Chapter 10
Donna took a long drag and wondered what was wrong with her GP. What about him made Owen say he was crap? She'd have to find a new one, she supposed. Torchwood probably had a list of available ones. She could make some calls. It couldn't be that hard to find a good doctor.
She dropped her fag when a loud 'woosh' seemed to suck all the air from the vaulted interior of the warehouse.
The Doctor was standing in front of her now, a black sling over his shoulder and Martha's desk ornament in his hand. It was twice the size it had been on Monday.
"Donna!" he cried and rushed towards her, treading on her half-smoked fag and grabbing her shoulder with his free hand. "Thank heavens! I missed you by about forty years last time. I'm pretty sure it was the 70's: everyone had a moustache. She's a lot harder to steer going this way. How long have I been gone?"
Donna pulled her chin from her collarbone and swallowed. "Twenty minutes?"
"Oh good. From the look on your face, I was afraid it had been a few years." Then he sniffed at her head and made a disgusted face. "Ugh! Have you been smoking?"
"Oi! Don't you start! I get enough of that from Gramps." She straightened out her blouse. "What's happening? Did you find Rose? Is she okay?"
"She's excellent! In a spot of trouble, of course. Jeopardy friendly, that's my Rose." He grinned. "Okay, downstairs! Gather all the boys and girls. I'm going to need some volunteers."
Donna called everyone to the main office to listen as the Doctor explained events that were taking place three thousand years in the future. She felt a creeping nausea and the backs of her eyes were burning with angry tears before he was done.
The Doctor looked at Pete Tyler, waiting for some response. Soon all eyes were on Tyler. His forehead furrowed. "You want me to release prisoners so that they can go into the future with you to fight a battle?"
"Them and anyone else who's willing to come."
Jackie crossed her arms. "You just left Rose there?"
The Doctor gave her an exasperated look. "Jackie, Rose can handle herself. There are more than two million lives at stake!"
"You might find it surprising, Doctor," Tyler said carefully. "But there actually are guidelines when it comes to time travel.
"You don't say!" the Doctor cried sarcastically. He grimaced. "Pete, these people need help, and we're the only ones who can give it to them."
"I volunteer," Ianto said, looking up from the floor. Pete looked at him and Ianto inclined his head. "Sir."
Lalit raised a hand. "Count me in."
Donna glanced at the stony look on Pete's face and thought about the contract she'd signed only two days ago.
I shall not act as an independent agent on behalf of Earth, the human race, or Republic of Great Britain while under Torchwood's employ.
She'd already risked being accused of treason today. And shot somebody. And broken her five day no-smoking streak.
"Me too," she said. The Doctor looked at her. "I don't know if I'd be any good on a space ship, but…" He cracked a smile. There he went making her reckless and embarrassed again.
"You all know that this is a direct violation of Code," Pete said grimly.
"Begging your pardon, sir," Ianto said, calmly. "But I think this is one of those occasions where the Code can go fuck itself."
Donna stared at Ianto and had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing. She'd never heard that word said so politely before.
Jackie tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at the Doctor. The focus shifted to her, heads turning in series like dominoes. "If the Doctor thinks we should help…" she said.
Pete shook his head. "Fine. Take them." He sighed in exasperation at his wife. "Do what the Doctor orders, eh?"
While the others made preparations, Donna's stomach felt like somebody had dropped a brick into it. Jack's friends gathered in the office as if they were getting ready for a funeral. Donna wished that they wouldn't be so grim. It made her even more nervous.
Maybe it was a stupid thing to do, like tempting fate, but Donna took a moment at her desk to call home. After four rings, she almost hung up, but Gramps picked up before the fifth.
"Hello?"
"Gramps?" Donna cleared her throat and turned so that she couldn't see her self in the reflective panels of Argus.
"Donna!" His cheerful voice made the brick feel all the heavier. "How's it going, sweetheart? They working you too hard?"
"No," she said. "Not too hard."
"I was thinking, you should have the Doctor come by for supper. Supposed to be a clear night and I thought we might go up the hill. All three of us. Might cheer him up a bit. Or at least take his mind off of things… They have any luck finding Ms. Tyler, then?"
Donna rubbed her cheek. "Yeah. He found out where she is. We're just on our way to fetch her."
"Well, you be careful, my love. That's big stuff you're a part of now. You do me proud, but you be careful."
"I will," she said. "Love you, Gramps."
"Love you too, sweetheart," he replied, tone suddenly concerned. "Is everything all right?"
"Fine," she said quickly. "I just… just wanted to hear your voice. I don't know when I'll be home tonight. Might have to go up the hill tomorrow. You should go down the pub with Bernie. His wife won't mind."
