The Doctor raced around the dining hall, weaving in and out of the crowd of passengers and crew, checking the different readings they'd set up to display on each computer terminal. Plasma bursts crackled around the outside of the ship with increasing frequency as they continued to descend deeper and deeper into the atmosphere. The Doctor's mouth was running a mile a minute.
"All right, everyone, taking stock! I'm gonna run through the situation point by point and we'll consider ideas. One! The Hindenburg is falling into K'ribb-dees and the engines are shot. The ship will continue to sink in the atmosphere until the pressure becomes too great and it implodes. We can't fight the pressure and we can't stop the sinking of the ship, so logically, our only hope now is to evacuate everyone. There are five escape pods left, but thanks to our not-so-charming lifepod-stealing friends, they haven't got enough power left to achieve escape velocity."
Lee, who had stayed at the improvised shield station after hooking the probe's shield modulator up to the computer, raised a hand.
"Erm, there's more p-p-plasma," he pointed out with some alarm.
"Right!" The Doctor clapped his hands. "The exotic radiation unique to this planet is ionizing the gas pockets in the atmosphere at an increasing rate and for whatever reason, the resulting plasma bursts seem to be centered around us. That brings us to Point Two. Why? What's causing that?"
One of the ship's engineers took a guess. "We're more conductive, more easily polarized than the gasses in the atmosphere."
"Would be true, if not for the shield. What else?"
A bridge officer opened his mouth. The Doctor cut him off.
"And we're leaving 'ghosts' off the list of possibilities."
The officer closed his mouth again.
"B-b-biomass?" suggested Lee.
"How's that?"
"N-not just more p, p, p," he struggled for a second, the skipped the word. "Also more radiation and more b-biomass. Microbes in the atmosphere. They're attracted to the shields, cluster, release more r-r-r-r-radiation, more p, p, p, p, p…"
"Plasma! Brilliant!" The Doctor pounded the table enthusiastically and beamed across it in Lee's direction. "McAvoy, top of the class!"
"But what does it matter?" interrupted the captain impatiently. "That's not going to get us off the ship!"
"Can we boost the power to the remaining lifepods in any way?" asked an officer. "Get at least some of the passengers to safety?"
The Doctor answered with a quick shake of his head. "We've utilized every possible scrap of power already, and we're just too deep. What's more, with the plasma bursts hitting us at this rate, we have ten, fifteen minutes maybe until the shield collapses. Unless I can delay the shield collapse, it's all a moot point anyway."
"So what do we do?" asked Donna. She was still reeling from Shaun's betrayal, but she wasn't going to sit this one out on account of it.
"We've got two things we're shielding against. Weeelll, I say two, more like three. Third's the radiation. But the first two are the worrisome ones."
"Get to the point!"
"We've got the steady danger of atmospheric pressure. That's just going to increase as we get deeper, and suck up more and more of our shield's energy. Then we've got the plasma bursts, and if McAvoy's right, we should be able to get them to lay off the shields a little by dispersing some of the microbes clustered around the ship. That'd buy us enough time to come up with a plan C – getting off the ship."
"I'll b-bring my collected d-d-d-data on the m-microbes," Lee stammered, running out of the hall for the rest of the materials he'd left with the probe's outer shell.
The Doctor rubbed his hands together. "Once he brings that back, I'll set to work on a sonic frequency to drive the dominant microbe species away, and we can figure out how to get everyone off this death trap."
Captain Manning fingered an empty bottle of scotch. He was flushed, but his anxiety from earlier in the evening had mostly faded into a sort of resolute determination to do his duty by the passengers, and if the alcohol also left him a little pessimistic, he still considered it the better of his two possible temperaments.
"There's no way off the ship," he informed them sadly, "unless we can boost the lifepods. Maybe sacrifice four of the remaining five to give the fifth a shot at a low orbit, and put only the children inside. They have less mass, anyway. Might make it farther."
The Doctor paced, both hands running through his hair and making it stand up more wild than ever. "I'm still missing something, something obvious. If we only had our maneuvering thrusters, this whole situation would be a snap. Why the hell did they have to destroy our maneuvering thrusters? Why not just take them offline for a bit?"
"Probably just angry," said Donna dryly. "They didn't need them, so why not destroy them? I wouldn't mind destroying a few things myself right now."
"No, but that's just it! They would have needed them, once we approached the wreck. How else were they gonna dock—" He suddenly quit talking and stared out into space with his mouth open. "OH! Oh, I'm THICK! Thick, thick, thick!"
