Nathan woke up. When had he fallen asleep?

The first voice he heard was Damien. "Gasp! It's alive! It's alive!"

He forced himself to sit up. The present versions of the Time Lords were breaking into the control panel next to a large door, probably leading to a starship hangar. Was this where Arachne was being held?

He looked back and to the sides. Damien was holding on to Nathan's bed; Shanjik was holding on to Kyra's. June and Skeerse were covering the hallways behind them. "Damien, where's your future boyfriend?"

Damien covered his face. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Nathan forced his mind to focus through the haze in his memory. "Kyra asked me a question, then there was a lot of shooting."

"Well, after we took care of the people shooting us, me, June, and Shanjik from the future caught up with us and showed us how to get to the hangar. There was a lot of quizzing along the way to make sure we wouldn't get lost when it's our turn to be the future selves."

Nathan shuddered at the thought of two June's in one place. "Did everybody behave?"

Damien rolled his eyes. "I assume you mean the Captains? Yeah," he pointed to the man working on the door, "His future self was very clear on the ground rules about her bunking up with herself, and all the soldiers we ran into were taken care of too quickly for her to do anything psycho."

Nathan gave a prayer of thanks. He felt a tingle in the back of his head.

Footsteps ran up from behind him. "Shan, lay him down, jik!"

Nathan started to ask what Shanjik was talking about.

Every muscle in his body clenched into a death grip around his bones. Nathan's brain felt as though it were ripping in half. He couldn't tell whether he was breathing or not. All of his senses started to fade.

Something pinched at Nathan's arm. The pain across his body started to die down, then the haze lifted from his mind.

He forced himself to breath. "What just happened?"

"Shan, it wasn't quite a seizure, but that's the closest comparison I can think of, jik."

Damien clenched his hands around the side railing of Nathan's bed. "Any idea where it came from?"

"Shan, it smells like the different drugs he's been given today are interacting in a way that had never been recorded. This cocktail has never been combined in a single patient before, so I didn't know that the pseudo-seizure would happen, but now that it has, I'm afraid that his brain smells like it's going to happen again, jik."

Damien let go of the bed and smacked the wall. "And there's nothing you can do to stop it?"

Shanjik started counting on his fingers. "Shan, he'd been given carboloxins and anti-volarigens for the surgery, dorocate in the attempt to poison him, dorolyse and krykoline to treat the dorocate, and now jikanomeel for the pseudo-seizure, jik. Shan, I'm afraid that the cocktail in his system is becoming unpredictable enough as it is, jik.

Nathan took another breath. "So what do we do next time?"

"Shan, your next seizures should be weaker than this first one. Keeping yourself calm should be enough to stabilize you until we can get you to your ship's sick bay for observation. Can you do that, jik?"

Kyra laughed. "Shanjik, if Nathan's health depends on mental discipline, then he's going to be all right."

Shanjik turned to face her. "Shan, are you sure, jik?"

"Are you worried that his knowing how anxiety will make the seizures worse will make him anxious, and thus make the seizures worse? Trust me, I've never seen anybody have such an easy time as he has at not thinking about something."

Nathan laughed too. "Plus, your vote of confidence should also help."

The back of his head tingled in the same way as before. Nathan lay down in the bed and forced himself to breathe.

His muscles started to tighten and his brain started to burn, but Shanjik had been right about it not being as strong. The seizure ended in, to Nathan's estimation, about 15 or 20 seconds. "Was that shorter or longer than the first one?"

"Shan, –"

Damien jumped in. "Longer." He grinned in Shanjik's direction.

"Damien, was that really necessary?" Nathan forced himself to calm down.

Damien's jaw fell open. "Oh, shit. Shutting up now, sorry."

Nathan felt another tingle. He braced himself for another seizure.

This one was worse than the previous, though still not as incapacitating as the first.

Shanjik sniffed the air above Nathan's bed. "Shan, I stand corrected, the seizures will keep getting stronger. Would you like me to try another injection, jik?"

Damien glared at Shanjik. "Really? You're sure this time?"

