The sound of many running boots echoed from somewhere in the distance within the confines of miles of unadorned metal corridors. The metal was darker than silver with a opalescent sheen that made it clear it also wasn't quite steel. The only other spots of colour were the small blue-tinted windows set into metal doors that lined the corridor. Thin tubes of light trailed along the edges of the ceiling and flat, yellow circular lights flashed down the centre.
And then a shrill voice came on over a loudspeaker:
"All operators report to your vehicles! I repeat: this is not a drill! All operators report to your vehicles immediately! All crew assume battle-ready positions!"
More boots echoed down a different corridor and a very sharp ear could detect faint hisses as doors slid open and shut. The steady drum of far-away noise was momentarily accompanied by a whirling, wheezy sonic whine and shortly after broken completely by a creak of metal and a loud crash.
Inside what seemed to be a debriefing room of some sort, Amy Pond climbed out of the TARDIS, hesitating for a moment on the threshold in order to orientate herself after realizing the floor outside wasn't quite where she'd expected it to be. Hopping out, she moved away to leave room for the others to also pile out. She then stared at the long metal table that had bent and twisted under the weight of the TARDIS, leaving the entrance on an angle and facing slightly upwards.
She raised an eyebrow at the Doctor as he, too, climbed out. "You know, I seem to remember you being better at steering the TARDIS," she said. The she paused. "Actually, nevermind, I may have been dreaming that."
Beside her, Rory shrugged. "Maybe the TARDIS is having an off-day," he suggested.
The Doctor glared at both of them before looking back to the TARDIS and making a face at its position. "It's possible that whatever modifications Kang has made to the Time Agency ship has slightly affected the TARDIS' navigational sensors," he allowed.
"You think he modified the ship?" Bill asked.
"Had to have," the Doctor answered. "Time Agency ships are small, most of them being designed to be run by a maximum crew of five. In order to transport a ship this size through time, he would've had to do an entire overhaul of the time engine. I'm actually quite curious to see how he did it."
That said, the Doctor abruptly turned on his heel to face his companions and slipped his sunglasses on his head. "Let's go find out, shall we?" he said with a grin.
"After you, Doctor," said Amy. "Also, what's with the sunglasses?"
"Ah, they're sonic," the Doctor replied. "The newest accessory for the travelling Time Lord! So much more practical than a plain old screwdriver."
"You mean the one you gave to River?" Rory asked quietly.
The Doctor froze. "Yes, the one I gave to River," he said in a soft tone, liberally coated with thinly-veiled grief. "How did you know about that?"
"She came to help us after we arrived back in this century," said Amy. "She had your screwdriver and said you'd given it to her."
"She was off on an expedition to a library," Rory prompted.
"The largest, most complete library in the universe," the Doctor whispered, his voice blank. "It's where I met her for the first time. I still remember the shock on her face when she realized I wasn't kidding, or playing around, that I honestly had no idea who she was." He smiled wistfully. "I sort of envy that version of me. He'd had no idea what he'd lost that day."
Amy gasped as a metaphorical lance unexpectedly pierced her heart and pain blossomed in its wake. Tears welled in her eyes and she reached out her hand, blindly reaching for an anchor. Moments later, she felt her hand grasped in Rory's familiar grip. She looked over and they shared a long look of grief, love and determination.
The moment passed and Amy let his hand go and looked away, walking over to the Doctor. She ignored the uncertain look on his face and embraced him.
"I'm sorry," she whispered as they brought their heads together and their foreheads touched.
"Me too," the Doctor whispered back.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she exhaled and took another. Then she opened her eyes and stepped back to push the glasses up so she could meet the Doctor's eyes.
"Now let's go save the world," she said.
The Doctor smiled. "Good idea, let's go do that!"
And then he led them out of the room.
The US army troops continued to mill around, watching the sparse UNIT troops suspiciously long after Ross had left. The presence of the US troops on the lawn was an eyesore and Sam couldn't help but worry that Kang's men would eventually notice their presence. UNIT had actually done a pretty good job of taking advantage of their temporary headquarters' parking garage, hiding their troops inside so they weren't visible to overhead sweeps.
He wasn't entirely sure what the building was, but got the impression it was possibly some sort of import-export company that leased the top floor as office space to several other companies. Everyone who worked inside had, apparently, been told to stay out of the office for a few days because Sam hadn't seen so much as a single janitor in the two days they'd been there. The streets around them were also looking unusually deserted, the few cars that had been there earlier having quietly disappeared over the course of the morning.
None of it surprised him overly much as he could easily spot the road blocks where UNIT and US soldiers were quietly turning people around and sending them home.
