"We're never going to get out of here!"
"Brave heart, Tegan. NOW!"
Giving his companion a hearty shove, the Doctor just squeezed them both beneath the door before it slammed heavily into the floor, sealing the corridor behind them. The Doctor paused against the wall to catch his breath a moment, swiping his unruly blond forelock out of his eyes.
"Oh great! Another bloody corridor!" Tegan groused.
The Doctor composed himself and patted the frightened former airhostess' shoulder, hearing vibrations caused by their pursuers' energy blasts hitting the other side of the door. "On the bright side, at least we won't get shot."
Tegan threw off his comforting hand and wheeled around to glare at him. "Yet! And now we can't get back to the TARDIS!" Her voice had a slightly querulous quality to it and her eyes projected fear, yet her jaw was set in steel.
The Doctor had never seen anyone so skilled at turning fear to rage as Tegan Jovanka, and frankly, it was an ability that intimidated him just a bit. Rather than face her, the Doctor eyed the corridor strategically. "We're not done yet. Come on!" He started running down the corridor.
"The TARDIS is back that way!" Tegan evidently felt the need to remind him.
The Doctor tried very hard not to snap. "Yes, but the Master's transmitter is THIS way."
"I thought Nyssa was blocking out the signal from the TARDIS?" Tegan protested, hurrying to catch up.
"She is, but the Master will no doubt have planned for that and have begun switching frequencies. I can only hope Nyssa will be able to buy us enough time to destroy the transmitter before he succeeds in eluding her."
The Doctor led Tegan to an intersection in the corridor and paused.
"Which way?" Tegan asked.
The Doctor wondered the same thing. "Er, right, I think." He started down the corridor, when suddenly another bulkhead rapidly descended from the ceiling and closed it off in front of him. The Doctor pulled up, startled, causing Tegan to run into him from behind. "On the other hand..." he muttered wryly, turning around and heading down the left branch.
"Logical, as always, Doctor." Tegan's voice fairly oozed sarcasm as she kept pace with him. Suddenly, the corridor ahead of them filled with figures with guns and black body armor. "The Master's guards!" Tegan gasped. A spot on the floor in front of her sizzled from a laser blast.
"Tegan, down!" the Doctor shouted, grabbing Tegan by the arm and pulling her behind him. Flattening himself against the smooth wall, he spotted the doors of a lift just ahead. More laser blasts screamed past their heads. He managed to open the lift doors and ducked inside, pulling Tegan in after him. The Doctor could smell the hot tinge of ozone as the doors slid shut behind them. The Doctor stood still a moment, catching his breath, realizing that he was holding Tegan in a rather snug embrace. Awkwardly, he let her go and took a polite step back.
Tegan did likewise, adjusting her white jacket and smoothing her short, tousled hair. Abruptly, the lift came to life, and she staggered against the back wall. The Doctor reached out and grabbed her elbow. She quickly found her footing, however, and pulled out of his grasp. "Now what?" she demanded crossly.
"We're going down," the Doctor observed.
"I didn't touch anything," she remarked, looking up at him with her wide, brown eyes, "Did you?"
"No." The Doctor watched the display above the doors count down rapidly.
"Then, how--?"
The lift came to a jarring halt, throwing the Doctor and Tegan against each other again. The lift doors slid open, and the Doctor flinched involuntarily, expecting the worst.
A quiet second ticked by, and then:
"Doctor, look!" Tegan exclaimed.
He opened his eyes and saw Tegan standing in the doorway, staring out at a cavernous expanse ringed with catwalks that radiated like wheel spokes from a central platform. A massive computer bank pulsed with energy at the center of the platform, rising in a huge tower up to the convex ceiling. The Doctor walked over to join Tegan by the lift doors. He couldn't believe it.
"The transmitter," he murmured.
"Strange ceiling," Tegan remarked.
"It's the underside of a satellite dish," the Doctor realized. The scope of the Master's ambition was boggling, and settled in the pit of the Doctor's stomach with unease.