Kyra raised her hand. "I have an idea. Can you push me over to him?"

Shanjik and Damien obliged.

Nathan sat up to face Kyra. "I'm all ears."

"You're an engineer, right?"

"Yes, specifically computers."

"If I asked you about Arachne's computers, would you enjoy talking about her enough that you'd distract yourself?"

Nathan smiled just at the thought of seeing Arachne again. "Thank you, that's a lovely idea, but no. She'd had a pretty bad time with the people who built her, so she's really shy about sharing herself with new people."

Damien put his hand in the air. "Maybe not her mind, but she loves showing off how her body works." Damien slapped his mouth. "Please tell me the Captain didn't just hear that."

Harper laughed in the distance. "Sorry, Damien, can't do that!"

Kyra shook her head. "Just ignore her for this. Damien, I take it you meant Arachne's mechanical engineering?"

Damien put his hand down. "Yes, thank you."

She turned her face back to Nathan, then gestured with her head toward the Time Lords. "What do you think? It sounds like I'm about to see Arachne for myself pretty soon, but would her construction be something you could distract yourself with?"

Sounded good. "Well, officially the production line are called Morning Stars because each ship resembles a large disk with spiked clubs attached in the shape of an 8-pointed star. The crew spaces and most of her brain are in the middle section, about 16 metres tall and 40 metres at her widest, and the engine nacelles are at the ends of eight booms. The booms themselves are about 6 meters thick, the nacelles are spherical and about 10 metres across, and combined they measure about 35 meters long." Nathan's brain started tingling again.

He forced himself to ignore it. "Each nacelle has five cylindrical openings – one pointing out, two pointing to the left and right, two pointing up and down, each 2 metres in diameter and 2 and a half metres long – so she can control her thrust for an unparalleled combination of high top speed and high maneuverability. She's also one of the military models, so each engine covering is also dotted with a dozen cannons, some of which shoot plasma orbs, others lasers." The tingling went away without a problem.

Kyra nodded. "OK, so what kind of engines does she have?"

Nathan couldn't tell how interested she was personally, but he appreciated her concern. "Singularity drives. Each engine houses a black hole weighing in at – "

"WHAT?"

Nathan rubbed his ear. He forced himself to stay calm. "Don't worry. Each black hole is kept at a mass of around 110 thousand tonnes. You could stand less than a metre away and not feel any gravity, but you can also go more than a year between refueling stops before they have a risk of exploding."

Kyra blinked and took a breath. "Wow. I never knew black holes could be that weak." Her eyes widened again. "Wait a minute, what do you mean 'explode'?"

Nathan grinned. "All black holes give off at least a little bit of radioactive plasma that can be used as a power source, but a smaller one will give off more energy in the same amount of time as a larger one. For example, Arachne's 8 black holes together give off as much energy in one second as the largest nuclear explosion in human history. Whereas, if all of that mass were condensed into a single black hole, then the larger engine would only be one 500th as powerful as the 8 small ones." He felt like he was starting to sound like Damien; he wondered if anybody else noticed.

Kyra's eyes opened even wider. "Every. Second." She raised her pointer finger. Then she raised her middle finger. Then her ring finger. Then her pinky finger. Then her thumb. Then she closed her thumb. "And that happens all the time? Like, no way to turn it off?"

"Yes, but don't worry, she's not going to explode any time soon. Or ever, if we're careful about refueling the black holes before they get too small to control." Nathan wondered how much more detail he could go into. "What year are you from again?"

"Born in about 2000, lived on Earth until I was about 15 or 16, and I've been here for about 5 Earth years."

And Nathan's understanding was that "here" was only mid-23rd century. "OK, I'm not sure I can explain the extra-dimensional mechanics of time travel as easily as Hawking radiation, but the short version is that the time engines soak up all of the plasma from the black holes that's not being used as impulse rockets."

"Wow. And the rest of her?"

