A/N: No more slow chapters, I promise you, well except for maybe the ending. But for now...back to the action!
The holographic display depicted the squid machines flying on an intercept course with the Nebuchadnezzar. Both Link and the Doctor watched the holograms with a grim expression.
"How many?" Morpheus asked Link.
"Twenty. At least."
"How much time do we have?"
"They're going to be on us in less than ten minutes," the operator swallowed.
Morpheus looked at Trinity and Neo currently jacked in to the Matrix and clenched his jaw. He looked back to the monitors. Neo's screen was still blank, and Trinity was evading a couple of Matrix agents. "We need more time," Morpheus said.
"Surely you have a weapon against the robots?" the Doctor asked.
"We do, but it's an EMP," Link answered and nodded toward Trinity and Neo, "we can't use it while their plugged in to the Matrix."
"Electro-magnetic pulse," the Time Lord thought about this and then lit up with an idea, "the machines don't like sonic waves either. If I can modify it to a sonic pulse that only affects the sentinels…"
"You'll be able to use it while their jacked in!" finished Link with a grin.
"Yes!" the excited Doctor said, "Show me where that EMP generator is."
Morpheus motioned for the Doctor to follow him, and led the Time Lord into the section of the hovercraft that housed the generator. The old machine looked larger than the size it really was tucked into the small room surrounded by hoses and pipes. The Doctor could tell at first look that the engine was pieced together with random parts held together by greased bolts and pure human will.
The point of interest for the Doctor was the simple control panel on the side the generator that had one row of three buttons labeled on, off, charge, and ready. The on and charge buttons glowed with a dim green lit. After a quickly examining the panel with the sonic, the Doctor removed the screws of the panel face.
He pulled the panel down to reveal a set of wires leading from the buttons to somewhere inside the generator. Shoving the glasses that slid down his nose back up, he tracked where the wires routed through the machine, then reached in and yanked out a large cable. He paused a brief moment frowning at the black grease spot on the sleeve of his clean blue suit, but continued to pull out the cable until he found what he was looking for, a plug connecting the two cables together.
With the sonic in his mouth, he unplugged the cables and tossed one aside. Then he held the sonic to the end he still held in his hand and activated the device.
A spark popped out of the generator, but the Doctor was not alarmed and instead smiled with success. "Sonic pulse is now online! Tell Link to fire when ready," he said to Morpheus who pushed a button on a small panel by the door and relayed the message. The operator reported that the sentinels were within range and Morpheus gave the order. The generator's soft hum escalated into a very audible whirring squeal as the machine shoved the sonic pulse out toward the sentinels.
"Woo hoo!" shouted Link over the com speakers, "That took em down!"
Morpheus grinned and patted the Doctor on the back, "Good work, Doctor." The Time Lord laughed, always enjoying the feeling he got when his plans worked. The celebration was short lived however, as sparks popped from the old machine. The Doctor snatched the sonic off the plug, but it was too late. With a loud bang, a puff of black smoke rolled out and the generator shuddered to silence.
"Oh no!" the Doctor cried as he rushed over to the wires and frantically picked over them.
"Did the sonic pulse overload it?" asked Morpheus as he too, looked over the generator.
"I'm afraid so," sighed the Time Lord, "it must have been too much for this old thing to handle."
"Maybe we can get it running again and just use the EMP," Morpheus stated in an even tone that made it difficult to tell if he was upset or not. The Doctor wondered if any human could be more stoic. Then he thought of Neo and stood corrected.
"Yes," he agreed, "let's try that."
With Morpheus' help, the Doctor had the generator pieced back together in no time. Morpheus had just restarted the machine when Link's voice sounded over the com, "We have more sentinels. Lots of em." The fear in the pilot's voice struck a tinge of panic in the Doctor's hearts and looked at Morpheus wearing a hardened grim expression.
"Stay here and make sure the generator stays running," ordered Morpheus, "I'm going to see if Neo and Trinity are ready to leave the Matrix."
The Doctor shrugged his shoulder. After all, he didn't have anything else to do at the moment.
.
.
He hated being in that room not knowing what was happening out there. Sure, it must have been only thirty seconds, but that was thirty seconds too long. The Doctor double checked the generator, it ran smoothly, maybe even better than before, and headed out of the room. He took a couple of steps in the corridor when he heard a metallic thud above him followed by the sound of a laser cutting into the hull.
The Doctor ran down the corridor and burst into the cockpit. He saw Trinity sitting up in her chair, she was out of the Matrix. But Neo was still unconscious, still in the Matrix. "The sentinels are on us!" Link shouted at Morpheus, "We have to do something!"