"It's too big to be for just this one planet," Tegan commented, her tone just as grave as his.
"He can broadcast to every world in the empire with an array this size," the Doctor confirmed, imagining for a moment what would happen if the Master were to succeed. The unbalanced ex-Time Lord wouldn't be able to hold power over so many planets, but he could certainly collapse a fair number of planetary governments in the effort. Chaos would reign for centuries.
"What are you waiting for, then? Shut it down," Tegan prodded nervously.
The Doctor ignored her for a moment as he stood in the lift doorway. The catwalks and platform appeared deserted and peaceful. No alarms were going off, and no one had apparently thought to recall the lift. "Something about this doesn't feel right," he confessed.
"Doctor, the signal," Tegan hissed urgently.
"Yes, you're right," he agreed, shaking off his mild foreboding. The important thing was stopping that broadcast. Everything else had to pale in comparison. He took off at a fast trot down the narrow catwalk towards the computer bank, trusting that Nyssa's technical skills had stood up to the challenge. He walked right up to the computer bank without incident and began to analyze the dizzying array of displays and dials.
"I suppose it'd be too much to ask for a simple 'off' switch," Tegan said.
The Doctor shot her a look, turning back to the computer. He spotted the frequency dial and felt a temporary rush of relief. "Good Nyssa!" he exclaimed. Dropping to the floor and ripping off a panel, the Doctor realized that this was going to be trickier than he thought. This wasn't just the transmitter, it was also the controls for all the other systems on the base, including the nuclear reactor that was powering everything, and each system had a separate power cable. He also noticed that there didn't seem to be a shut down mechanism. He would have to disconnect the transmitter's power cable directly.
"Tegan!" He jumped up and grabbed Tegan by the shoulders, positioning her in front of a bank of lights. "I'll have to cut the power cable to the transmitter directly. I need you to stand here and let me know when this light" he pointed out a round green one, "goes out." If he cut the wrong one, he risked everything from shutting down life support to causing the reactor to go critical. If he'd still had his sonic screwdriver, he could have tested each line to find the right one, but without it, he was left to make an educated guess. Under the circumstances, the Doctor saw no value in troubling Tegan with that particular little detail. His hearts thumped loudly in his ears as he studied the bundle of power cords.
Distantly, he heard something on the computer begin to beep.
"Doctor, I think the signal's getting through," Tegan's panicked voice broke his concentration. The Doctor jumped to his feet and checked the dial. Sure enough, the frequency dial had stopped spinning. He was out of time.
"Change of plan!" he announced breathlessly. Diving back into his bundle of wires, the Doctor threw caution to the wind. "Instead, tell me when the green light comes back on!" Grasping the whole bundle in his arms, he yanked hard. The bundle of wires pulled out with relative ease. Landing hard on his backside, the Doctor righted himself and immediately grabbed one of the loose ends and plugged it back in. "Tegan?" he asked.
"No," she answered.
The lights in the cavernous facility flickered and went out, plunging them into deep blackness. The Doctor fumbled for another loose cable and plugged it in, hoping to restore power to the essential systems fast enough to avert a disaster. "Tegan?"
"No."
He plugged in another. The room lights flickered back on.
"No."
The Doctor stuck in a fourth cable and was reaching for a fifth, when Tegan exclaimed, "Yes, that's the one!" Quickly, the Doctor pulled it back out and stuck every other cable back into place. In seconds the computer banks were humming along contentedly, save for the transmitter, which was silent and powerless.
The Doctor sat back, exhaling heavily with relief. He glanced at Tegan, and saw her shoulders relax with the knowledge that crisis had been averted. Just how narrowly, he decided, was something better kept to himself. The Doctor stood up and turned his attention to confirming that all the main systems were working properly.
"That was cutting it a bit close," Tegan commented.
"Yes, well--"
The Doctor's words were promptly drowned out by a blaring klaxon. Shimmering force fields began to explode into place, ringing the platform and systematically cutting off each catwalk.