Nathan's brain stopped tingling. He realized that he'd been feeling the tingle for almost the last minute without registering anything. Arachne was almost certainly going to love hearing about how well this had worked. "Arachne's core is a large disk with a flat top, flat bottom, and rounded middle, almost like the Dalek ships that inspired Earth's 'flying saucer' fixation. Her three storyes are about 2 and two third metres each, separated by two platforms of about 2 metres each where she keeps her processors, and the hull is about 2 metres thick all around."

The Time Lord sister called out. "Here we go!"

Nathan looked up. Machinery roared to life behind the walls as the door opened to the hangar.

Harper called out in response, "All right, Damien, Skeerse, you two go first. Everybody else follow when they say it's clear, clear?"

Damien chuckled and rolled his eyes. "Roger that, Captain." He ran over to the door and pressed himself against one of the adjacent walls.

Skeerse ran past the non-combatants and pressed himself against the opposing wall.

The door opened to reveal the hangar just beyond.

The Time Lords crouched to the ground. Damien and Skeerse aimed their blasters through the doorway.

No shots fired.

Damien ran through first. Skeerse followed.

The back of Nathan's brain started tingling again. He looked around at the commotion around him – the Time Lords coming over to his bed to move him, Shanjik pushing Kyra's – he guessed that trying to continue his engineering speech out loud would be more stressful than relaxing.

He continued in his own head: details about how Arachne could decide how much brainpower she devoted to intelligence versus how much she devoted to sentience, how she refueled her black holes versus how she refueled her time engines, how her artificial gravity mechanisms differed from centrifugal and/or magnetic mechanisms…

His body short-circuited again, but not to the point of losing his wits in the way that he had the first time.

The pain started to die down again. Nathan took one more deep breath, then sat back up.

The first sight he recognized was a bronze-coloured "flying saucer," maybe 400 metres across.

Dalek.

Nathan jolted almost out of his bed. This was a Dalek warship.

His brain started to tingle again.

He forced himself to remember where he was: a horrifying Sodom and Gomorrah that had no place in any decent world and one that they would find a way to bring to justice, but one where any Dalek ship they ran into would be harmless. This was a manned ship, not a drone, and any Dalek crewmembers were either dead, dying, or wishing that they were. Even the innocent that had been taken had been shown no mercy; why would the organizations' most hated enemy be treated better than they?

The tingling passed more quietly this time.

Nathan looked around at the other ships. Most were Arachne's size or smaller. A few were larger, but none was as gargantuan as the Dalek saucer.

No ship looked exactly like any other. Nathan saw Terran designs, Zygon, Rutan, Nestene, Silurian, and dozens more that even he didn't recognize.

Many of the vessels didn't even look space-worthy. Those must have got caught in Time Rifts that opened within planets' atmospheres, possibly planets whose species hadn't even begun to fly into space yet.

None of these belonged here. There were no standardised designs that could've been part of an official inventory: every one of these ships – even the Dalek saucer – was the gravestone of a person or an entire crew of persons who did not deserve what had been done to them.

Except Arachne. Arachne was going to escape, she was going to put an end to this abattoir, and if all went according to plan, then at least most of her friends would be coming with her. Nathan asked that God give his friends the strength to make the plan work.

"Shan, is that your ship, jik?"

Nathan turned to Shanjik, then followed the direction that Shanjik appeared to be facing.

There she was. From Nathan's angle, most of Arachne was behind a Martian fighter/bomber, but he'd recognise a Morning Star nacelle anywhere. He yelled, "We found her!" just as Harper yelled "Incoming!"

The next sound from inside the main building was a rapid series of whistles, followed by a small but noticeable explosion. Harper must've just pulled another Venkman.

Alpha asked, "Where did you see the ship?"

Nathan pointed. The Time Lords turned Nathan's bed in Arachne's direction and started running.

Smelled Shanjik the fumes of scorched flesh and plasma explosions. Was the predator's brain flushed with endorphins. Wondered Shanjik if realized the predator that was neither her love of death normal nor healthy, not even by human standards.

Accelerated the Time Lords' heart rates. Started they to sweat. Must they have started running. Turned Shanjik to follow them.

