Second to last chapter -I think, onwards! (note: the beginning is the doc talking to himself in case of any confusion.)


I was almost glad to see the door to the control room. Finally I could concentrate on something other than my future (past?) woeful parenting skills.

Glancing inside, I almost groaned in frustration

It's definitely not my day today

DPOV

I cursed inwardly,

why did they have to have so many on guard?

Must be because we had not only arrived undetected, but we had almost escaped as well.

So, threaten or lure them out?

It would have to be one hell of a distraction to clear that room.

Turning back to the others, I immediately noticed that Jenny was missing.

With a sense of dread, I looked back through the door.

Of course, she was there hidden, but very poorly, with a stun-globe at the ready.

She glanced at me, and I shook my head frantically. She looked put out, but to my relief, relaxed from her poised position.

She tensed again, and I realized with horror that she'd been spotted.

I almost wrenched the door off it's hinges.

Threaten it is then

WPOV

We followed the Doctor through the Door, and were immediately confronted with 3 dozen angry goblin men all jumping around waving guns. We were hustled into the center of the room, away form the beeping instruments and panels that lined the walls, the room was very cramped, we were all huddled together, Jenny joining us, sheepishly, though throwing a reproachful glance at the Doctor, which he ignored.

I shuddered seeing so many weapons. Ian shoved me behind him, though with the sheer numbers of the Graske in this tiny room, I didn't think it made a difference. We were all looking at the Doctor, expecting a plan.

He stepped forward from our group, Jack muttering a warning. His demeanor had completely changed. Power rolled of him in waves and the excitable aliens seemed stunned for a moment.

"What is your purpose here?" One of the orange men spoke finally.

"To warn you." the words were quiet, though they reverberated as if he had shouted. The voice demanded attention, it couldn't be ignored.

"Graske see no threat from you."

"For once, I'm not what you should be worried about."

At this the Graske shuffled uncomfortably. The Doctor continued:

"The planet known as Sol-3 has already suffered an invasion. Their governments crumbled, and a new race took over. And though this species are ignorant of galactic law, the Graske are not. You know that Earth is a level 5 planet."
He paused, you could hear a pin drop. The last sentence made almost no sense to me, but in hung in the air and the tension it caused was almost tangible.

"You might think that 'cuz I'm the Doctor I'm gonna spare you. But the 500 strong Judoon vessels currently on their way to Earth have a different manner of enforcing the rules."
The distaste in the Doctor's words was plain. We had no doubt, these Judoon people took law breaking very seriously. I began to worry for my species.

"Your changelings will stick out like sore thumbs to Judoon searching for alien tech. Wanna risk it?" The warm brown eyes were now deadly serious. his raised eyebrows challenging the room to not cut their losses and run.

"We will free the Earth prisoners. You can go." the Graske said finally. We sighed with relief. The Doctor suddenly looked exhausted and very old.


There were only a few goblins left with us. The rest had gone to release the other prisoners. They seemed very keen on making sure that we didn't feel a need to complain about them, and we treating us like royalty. None of us fell for it, or rather, nobody except me, the looks I received when I said that they seemed "sort of ok now" were possibly the easiest for me to decipher since I had arrived amongst humans.

Mel, Jared and Ian were all demanding an explanation about Galactic law and level-5 planets. The Doctor shook them off, saying "now isn't the time". I didn't miss the guilty look he shot me. I looked at Jack. He didn't meet my gaze.

"We'll make them tell." I jumped at Jamie's voice. He whispered fiercely in my ear, an arm wrapped around my shoulder. "Once we get back, you'll see. Something that threatens one of us, threatens all of us." I didn't know what to feel. It was really scaring me now, I needed to know what threat had these Goblins so worked up, what consequences my kind were facing for invading the Earth.

I thought about it.

With the amount of life in the universe, I felt incredibly stupid to assume there were no laws governing it. I had known for a long time that the Souls' invasion was wrong, my family had taught me that, but I hadn't considered the wider galactic community would involve themselves. We had found the neighbors of of conquests rather "If it's not my planet, not my problem" sort of species, certainly, the Martians had raised no objection when we had come here. What was the punishment for invasion then?

I felt sick in the stomach from stress and worry. I knew it wouldn't help to do this to myself, but I couldn't think of anything else. I shouldn't worry, the Doctor would sort things out. He had to.

He had to.


Well, I hope to have dropped a bombshell, the chapter's very short, though I expect the next to be quite long to compensate

please please review, I need to know how this plot development worked, I've kept it to myself so long, :/

thanks

Swiss