It wasn't an ideal battleground, but he had to admit it could also be a worse one. The area was an industrial park, full of one to two-story office buildings in between small manufacturing plants. Sure, businesses might loose out on a lot of money if a major fight broke out here, but the threat level to civilians was low and at least it wasn't downtown Manhattan again. The people living there seriously needed a break at this point – insurance premiums were now almost worse than rent in that part of the city.
He flew over the building and noticed the giant silver pods Steve, T'Challa and the couple from the forties (sort of) had gone to the centre of the Earth with had vanished again. There were still a couple of UNIT soldiers standing guard in the area, but the rest of them had dispersed elsewhere.
Sam really wished he knew what was going on, but he and Colonel Rhodes were pretty much their best look-outs at the moment. On one of the rooftops far below, he saw Clint huddled around a radio, no doubt listening in to what was going on in the conference room – Clint hadn't actually told him what he was up to, but between him and Natasha, Sam would've been shocked if at least one of them hadn't bugged the room. Multiple times.
Suddenly, Redwing beeped an alert at him. He'd had it running a basic security sweep pattern a bit further out and higher up than he'd been flying. Sam paused in his flight and looked at the compact display screen on his wrist to pinpoint his drone's exact location and then brought up its camera feed.
"Shit," he cursed under his breath and then tapped his comm. "This is Falcon to UNIT and the Avengers, we've got a giant-ass space/time/whatever ship incoming from the south-east. Based on what Redwing's giving me, I'd say we've got about twenty minutes 'till it reaches us."
There was a long pause on the other end. And then Stark answered: "Copy that, Falcon. Pull back and don't engage until you have backup. Hawkeye, Black Widow, I'm assuming you've both been listening in so you know what's going on. Both of you get down to the first level of the parking garage. Everyone else, meet us out in front of the building for your instructions. Clear?"
Down below him, Sam could see Clint hustling to get off the roof and down to the parking garage and wondered just why Stark wanted their sniper below ground. Mentally shrugging, he figured he'd find out soon enough.
Bill followed behind Amy as quietly as she could, quite aware of how she was barely able to hear Rory creeping down the corridors behind her. The couple had automatically taken positions to put her between them as though to protect her. Part of her chaffed at the insinuation that she needed to be protected, that they considered her the weakest link of their group, but the other part – the one that envied the ease and confidence with which they crept through the spaceship – felt reassured by their presence. Beside them, she felt awkward and gawky, like a teenager. She swore her heartbeats and breathing had to be audible from several corridors away.
Bill hoped that one day she too would feel comfortable creeping through spaceships and talking to aliens. Preferably without getting killed in the process. Or banished to the past.
The Doctor led them with the usual spring in his step – and how he managed to creep about a spaceship with a spring in his step was a mystery. Every once in a while he would pause, press at the top corner of his sonic sunglasses and then turn down a new corridor.
Until they came to a junction where the Doctor suddenly swung around. "Quick, back around the corner!" he whispered urgently and they all turned and ran back to the last turn.
Somehow, Bill found herself right behind the Doctor again as they ducked down and pressed themselves against the cool bulkhead. As she waited with baited breath, Bill could feel the metal faintly humming beneath her cheek. Less than twenty seconds later, they heard hurried boot-falls approaching their position. Two men in green and yellow jumpsuits carrying large cases in their hands and see-through purple canisters full of swirling gas on their backs hurried past them.
They continued to wait in silence until they could no longer hear the men.
The Doctor stood and touched his sonic sunglasses again. Bill heard the familiar soft whirling sound and then the Doctor hummed thoughtfully.
"Hm, Kang seems to take his engineering quite seriously," the Doctor commented softly.
Bill was about to ask the Doctor how he knew that when she suddenly found herself being pushed forward.
"Quick, round the corner, hurry!" she heard Amy hiss in her ear.
Even with no idea what was happening, the urgency Bill could hear in the other woman's voice made her move, practically diving around the corner in her haste. As she rounded the corner, she looked back once and caught a glimpse of a round black dot floating in mid-air several corridor junctions down from them.
Once again, the group waited silently. After a few moments, Rory carefully peeked around the corner. Some of the tension eased from his shoulders.
"It's gone," he said.
"What was it?" Bill asked.
"Security drone," Amy answered.
"Actually, it was more likely a surveillance drone," the Doctor corrected her. "The Moon Colonies used them quite extensively."
Amy looked back to him with a small frown. "What the difference?"