Saw he a ship matching the patient's description of Arachne: extending radially several cylindrical projections from a round center, with ending each of which in a large ball covered with cannons and exhaust openings.

Opened a door from the ship's center, lowering to the ground as a ramp. Was Shanjik's strongest impression of the air from inside the ship that smelled it very clean. Were there many scents did not Shanjik recognize, but did not he get the feeling that were emanating any of them from filth or waste.

Looked Kyra up to face him. Smelled her brain of great joy. "Shanjik, you ready?"

Ran first the Time Lords up the ramp into the ship with the patient. Followed Shanjik with Kyra after they.

Saw Shanjik that was a large, transparent room in the middle of the space before him: perhaps 15 feet long, 15 feet wide, and reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Were there also two transparent elevators on opposite sides of the room, perhaps 10 feet by 10 feet. Were the doors to both elevators already open. Reached half a dozen ladders through holes in the ceiling; formed these ladders an 8-pointed circle with the two elevators.

Came a voice from the speakers in the walls. "Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen. My sick bay is on the first storey up, so get Nathan and Kyra into the lifts."

Started Shanjik pushing Kyra's bed towards the far elevator. Hadn't he been able to treat Kyra well enough for her to walk again, but wasn't she suffering anymore. Said he to the Time Lords, "Shan, you two take the closer elevator, Kyra's legs aren't as urgent as Nathan's seizures, jik."

Did they as they were told. Whistled the machinery as took the elevator them up to the sick bay.

Backed Shanjik into the other elevator. Pulled he Kyra in after him. Felt he the elevator push against him.

Passed the elevator through a little more than Shanjik's height worth of ceiling before emerging in the second floor. Opened the door; pushed Shanjik Kyra out.

Saw he the Time Lords push the patient into a transparent room that must be the sick bay. Opened an emergency pod next to them. Took they the patient out of the bed and placed him in the pod. Closed the pod door around him. Emanated a new smell from the pod resembling that of Chula nanogenes operating on a patient. Arachne did use nanobots of similar design?

Pushed Shanjik Kyra into the room. Opened another pod next to the one in use. Leaned he over Kyra. "Shan, I need to pick you up now, jik."

Wrapped Kyra her arms around his neck. Put he his own arm around her waist. Straightened he his back to lift her from the bed. Reached he his other arm under Kyra's legs. Winced Kyra at the touch and smelled her pain receptors of activation, but didn't she let go of him.

Carried he Kyra to the open pod. Leaned he down to set her inside.

Wafted a new scent of mammalian sweat and scorched reptilian flesh from just outside Arachne. Presumed Shanjik that had Skeerse been shot and that were the predator and her soldier helping him into the ship.

Looked Shanjik around the room. Were none of the emergency pods large enough for Skeerse to fit inside. Would he need to be treated manually.

Heard Shanjik the ramp-door close downstairs. Dropped one of the elevators to meet Skeerse and the humans.

Smelled Shanjik a sensation in the two Time Lords' brains that had they never felt before. At least, not to his knowledge. Looked he over to them.

Were both siblings standing with hands to the wall. Looked neither one steady on their feet. "Shan, what's happening, jik?"

Turned Alpha to face him. Smiled he more joyfully than had Shanjik ever seen him smile before. "Arachne's in the middle of jumping to hyperspace. We're out. We're actually getting out."

What. "Shan, how do you know that, jik?"

Shrugged Beta her shoulders. "Hyperspace feels different from normal space." Flattened she herself against the wall. Made she the same smile that had her brother.

Came the predator and the soldier into the sick bay. Was the predator supporting Skeerse's upper body with her arms under his shoulders, while was the soldier carrying Skeerse's legs and tail. Was the soldier breathing and sweating more strongly under Skeerse's weight than was the predator.

Took Shanjik a whiff of air. Was Skeerse badly burned, but did not he appear to be bleeding internally.

Set they Skeerse down on a medical bed, larger than but similar to what had Kyra and the patient been brought in on.

