
“Yes,” said Ace. “Good idea.”
The moment they were out of the firing range, they turned and watched it.
“Anything you can see off?” asked Owen lowly. “Any grenades working as they shouldn’t?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Ace. “I’ve never done this stuff legally. Besides, they’re not doing anything explosive.”
They returned to the hotel shortly after, feeling rather disgruntled, but the woman from before was still there, and as Ace came in she got up to come talk to her.
“Lucky,” Owen muttered, and, thankfully, buggered off.
The woman watched him go, then turned to Ace. “I’m Shou Yuing. You were asking about the scabbard on the wall, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. Elizabeth said something about a Peter?”
“Peter Warmsly. Local bonekicker. If you’ll still be here tomorrow, I could take you to go see the site he dug it up from. Might even meet him there.”
“You’re a star.”
Shou Yuing smiled. “I take that as a yes. I’ll come collect you after breakfast…?”
“Ace. That’s, er, my name. Brilliant. I’ll see you then.”
Shou Yuing called a goodbye to Pat and went out. Ace headed up, where obviously Tosh still hadn’t managed to call Gwen and Ianto, and where Owen was just finishing explaining the fiasco at the firing range to Jack.
“And,” he added, as she came in, “Ace has herself a date.”
“Shut up,” was her answer. “I’m only going to an archeology dig.”
“Oh, how come?” Tosh asked, looking up.
Ace struggled, for a moment, to really explain what it was, but she settled for a, “Thought the scabbard on the wall - you know, by the fireplace - seemed funny.”
Tosh frowned. “We are near an 8th century battle site. It might be from that.”
“And the woman, Elizabeth. I think she’s a psychic.”
“Well, there’s nothing off about that,” said Jack. “Unusual, but not off.”
“Yeah. Still, after breakfast, me and Shou Yuing are going to go check it out.”
“Fine by me. Tosh and I are going to go get this whole situation with the military sorted out once we’ve all had some rest.”
“Leaving me to, what, twiddle my thumbs?” asked Owen.
“You’re going to go ask people if anything’s seemed off lately.”
“You know walking up to a stranger and asking that gets you nothing,” he protested. Ace, seeing no one was looking at her, got up and went back downstairs, and after asking got a tourist brochure, which she read through in her room, studying for any mention of battlefields, till Jack came through to tell her dinner was about to be served.
To Pat’s credit, despite the apparently poor quality of his beer, his dinner was good. Still, Ace couldn’t stop herself from going over to Jack once they’d finished.
“When you said the digress signal was coming from Carbury,” she murmured, “where exactly was it from?”
Tosh answered for him. “We don’t know for sure. Perhaps a consequence of the tech blackout?”
“If you had to guess, though.”
“It really is only guessing, but I’d say the lake.”
In the morning, Ace went down early for breakfast, reading through a book about archaeology while she waited. When Shou Yuing arrived, and came in to see what Ace was reading, she started laughing.
“Don’t tell me Pat puts that in all his rooms.”
“How come?”
“Look at the author’s bio,” she said. “Peter Warmsly. He gave everyone about five copies when it was first published. Nobody had the heart to tell him they didn’t care about it.”
“It fills the shelves,” said Pat, neutrally, as he came through with a plate for Tosh. Shou Yuing took the book out of Ace’s hands then went out to her - rather old - car on the gravel, climbing in on the driver’s side. Ace tossed her bag in the back with perhaps a little more force than what was safe, then took the passenger seat.
“So,” she said, when Shou Yuing didn’t put the radio on, “are you a local?”
“To my chagrin,” she said fondly. “But some of the people here are fun. Peter moved here, I don’t know, three decades ago. He and my parents hit it off right away. Well, him and my dad. My mum sort of tolerated him.” She laughed. “They’re mates now. But I knew him basically my entire life. Ended up getting roped into his digs when I was a teenager, and so I’ve been his assistant whenever I’m up from London.”
“You don’t live here?”
“No chemistry jobs around here, are there? It’s alright. I live close to my brother, and I’m always back when I have the holidays. So is he; he just gets less time off.” She slowed the car a little. “You’re here for work, aren’t you? What do you do?”
“Oh… stuff I can’t really say.”
“Mysterious. Here, hop out.” She slowed down and got out, pulling a bag Ace could only assume was filled with archaeology equipment out of the boot. “It’s just the scabbard you care about, right?”
