CHOChapter1

The man blinked and shook his head. "How can you be the Doctor?"

"Well, good question, that. I am the Doctor, or at least I used to be him, still am him in the other universe, but here I suppose I'm just 'Jon'. Wouldn't do to call me Doctor, might confuse things a bit, you know... what's that?" The man was gesturing for him to quiet.

"You can't be him... but he needs help. There's no time... the Daleks have him and Amy and River..." He looked almost ready to pass out. Jon grabbed something out of a drawer and waved it under the man's nose. His eyes opened wide and he started.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but you can't pass out just yet, you need to tell me what's going on. How did the Daleks get you?"

"It was a trap. He was responding to an S.O.S. and the TARDIS got grabbed by some kind of tractor beam or something and we wound up on this ship."

"What is the Daleks' plan, do you know?"

"They're going to destroy Earth and make him watch. Then they're gonna kill us, his companions, then him."

"HAH! That's their weakness then. We'll just have to exploit it. First we need to fix you up, though. Rose hand me that tissue regenerator, would you?"

"Um... what exactly is their weakness that we're going to exploit?" Jack asked, thinking maybe he missed something.

"Simple - ME!" Jon flashed a maniacal grin. "The Daleks could have killed me oh, soo many times but they never succeed. You know why?" He didn't wait for an answer, but plunged on ahead while Jack and Rose exchanged amused glances. "Because they always have to draw it out instead of just getting it done. They want to make me suffer, and they wind up giving me the very chance I need. HAH! Now," he said to the man, "This is going to hurt a bit. I'm going to rebuild your side." With that he began working.

The man gritted his teeth in pain. Rose tried to distract him. She took his hand and smiled, and asked, "What's your name, luv?"

"Rory." The man grunted.

"Oh what a great name, Rory. Makes you sound fierce and proud, but I bet you're really just a big pussycat, aren't you?" Rory grunted non-committingly as Rose stroked his brow with her free hand. "My name is Rose, and this gentleman over here is Jack." Jack gave a little wave. Rose noted the wedding band on Rory's finger. "So this Amy, is she your wife?" Rory nodded. "I'll bet she's pretty. Good thing she's taken, otherwise I'd have to warn you about Jack." Rory's eyes darted over Jack's way.

"Rose," Jon growled, "Distracting Rory is wonderful, scaring him is not!" He snapped the tissue regenerator closed. "Done. You're still healing, but now you actually have something there to heal, instead of a big hole. Your ribs are going to be awfully sore for awhile. You need to take it easy."

Rory sat up. "I can't take it easy, I need to rescue my wife!"

"Of course your wife needs rescued, but you can't do it, we will. Now lie back!" Jon ordered.

"NO!" Rory roared.

"YES!" Jon insisted, and pressed a hypo to Rory's neck. Rory fell back with a whimper, and passed out. "That's better." Jon placed a bandage on Rory's side, then turned to Jack. "Now, the first thing we need to do is to disable that tractor beam. No point in freeing the prisoners if they can't go anywhere."

"I'm on it." Jack replied, turning on his heel and heading back to the corridor. "TARDIS, where is the armory now?" he asked.

Rose and Jon returned to the console room. "Right, then. Rose, I need you to locate the prisoners and find out how heavily they're guarded and if any of them are injured." Rose went to one of the console stations and started to work.

"Here we go, Jon, the TARDIS brought up the schematics of the Dalek ship." Jon hurried over and they both studied the screen, noting the two nice, big green X's marking the positions of their TARDISes, and watching the red dots moving about.

"Those would be the Daleks," Jon mused, "uh-oh, what have we here?" He pointed to what appeared to be stacks upon stacks of cannisters. He paled. "Those are hundreds of thousands of Daleks, apparently powered down for storage." A shiver went through him.

"What are you going to do?" Jack asked him. He had returned after arming himself.

"I don't know yet." Jon answered without looking up from the screen. "But we have got to destroy this ship." Rose pointed to a small area where there were three green circles surrounded by several of the red dots.

"I'll bet that's them," she said. "But how to get to them?" She highlighted the circles and tapped on the keyboard and their vital signs came up at the bottom of the screen. "Well, they're stressed out but otherwise healthy," she observed.

"Good. I expect they'll stay that way for awhile. So far this ship hasn't moved to attack Earth. I wonder what they're waiting for?" As if on cue, they felt a jolt.

"That would be the ship starting to move. Time to get going." Jack announced. Jon looked up at him and frowned.

"Jack, what is that you're wearing?"

"I was kinda hoping you'd be able to tell me. It looks like might be good for something or other." The garment in question was a shiny, silvery black jumpsuit with lots of wiring. Jack showed him a small control panel that was wired to the left sleeve. Jon flicked a switch on it and was suddenly looking at himself.

"Brilliant! It's a telepathic holo-emitter!" Jack looked at himself in disbelief. "I look like you - but I still sound like myself." he said with a frown.

"Hmmm... that gives me an idea. I'll rig up a voice modulator for you. Back in a flash!" Jon took off back down the corridor. Jack returned to the console.

"Let's see if we can get a good look at the enemy," he murmured, punching a button. A panel on the console opened and a small silver sphere with wings and a lens floated up out of it. It took off for the doors, which opened and let it out. It transmitted its recording to the monitor. "OK, let's go to the central control center." Jack instructed it, and it flew silently along the passageways, hugging the ceiling. It arrived in an enormous room, where a white Dalek seemed to reign above the others.

"Look at the different colors," Rose pointed out. "They seem to have some significance."

"Yeah they do," Jack agreed. Both of them studied the monitor intently.

"EXTERMINATE!" Both Jack and Rose nearly jumped out of their skins as they wheeled around to face Jon wearing the voice modulator and grinning. Jack called Jon some very choice names before grabbing the tool and putting it on himself. Then turning to stare intently at the white Dalek he flicked the switch in the control panel on his sleeve. Almost instantly he took on the appearance of the white Dalek.

"Now remember not to move too smoothly," Jon instructed. Jack jerked around, mimicing the Daleks' movements well.

"YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!" he said to them. Jon and Rose nodded approvingly. Jack switched the suit off.

"You'll do." Jon said approvingly. "Now, where is the control center, and any peripheral consoles where we can discreetly hack into it?" They traced the conduit paths out from the central control center and couldn't help but notice that there was a console near the prisoners.

"Perfect! OK, here's the plan," Jon laid out exactly what each of them was to do.