Spoke the computer. "Alpha, go into the middle bottom cabinet for a box of large green patches of cloth, then take the red bottle from the shelf to your left. Skeerse, when Alpha gives these to you, just squeeze the bottle over your burns, rub the fluid in, then press the patches against the injuries until they stick to you."

Brought Alpha over the supplies. Started Skeerse patching himself up.

Wondered Shanjik what was the fluid that was Skeerse using.

Looked the predator to one of the speakers on the wall. "Ari, we out of the air yet?"

"Yes, Captain. We are completely inside the Time Vortex, my scan-jams are working perfectly, and it should be about an hour before Round 2 gets started."

An hour? "Shan, Captain Harper, why would it take an hour? I thought we were just going back to the facility to get ourselves out, jik? Shan, does it really take an hour for us to go back as far as we need, jik?"

Flooded the predator's brain with a mixture of exhilaration, which assumed Shanjik to be about the upcoming bloodshed, and annoyance, which could not Shanjik place.

Gestured the predator her thumb towards one of the ship's speakers. "Well, Ari's the one who said it, why don't you just ask her?"

The predator wasn't too old for imaginary friends? "Shan, why would I talk to a machine instead of a real person, jik?"

Gave off the soldier an odor of fear. Raced the predator's heart in preparation to attack.

Said the computer's voice from the speakers, "Captain, would you let me handle this?"

Calmed the predator herself. "As you wish, Ari."

What?

Spoke the computer again, "Beta, is your headache better?"

Mouthed the predator, "What the – " then bit her lip.

Answered Beta, "Yes, it went away as soon as we jumped to hyper – sorry, the Time Vortex."

"No need to apologize. Did your future brother explain how that worked?"

"Yes, he said that if two copies of the same Time Lord brain come close enough to each other within regular space, then they give each other painful temporal feedback loops. When we first land in the past, both of myself and my brother will be giving our past selves mild headaches and vice versa."

Joined in Alpha. "When we were in the building, her headaches didn't get worse because the future her stayed on the ship to keep her distance. My headaches, on the other hand, had gotten worse and worse because the future me was getting closer and closer with the rest of the future."

Continued Beta, "Then when he gets injured and regenerates into his next form, his headaches go away completely because the future him has a different brain, hence the feedback goes away."

Spoke the computer again. "Whereas you are going to be staying with me. Direct firefights put a lot of strain on my systems, so I'm going to need a lot of help keeping myself together when Round 2 starts. Are you for us to mind-meld so I can teach you how I work?"

The computer did just suggest a psychic connection?

Looked Beta to her brother. Nodded Alpha. Said Beta, "OK, where do I go?"

Answered the computer, "You're standing on my brain right now. Harper, could you show her a good place to open the floor up?"

Walked out Beta and the predator.

Felt Shanjik his heart stop. Hoped he with every ounce of his being that was he misinterpreting this. "What are they talking about?"

Stared Alpha and Skeerse at him.

Answered the soldier, "Your brain is capable of thinking, right?"

"Shan, yes, jik."

"And machines are not?"

"Shan, how could they? No machine can simulate an organism's brain, no matter how fast or powerful, jik."

"Not even another brain?"

Feared Shanjik that had he made yet another horrible mistake in a long line of horrible mistakes. Didn't dare he to answer the question.

Tapped the soldier his foot against the floor. "Arachne's body? Mechanical. Her brain? One of the most powerful, cubic metre for cubic metre, biological computers ever grown in the universe's history."

Continued the soldier, "She is smart enough to keep track of everything her body is doing, she is smart enough to control her body more effectively than any normal person could control her, but she is still. A. Person."

Felt Shanjik himself wake up.

Was he lying on one of the sick bay's beds. Not inside one of the nanogene pods.

Raised Shanjik his left hand to his face and pinched he an antenna. Helped the pain to clear the grogginess in Shanjik's mind.

Took he a whiff of air. Was nobody is the room with him except the patient, and was the patient still inside one of the pods. Smelled he to be unconscious. Hoped Shanjik that was this due more to anesthetic than to injury.

