BUBBLES

Chapter Three: Cranky Yellow Footballs

"Is this thing… hello? Helloooo?" The Doctor tapped the communit with his finger. "One two, one two, testing, testing, this is the news at five… Anybody listening?"

"It's not transmitting," Martha translated from Track's mutterings.

"Ah." Spinning on his heel, the Doctor punched a few random buttons on a big shiny machine behind him. "Frequency… channels… good, good, uh-huh, right! Bad Guy Warning, take two." He cleared his throat, and then frowned.

"What?" Martha asked.

"I hate this bit," his lip twisted slightly. "You do your spiel, bad guy listens, threatens you a bit, you repeat yourself, bad guy laughs maniacally, you make the whole lot go kaboomski." He sighed gustily. "Repeat ad nauseam with interchangeable villains. It's so boring."

"There, there," said Martha amusedly. "Poor little hero."

He raised his eyebrows, eyes wide. "You too! Is there cheeky juice in the water here, or something? Blimey, it's like the intergalactic one-liner awards around here. Musical interlude anyone? Billy Crystal about to announce the second half?"

Track rolled his disc-like eyes. "He hasn't even noticed."

"Umm, Doctor?" Martha nodded towards the fizzing screen over the communit, where a pale green jelly quivered and bobbled. "You've got an audience."

"Ooooh." The Doctor span back to the screen. "Hello! You must be the Rutan Host command! I'm the Doctor, that's Martha, this is Track. Errr… ignore all that stuff before, will you?"

"Doctor?" the Rutan's voice was as gelatinous as its form. "The Doctor?"

"That's me, hello!" he waved cheerfully. "Wave to the space snot, Martha," he hissed behind his shoulder.

"Hiiii," she drawled, wiggling her fingers. "Doctor, the point?"

"Oh, right, yes! Er," he scratched at the back of his head where the snorkel had left tracks in his hair. "You wouldn't see your way clear to leaving this planet alone, would you? Only the Hath were here first, and your slaughtering them just a bit is putting a crimp on their style, as it were. And also," he drew himself up slightly, "I don't like it."

"This planet is of supreme tactical importance in the war effort," the Rutan gurgled. "We will not abandon it in response to feeble threats."

"Told you," the Doctor shrugged. Martha shrugged back. "So I have to stop you," he addressed the Rutan once more. "That's okay, done it before, story of my life, really. But it'd make things a whole bunch easier if you just cleared off."

"You cannot stop us, Doctor," the Rutan's green glow intensified. "We know of you and your savage companion. Your trickery will not work a second time."

"Savage?" Martha growled. "What's this?"

"Ah, long story, he doesn't mean you," the Doctor said hastily. "Someone else, a long time ago, back when I was someone else too, for that matter."

"Cease your prattling!" the Rutan snarled.

"That'll be the day," muttered Track.

"Savage indeed!" Martha fumed.

"My head," the Doctor moaned. "Oi, Rutan, get lost, will you? Got my hands full with this lot, never mind you."

"No, Doctor. Hatha Seventeen will be ours." The Rutan quivered as its voice rose triumphantly. "You shall die here, along with these primitive fish and their pathetic civilisation. This conversation is over."

"Not very polite," the Doctor complained. "Actually, that was rude! Very rude. Wasn't that rude? Now," and his demeanour suddenly hardened in one of his lightning-fast mood changes, "You will leave this planet. Or I will stop you. You say you know all about me, but you know so very, very little, Rutan. Or you'd know that I never give up. Now leave this planet, or face the consequences. And I don't think you'd like them."

The Rutan abruptly vanished from the screen.

"What a pleasant fellow," the Doctor murmured. "So charming, so debonair, so… squishy." He turned to Martha. "What did I tell you?"

"No maniacal laughter," she pointed out.

"Hmm, well, there are variations," he admitted. "Can you ask your cheeky walking fishy person here to lead me to the Hathic cloning facilities? Let's set up that static interference."

As Martha flobadobbed her way through the request, the Doctor tapped the communit idly, his expression thoughtful. Eventually Track gestured to them both and he and Martha were led down a cold, militaristic corridor.

"Always corridors," Martha muttered, adjusting her mossy blanket around her shoulders. "God, it's freezing. My legs are completely numb. I wonder how Mum and Tish got on with that dress shop owner."

"Oi, I paid, didn't I?" the Doctor protested. "Not sure why…" he trailed off as Martha gave him a venomous look. "Ah."

"I don't care how hideous the dress is, or was, Doctor, that was supposed to be about me for once. The whole dress thing. Mum had some champagne, and we were all going to go out for lunch," Martha said flatly. "You didn't even ask if I was busy. You could have pointed the TARDIS to a couple of hours later, after all, and that would have been fine with me."

"I'm sorry, Martha," the Doctor mumbled. She sighed.

"I know you're really terrible at this sort of thing, so you're forgiven. But I'd better get an absolutely amazing wedding present — and you'd better not be late."

"Ahhh, um, but Martha, I don't really, er…"

"But nothing, Doctor." She hoisted the blanket again. "You're coming, and that's final." She glanced up at him. "I'm insisting on banana daiquiris behind the bar specially."

"Oh, well, in that case," he brightened.

Martha grinned into the gloom.

"Rrrrright!" the Doctor finally announced.

Martha yawned from her position curled up on the hard concrete floor. "All done?"

He nodded. "All… hey!" the machine made a noise like a vacuum cleaner being powered down, and the Doctor thumped it solidly. "Shoddy construction," he grunted. "Can't get the parts, these days. Or those days. Not exactly clear on that one."

"My legs have stiffened," Martha realised as she tried to stand, and her knees screamed in protest. "I wish you'd let me shove my jeans on."