"To the lift!" the Doctor ordered, giving Tegan a mighty shove onto the catwalk. He timed the turning on of the force fields and spun around, gauging that he had just long enough to complete his destruction of the transmitter.
"Doctor, come on!" Tegan cried from the catwalk.
The Doctor ripped out a large section of wiring and dove towards the catwalk just as the force field snapped into existence all around him. He felt searing heat and light exploded in his eyes. Distantly, he heard Tegan scream.
o0o
Tegan stared in helpless horror as the force field blazed around the Doctor's midsection. Against the bright flare, she saw him land on the catwalk in a heap. Tegan ran towards him, blinking the spots out of her eyes, and knelt to help him up, only…he hadn't quite made it.
To be more precise, half of him hadn't made it. Tegan pressed a hand to her mouth and tears sprang to her eyes. The Doctor's head, arms, and most of his torso lay on the diamond plate of the catwalk, while everything from the waist of his trousers to his battered trainers lay behind the force field on the platform. The sickening stench of seared flesh and fabric assaulted Tegan's nostrils.
She couldn't believe it. She refused to believe it. She reached down and rolled the Doctor onto his back. Gruesomely, she registered the fact that the force field must have cauterized the grisly wound, because there was no blood, and no sudden outpouring of entrails when she moved him. That thought alone nearly caused her to wretch. With trembling fingers, she checked his neck for a pulse, but with such unsteady nerves, she couldn't tell whether she was feeling his heartbeat or her own.
"Tegan." The Doctor's blue eyes snapped open. He looked up at her, dazed.
"Doctor…" Tegan croaked, for once at a complete loss for words.
The Doctor lifted his head and stared down at himself. "Oh no," he groaned. Around them, additional force fields began to snap into place, locking off the other ends of the catwalks. "Go, Tegan," he ordered fiercely. "Run to the lift, get back to the TARDIS, hurry."
"But, Doctor, you—"
The Doctor blinked, his eyes beginning to glaze over, "Don't argue, you can't help me. Tell Nyssa…Hit the fast return switch…get out of here."
Tegan stood reluctantly. Her mind was roiling with confusion, with shock. She couldn't think.
"Tegan, for once in your life, just do what I say, and RUN!" the Doctor commanded with the last of his strength.
So Tegan did. She turned and sprinted away from the Doctor.
She skidded on her pumps and stopped just as another force field activated, covering the door to the lift in a glittery blue sheen. She turned around, but the catwalk back to the computer was now blocked with a force field, as well. Fortunately, on her right was another short catwalk that was barred by a comparatively feeble metal chain. Ducking underneath it, she raced to the door at the other end, which opened up into a utility corridor. Tegan rushed into the corridor and the heavy door slid closed behind her.
She staggered a few paces down the corridor before realizing that she didn't know where she was going. She stopped and stood in the quiet, deserted corridor. She had to get to the TARDIS. But where was it?
All at once, she was hit with the impact of what had just happened. Choking on a sob, Tegan sank down to the floor, her back to the wall. She knew this wasn't constructive behavior, but right now, she didn't care. In a minute or two, she'd compose herself and go after the TARDIS. She'd find Nyssa and then, together, they'd figure out what to do. In a minute or two. She pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face in her arms.
o0o
The Doctor held on long enough to watch Tegan run to safety. Darkness edged into the corners of his vision and he felt his consciousness begin to drift. He felt a tad sorrowful, knowing that with injuries as sudden and grievous as his that regeneration was impossible. There simply wasn't enough of him left intact. He didn't have time to wax philosophical or nostalgic, however. As he rapidly lost consciousness, the Doctor could only hope that the TARDIS would behave itself and do justice to Tegan and Nyssa.
So, this is what death feels like, the Doctor thought, as the darkness in his mind gave way to a dazzling flash of brilliance.
o0o
Through the small porthole in the door of the utility corridor, there was a peculiar flash of light that had nothing at all to do with the force fields. But with her head buried in her arms, Tegan was not able to see it.