Gramps chuckled. It was an old battle, Bernie's wife and the pub. "She keeps accusing me of corrupting young people. I says, Mattie, your husband's seventy-two!"
Donna laughed with him. "You go have fun. I'll see you later."
"G'bye, sweetheart."
"Bye, Gramps."
She put down the phone. She could do this. It was her job. More importantly, it was right. Gramps was a soldier, he'd understand if…
"Donna?" The Doctor's voice was gentle.
She blinked a few times and wiped her cheeks. "Yeah?"
"Everything okay?" He was looking down at her, quiet concern on his face.
She gave him a big phoney smile. "Absolutely. We off then?"
"Nearly. I'll have to take people in shifts." He hesitated before putting a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be okay."
She figured that he was probably lying, but it was nice to hear just the same.
She picked up her purse, then thought better of it and set it back down on her chair. She was hardly going to need her car keys on a space ship, was she? Still, she pulled out the gun that Lee had given her earlier. She wasn't sure what to do with it, so she just stuck it in her coat pocket. She went to stand with Ianto and Lalit. The Doctor was using his sonic screwdriver on the wrist-thingy he had given to Ianto.
"You're going to help me ferry everyone over," he explained.
Ianto peered at the computer. "How does it work?"
"Just press the largest button when you want to go. I've pre-programmed all the co-ordinates. Your arrivals will be staggered in thirty second intervals. Don't want you crossing paths with yourself. You take Donna and Fish first. I'll get Freeburn and Staker."
Freeburn tilted her head. "I don't suppose you're going to give us our weapons back?"
"Good point," said Fish. "That thing cost me a lot of money."
The Doctor glowered and opened his mouth, no doubt to tell them 'no', but something must have changed his mind. "Ianto, Lalit, could you get their property for them?"
Ianto nodded. "Not a problem."
That seemed to lift the mood of the band a bit, though Donna was now imagining a funeral where all the guests stood on either side of a coffin, opened their trench coats and let loose a hail of bullets.
"Hang on." Owen was standing with his arms crossed, watching Lalit and Ianto go back and forth with gun after gun. The band were all filling holsters and loading chambers and adjusting sights. Donna shuddered.
"Unless you have something useful to say," the Doctor snarled. "I don't want to hear a bloody word out of you."
Owen sneered back at him. "Actually, I was going to volunteer." He caught Ianto's raised eyebrow and glared back. "I hardly want to be out done by the secretary and the tea boy."
"Hey," Lalit said, sharing a sidelong look with Ianto, "don't I get an insulting epithet?"
"Manchild?" Owen offered.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Fine. But only because they're going to need a medic. Bring your supplies."
Jackie came over to where Donna stood. "You know that you don't have to go," she said, looking at her with motherly concern.
"Yeah," Donna replied. "I know."
And then, Jackie hugged her. "You be careful! Stay with the Doctor, he'll keep you safe. He knows what he's doing, believe it or not."
Donna glanced at the Doctor out of the corner of her eye. "Yeah. How does he do that?"
Jackie followed her gaze. "It's a Time Lord thing, I guess. He's always been like that. He's a bit more polite than he was, at least. Rose must have taught him some manners."
"Okay, Jackie, out of the way," the Doctor said, coming over to them. "You need to go home. Tony's waiting for you, and Rose and Pete will kill me if anything happens to you."
She crossed her arms and started to argue, but gave up with a sigh and threw her arms around his neck. The Doctor made faces like an embarrassed little boy and seemed unable to decide whether to hug her back or pull away. "Don't do anything stupid," she said.
He wriggled away. "I make no promises. Go home!"
Once Jackie had gone out of earshot, Donna said, "Everyone's acting like we might die."
The Doctor was looking at her pocket. "I don't think you're going to need that," he said.
Donna glanced down and hesitated. She took out the gun and looked at it. If only she had a holster or something.
He looked dismayed, but he nodded. Then, he sighed. "Bloody hell. A month ago I would have told you off. What's happening to me?"
She shrugged and put it back in her pocket. (Good thing they were roomy.) "We're going to war, aren't we?"
A muscle in his jaw jumped. He sniffed and turned to Ianto, who had just handed a wicked looking knife over to the black man with the yellow eyes. "All right Ianto! Two at a time. Get 'em to the ship, come back here and take two more. Remember, you're only going to have a few minutes to learn your stations. Do as Jack says; he's the captain. Right!" He went over to the bloke with the idiotic smile and Freeburn and held out his arm. He examined the coral thing one last time.
Ianto came over and Donna put her hand on the wrist-strap. "All right?" he asked her.
"You can all stop asking me that. Let's just go, already."
The bald man, happily reunited with his enormous gun, put one hand on Ianto's shoulder, the other on the strap.
"Hold on tight," he advised Donna, looking around Ianto at her. "The ride gets rougher the more people you got."