Opened Shanjik his eyes. Looked he at the rounded hull of the ship forming one of the sick bay walls. Then looked he to the floor and the ceiling.

Registered in Shanjik's mind the fact that was all of this the skin of a life form that had he been unforgivably insulting towards.

Asked the "computer" from a speaker, "Are you OK?"

Tried Shanjik to ignore her. Surely did not he have the right to force Arachne to degrade herself by associating with him after how had he treated her thus far.

When had lived Shanjik on the Malmooth home world, had always he condemned when would others cut themselves off from painful relationships rather than try to rebuild. Had always he judged those people as being of weak character, and had always he ignored any who spoke in their defense as being victims of circumstance.

When had been taken Shanjik to this world, and when had found he that were isolating many of the torture victims themselves from contact with others, had always taken he that as a sign that were merely their psychologies built differently from Malmooth psychology.

Now felt Shanjik the urge to cut himself off as had he disparaged other Malmooth for isolating themselves.

Spoke Arachne again, "Shanjik, before today, I'd never heard of your species either. Can't you forgive yourself for not knowing about mine?"

Broke down Shanjik in tears. Had been he wrong that came the worst pain in the world from doing something to another person that could never the wronged party forgive him for. Now found he that felt being forgiven by the victim even worse.

Had not considered Shanjik the possibility that would the victims of his inaction at the research facility forgive him. When had broken the predator Shanjik's acceptance of his masters, had certainly tried Kyra to comfort him, but had not Shanjik taken her seriously. Had never Kyra been one of the people that had he personally watched suffer, and was always she one of the most touchy-feely people that had Shanjik ever met. Did not her forgiveness mean as much as would the forgiveness of another, and did not Shanjik believe that could be he forgiven by any victim whose forgiveness would he truly need.

Realized Shanjik that if could Arachne forgive him for degrading her, then might too some of the other captives forgive him for not protecting them. Now would he need to do something to deserve such treatment. Looked he to a speaker in Arachne's wall. "Shan, what time do we go back to the facility, jik?"

Answered she, "We're in position to start Round 2, and Beta and I only need a few minutes to get me ready for my part. Are you ready for yours?"

Nodded he. "Shan, yes, I remember, jik."

Spoke Arachne again. "Good. Everybody else is waiting downstairs, care to join them?"

"Shan, yes, jik."

Opened the sick bay door. "Best of luck."

Walked out Shanjik. Realized he too that would have he nowhere to go after was the escape plan finished.

Would not even his species evolve naturally for trillions of years, let alone be born the family that had the Time Rift taken him from. Could not he simply jump into the Time Rift and hope to end up in the same time and place that had his team first fallen in from, and feared he that would not be Arachne capable of going far enough into the future to take him home and explain what had happened. Found Shanjik the idea poetically appropriate that, for the crimes of inaction that had he committed here in the past, would also he have to accept his punishments in the past.

Reminded Shanjik himself to think about this later. Needed he to focus on finishing the escape first.

Stepped he onto the nearest ladder and started he climbing down to join the others.

Author's Note: I'd like to thank everybody who's still reading this, but my real life has gotten hectic over the last few weeks, and unfortunately I don't have as much written right as I'd thought I would when I started posting this. I only have 2 chapters left, and I've outlined both chapters thoroughly enough to know for a fact that I am going to finish this, but I may have to post chapters 11 and/or 12 on a bi-weekly basis instead of on a weekly.

I am working on the two final chapters at this very moment, and I will certainly try to keep up with the weekly schedule that I've maintained so far, but if January 3rd rolls around and chapter 11 cannot be finished without sacrificing the quality of writing, then I won't feel comfortable forcing any of you to suffer through it.

Until then, feel free to share your thoughts in the reviews: what you liked so far, what you didn't like as much, what you think might happen next…

Also, if I do have to miss a week or two of updates and anybody needs more reading material to pass the time, then my absolute highest recommendation must go to the Firefly/10th Doctor crossover "The Man with No Name" by Frostfyre7.

For that matter, I'd recommend reading it even if I do finish my own work on time :) Happy holidays everybody!