“Yeah,” Ace admitted, a little embarrassed.
“Oh, don’t be. It’s the only half-decent thing he’s found.” Shou Yuing got out and walked over to a marker. “I don’t suppose you’re with the military? They’ve been extra jumpy, the ones at the firing range.”
“Outside that.”
“Hm.” Reaching it, she set down a bag and pulled out a brush, scraping away the dirt. “This is where he dug it out.”
“Hang on,” said Ace, pulling out her own brush, as something grey appeared, “there’s something under there.”
“It’s just stone.”
“No, look. There’s something carved into it.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Shou Yuing. “I don’t think I can call Peter, but if he’s at his house right now…”
“No,” said Ace, “we can do this.” She started brushing away, and got out the shovel. Surely an actual archaeologist would pay more care to the historical value of whatever it was, but she had a feeling she didn’t want to get more people involved, and besides, by the time they’d finished digging it open, the message was clear.
“Entrance Below,” muttered Shou Yuing. “I don’t believe it. That’s English!”
Ace scanned it more intensely. “No,” she murmured, “I don’t think it is.” She got down on one knee and began to feel the letters. “Don’t you have a notebook on you?”
She was correct in her hypothesis. Her eyes closed, she could feel the letters’ actual shapes, and called them out to Shou Yuing. When she was done, they both looked at the notebook. It took Ace a few seconds, but she recognised it as Welsh.
Modern Welsh.
“I don’t suppose,” said Ace, “Peter’s anywhere near, do you?”
“If he’s not out now, I doubt it.”
Ace went back to the car and brought back a few cans. Shou Yuing frowned at her, but Ace laid them down and pulled the fuse.
“Had your job taught you a lot about explosives?”
“No, but I’ve done some personal study.”
“Alright. I’d advise getting some over.”
“You… They’re not…” But seeing the look in Ace’s eyes, she ran for cover, and they both dived into one of Peter’s trenches as the cans went off behind them. Shou Yuing stared at Ace in disbelief. “You are insane,” she said, then she started laughing very hard.
As Ace had expected, there was a tunnel below. She went down the dip she’d created and into it. “You stay out here,” she called to Shou Yuing. “Don’t let anyone else come in.”
“What am I supposed to do? Lecture them on archaeology?”
“If you like.”
“Not a chance,” she said, and came in after her. The tunnel sealed behind them.
Ace forgot to be annoyed and wolf-whistled instead. Clearly this was the real deal.
“What was that?”
“Don’t worry. It’s only a trap.”
Then she turned and continued down. Shou Yuing, despite her bravado, was clearly a little less certain now that the lights had been turned off, so Ace took her hand, resting the other against the softening concrete of the wall, till they saw a properly lit room at the end of the tunnel.
“I think we’re under the lake now,” said Shou Yuing.
“Yes,” said Ace. “That would tie a loose end or two together.”
The room had some sort of entrance further along in the form of a dragon’s jaw.
“Open up,” called Shou Yuing.
Ace thought back to the few times she’d heard Welsh. “Agorwch?” she tried, and, obligingly, the mouth opened.
“I refuse to ask how you did that,” declared Shou Yuing. Then, “How did you do that?”
“I work in Cardiff,” she answered. “You pick a few things up.” She entered the main body, and looked around. “Looks like a spaceship.”
“What? You’re joking.”
“Might not be a spaceship, actually, but it’s certainly not from this world.” She went into the middle, circling around a metal-clad body and sword. “Hm.” She tapped the helmet, and it fell away. There was nothing within but silence. She glanced back at Shou Yuing, and saw her standing still by the entrance.
“This is your job, isn’t it? Doing…” She waved a hand. “I don’t even know how to describe it.”
Ace paused. “It’s confidential,” she admitted, guiltily.
Shou Yuing watched her for a moment, then strode forwards, inspecting the sword. Ace reached forwards, and it was hot to the touch, then suddenly cold. “The scabbard,” whispered Ace. “The scabbard is for this sword. A sword in a stone.” She looked back at the armour, and everything clicked together. “Oh. Of course.” Then, compelled by a force beyond her understanding, she tightened her grip around the hilt and pulled it from the stone.
All at once, the ship awoke. As ghostly figures emerged from the walls, Ace suddenly understood. This wasn’t a spaceship.
It was a tomb.
“Plan B!”
“Run?”
“Run!”