"All right everyone," the Doctor said. "On the count of three. One… two… three!"
Ianto pressed the button and the Warehouse disappeared.
Martha Jones watched carefully as the scaly pink woman put the chamber in the gun and handed it over to her. The woman spoke slowly, but not too loudly, and her voice was mellifluous. Martha wished that she understood what these people were saying—any of them. She was sure that half of them weren't even speaking the same language as each other.
But Lee McCoy had a translator, so she could understand him. Other people had them, and she couldn't. The Doctor had said that they were different types—Lee probably had one that telepathically linked into his brain and allowed two-way communication. The soldiers here had basic one-way units that relied on everyone else having one.
Lee cocked his new rifle and glanced over at her. "Okay?" he asked. She could read the nerves on him, but his hands were steady. He'd been in battles before, that much was obvious.
"Looks simple enough." She settled the gun in her arms so that it was comfortable. It was old. There were tally marks etched into the barrel—a scorecard?—and parts of the casing were shiny where they'd been worn by God knew how many hands.
"Yeah." He hesitated, then said, "You don't have to fight."
"Neither do you," she pointed out.
"Yeah, I d-do," he stammered. "This is my time. Not y-yours."
She cocked the weapon and heard it begin to charge. "If I were likely to ever have any children, I'd say I'm just protecting my descendants." She stopped, thinking of Tosh, who was still laid up back home, three thousand years ago. She was long dead. So were Mum and Dad, her brother, her nephew. She shook her head. No point in wasting mental energy on the things she couldn't change. There was work to be done.
Martha kept close to Lee, and they watched each other's backs. She wondered why the Doctor had thought he needed to tell them to do so. She wasn't stupid; assuming that people had explained it properly, she knew who her enemies were. The quiet thief wasn't one of them. The Bishop—military terms translating to religious ones was new—had ordered them to the north side of the camp. That was where the Time Agency squad was going to hit.
Hit they did, hard and fast. Soon, all Martha could see were long limbs swathed in grey coming out of the trees and soaring about in kung-fu acrobatics, and the white-hot blasts from people's weapons. It wasn't her first fire fight, not by half. Sometimes diplomacy failed. Sometimes it wasn't even an option. But, skilled as she was at hand-to-hand, she wasn't Bruce Lee. These grey people—she wasn't convinced that they were human—moved like nothing she'd ever seen in real life. They were graceful. Dancers with fire coming from their fingertips. They scared the shit out of her.
Lee had taken cover behind a large container. There was a symbol on it she didn't recognise, but it didn't seem to mean 'explosive.' She assumed that Lee could read it. She joined him there and resumed firing.
He shouted over the din. "Where's the D-Doctor?"
"He said he'd be back," she shouted in return.
Lee ducked down and took a breather while he checked the settings on his gun. "You trust him?"
Martha fired once more and ducked a shot to her head. "Don't know yet."
Lee looked confused. "Why do I?"
There was a hiss and a bang and the Doctor appeared, suddenly standing behind them. Immediately, the enemy focused their fire on him. He dropped to the ground, and crawled toward them. (Awkwardly, as he only had one hand free.) Martha spared half a second to goggle at the coral. How big was it going to get, exactly? He wouldn't be able to carry it soon, at the rate it was growing.
"Hello, you two!" he cried, nudging his way between them and settling on his elbow in the dirt. "How are you holding up?"
"Where have you been?" Martha cried.
"Getting a crew for Jack, repairing the ship. Who the hell are these people shooting at us, anyway?"
"Shadow Men," Lee said. He popped up to fire off another round. He was an excellent shot: he actually hit one, which was more than she'd been able to do thus far. The Shadow Man spun and crashed to the ground. "They're engineered by the Sssss-Sanctum; human weapons."
"They are human, then?" Martha said.
"Mostly." Lee fired again, but missed this time. His opponent hit the other side of their shelter and there was a cascade of sparks.
"Can they be reasoned with?" the Doctor asked.
Lee shook his head. "They don't t-t-talk. They c-c—arry out their mission, and then they leave."
"And I'm guessing that the current mission is to obliterate us." The Doctor grimaced as more sparks flew.
Martha dared to look over the crate. There were far fewer green uniforms out there than there had been a minute ago. "I think their bosses are going to be happy."
"Weak points?" the Doctor demanded. Lee stared at him, a little stunned. "Any way to stop them short of killing them?"
"They're the p-perfect sss—" Lee bared his teeth and shook his head.
"All right then," the Doctor said. "Off I go. They've got some rather large ships up there and I've got a new plan. You two: no dying." He screwed his eyes shut and then he was gone again, literally disappearing into thin air.