"Surveillance drones are more like mobile security cameras," the Doctor began to explain even as he hurried ahead towards their original goal and Bill, Amy and Rory hurried to keep up. "The Moon Colonies pioneered a drone system that included three types of drones: surveillance drones, analytical drones and security drones. You see, the colonies themselves were large, but not densely populated as their domes had to house all the fields and manufacturing facilities as well as housing. Also, as a result of everything being under a dome, the smallest crack or nick in the dome's structure could become hazardous quite quickly, and since the colonies were mostly self-sufficient, any malfunction in manufacturing equipment or water production, ecetera, could prove equally dangerous. And so their engineers, a rather clever and resourceful bunch, created the drone system."
He paused to, once again, consult his sonic sunglasses and then took a left.
"In any case, the surveillance drones are, essentially a 360 degree camera that takes continuous video as it travels about. The video feed is sent to a central database, where a computer with a rudimentary AI analyses it and if it discovers any anomalies, then dispatches either security or analytical drones as necessary. Analytical drones have more delicate sensors to analyze a problem, assign priority status and suggest solutions that could be passed on to human engineers if they are unable to easily fix it by themselves. Security drones, on the other hand, have a variety of built-in weapons."
"Why not built the drones with all three functions?" Bill asked.
"Lack of resources. Building surveillance drones is relatively simple, but the laser weapons and diagnostic tools require stronger casings, larger power sources and more time, or at least more engineers to build them."
"Hang on," Rory suddenly said. "So you're saying that the surveillance drone might very well have seen us, but it would've moved on regardless because its job is just to take pictures."
"Well, yes."
Bill frowned. "That seems rather inconvenient," she said. "If you have intruders, don't you want the drones to be able to follow them immediately?"
"Yes," the Doctor agreed. "Which is why the surveillance drones aren't usually used on ships."
"But Kang's using them anyway." Bill's frown deepened as she fell silent. That clearly meant something, but she wasn't quite sure what.
The Doctor just shrugged. "Possibly. Or it could be that while he's a brilliant engineer, he doesn't know the first thing about actually running a spaceship."
"And that most of his crew doesn't either," Amy added from behind her.
"Right," said Bill, her frown lightening considerably. "Because otherwise they'd have told him not to bother with surveillance drones! Unless, of course, he didn't have the money for security drones." She paused and then looked at the Doctor. "They do still have money in the future, right? I mean, it's not like Star Trek where they've got those replicators to make them stuff, is it?"
The Doctor just shot her a puzzled look. "I have no idea," he said. "I've never seen Star Trek. But, yes, people do still use money in the future. Except for the colonies on Expartus Prime, silly little colonies that they are. Not silly because they don't use money, just silly because they, well, are. Still, there's some lovely landscape and the buildings are especially unique-looking. It's actually quite a nice place to visit as long as you don't mind snakes. I'll have to take you some time."
"Um, I'm not really a fan of snakes," said Bill carefully. "I mean, I'm not terrified of them or anything, but I just prefer them to be not anywhere near me. Uh, Doctor?"
However, the Doctor was back to ignoring them all as he stepped into a small, rounded alcove. Tapping the corner of his sunglasses, he stared at the wall in front of him as they worked. A few moments later a touchscreen panel appeared on the wall and the Doctor grinned triumphantly. Bill grinned as well, though tension made her smile somewhat strained.
She turned away to watch the corridor, aware that Amy and Rory were doing the same on the other side of the alcove. It could've been maybe thirty seconds, or a minute, later that she heard the Doctor exclaim 'Aha!' softly, followed shortly by a soft hiss. Bill turned to find a doorway had opened up in the previously smooth wall of the alcove.
Well, it was sort of a doorway. It was much narrower than most doorways, being only barely wide enough for the Doctor himself to step through. She frowned as the Doctor reached through the opening instead of just stepping inside... Oh, she realized, there wasn't a room on the other side, but a ladder. It was a service shaft. At least, she assumed it was.
"So, we're not going to engineering?" she asked.
"Too many people there most likely," the Doctor answered her offhandedly. "Besides, I want to get a look at the time machine construction itself."
And then he was climbing down the shaft.
"Well, I guess it's off into the belly of the beast," Rory commented as he cut in front of his wife to go next.
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"There's only one person allowed to look up your skirt and that's me," he said with a shrug.
Bill blinked and looked down, realizing Amy was wearing a navy dress she must've brought from the 1940s.
Amy rolled her eyes at her husband. "Honestly, you choose the oddest times to suddenly get jealous," she said, but let him go on ahead of her anyway.
Bill shook her head in amusement and followed behind them.
Rhodey raised his eyebrows at The Plan. It was crazy, and not in a Tony Stark crazy way, but in an 'are you kidding me' sort of way. Even the chaos of US army and UNIT soldiers rushing around assembling ordinance and driving both equipment and people out of the parking garage, wasn't nearly as insane as their actual plan.