He spun around and faced the group. "The Draconians didn't leave themselves the ability to maneuver because they didn't plan to dock! How did they plan to get to the shipwreck?"
Donna, Captain Manning, and the bridge officers all exchanged confused glances.
"Transmat!" crowed the Doctor. "You have a transmat, don't you? You must have. A great big ship like this, she's not built to ever land on a planet. You have to have an efficient way to bring supplies onboard." He lunged for the pile of portable tech equipment the crew had accumulated on his orders and started digging through it for something in particular.
The crewmen looked at each other again and nodded, still perplexed. "Yeah, yeah we do have a transmat, but so what?"
"We have to transmat off the ship!" the Doctor cried joyously.
"Transmat?" Captain Manning laughed incredulously. "To where?"
"The only place in range that's out of the planet's atmosphere, is built to hold 600-odd people, and has its own shield generator!"
"There is no such place in range!"
"Oh, yes there is!" The Doctor grinned, wild-eyed. With a dramatic flourish, he pulled a small device out of the pile and pointed out the window at the planet's rings. "The Royal Draconian Envoy!"
The rest of the group stared out the window at the shining speck in the distance that marked the Draconian shipwreck.
"You must be mad," said a crewman. "There's no radiation shielding there. No chance the hull's been left unbreached. It'd be like transmatting to open space. And not just any open space, neither – open space right smack in the radiation belt of K'ribb-dees!"
"We'll use a suit."
"We haven't got suits for that many people!"
"Only the first few need suits. This is the Hindenburg! You're famous for your redundant safety systems. You've got plenty of spare parts. Send over a spare shield modulator and emergency forcefield generator, and plug them into the Draconian ship's computers. Use their shipwide energy conveyance system like an emulator to run your own subroutines."
He held up the small device he'd pulled from the pile, and made a few adjustments to it with the sonic, a couple of loose springs, and a piece of chewing gum. He grinned at the crew.
"I just modified this personal shield to temporarily block the radiation around the first transmatee. Should last them at least until they get the shield modulator hooked up and producing a shipwide radiation block. Then we can cannibalize one of the lifepods for a portable atmospheric regulator for the second wave, and any other life support systems we find we need."
They all stared at him. "You think that'll work?"
"It's a chance. Best one we've got, really. Someone needs to go up there first with the upgraded personal shield before we'll know more. Any takers?" He waved the device at them.
Nobody moved. The Doctor stood next to Donna and looked at the captain and crew, and they all looked back at him, supremely unenthusiastic. The first mate finally spoke up.
"Sorry, sir, but if I'm going to die, I'd rather it be from implosion than radiation poisoning. A personal shield would never cut it. There's no way I'm going up there."
A nattering among the crew indicated general agreement with this attitude.
"Oh, come on!" said the Doctor. "Have a little faith, here! This isn't the first time I've made a bit of technology do something it wasn't designed for."
"No offense, sir, you're clearly brilliant with the computers, but you're an engines specialist for a cruise line. That's a far cry from radiation shielding. And that's... that's chewing gum."
The Doctor turned and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, muttering, "Oh, right, the engine specialist thing. That's what comes back to haunt me? Figures. Look," he said, addressing the crew again, "I would happily go myself, but we are down to around eight minutes to shield collapse and I've got other priorities than proving my jiggery-pokery is safe. Is there no one here willing to take that chance to save 600 lives?"
There was silence from the group and a lot of averted eye contact.
Donna sighed loudly and held out her hand for the device. "Oh, give it here. I'll do it."
The Doctor's brows scrunched together and he looked at her dubiously. "Donna, no offense, but you can't change a spark plug. This is going to involve installing a 51st century piece of human equipment into a 50th century Draconian spaceship, all while wearing a bulky suit with a headlamp."
"Yeah, well apparently I'm the only one who trusts that you know what you're doing enough to actually go." She flipped her hair over her shoulder and looked askance at the crew. "This lot is hopeless. Come on. Hand it over. You can walk me through it."
The Doctor hesitated a second, a slow smile of pride growing over his face. He passed her the device.
"Donna Noble. Look at you. Time was, you didn't even believe you could reopen a Sontaran teleport link. You never cease to amaze me."
"Yeah, you keep grinning at me like that, I'm gonna knock it off your face. How do I work this thing?"