"He didn't—" Lee began, but Martha had spotted something over his shoulder. She forced him onto his belly, shouted, "Down!" and fired in a single motion. The Shadow Man staggered back. She'd only got him in the shoulder. She fired again before he could regain his footing, and again, again, until he fell to the ground. It wasn't until she stopped shooting that she realised that she was standing and that she was screaming.
"Martha!" Lee grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards him. They were surrounded.
"Put your back to mine," she said. He was much taller than she was, so there was only so much she could do in the way of shielding, but at least this way they could cover each other.
"Gods save us," Lee whispered, pressing against her and staring at the slow-approaching enemy.
There was a ring of six Shadow Men around them, and more were coming. Martha wondered what had happened to everyone else—their front had started the fight with more than thirty people. Were they all dead, or had some of them run?
One of the Shadow Men tilted his head and looked at them with intense blue eyes. There was blood spattered across his chest; she very much doubted that it was his own. Martha glanced down at the notches on the barrel of her rifle, counted them in the space of a breath to steady herself, and then raised her eyes to the man in front of her.
"Ready?" she asked Lee.
"Not really."
"I thought you were Scottish."
"W-w-what does that have to do with—?"
"Be ready!"
The first shot might have been hers, or it might have been from any of the Shadow Men. What she didn't understand was how she didn't die in the first second, trapped as they were, fish in a barrel as they were. But they weren't dead in the first second, or in the next one, and they kept not being dead until, suddenly, there was a bright purple thing flying in a high arc through the air toward them, like a grenade.
She didn't see it at first, preoccupied by the fact that her gun had suddenly stopped working. Screaming in frustration, Martha threw it away and pulled out her own handgun.
Lee bore her down to the ground, saving her from being hit by the grenade. It exploded, but not in fire and shrapnel. In her peripheral vision—the rest was blocked by dirt and colourless pine needles—she caught the umbra of purple light.
Lee, who was mostly on top of her, lifted his head to look. Martha dared to do the same and was shocked to see that there was no one left standing.
"What—?" Lee began.
Martha watched as a pair of bright blue Converse trainers walked towards them. She prodded Lee until he got off of her back, then got onto her knees. The Doctor looked down at her with a smile. (He was lucky she hadn't shot him, in that grey suit and skinny as he was.)
"Like it?" he asked.
"What is it?" she wondered, looking up at the dome of purple over them. The Doctor's t-shirt was glowing like it was under a black light, and her own blouse was almost painful to look at, where it wasn't stained with dirt and God knew what else.
"Just a little sleep bomb I whipped up." He held out a hand to help her up, then did the same for Lee.
"Why aren't we…?" she began, looking in disbelief at the gentle rise and fall of the Shadow Men's chests.
"Different brain patterns," the Doctor replied.
Martha looked at him, in shock. "You're ridiculous," she said.
He looked offended. "I think you mean, 'stupendous'." He pointed a finger at Lee and shifted the coral under his arm—it was the size of a large melon now. "See you…" He looked at his wrist strap. "Twenty minutes ago!"
And then he disappeared again.
"What," Martha said, "is going on?"
Most of the problems on the Genesis were easy enough to repair with a sonic screwdriver—even a temperamental one. However, the amount of time needed versus the time available… that was presenting a problem.
Peter Staker was the closest thing to a mechanic around, but he lacked imagination. He just wanted to be pointed a direction, and off he'd go, fixing thermo-couplings and welding and realigning. He moved at an impressive pace, at least.
What they needed right now was someone (besides himself) with vision and imagination and…
"Hang on a minute!"
Staker looked up at him from the open panel in the wall and pushed back his welding mask. "What?"
"Did you do deck 3 already?"
"Deck 3?"
The Doctor sighed in exasperation. (Sounding not at all unlike Donna, in fact.) "You know! That giant focusing lens… thing… that half the ship is made of? The controls are on deck 3!"
"No. I thought you did?"
"I haven't even been…" The Doctor looked at the readout again. According to the computer, someone had repaired and refit the entire array for a high-energy pulse. Why would they do that?
He checked the log, wincing once when Staker's welding torch sent off sparks a bit too close to his leg. There was an entry labelled: Attn: Look here, Doctor from a user called thedoctor.
"I didn't!" he breathed as he opened it and started to read. "Tell me I didn't… Oh, but that's brilliant. Cheating, really really dangerous and exceedingly irresponsible, but oh… that is a good idea…!"
"What is?" Staker wondered, pushing back his mask again.
The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder. "I've gotta go. There's somebody very important that I forgot!"
He grabbed the TARDIS coral from the chair by the main engineering station and adjusted the shoulder strap on the effusion device's bag. The coral hummed contentedly under his fingers, and there was a frisson of excitement in his head and his hand, almost like she was asking him a question.