"Tony..." he began, not bothering to hide his skepticism.
Tony raised a hand to stop him. "I know, I know, jellybean," he said. "It's completely insane." He grinned. "Which is why it's brilliant and will probably work... at least for a limited time. You said your replusors did nothing against the floaters, well now you've got me and my spare suit. Maybe between the three of us we can take them. And Natasha's got a rocket launcher. Which is, admittedly, terrifying, but at least she's on our side."
He paused and looked over to Spiderman. "You ready, kid?"
Spiderman nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, sir!"
Rhodey sighed. "Alright, it's not like I've got any better ideas."
"Well, if it fails completely, you can blame it on Captain America," Tony quipped as his faceplate came down. "It was his idea after all."
"If it fails completely we're probably all going to die and then it won't really matter whose crazy idea it was," said Wasp with a snort.
"True enough," said Rhodey with a nod to the newest superhero of their group. Hope Pym was the kind of tough, yet practical sort of lady he could respect, and her costume surprisingly not as flashy as he would've expected from a hero calling herself 'the Wasp'. It was, however, quite obviously designed by the same person who'd designed the Antman suit.
It would be nice to have another flyer in the air.
"Falcon here. Kang's ship is now about a minute out and I'm seeing floaters disengaging from its docking bay."
"Hawkeye here, we're in position and ready."
"Captain America here, my team's green for go."
Rogers jogged up to them and grinned. "Looks like we're all set," he said.
"Then let's get going," said Tony through the voice modulator. "Avengers, assemble and move out!"
Rhodey rolled his eyes as his faceplate closed. To his right, he saw Antman and Wasp shrink down, his suit's external cameras tracking their transformations and adjusting so that he could keep track of them. It was a new feature Tony had developed for their suits after seeing just how much damage an inch-tall man could actually do. Moments later both of them flew off, Antman on an ant and Wasp by her own wing power.
Spiderman, meanwhile, climbed up onto the extra Iron Man suit and held on as it took off. Tony followed right behind them with Rhodey on his tail.
They barely had time to take a breath before the floaters were upon them.
Rhodey dodged the first few laser blasts that came in his direction and then returned fire with a series of repulsor blasts. His repulsors had about as much effect as they'd had at the Avenger's compound. Fed up with being useless, Rhodey armed his shoulder missiles and then fired three at an on-coming floater. Though fast and surprisingly manoeuvrable, the floaters' approach formation was too dense to allow for much movement and so the pilot wasn't able to move out of the way fast enough to avoid the direct hits.
Rhodey saw the shields flicker and immediately followed the rockets up with several repulsor blasts. The first two were enough to take the shields down. The third and forth shot the floater down.
"One down, about a hundred more to go," said Rhodey to himself. "Man, I'm going to run out of ammo soon at this rate."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a huge spiderweb net catch one of the floaters into neat little sack. Then Spider man came swinging around, holding on to the end of the net as he swung beneath the netted floater, pulling it off course and directly into the path of another on-coming floater. The resulting crash took out both their shields.
Rhodey was about to go aim for the second one, when movement on his display showed him Antman flying in with an army of ants... which was carrying a second group of ants on their backs. The second group fell on the floater pilot. Moments later, he saw the floater scream in pain as she batted at the insects – Rhodey would've called them small, but damn those looked like really big ants.
Suddenly, Wasp grew to her normal size next to the floater and fired some sort of energy weapon attached to her wrists at the floater's engine.
Rhodey's proximity alarm went off and he dodged to the left to avoid a blast even as he found himself amused that the Wasp did appear to have some form of stingers after all. Flipping in mid-air, Rhodey aimed another trio of rockets at the floater who appeared to be after him.
"Yeah, I don't think so," he said to himself as he fired the volley. The shields came down and he grinned.
Spiderman climbed up his webbing and then flipped up onto the back of the netted floater. With the shield gone, the netting had stuck to the pilot and the craft itself. Peter grinned behind his mask and smacked the pilot on the back of his head, knocking him out.
"Consider this a lesson about twenty-first century arachnids!" he quipped. "'Cause I bet no one thought to bring spiders to the Moon when they colonized it." He tapped his comm. "Hey, FRIDAY, wanna come help me tow this one out of the way?"
"I will be right there, Spiderman," came FRIDAY's cool feminine voice.
It took Mister Stark's AI mere moments to fly the suit to Peter, who immediately jumped on, balancing on the suit's back as though it were a skateboard, while holding on to the end of the web net as FRIDAY flew on towards the temporary UNIT headquarters so they could hand over their hostage.
