Viking Invasion

Chapter 10: Cliff Hanger

The Doctor was reasonably certain that, under normal circumstances, the realization that just hit him would have upset him rather terribly. It was probable that it would have distressed him into a tantrum and even possibly reduced him to a useless puddle of tears.

As it was, the circumstances were nothing like normal, not even for him. He was, therefore, mentally composing the second draft of a thank-you note to the utter genius who had designed Rose's jeans. He also appeared to be inventing epic poetry inside his head. Oh well, he'd had incarnations to do that. He could justify it under clause something or other of the whatchamacallit act of flibbertigibbet...

"What?" said Rose, walking backward and looking utterly baffled at him. Apparently, he'd said some of whatever that mess was aloud.

"Could you turn back around?" the Doctor asked. What was left of his self-preservation instinct kicked in and added, "Don't want you walkin' into anything, yeah?"

"Are you all right, though?" Rose asked, very seriously, her eyes wide, dark, and concerned.

"Yeah," he said, basking in the warmth and sincerity in her tone. "It's the Third Zone space station Eldest," he explained as they took a left at the end of the corridor. "They were always rather proud of the age of the thing, since it had to do it the hard way. Point is, allied powers have use of your tech in wars, right. Doesn't mean they know what they're doing with it. So this space station disappeared after the fall of Arcadia and no one's surprised and no one's got time to look for it, neither." The Doctor shook his head. "S'older than my TARDIS, this thing," he said reverently. "S'older than most everything that's left, really."

Rose reached back and took his hand, letting Erik and Stanley slip around her. "You sure you're ok?"

"Basically feelin' no pain, right now, Rose. Could tell ya I'm prob'ly responsible for this mess, too, an' I'd never flinch, but..."

"You'd claim you were responsible even if you'd never seen the thing before, though," Rose interrupted. "Getting you figured out, Doctor. Everything's your fault and if it isn't, its only 'cuz you can't find a way to blame yourself, yet, but you'll work on it and take blame there, too. You're gonna have to stop that, honestly." She frowned up at him, stubbornly decisive. "Even if that Slitheen had eaten my mum, it would have been her own fault, all right, 'cuz it isn't nice to rat out your own kid to the government an' she didn't think, just drew that attention on herself. You saved her, you and Mickey and Harriet. You coulda not, you know. So I don't wanna hear it, I don't. You aren't responsible for this unless you personally told the thing, 'Hey, I'd like some Vikings!'"

She shrugged and thumped him in the chest, just as the Doctor had decided he was definitely tearing up. "Just 'cuz you're a superior life form don't mean you get to take credit for everything, you know. Let us screw some stuff up on our own, yeah?"

The Doctor sniffed a little, but only just enough that Rose would let him write it off and it would be one of their secrets. "Yeah, all right," he said, as grudgingly as if it had been dragged out of him by wild horses.

Rose laughed and made him smile and the whole Universe was just a better place all around. "Fantastic," the Doctor proclaimed loudly and, just up the corridor, a door slid open.

Jack fought his way through the Viking melee, trying to get to the door and call a retreat. Too many of the Synesthesians had gone down, and the survivors were the sort of men who would fight their way through anything, whether it was wise or not, simply because they believed devoutly in duty and dying for their cause, whatever it might be.

He saw quite clearly when Starside went down, knew the head trauma was fatal just from the spray of blood that followed the sickening crunch. He saw Taylor leap to the Synesthesian captain's defense, and dove back into the fray after the young lieutenant.

A stolen sword in one hand, an overworked blaster in the other, Jack tore toward the Viking at the center of all of this. That same Viking seemed to spot Jack all at once and lumbered toward him, belllowing, "I will conquer the man who would be Odin and then all will know that Argin Vogson should be leader of our tribe!"

So this was the famous Argh. Jack threw his blaster toward Taylor, who leapt and caught it. He needed it more, Jack was sure of that, being that everyone who wasn't Argin Vogson was headed toward Taylor, not Jack. The young American had apparently learned how to use the thing somewhere in all of this. He was firing off stun rounds almost as quickly and certainly more accurately than Jack could do, in a matter of seconds.