Ace bolted to avoid the rising forms. “Agorwch!” she hollered. “Agorwch!” But it did nothing. She smashed a control panel, which spat out an incomprehensible mix of Welsh, but a small cubbyhole began glowing. Ace ran for it, but Shou Yuing was just a step too slow, and a clear panel fell down, separating them.
Ace turned as the ceiling hatch above began to drip, pressing one hand against it. “The tunnel!” she cried. “The tunnel, Shou Yuing, the tunnel!”
Pale, she nodded, then turned and ran. Then the hatch broke apart and the little space filled with freezing water.
All her fear for Shou Yuing’s fate fell away; all that mattered now was survival. Ace kicked up, out of the tomb, and into the open water above. The sword was heavy in her hand, so she let it fall to the bottom of the lake, pulling herself up to breach the surface. Ghosts flew up from it, and she paddled over to land with a gasp of air. Jack, Owen, Tosh, and Bambera stood there, faces pale as they watched.
“Ace,” said Jack, as she pulled herself, sopping, onto land. “What have you done?”
She coughed weakly, scrabbling to her feet. “The dig,” she mumbled. “The dig.” Without explaining further, she sprinted off.
By the time she got there, shaking and sick, she found Shou Yuing lying in the dirt, and pulled her up with a sigh of relief. “It’s just shock,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”
The Torchwood Rover pulled up after, and they were both bundled in, someone wrapping a blanket around both of their shoulders.
“How did you find me?”
“The explosion,” Jack answered. “Ever since their tech shut off, Bambera’s people haven’t been doing anything. It could only be you.”
Ace looked out of the window, and there was silence for several more minutes before Shou Yuing could speak again, asking what the spectral figures were.
“People,” Ace answered. “Or ghosts. From a world where King Arthur was real. They died in battle - they must’ve - and their… spirits, or souls, or whatever, were kept in the ship under the lake, but now they’ve been let free.”
“But where are they going?” asked Tosh.
Ace blanched. “The Britons. So King Arthur can lead them to war.”
Nobody understood her, but they did soon enough, when the four of them returned to the Gore Crow, and Elizabeth turned to look at them. “Enemies,” she murmured. Her voice and her movements had changed entirely, her lips not matching her words. Translation - from Welsh, Ace guessed, to English. She realised a second later that Elizabeth wasn’t blind anymore. “We shall fight at dawn.”
“Arthur,” said Jack. “Is that who I’m speaking to?” Elizabeth dipped her head. “Arthur, whatever war you and your people were fighting, it’s over. You’ve been dead for thirteen centuries.”
“The war is never over so long as we can fight it. Our enemies change; we do not. My warriors are taking their new forms. We will meet at dawn, and if you do not fight us, we shall slaughter you. Come, Guinevere, and follow me.” She pulled the scabbard from the wall, then she and Pat strode from the inn. Looking through the windows, Ace could see an army amassing.
“It’s the people from Carbury,” she said aloud. “No, no. Not all of them.” Realisation dawned, and she looked back at Shou Yuing, then Bambera, then the rest of Torchwood, all of whom were not possessed. “It’s the ones who’ve lived here for centuries.”
There was silence for a long moment. Then Shou Yuing looked at them. “Well, we have to fight, don’t we?”
Jack wore a grim expression. “I don’t know if we can.”
“I’ll ready UNIT,” said Bambera. “For… whatever happens.”
Ace turned and looked at Shou Yuing. She looked back.
“I don’t think the comms blackout will have ended,” said Tosh in the distance, though in reality she could only be a metre or two away. “It’s just us. Us, whatever villagers whose families are new, and the military.”
“I’m helping, then,” said Shou Yuing.
“No,” said Jack. “You’re a civilian. Bambera, evacuate whatever civilians haven’t been possessed. Shou Yuing, help her with that, and then leave with them.”
Shou Yuing looked at him unreadably, but obeyed, following Bambera out. The sky was darkening already.
“What can we do, do you think?” Ace asked Jack.
“Survive, I hope.” He had a shadowed look to his gaze. “Without slaughtering every person here.”
Jack insisted that they - but not him - got some sleep, and Ace obeyed unhappily, though she wasn’t sure the rest she was able to get was really worth anything.
She and Tosh both woke to the sky brightening, and with heavy hearts they made their way down, joining the military as they went to the battlefield. There, she stared out at the Arthurian army, standing over the dig. Perhaps a hundred or two hundred people stood there. Some had managed to dig up their weapons, while others stood unarmed.