The Doctor looked guilty. "Ahhh, I've really made a shemozzle of your day, haven't I? Here we go…" and he pulled her to her feet, slinging her arm over his bony shoulders. "There we are, Martha."

"Owww," she puffed. "Oh no… pins and needles, pins and needles, pins and needles!"

"They'll subside; it's just the blood flow to your legs…" he trailed off. "Not helping, is it."

"I know, Doctor," she groaned. "I didn't go through medical school to learn to figure skate."

He shook his head. "You never used to be this cheeky."

"I never used to be this naked in public either." She nodded to the machine. "It's working?"

"Yup," he said expansively. "All sorted. The Rutans are just cranky glowing footballs at the moment."

"But, hang on," Martha frowned, "you said their electrical capabilities would be strengthened. Can they… electrocute people from a distance?"

The Doctor grimaced, and started to help her back along the corridor to the communications juncture. "Unfortunately. And water is an excellent conductor of electricity. I need you to tell Commander Sassypants to keep all his troops in the aquamobiles."

"Okay," Martha stamped down on her tingling feet. "Are you… I don't know, going to drop a toaster in the water, or something?"

He stopped stock-still. "What?"

She half-shrugged. "You know, zap all the Rutans out there by overloading their systems. You mentioned that too, I think."

"Martha," he said in a half-strangled tone, "You are. You. You are a genius. I hadn't even thought of that."

Her mouth dropped open slightly. "Seriously? Mister million-possibilities-in-a-minute?"

He shook his head a little. "Nope. For that, I'll even dance at the wedding." He bit his lower lip. "With you. Not with Tom — or Jack."

"Tom's a perfectly lovely dancer, I'll have you know," Martha said archly. "Nonetheless, it's a deal. But Doctor — no tux, please. Your suit will be fine."

"Ah, got it."

Martha's legs were still freezing, but she could move them somewhat better now, and so she released the Doctor's neck and stretched them cautiously. "Ow. Getting better, I think."

"Good, you're making me lopsided," he nudged her. "Good to keep going?"

"Yeah." Martha took a tighter hold of her blanket. "Let's go, then."

Back in the communications centre, Martha had to shout to get the darting Hath to listen to her. Eventually she clambered awkwardly atop a crate, stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled as loud as she could.

A veritable storm of bubbles answered her as the Hath protested. Martha shucked her mossy blanket and held up her arms for quiet, extremely aware of her naked legs and the tattered, stained taffeta skirt barely covering her knickers. "Excuse me, Hath!" she yelled. "We have some important information for you concerning the Rutans! Now, I know you're probably all in a tizz about the people who suddenly turned into, I dunno, murderous yellow blobs a few minutes ago — but I need you all to calm down and we can explain the next step."

"Next step?" Track demanded. "What do you two mad things want to do now?"

She gave him a disapproving look. "Well there's gratitude," she said reprovingly. Raising her arms again, she called out, "Right! Here's what we do! First, we've got to get all your people into the aquamobiles or onto dry land. Nobody stays in the water, got that?" Martha looked hard at the assembled soldiery. "Well? Go, send the message!"

A half-dozen Hath scurried to the communits. Martha blinked. "That was quick," she murmured as an aside to the Doctor.

He folded his arms and grinned at her. "You kidding? Even if it's all in flobbadobble, it'd be kind of hard not to obey the extremely cross lady with the legs. You're good at this, Miss Jones."

"I recently had a bit of experience at herding frightened people, Mister Smith," she reminded him. "And — what was that about my legs?"

"The message has been sent — we will have confirmation within minutes," reported a soldier, his gills flaring nervously. "What's next, Doctor Martha Jones?"

She blinked. "Oh, yeah… um. Doctor? We ought to make sure these aquamobiles are free of Rutans, right?"

He nodded. "They'll be extremely disoriented, and a bit sick — shouldn't be too hard to push them out the door. Just — no-one touch them, and use bits of wood or plastic, nothing metal. They got that?"

Martha repeated this to the soldier, who snapped off a salute to her and formed several squads to comb the aquamobile whilst others forwarded the orders to the other Hath settlements. Martha sat down on the edge of her crate and rubbed her bare, tingling shins. "To think I was worried about some random shop assistant seeing my pants this morning," she said ruefully to herself.

"Don't worry," the Doctor said conversationally. "You should see what I've worn whilst saving the world."

She giggled a bit, and then squeezed out her gunk-spattered hair. "Oh, yuck. Okay, what next?"

The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and rolled it absently between his fingers. "To borrow your analogy — we drop a toaster on them." He frowned. "Did that Hath just…"

"Just what?"

"Aha! Of course! Oh, I am an idiot!" He smacked his forehead. "I'll be able to understand all that flowerpot gibberish as the signal from the cloning machines intensifies! The artificial personality traits and responses are cancelling out the Rutan Host's communications and thus their shape shifting ability, and so the TARDIS translation circuits can finally break through all that static, bam, oh yes!" He grinned hugely at her.

"Doesn't do you any good, no-one understands you sixty percent of the time," Martha said good-naturedly.

He paused. "Well, that's not my fault," he said in a slightly injured tone. Martha nudged him with an elbow.

"Calm down, just teasing you," she smiled. "So, where do we get our toaster?"

He raised an eyebrow. "The kitchen. Really, Martha."

"What, seriously, an actual toaster?" Martha stared at him. "I thought…"

"What?" The Doctor folded his arms. "You thought what?"

"I thought you'd need something slightly more impressive," she admitted. "I mean, some powerful fancy space engine to drop into the swamp. Not a dinky little machine for heating bread."

"Don't blame me, it was your idea," he said acerbically.

~**~