Going now? Love going! Go go go!
Smiling, he started to set the co-ordinates on the vortex manipulator, but she was pulling him in a different direction.
Wait! he thought at her, panicking at the realisation that she might be flinging them anywhere, but the trip through the vortex was short. And decidedly smoother than most of the previous ones had been. Either the infant TARDIS was getting stronger, or she was a better pilot than he was.
What the hell was that? Donna wondered.
And now someone was shooting at them.
He threw himself to the dirt and crawled toward the only two people he could see that weren't shooting at him. In his hand, the TARDIS was vibrating and letting out a psychic song that was almost loud enough to drown out his own thoughts. She was as excited as a child in a new sweet shop.
Oi, kid! Donna grumbled. Trying to think over here!
Strangely enough, the TARDIS's ebullient noise did come down a bit. She even seemed to feel… chastened.
The two people who were not shooting at him were Martha Jones and Lee McCoy.
"Hello, you two!" he cried, joining them behind their conveniently placed storage crate. "How are you holding up?"
He listened to a few not-very-useful things about the so-called Shadow Men, other than the fact that the Sanctum had made them. Interesting. He couldn't recall any organisation in the other universe called the Sanctum or Sanctuary; at least, no Earth and Colonies governing body, certainly not in the fifty-first or fifty-second century. It was fascinating (and a little unsettling) to know so little of the world he was trying to move about in. But then again, it was kind of nice. It had been centuries since he'd been the one who didn't know what was going on. It made things terrifying and dangerous and exciting.
Poor jaded Spaceman, Donna said sarcastically. Getting bored with all of time and space, were you?
Not bored… Just…
"All right then," he said aloud. "Off I go. They've got some rather large ships up there, and I've got a new plan. You two: no dying."
He closed his eyes and mentally nudged the TARDIS. I've got to go back to London now, sweetheart. Can you get me there? He thought of the destination and within milliseconds, he could feel her opening the way to the vortex. Clever girl!
He was still lying on the ground when they arrived, but he seemed to be outside some kind of converted warehouse. There was a buzzer and a list of names next to flat numbers. Lucky him, one of the names jumped out as the best possible solution to the current problem.
He used the sonic to get into the building, and went up to the flat on the second floor. He rang the bell, knocked, and then pounded on the door, before bouncing impatiently from foot to foot. "C'mon, c'mon…" He hoped that she was home. It was night, but other than that, he had no specific idea of when he was.
At last, he heard the sound of a chain rattling and a dead bolt sliding back.
Toshiko Sato peered at him from the gap. "It's three in the morning," she said.
The Doctor looked at his wrist strap. "Is it? So it is. Sorry. Feeling all healed up, I hope?"
"I—" Toshiko began.
"Brilliant! Get dressed. I've got to take you to—"
She had opened the door and pulled him in by the arm—which hurt, he suddenly remembered with a muffled cry—and closed the door behind him. The loft was spacious and tastefully furnished. "Sit down," she said. "I've got a bag ready."
"Eh?" He hesitated. "Did you know I was coming?" What day was it?
"You told me you would." She rubbed her eyes. "You didn't say it would be three in the morning."
"Sorry. But I'm actually in a bit of a rush, so…"
"Fine. Just be quiet. You'll wake Martha." She turned back to him after a couple of steps and said, "She says you knew."
"Knew?" he wondered, temporarily distracted by his realisation that she wasn't wearing anything under her silky red dressing gown. Blimey.
"About Martha and me. Sleeping together."
The Doctor shunted aside a series of interesting and impolite mental images that sprang to mind. If Donna had had a hand, she would have smacked him.
I could always use yours, she muttered.
"Oh. Yes. I mean, I guessed."
Toshiko blushed. Oh good God, she didn't know what he'd been thinking about, did she? Had it shown on his face somehow? How did humans ever accomplish anything with such distracting (wonderful) things running around their heads?
We manage. Focus!
"Thank you for not telling anyone," Toshiko said shyly. "It's just… we knew it would be our jobs…"
"Would it?" He frowned. "Why?" What he'd read in the Archives and seen in newspapers had suggested that homosexual relationships, while not necessarily completely socially accepted, were at least protected under the law. Legal unions and all that. (It was 2013, after all. Wasn't it?)
"Torchwood employees aren't supposed to fraternise with each other…" she said, peering at him as if he were confusing her. "You know that."
"Ah. Well. I didn't. I do now. So I will back when I did."
You're a Torchwood employee, Donna reminded him nervously.
Oh. Rose. Him and Rose.
But Owen had been sleeping with that woman… Faye Martin. (Why did he have such trouble remembering her name? He never forgot names!) Had that been sanctioned, somehow? Was this some kind of double-standard, or a matter of de facto versus de jure? What about him and Rose? He wasn't letting any rules get between them. No chance.