UNIT, on the contrary, were armed to the teeth, but Ace knew it would do nothing unless they were willing to gun down all these innocent people. Elizabeth stood at the helm, eyes aflame. Of course she was psychic, Ace thought; she’d been destined for this, to be King Arthur’s vessel.
“I’m going to repeat myself,” said Jack. “We have no wish to fight. Please, accept our offer of peace.”
“Peace,” sneered Elizabeth. “Peace is a coward’s way of life, when our enemies still live!” She lifted the scabbard and roared.
The scabbard…
But before Ace could think, the army was charging. UNIT fired off warning shots into the air, but none of the warriors so much as flinched. They were forced to fall back, dancing along the lake and away from the battlefield. As it became clear that they could not scare them away, UNIT started firing blanks.
Something behind the army caught her eye - someone was moving through the dig. But Ace couldn’t see what it was; she, Jack, Tosh, and Owen were having to fall back behind military ranks to get weapons. Aim at the non-vulnerable areas of the body. That way you probably won’t kill someone.
But they would have to, if this didn’t stop them, right?
Ace started shooting, her grip on the gun, despite her fear, steady. Then Elizabeth stopped, turning to the lake. Her army ran past her, those who hadn’t been injured too badly to walk, but she was as still as a statue.
“Caledfwlch,” she whispered, and Ace turned towards the lake too, as -
A woman rose up, clutching Excalibur in one hand, from the water. The whole army stopped, turning in disbelief. She didn’t seem to swim, or walk, but she rose up and then moved like a ghost to land.
“Arthur,” Shou Yuing called, not a drop of water falling from her, “come and face me!”
Elizabeth held out the scabbard, and with a scream ran at Shou Yuing, but with a single slice she fell to the ground, still. But there was no blood, no wound, and on the ground Elizabeth’s chest rose and fell with unbelievable calm. Shou Yuing looked back up at the army, walking back. They ran at her, but just a nick from the blade turned the ghosts into… nothingness, and left the humans unhurt.
Not a single shot was fired. Shou Yuing cut gently through the final person, then turned to the army, dropping the sword, which vanished upon leaving her hand.
“It’s over,” she said, and then collapsed into Ace’s arms, but she was just as alive as all the other people lying on the ground around them.
They started triaging, but apart from the few injuries their blanks had given, the people were entirely unhurt, just asleep, and even a few were starting to wake, blearily, from that.
Shou Yuing woke too, frowning at Torchwood.
“How did you do that?” asked Jack in disbelief.
“The sword,” said Shou Yuing. “Ace left it in the lake. I only thought of it that when they were about to evacuate me, and I just... knew, somehow, when I thought of it, that it could help. I went through the tunnel to get it, then once I had hold of it I didn't even need to breathe, and I could just rise up through the water like I was flying.”
The Lady of the Lake.
But more pressing matters were on Ace's mind. “The tunnel,” she murmured. Then, “I think we had better get rid of the ship.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Shou Yuing, and this time, nobody tried to stop her.
They rigged it to the brim with Nitro-9, then set it off from land.
“A warrior’s burial,” mused Jack.
By the time everyone was waking up, it seemed the memories were coming back to them. Ace and Jack pulled and Shou Yuing aside when it became clear they would remember, in enough time.
“Look,” said Jack, “I think you deserve this choice. We can make you forget everything that happened here, or you can remember, and live the rest of your life not telling anyone what happened here.
“Or,” said Ace, “you could join us. Torchwood Three.”
“Stopping aliens?”
“Keeping people safe. From all sorts of things the average person doesn’t know exist.”
“And shouldn’t, not yet,” added Jack pointedly.
“It can be dangerous, though,” said Ace. She thought, for a moment, about Suzie; how in the same day they had gained Gwen and lost her. “It’s the sort of life you can’t back out of.”
Shou Yuing studied her intensely. “What do you think?”
Ace flushed a little. “I’m biased.”
Shou Yuing considered it for a few moments more. “If you want me, then I’m in.”
It took a few hours - and plenty of Retcon - before they left, Bambera promising to clear up any aftermath that remained, but after that, Shou Yuing joined them in the Rover, sitting with Ace and Tosh, next to the window. With the three of them in the back it was rather cramped, so she and Ace were pressed tightly against each other, but neither seemed to mind.