A rocket firing up from the ground startled Peter and hit a floater that had been coming at him from the left. It was quickly followed up with an explosive arrow. He glanced down to see Black Widow, Hawkeye and Captain America on the ground, though they quickly turned and ran between office buildings as a small pack of floaters took off after them.
"Damn, they're outnumbered," said Spiderman. After barely a moment's hesitation, he quickly tied the end of the web net around the Iron Man suit's arm. "FRIDAY, I'll leave this to you. I'm gonna go help Captain America and the others."
"Understood, Spiderman."
Peter jumped off the suit, landing in a tumble on top of a flat rooftop and then sprinted after the three Avengers, well one Avenger and two former Avengers. Man, he wished the buildings around here were taller. Clearly UNIT hadn't had him in mind when they'd chosen the location.
He activated his web shooters and kept them on a steady stream, his finger catching the strands and weaving them to form the net. It grew bigger as he ran, until it was streaming behind him like a really rough-looking sack. He'd practised this particular move for weeks in an abandoned factory, until he could create small nets in seconds and larger nets in under a minute.
By the time he caught up to the Avengers and their tail, his net was finished. He was just in time to see the Black Widow turn around and fire her... wait, energy weapon? Since when did the Black Widow carry an energy weapon? No sooner had it hit then a rocket hit the same floater from the right.
Thoroughly confused, but figuring he'd ask about it later, Peter launched himself into the air and threw his net at a passing floater. Once again, the webbing slipped over the shield with ease. Just as he was considering the best way to ground the floater, a spinning object collided with it from the right, careening the floater off course and into the nearest building.
Peter managed to twist around in mid-air just enough to land on his feet instead of hitting his shoulder against the concrete structure. Looking up, his eyes widened as the spinning object was caught by Captain America as he leaped off the opposite building and landed directly on a shielded floater. He then proceeded to ram his own star-spangled shield against the floater's energy shield.
Looking towards the ground confirmed that, yes, there still was a Captain America running on the ground. Right, he remembered this part. He'd just been expecting there to be some sort of obvious difference between the real thing and the shape-shifting aliens. Maybe if he saw them up close?
Shaking his head, Spiderman looked to the crashed floater. Its shield had gone down – which was weird, but Peter wasn't about to complain about something that made his life easier – and he felt no movement from inside the net. Tying the net off, Peter let the end fall to the ground. He'd let UNIT pick this guy up later.
Jumping nimbly over the damaged wall, Peter ran to catch up with the others again.
"Fascinating!" the Doctor commented. "You know, Kang is actually quite clever. It seems he's not only integrated the Time Agency's hardware, but also amplified it with a feedback buffer in place to prevent it from going into a loop and exploding. It's a rather rudimentary system, mind you, but certainly not Time Agency design, which means he must have developed it himself."
"And that helps us how?" Rory asked into the ensuing silence.
The Doctor looked up from the console he was studying and blinked at him. "Oh, it doesn't," he said. "It's just fascinating. And somewhat impressive that a thirty-first century man came up with it."
Amy snorted softly. It seemed this Doctor had just as much of a tendency to talk out loud as hers had, only he was more abrupt about it and less chatty. With a sigh, she turned back to her examination of the engine room, though room was a bit of a misnomer. The space felt more like a metal cavern.
It wasn't even a cave system as Amy could distinctly see four walls. The space was well- lit by those same tubes of light they'd seen in the ship's corridors, except here they weren't inlaid in the walls, but rather suspended freely above their heads like party streamers. The large flat circular light fixtures were also present, but they were smaller and, instead of being on the high ceiling, they were inlaid along the floor. It gave the shadows in the room an unnatural-feeling slant.
Cables and pipes ran about a foot above their heads, further adding to the claustrophobic feeling in the otherwise fairly spacious room, helped along by the heat generated by the engine itself. The engine was huge and looked a bit like two elephants huddled together when she squinted. It took up most of the main wall of the cavern, connected to a large console just off to the side, with two smaller consoles on the wall to either side of it, visible only due to the flashing lights on their displays.
The Doctor hadn't paid much attention to the engine itself, other than quickly scanning it and then opening one large hatch on its left side. Amy had barely managed to catch a glimpse of blue and white swirling gases before he'd nodded once in confirmation of something and then closed the hatch, moving on to the next large apparatus. This one was about a third of the size of the engine and looked more like a misshapen drum with large metal tubes and wires sticking out of it.
It was also, apparently, the time machine component of the ship. All Amy could tell was that it looked very different to the insides of the TARDIS.