Jack decided Taylor had things well in hand, so he headed toward the lead Viking again, frantically searching the scene for something to use as a was a shield on one of the nearby bodies, and Jack grabbed for that with his now free hand.

It was firmly attached. Argin was still bearing down on Jack like a battle cruiser at full warp, a blood-stained axe wielded high above his head. Thankfully, his war cry was loud enough to warn people in the next star system, never mind anyone on the bridge right now.

Jack spun just in time. He raised his heavy blade as the axe came down, hoping that he'd at least get a chance to wound the enormous behemoth who was definitely going to kill him. His other hand, the one that had been reaching for the shield, now desperately frisked the body for a dagger.

The axe blade fell, iron blade to folded steel. With an enormous screeching sound, Jack's blade shattered.

Yes, definitely going to die.

The Doctor looked quite reluctant as he peered through the new opened door. "This is it," he said grimly. "The master control room. I used to meet their commanders here, tryin' to work out how... Never mind. Point is, I need ta go in there an' stop this thing."

Rose, determined to protect the Doctor from his horrible memories and whatever else was going on in his head, insisted on following him. "You kids stay right here," she ordered Erik and Stanley. "Keep an eye out for Vikings. And Erik, if you see any, call the Doctor. Don't try to fight 'em, even if it's one or two. Stanley's got to be protected."

"As my lady commands," Erik answered, and took a post by the door, the little boy clutching rather convulsively at his booted leg.

The door slid shut behind the Doctor and Rose, and they walked hand in hand toward a large, six-sided pedestal console in the center of the room. "Looks a lot like the TARDIS," Rose whispered.

"Tech sharing," the Doctor replied. "We had to do everything we could to protect our allies, even if it meant givin' 'em tech we never wanted 'em ta have. We weren't bein' frivolous, understand. Gallifrey wasn't self-sufficient, hadn't been for eons."

Rose grinned as a thought on that subject came to her. "Yeah, trying to imagine someone who calls himself a 'Time Lord' out driving a tractor."

The Doctor chuckled. "How's that working out for you?" he asked playfully.

"It isn't," Rose answered, just as playfully. Then, she sobered. "Doctor, why did that door open for you?"

"Probably keyed to my voice pattern." He frowned and shook his head. "Not exactly voice pattern. There's a thing... It's complicated. Sometimes when I say somethin' that you don't have a word for, it translates funny... Should I have told you that?" He shrugged down at Rose, his blue eyes troubled.

Rose shrugged back at him. "Just as well," she said, "since you're not making any sense, anyway." He might have been making slightly more sense than he meant to be, sure, but it wasn't anywhere near enough for Rose to get to the bottom of what he was saying.

"Good then," the Doctor said. "Just say my voice told it ta look an' see if I'm me, right?"

"OK," Rose agreed. "And once it decided you were you, it's gonna give you control of the space station?"

The Doctor gave her his very best broad, lunatic grin. "Doubt it! I'll prob'ly havta fight it for it."

"Sounds like fun."

Rose feigned enthusiasm so convincingly that the Doctor enfolded her in a warm, excited hug. "Tha's my Rose!" he exclaimed boisterously. Letting her go - and spinning her a bit as he did so - he bounded over to the console. His long legs made it look rather elegant as well as quick and child-like.

Rose's heart clenched in her chest as she watched him, but she was very used to the feeling. She'd gotten to cherish that little pain, actually, knew it as well as an old friend.

When she noticed the flashing amber colored light, she hoped it hadn't been going on all along and she'd missed it. "Doctor!" she exclaimed. "There's this light, here!" She leaned on the console near it, peering intently at the controls around it as if studying it would force it to make sense to her.

The Doctor came up beside her, peering at the console and blinking curiously. Rose had the sudden thought that she ought to get him some reading glasses so he could look more clever when he did that. "What's this then?" he mused softly. "Amber alert..."

He touched a control. He probably should not have done that. There was a soft static crackle. Something rose up out of the console before them, shifted about, and then pointed right at them.

Before they had time to duck, there was a blindingly brilliant beam of light heading right toward them.