I didn't have a good way to be sure, but the aliens looked pretty upset. I realized that trying to cling to my authority-figure act was probably a lost cause at this point, but in a last-ditch effort I commanded them, "Tell me your whole plan!"
A Cyclops had fallen for that, once. The rest of the day had gone pretty well from that point, all things considered. One of the aliens grunted. The rest did not look amused. That wasn't to say that they couldn't have been amused; I still had no idea. But, man, they were ugly.
I still held Lykos in my left hand. Obviously, the goons didn't recognize it as a weapon, or they would have taken it. Now they would pay for their mistake. I tossed it, and ripped my right arm free just in time for a clean catch. I'd sustained many a self-inflicted head injury practicing that move.
I swung. Lykos slipped cleanly through the alien to my right. Like he wasn't even there. Unhurt, he stared at the strange object in my hand, obviously still puzzled as to its purpose. Di immortales. Now what?
I looked around, wildly. I could probably outrun them, but I was surrounded. And my ankle complained every time I moved it. I needed a weapon. I slipped Lykos back into my hair, freeing up both hands. I wasn't any good at fighting with them, but I was still a fantastic thief.
The alien on my right was still staring at me. It occurred to me that he'd seen me swipe clean through him with some unknown object, then collapse said object and slide it into my hair. I'd have paid a lot of money to know what was going through his head at that moment.
Looking bewildered, he raised his weapon. When he pulled the trigger, I dropped to the floor. If I had been any slower, I'd have lost my head, but the fireball soared over me and caught one of the other creatures square in the chest, throwing him across the room. So that's what it did. Cool. I seriously needed to get my hands on one of those.
I moved. Fast. In a second, the gun was in my arms and the alien was staring at his empty hands, stunned. But the thing was so heavy, I could barely lift it, much less fire it, so I planted my good foot and swung the thing with all my strength. Not at the alien, at the wall. I didn't know what was running through the exposed piping, but when the gun impacted, a joint sprang free and it began to hiss, spraying into the room.
In the chaos, I grabbed a long spear from the waistband of the nearest goon. He turned and raised all four arms angrily. I didn't hesitate. I'd had plenty of training with javelins at camp, and this thing was only a little different. I thrust it forward, and Greenie howled, bleeding. He stumbled backward, clutching at his chest. I held tight to the spear. The alien crumpled to the floor. The other aliens ran for the door.
I stood. Paralyzed. Staring at the dead alien at my feet. I wasn't sure why, but I had expected him to evaporate into dust. I wasn't prepared to have to stare at his body. Lying there. Like… like so many of the campers who died in the war all those years ago. The Titans had killed them, and their lifeless bodies had littered the streets of Manhattan while everyone just slept, completely unaware that children were dying outside. Those images haunted me. How could they not?
And here and now, staring at the alien on the floor, they all washed before my eyes. A tear ran down my cheek. I reached up to wipe it away, but there was blood on my hand. I let it fall.
I took a deep breath and shook my head. I wasn't about to die here today. And neither was the Doctor. This was my mess; I was going to clean it up. I stepped over the body on the floor and pushed through the doors. Maybe now that I'd shown them exactly what I was capable of, I could find out just what was going on around here.
I pushed through the control room doors, back into the corridor. No aliens in sight. My ankle whined. Shut up, I told it. My heart was pounding. Half-blood adrenaline is amazing stuff. Still holding my ill-begotten weapon, I strode down the hallway and took a right. More doors. I pushed through them. It looked like another command center. Four aliens turned from their consoles and froze at the sight of an angry demigod splattered with blood and holding a spear.
I pointed it forward. "Okay. Which one of you wants to tell me exactly what is going on here?" I was trying to hold my voice strong, but the last couple of words came out all quivery anyway.
The alien all the way to the left was the first to snap out of it. "We're… businessmen." The other aliens looked at him, hard. Like a warning. I think. "The forest here is the rarest in the galaxy. That's good for us."
"You're loggers?" I asked in disbelief, but all I got back were blank, uncomprehending stares. "You… cut down trees and sell the wood," I clarified.
"Ah," the alien next to him piped up. "Yes. And invisible wood is the hardest to find."
I pointed the spear at him instead, following the conversation. "It's invisible?" But as soon as the words had left my mouth, the truth dawned on me. That's how the city was suspended in the air. It was just a series of treehouses! And the wood was invisible. "You'll kill everyone in the city. They whole place will collapse."
The alien shrugged. "The floaties are stupid and useless and don't live for very long as it is. We're doing this planet a favor."
The knowledge that they were planning mass murder made the one dead goon in the control room a little easier to stomach. My head was spinning. I had to stop them. I threw the spear. It whizzed past the aliens' heads and buried itself in the console. It sputtered a few times but in a moment all the screens went black. They roared in outrage. "You idiot! This ship will go down with you on it."
I grinned. "We'll see." And moved back through the doors. I hobbled down the corridor as quickly as I could on my ankle. Finally, I reached the Doctor's cell. It was empty. How…?
Hello love.
I spun. Behind me, the Tardis faded into existence. The door opened and the Doctor extended his hand.
I crossed my arms. "How did you get out?"
He smiled. "How d'you think?"
I rolled my eyes. "The screwdriver."
"Mmm."
I stepped inside without the Doctor's help. He put his hand in his pocket. The Tardis' engines fired, and when the Doctor opened the doors again, we were back on the platforms of the city, watching the ship spiral downward. The ground was so far below that we didn't even see it crash.
The Doctor was silent for a long time. Finally, he stepped back inside the Tardis and shut the doors. "Did you give them a choice?"
"What?"
He turned around. "Before you killed them. Did you give them a choice?"
"A choice between what? Giving up nicely or staying and killing all these innocent people? No. No, I didn't give them that option." An icy shiver ran down my spine.
But the Doctor's face betrayed nothing. "What makes these people more innocent than anyone else?"
"Uhh… they weren't about to kill anyone? What are you getting at? Should I have let us both die?"
He took a deep breath, but I saw the fire in his eyes. "Listen, maybe you come from a world where everything is cut and dry. Maybe you're used to being able to tell the difference between right and wrong just from a glance. But out here," he pointed at the Tardis doors, "we don't have that luxury."
I took a deep breath, too. "Doctor. I come from a world where I can't afford to gamble with the lives of my friends. That's a luxury I don't have."
He sighed, and his shoulders sagged. "You saved my life. But you took a lot of others. You can't just… If you start shrugging it off, you lose."
"Like the pigeons."
His face contorted. "What?"
"We read about it in school. This guy… he wrote about how humans killed all these pigeons, but they felt bad about it. So that made it less bad, I guess."
I saw understanding cross the Doctor's face. "Aldo Leopold. Always a philosopher."
"You've met him."
"Don't change the subject." But his expression had softened.
"I didn't save your life," I realized. "You could have screwdrivered your way out of that cell at any time. Why didn't you?"
"I wanted to see what you would do."
"You were testing me?"
"You failed."
I looked at my feet. "I'm not going to apologize for doing what I had to do."
"Nor should you. Just…" The Doctor sighed. "I've done things I regret, Odessa. I don't want you to make the same mistakes. But I can hardly condemn you. I might have done the same thing, to save a friend."
"Even if that friend didn't need saving." It wasn't a question, really.
"Yes."
"Guess that makes us even."
"No."
"No?" I looked up.
"No. It's still your turn to ask a question."