Bill had hovered around the Doctor for a while before wandering off to take a better look at the engine and its surroundings. Amy was glad to see the young woman looking around. The Doctor was clever, after all, but he didn't have eyes everywhere. She'd watched Bill taking in the spaceship as they'd walked through it, her eyes glancing to the Doctor, or to her and Rory every once in a while for confirmation that she was doing things right.
Amy remembered once being so young and wide-eyed, excited by the idea of going on adventures but terrified by what they might encounter. Oh, who was she kidding, the idea of going on adventures with the Doctor never stopped being exciting. Even now she was torn between hoping the Doctor would ask Rory and her to join him again, once this was all over, and wishing he wouldn't.
She'd had her adventures and now she had a family.
Turning away from the Doctor and his new companion, she joined Rory by another jumble of machinery and metal pipes in the far corner.
"Found anything interesting?" she asked him.
Rory looked thoughtful. "I'm not sure, exactly," he answered. "But I do think this looks rather odd."
Looking to where he'd pointed, Amy immediately saw what had caught his attention. Out of the mass of pipes, tubes and various relays, a half dozen of them seemed to entwine together into a small cluster and then veer off from the rest, directly into the wall behind them.
Amy frowned. "You know, I thought there was something odd about this place," she said and then turned around to take in the engine room.
The two of them had seen the insides of more than a few spaceships and, other than the odd quirk of architecture, most of them had been large spaces with multiple levels that ran through the whole ship. Looking up, Amy could see a few intersecting catwalks high above her head where more pipes and conduits ran alongside them. There was nothing wrong with the image, and being neither a scientist nor an engineer, she couldn't exactly tell whether or not the design was wrong. Still, the conduits above her head seemed rather... lifeless.
She looked back down to the room around them. "Is it odd that there's no one here?" she asked out loud. The Doctor was apparently too far away and too preoccupied with the time machine engine to hear her, but she continued anyway. "I mean, even if there's an actual engineering room, I would've expected there to be at least one person down here to monitor things more closely and to be immediately on hand in case something went wrong."
Behind her, she heard Rory shuffling and then the sound of him tapping his knuckle against the bulkhead.
"Hm... it would make sense," he finally replied a few moments later. "It's also oddly quiet in here for such an enclosed space containing both a ship's engine, all these relays and a time machine engine."
Amy blinked and turned to him. Rory was examining the wall around where the pipping and tubes disappeared. Neither one of them had needed to raise their voices to be heard. The humming of the machinery in the room was noticeable, but other than the occasional high-pitched squeal from a pipe high above their heads, it was easy enough to tune out as background noise.
"You're right," she said. "I can't believe I didn't notice that."
"Been a while since you've been on a spaceship?"
His tone had been nonchalant, but there was a smirk on Rory's lips when he met her eyes.
"It's possible," she replied with a smirk of her own.
The moment of levity was quickly broken by Rory himself: "Do you suppose the Doctor's noticed?" he asked with a sudden worried frown.
"Probably," Amy answered, not feeling entirely certain in her reply.
They both turned to ask him just that.
And then froze.
It took mere seconds for them to realize what was happening and then they were ducking down behind the machinery and piping. On the other side of the room, they could see Bill's tense form as she tugged at the Doctor's jacket to get his attention, her eyes never straying from the menacing red strip of light glowing on the front of the dark grey sphere hovering less than a meter away from her face. Rory barely dared breathed as they waited, wondering whether or not they'd been spotted, and watching for anything resembling an opening, an opportunity to help the Doctor and Bill.
Finally the Doctor turned to face the security drone – because that really was the only thing it could be – and slowly raised his hands in surrender. The top of the drone began to pulse with a small silver light.
"Now, now, no need to do anything hasty," the Doctor said loudly. He paused for a moment, eyeing the drone. "I suppose this is the part where I tell you to take me to your leader?"
A small silver spark shot out from the drone at the floor between their feet. Bill yelped in surprise and jumped away. The Doctor also jumped away from the shot, though he remained silent.
"Was that really necessary?" he demanded of the drone a moment later.
The drone didn't answer, instead floating around so that it was behind them. As Bill and the Doctor turned around the light at the top began pulsing once more. The Doctor grabbed Bill by the arm and slowly the two of them let the drone lead them back towards the wall, where a door suddenly slid open.
Rory and Amy waited in the stillness of the empty room for several, long minutes after the drone had escorted Bill and the Doctor out, carefully watching the shadows around the machines as well as the ceiling for movement. Eventually they concluded there weren't any more security drones waiting to ambush them.
The room felt much more cavernous and creepy now that they were alone, now that danger had managed to find the Doctor. As usual.
"Well, I suppose we'll just have to see what we can figure out without the Doctor," said Amy softly.