The Doctor taught Donna how to use the personal shield, and then Lee came back with the microbe data. Lee and the Doctor got busy working out a sonic frequency they could transmit to disperse the microbes, and Donna went with the rest of the crew to do her own preparations.
A couple of crew members measured her for her spacesuit size, and the others showed her the essential steps for installing the backup shield modulator and forcefield generator into the Draconian ship. They seemed universally certain she was never coming back alive. Donna tried to ignore their lack of confidence and concentrated on the task at hand. Meanwhile, one part of her mind couldn't help constantly going back to Shaun and how that traitorous bastard had stabbed them all in the back and left them to die.
The worst part was that she wasn't even that choked up about it. She'd cried when Lance turned on her. She'd well and truly loved him, believed he loved her, and he'd broken her heart. Shaun's betrayal made her feel angry and stupid, but he'd never seemed that devoted in the first place and she couldn't manage to feel properly shocked now. And if she was really being honest with herself, she hadn't loved him that much either since she got her memories back. She wasn't the same person who fell for him in the first place. That was an earlier Donna, the same Donna who fell for Lance, the desperate, needy Donna staring a solitary old age in the face and just wanting someone to love. That was before she'd opened her eyes to the greater universe. That was the Donna with no memory of the person she'd already grown into.
As soon as she got her memories back, she should've taken another long look at her choices. This was just like Lance all over again, with her rushing into a relationship just to avoid the fear of facing the future alone, and then having the bloke turn out to be some arse she barely even knows. Stupid as usual, Donna.
She noticed Lee hovering around behind her, and turned in exasperation. She was halfway into her spacesuit and the damn gloves were impossible to fasten.
"What d'you want?" she asked irritably.
He stepped over the pile of equipment she was taking with her and came around to her front.
"The D-Doctor's sonic frequency is working. B-b-bought us some time."
"Great. Tell 'im he can put that brain of his to work building me my own time machine after that, 'cos this is the last time I trust his dodgy piloting to take us anywhere nice."
Lee fidgeted a little, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
"Er, you d-don't… you don't have to go," he said.
Donna, finally fed up, chucked the glove she'd been struggling with to the floor.
"What, are you startin' in on me, too?" she said, turning to glower at him. "Don't think I can handle it? Can't trust poor, stupid Donna with anything technical, is that it, beefcake boy?"
She stomped toward him and jabbed him with an accusing finger. Eyes wide, he retreated under her approach, bumped into the wall behind him, and tried unsuccessfully to hide an involuntary grin. Beefcake boy?
"And what the HELL do you think you're smiling at, you great git!" Donna shouted at him from two feet away, chin out and head tilting sarcastically. "You think 'cos you're gorgeous, you can have a laugh at my expense? Have a look around you. D'you see a line of technical experts waitin' to take my place? D'you see a crowd of volunteers? A waiting list, maybe? You'd never have guessed. Radiation on an airless shipwreck in a quarantine zone. Everyone's just mad for it. Had to fight 'em off with sticks to be the first to go. Did you want to swap places?" she asked nicely, eyebrows raised. "No? Then SHUT IT." She turned to march back towards the gear on the floor, visibly seething.
The second she moved, Lee took one stride forward and pulled her back around and into his arms. Donna suddenly found herself being held desperately against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist and shoulders, pressing her against him in a way she hadn't been since they were… well, okay, technically since ever. She squawked in surprise. He bent his head down and pressed his mouth over hers in a definitely-still-committed sort of kiss.
Then all of a sudden he released her and walked away, smile on his face, leaving her standing there stunned and confused with her mouth still agape.
The captain came up to her while she was still staring after him and trying to re-gather her wits.
"Ehm, Mrs. Temple-Noble, are you ready to go?"
She tried to reply and it came out as a squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again with better success.
"Yeah, I… I just need to get these gloves on, and the helmet. Fasten this, would you?"
Mentally, she tried to shake off what had just happened and focus on the problem at hand. She had work to do. Seriously, though. That idiot! Was that supposed to be impressive?!
…
Tooooootally publically exposing my complete ignorance of how plasma works, ha ha! If you see something embarrassingly off-base as far as scientific inaccuracy, I'm sorry. I mean I'm trying to do the hand-wavey thing instead of mentioning real terms as much as possible, which is what the show seems to do, but there are levels of bullshit even the writers of Doctor Who wouldn't stoop to (probably…?). I did pull up the Wikipedia article on plasma physics, but it was too boring and I couldn't get all the way through it. I have the attention span of a 5 year old.