"It's a stupid rule!" he proclaimed.
"That's what you said."
"Did I? Good. Now hurry up. Get your coat. And… er… clothes. Definitely get clothes. Nothing too tight," he added. "Or low cut…" Her forehead started to furrow. "Space ship," he said quickly. "Been abandoned for ages. It's going to be cold. Layers. Lots of layers."
He breathed a sigh of relief as Toshiko disappeared into her bedroom. Martha was in there. Good. So she was fine. Would be fine.
Unless…
He had left her and Lee in the midst of some rather aggressive Shadow Men. There hadn't been a way to lend them a hand at the time, as he his had been rather full. But there had to be a way to disable the Shadow Men without killing them all. Enough people were going to have been dying.
Toshiko came out of her room after only a couple of minutes. She was wearing blue jeans and a fluffy, cowl-necked jumper. It was sage green and loose enough that it clung to her in fascinating ways when she bent over to pick up her bag, or…
Oh, give it a rest, Spaceman! You're worse than a bleeding teenager.
He looked studiously at the TARDIS coral. She was twenty percent larger than she had been when he had gone to get Jack's friends and the Torchwood crew. He did some quick calculations and reached a new, slightly less depressing number than before.
Toshiko peered curiously at the coral. "Have you worked out how to—?" She clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh! I shouldn't say. You've come from my past. I could create a paradox." Her eyes widened. "I shouldn't have said anything about Martha and me, either, should I?"
"I'm only here because I left myself a note," he admitted. "Not that I wouldn't have thought of it. You're the best person for the job, after all. I just might not have thought of it in time."
He checked the Brindisi effusion in its bag. Still glowing along with his own heart beat. Donna found that worrying for some reason.
The corridors on Genesis were more than just cold. They were also nearly airless. It was lucky that he'd brought them right to the engine room, so he was able to reactivate the environmental controls, though that was a bit of a trick in zero-gravity.
Toshiko got to work before he could even tell her what he wanted to do. She lay on her back underneath the central emitter and pointed her pen torch at a gap in the machinery.
"Is that where it goes?"
He got on the floor and lay beside her so that he could look up into the emitter manifold. It was a wonder of machinery, it really was. They were about three hundred years ahead of where they should have been, but that was beside the point, really. Time Agency might well have snatched tech from all over history. (Didn't they realise that there were consequences for those sorts of actions? What a mess to have to clean up.) "Which bit?"
"That. It's the same size as the effusion device."
The gap she had found was in the middle of a nest of bio-metric wiring. There was a cradle made of the same alloy that encapsulated the top and bottom of the effusion device. "That'd be it, then."
"It's amazing," she breathed. He turned his head and looked at her. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement. "That little thing… So much life, so much death. More power than a hydrogen bomb in a glass jar the size of a wine bottle."
The Doctor's free hand found the black bag at his side. "Amazing," he agreed. After a moment (during which he was definitely not thinking about certain people's choice of shampoo) he rolled up and to his feet. "All right, so you get to work on the repairs. I've got to get us a bit more intel." He pulled out his sonic and looked at it a moment before deciding. He held it out to Toshiko.
She shook her head and opened up her laptop case. "No thanks. Got my own." His jaw dropped. Toshiko held up a small, thin silver thing, like a pen, with a red lens on the end.
"Where did you get that?" he cried. Oh, now that just wasn't fighting fair.
Down, boy.
"I probably shouldn't say," she replied. She held up the sonic pen and it made a cheerful whir. "Don't worry, though. I promised you I wouldn't patent it."
He laughed. "Toshiko Sato, you're brilliant!"
She smiled back at him. "So you're off to the Library then, right?"
He paused. "Library?"
"To research the Shadow Men?"
He scratched his head. "How much did I tell you, exactly?"
"You're just supposed to go," she said. "You're wasting time."
"Right!" He held up the TARDIS. "All right, sweetheart, how do you feel about a quick one?"
Tosh's eyes went wide. "What?"
He looked up and frowned. "What?"
She blushed. "Never mind. You should go."
He swallowed as he realised what he'd said. He was very grateful to the vortex for swallowing him up right then. A nice trick for ending awkward moments, that.
Donna held onto her terminal for dear life as the ship rocked to one side. You'd think that an impact in space wouldn't be so jarring, what with the fact that there was gravity in here, but not out there, and out there was where all the shooting was happening. Still, every time the Genesis was hit, Donna had to struggle to stay in her chair.
Captain Jack was shouting from the centre of the bridge. "Rose! Where are those shields?"
"Ten more seconds!" Rose cried. There was another impact and Rose nearly lost her seating as well. "Still re-calibrating!"