The situation was getting tense. The Doctor shoved his way to the monitor and watched Neo land at a telephone booth and picked up the handle. "Operator," Link spoke into his headset with a sigh of relief and tapped on the keyboard in front of him. Neo's image on the monitor dissolved into Matrix code and vanished into the phone.
In the chair, Neo gasped and opened his eyes. Without wasting any time, Trinity pulled the plug out of the back of his head. A part of the ceiling peeled away revealing a sentinel. The Doctor aimed his sonic at the machine and didn't let up until it fell unmoving to the floor. The lightning crack of an EMP rifle resounded through the room as the blast struck a second sentinel sending it crashing to the floor.
Suddenly, all the electrical in the ship shut off leaving the hovercraft in the dark for a moment. Then the humming of an EMP resonated through the hull of the hovercraft and the dark tunnel flashed with light. The Doctor tilted his head and listened intently to the thuds and bangs echoing on and around the ship.
"Falling sentinels," Trinity whispered.
"Get us out of here, Link," Morpheus said.
Link answered by restoring the power and flipping on the engines. The Doctor moved to Neo still sitting in the chair and before the Time Lord could say a word, Neo said, "I got the coordinates."
The Doctor smiled with pride, "You were brilliant, Neo! Absolutely brilliant," and offered him a hand out of the chair.
"Thanks," Neo took the offered hand and slid out of the chair.
"Oh my god," the pilot whispered in horror as he stared at the hundreds of sentinels on the scanner in the tunnel ahead of them and yanked on the ship's controls.
.
.
Outside, the hovercraft flew down the tunnel and suddenly turned left into a smaller tunnel. The Nebuchadnezzar wasn't built for such tight turns and one of the side lift disks caught on the corner, ripping it off the hull. Sentinels by the hundreds streamed up to the corner and flowed after the hovercraft like a river of black ink. Unbeknownst to the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar, hundreds more sentinels lay in wait just a mile down the smaller tunnel. They were trapped.
Link deftly steered the hovercraft down the tight tunnel and allowed the adrenaline flow through his veins. He was just starting to feel a bit cocky at his truly excellent piloting skills when he rounded a bend and crashed the Nebuchadnezzar into a squirming wall of sentinels.
.
.
"Hang on!" Link screamed and braced himself for impact as the Nebuchadnezzar dove nose first into the squid machines. The banging the metal bodies made as they struck the hull were nearly deafening, and the motion of the ship came to an abrupt halt as it smashed into the tunnel floor knocking everyone standing inside to the floor.
The Doctor, Morpheus, Neo and Trinity climbed to their feet and stared wide eyed at the incredible numbers of the sentinels flying right outside the cockpit window. When one sentinel landed over the window and activated its red laser beam to cut through the thick glass, the four took several instinctive steps back.
"Can you use the EMP again?" Trinity asked listening to the sounds of countless other sentinels landing on the hovercraft and using their cutting beams on the hull.
Link shook his head, "Not enough time to recharge."
"The TARDIS!" the Doctor shouted, "Come on!"
The Doctor sprinted out of the cockpit followed by Morpheus with an EMP rifle, Neo, Trinity and Link with a second EMP rifle. They almost made it to the cargo hold door when the roof opened up and sentinel dropped in. The Doctor disabled the machine with his sonic, while Morpheus turned down a side corridor leading the group down another route to the hold.
Sentinels were now crawling after them like spiders down the corridor. As soon as one was disabled by the Doctor or Link, another would take its place. Finally, the fleeing group burst through a hatch door into the cargo hold and Link slammed the door shut behind him.
The Doctor noted that the machines were cutting through the hull right above them and would break through any second, so he didn't waste any time running into the TARDIS. Trinity and Neo ran in to the time ship next, and the Doctor cringed at the sound of tearing metal in the Nebuchadnezzar's hull. He knew the sentinels had broken through. Morpheus and Link stepped inside the TARDIS and fired their rifles at the same time.
"Close the door!" the Doctor shouted and Morpheus slammed the wooden door shut. The Time Lord dashed around the console to the monitor and saw sentinels pour into the cargo hold. One machine was at the TARDIS door attempting to cut in with its laser. As he frantically pushed buttons and flicked switches, the image on his monitor was blacked out by the number of sentinels crawling over the blue police box.
The Doctor wasn't really worried about the machines breaking through the TARDIS' defenses, but he didn't want to stick around to give them the chance. He smiled wide at the sound of the time ship's engines whooshing to life and whisking them into the Time Vortex. He also enjoyed the mental image he had of the machines falling into a pile on themselves as the TARDIS vanished out from underneath them.
A/N: Keep the reviews coming, your thoughts are appreciated!