Beside her, Rory swallowed and then took a deep breath. "Come on," he said. "Maybe we should see if we can figure out how to get to the other side of that wall."
Amy nodded. It was as good of a place to start as any.
The Iron Man suit was a work of aerodynamic art and brilliant, cutting-edge engineering. There was no way it should have been possible for it to be out-manoeuvred by a souped-up office chair. And yet Tony found himself having a hard time keeping up with the floaters. The shields weren't helping, as it meant that even when he managed to hit one, his repulsor blasts were bouncing harmlessly off.
Fed up with being ineffective, Tony told FRIDAY to divert power to the chest beam. It was a weapon meant as a last resort but, dammit, he was going to take down at least one of these irritating flying armchair fighters if it was the last thing he did!
"The chest beam is fully charged, sir," said FRIDAY about forty seconds later.
"Good, then let's do this!" said Tony as the window for the chest beam's targeting system came up on the HUD.
The armour's chestplate had gotten noticeably warmer – not quite enough to be uncomfortable, but enough that when the beam fired out it almost felt like it really was coming out of Tony's chest. He always got the urge to scream out cartoon-style whenever he fired the beam, as though that would make the technology work harder. Usually he managed to refrain from doing so. Usually.
The beam hit one of the floaters dead-on, shattering through the shield and blasting into its mechanism. The hover chair and its driver fell from the sky as a flailing, smouldering wreck.
Tony whooped in triumph. Then he switched on the comm.
"So, good news, my chest beam can take out these flying assholes," he said. He glanced at the suit's power levels and did some quick calculations in his head. "Bad news is I only have enough juice for about twelve more of those."
"That's better luck than any of us have had," came Clint's voice a few seconds later. The archer sounded understandably frustrated. Even with two Hawkeyes in the field, all they'd accomplished was being a distracting nuisance.
"Vision, can you get past those shields on the main ship?" Cap suddenly asked over the comm.
There was a pause. "I can try," came Vision's reply.
"Then do it. We need to know what's going on up on that ship. The Doctor didn't really seem like much of a fighter, and neither are the others. If they're in trouble, they might need your help."
"Are we even sure they're on the ship?" Tony couldn't help but cut in.
"Kate said that's probably where they are," Cap replied, though clearly he wasn't happy about not knowing for sure.
"Yeah, it's the 'probably' in that sentence that has me worried. Also, how are you suddenly giving orders to the Avengers? You left the Avengers, remember?"
This time the pause was quite long. As it went past the point of embarrassment and into the realm of flat out ignoring him, Tony frowned and located Cap on the HUD – because regardless of how pissed off Tony was at him, Rogers wasn't the kind of guy to ignore uncomfortable questions. Sure enough, Tony found him surrounded by floaters firing at him from all sides. Huffing in irritation, Tony fired up his repulsors and flew to his aid.
Vision's voice came through on the comm as he flew to assist Captain America: "Iron Man, should I proceed to the ship?"
"Yeah, go ahead, Vision. As much as I hate to admit it, Cap's got a point, we need to know what's going on up on that ship." Tony made face. "'Cause not only do I not want to be the one to tell those kids their parents aren't coming home, but if Amy and Rory get hurt I am never getting to hear that 'shoving Hitler into a storage cupboard' story."
"Indeed, sir."
Tony felt the faint hum of moving machinery as his shoulder plates rose and the missiles moved into firing position. Apparently feeling secure in having cornered Captain America, the floaters had stopped zipping around and were mostly hovering stationary as they fired down at him. Rogers was doing an admirable job of dodging most of their shots and deflecting others with his shield, but zooming in, Tony could see blood pouring down his side and a dark burn mark on his upper left thigh. Tony aimed his missiles and fired a full spread at the floaters.
A few of the shields visibly faltered on impact, but most held strong. Except for one floater, whose shield failed completely. Tony didn't hesitate, immediately following the missiles up with a series of repulsor blasts to the ones whose shields had faltered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar spinning shield taking out the floater with the failed shield just like he'd known it would. When it came to situational awareness in the middle of a battle, Cap rarely missed a thing.
Tamping down on the familiar feeling of camaraderie, Tony opened his comm channel. "Iron Man to War Machine," he said even as dodged a blast from one of the floaters who'd previously been firing at Cap. "Rhodey, baby, apparently a direct missile hit followed up by some repulsor blasts is enough to take the down the floaters."
"War Machine here," came the reply almost immediately. "Yup, I got that one. Only works on some of them though. Apparently not all their shields are made equal. I've discovered that three missiles will take out most of their shields, but I'm out of missiles now so it's sort of useless information at this point."