"Jack, three of them just broke off. The rest of them are still headed for the planet." Fish looked over his shoulder. "What do we do?"
An alarm sounded on Donna's terminal. She pressed the blinking light and relayed the message. "Message from Father Nicodemus." They'd save a lot of time, she thought, if they hadn't had such ridiculous names. "Shadow Men have breached their defences."
"What else?" demanded the captain.
Donna swallowed and shook her head. "That's all it says!" Captain Jack swore.
"Shields are back!" Rose said.
Jack let out a whoop. "I'm going to kiss that goofy bastard," he cried. "Peter, you're a wizard!"
Donna looked at the big display at the front of the room. Three of the ships were closing in on them. Three against one was better than ten against one.
There was another message on her terminal, this one was live audio. "Captain, Ianto's calling!"
"Put him on."
Donna winced as her earpiece squealed and Ianto's voice came over the loudspeaker. "We've got a fire down here!"
"Where?" Jack demanded.
"Engineering," Rose said, checking the computer. "Fire's in the lower level. The suppression systems aren't working."
"Io, get down there, see what you can do, get them out of there. Donna, get me Lola!"
Donna grimaced at her terminal. Jack had injected her with a translator chip—she had a welt on her neck to show for it. This meant that she could read the strange lettering on the display—it looked wrong, but at the same time it made sense, and it was giving her a headache. Everyone had their own earpiece, and she could access them all from her station. She pressed the control for Lola Enkidu's line.
"Lola, Jack calling."
Donna heard a grunt over the speaker. "Sort of busy!"
"Got her," Donna said.
"Lola, I need those cannons you guys promised me."
"Yeah, well—" There was a shudder on the line and Donna had to grab her terminal again as the ship shook.
"Shields are losing power," Rose informed them.
"There!" Lola cried. "Gregor, get me that—" There was another jolt, and Lola's line cut out altogether.
"We've got cannons!" Rose jumped from her seat and stood over Fish's shoulders. "Ready to fire!"
"Where's that medic?" Jack demanded. "Donna, get him down to deck 2."
Donna pressed Owen's comm. "Owen, deck 2. Check on—"
"Can't!" Owen grunted. "I'm in engineering." Donna winced at the cries and moans of pain in the background. Was it Ianto? "Keep the pressure on! We're gonna loose him!"
Donna swallowed. "Captain, Owen's—"
Something exploded. Donna covered her head and shrieked as hot air and sparks shot at her face. Her earpiece was dead. When she got to her feet again, she saw that her whole panel had blown.
"Communications is gone," she said, though she wasn't sure anyone heard her. Her hair was singed—she could smell it. Please God, let her still have eyebrows.
"Jack!" Rose was back in her chair now. "We've got a hull breach in engineering! We can't take another hit like that!"
"We still got cannons?"
"Yes, sir!" Lalit replied.
"Roast 'em!"
The display showed a shower of red light coming from them and hitting the leftmost ship. Donna found an empty terminal. She tried to bring up the communications array again, but the ship's system wasn't the most self-evident thing she'd ever worked with.
She had some small success, though. She could see which lines were active now: Ianto, Rose, Jack, Samsa, Fish, Lalit, Owen. Staker's signal was gone, so was Lola's. Could she see some sort of life-sign read out? This was the future, wasn't it? There had to be a way to see who was still alive.
When she found it, she ought to have been relieved. But no such luck. Deck 2 had two little golden symbols moving around inside it—Lola and Gregor—and the bridge showed her, Jack, Rose, Lalit, and Fish. Engineering (decks 5 and 6) only had two lights, not three, and one that was moving towards it. That was probably Io.
There was a hull breach in engineering. She could see it—the emergency systems had put up a shield, but the shields were losing power again, and soon those people down there were going to get sucked out into space.
Donna got out of her chair and she ran. No one called out after her, so she kept going. It was stupid, because what if they needed her up there, but someone was dead and she had to know who. The rest of them were going to die. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe she could help.
The lifts only took her as far as deck 3: the rest were all out of order. She was going to have to climb down a ladder to traverse the remaining decks. The life-signs in engineering were on deck 6. All she had to do was get to them. She'd figure out the rest when she got there.
Her hands were sweaty and spots on her palms were burned raw because her terminal had shot sparks at her, but she managed to hold onto the rungs. She tried not to think of how much she hated ladders, especially ones like this. It was straight up and down inside a metal tube, and there was hardly any air and the walls felt like they were going to close in on her. She wasn't allowed to remember the screams and the stomping feet of the Cybermen, even if there was steam and gas wailing out of pipes as she ran down the corridor, even if the klaxon sounded like saw blades screeching.
The doors of engineering were closed. There was a panel on the wall, and she pressed it again and again, finally resorting to closed-fist pounding. "Open! Come on, you bloody useless thing!"
As if (finally) hearing her, the doors slowly moved apart. Donna found herself face to face with Ianto—alive, but red-faced and sooty, and still bruised from the fight. There was blood on his usually immaculate shirtsleeves.
"Shields," she said, unable to think well enough to form anything like a sentence. "Gonna go." Ianto turned and ran back in. Donna followed him. She could see scorched terminals and what looked like a discarded fire extinguisher.
"We've got to get out!" Ianto shouted.
Peter Staker was burnt and bloody and dead. His entire chest was metal. Not like armour, but his actual chest. Owen was bent over his knee, one arm over his face.
"He's a cyborg?" Donna said, staring at Staker and feeling a dazed.
Io was holding the dead cyborg's hand. She seemed to be in shock. "Ruffles," she said, blinking slowly behind her enormous glasses. "There were so many ruffles…"
"Owen!" Ianto grabbed the doctor by one arm. "We've got to go!"
There was a hole in the wall only a few metres away from them. Donna could see it—it was only size of a cricket ball. But once the shields went, it would grow, maybe even tear away the whole wall. Half the ship. The air in here would suddenly be out there and it would kill them all.
Ianto seemed to have given up on moving Owen and gone to pull Io to her feet. She looked at him as if she'd never used her eyes before. "I hated that dress." Ianto grimaced, lifted her to her feet and dragged her from the room.
Donna knelt by Owen, put one hand on his arm, another on the back of his neck, as if skin contact closer to his brain might bring him forth. "I'm sorry," she said. "But we have to run now."
Owen lifted his head and looked at her, eyes red-rimmed and cheeks soaked. "I keep losing."
She gripped his hand. "Come on, you lump," she said, looking him in the eye. "I haven't got time for your self-pity right now."
The lights in the room dimmed and Donna could hear the creaking sound of metal under stress. She yanked Owen to his feet. "C'mon!"
They ran. Ianto was already closing the doors, but there was just enough room to slip through. Once on the other side, Donna tried to help push the doors closed. Io was standing uselessly to one side, but Owen seemed to have snapped out of it at least.
Suddenly, the shields or force fields, or whatever had been holding things together, were gone. Donna screamed as the air was sucked past them through the six centimetre gap between the doors. They kept pushing but they weren't going to be able to do it, and they were going to die here, three thousand years and God knew how many light years from home.
There was a metallic clank and an ear-splitting hiss as the edges of the doors met. Donna slid to the ground, gasping for breath. How much of the air had they lost? Her hair was all over the place, mostly in front of her face. She tried to move it, but she was cold, and her fingers were tingling and painful, and so was her chest.
Someone grasped her hand and pulled and they were running, but how were they still running when there wasn't enough air? She saw the black silk of the back of Ianto's waistcoat in front of her, saw Io's jacket and Owen's white lab coat. She was trailing behind. Her legs felt like jelly. Whoever it was that was holding her hand kept a firm grip.
A door opened in front of them and Donna felt a warm wind on her face. Breathing was a little easier, once they were on the other side of the door, but her legs were still half-useless.
"Now what?" Owen gasped as he collapsed onto a bench.
"Back to the bridge," Ianto said.
"What good'll that do?"
"That's where the captain is. We're no use in this…"
Donna pushed her fringe out of her eyes and looked around. "Mess hall?" she ventured. There were a few trays on the tables, some of them full of the desiccated remains of what might have once been beans on toast.
"I am starving," Owen said.
Ianto gave him a hostile look, so Donna didn't voice her agreement.
"Communications are down," she said. "Ianto's right. We go back to the bridge. Jack can tell us—"
The ship rocked and they stumbled. Donna fell into Owen. His grip was hard and claw-like on the softer bits of her upper arms, but he did keep her from falling on her face.
"There's not enough air in the corridor," Owen said. He stood and helped her upright. "How do we get back up there?"
"There's an emergency hatch," Io said. She went over to the wall. "There's always an emergency hatch."
Donna started to follow her, but Owen hadn't let her go yet. "Come on," she said. "We need to help."
He was giving her the strangest look. She stared back at him. His eyes were level with her eyebrows, which meant that she was looking at his soot and tear-smudged cheeks. He wasn't handsome, she thought, and wondered why such a thing was even entering her mind at a time like this, but then suddenly that thin, scowling mouth was on hers and she was being kissed by Owen Harper. But she was most definitely not kissing him back.
"What are you doing?" she demanded when it ended. She was breathless because she was scared and because the air was too thin. That was the only reason.
Owen looked slightly startled. "We're going to die anyway."
Donna swallowed and hoped that she wasn't as flushed as she felt. "Your face is gonna be so red if we survive."