Tony banked sharply to the left and then flipped over in mid-air and shot directly towards the floaters firing at him. The next set of missiles loaded into his shoulder launchers. Well aware that he only had a limited supply of ammo, he waited until he was within seconds of passing the floaters before firing and then flying sharping downwards until he was past the floaters and below them. Then he twisted in mid-air and fired his repulsors at both of them.
One of the floaters exploded. The other was simply knocked off-course with the multitude of impacts.
"Huh," said Tony, still over the comm. "You're right. That's weird. I'm thinking either our pal Kang got gypped by his suppliers or thirty-first century manufacturing ain't what it used to be."
"Sir, multiple incoming on your left," said FRIDAY calmly.
Tony glimpsed to the left, his eyes widening at the small pack heading right for him.
"Shit," he said even as he fired up his repulsors and flew upwards. Maybe he could lose a few with some fancy flying through tight spaces.
It was almost entirely by accident that Rory found the tool cabinet. He'd been running his hands along the wall, checking for cracks or unusual bumps that weren't immediately visible in the low lighting of the engine room, when suddenly a panel lit up beneath his fingers. He paused and blinked at it for a few moments: there were two buttons on the panel, one red and one green. Deciding it didn't really get much simpler than that, Rory tapped the green one with his finger.
A rectangular area of the wall – roughly the size of a door – slid out and then to the side, revealing a cupboard full of shelves. Instinctively, Rory knew he'd hit the jackpot.
It turned out, tools in the thirty-first century were still recognizable. There just happened to be a lot of them with parts made out of that same blue glass-like material Kang's visor was made of. They also all folded into small rounded shapes that fit easily into the palm of his hand and magnetically attached to a wide belt.
After spending several minutes examining the tools, Rory shrugged and snapped the belt around his waist, surprised by its lightness. He closed the wall compartment where he'd found them and went back to Amy.
"Found anything?" he asked her.
"No," she said, sounding frustrated. She looked over at him and noticed the belt. "What's that?"
"Thirty-first century tool belt," Rory answered. "Figured it'd fit nicely into my collection, even if they're not actually medical tools. Assuming my father hasn't thrown it away, that is."
Amy snorted. "Your father, throw away something that could potentially be useful one day?"
Rory acknowledged the comment with a tilt of his head. "He could've given it to UNIT."
"That's more likely. Hang on." Amy paused and then stepped away from the wall. "Is it just me, or is this wall panel a slightly darker shade of grey?"
He looked at the panel she was pointing at. "Um, maybe?" he answered, not wanting to admit that it all just looked grey to him.
Then he remembered one of the first tools he'd discovered on the belt. It took him a few trials to find it, but eventually a wide nozzle slid out of the oval-shaped tool in his hand and bright light instantly illuminated the wall.
"Oh," said Amy. "That's handy."
"Hm, but I'm going to have to label them somehow," Rory replied.
Under the light of the flashlight it was much easier to see that Amy was right and part of the metal wall was indeed a slightly darker shade of grey. In fact, a more thorough search using the flashlight revealed that the darker colour covered a square-shaped section of the bulkhead that only reached less than half a meter above their heads.
With nothing better to go on, Rory and Amy tried to pry the darker grey square away from the wall. When none of the tools on Rory's belt seemed to help with that, nothing being fine enough to fit into the none-existent space between the metal panels, they tried pushing at it. It wasn't until Rory pushed against the wall with all his strength and Amy pushed to the left that he finally heard a soft 'click' and the wall he was pushing at abruptly felt less steady.
"Wait, let go," he said as he stepped away from the wall.
Amy also stepped back and then they both watched as the darker grey metal panel slid to the side, leaving a large opening in the wall. They grinned at each other in triumph and then stepped through.
Large overhead lights came on as they stepped into this newly revealed room. It was much smaller than the engine room and even the ceiling was lower, though without the floor lighting, it felt much more inviting. There were more pipes and large tubes running overhead and to their left they could clearly see where the pipes and tubes Rory had first noticed going into the wall came out.
But none of that was the first thing they noticed.
In the middle of the space sat a small space shuttle, clearly not of twenty-first century Earth design. It was about the size of a large truck and was severely dented along one side, its back looking particularly blackened, except for the shiny silver metal that had clearly been used to patch up the worst of it. Rory could barely make out the outline of what he assumed had once been an engine thruster based on its location until the new metal had been smoothed over the wound.
"Okay, that's not what I was expecting to find," Amy commented.
"I assume this is the original time ship," said Rory. "But if he's already got the technology, why would he need this? It's not like it's on display as a memento, it's actually connected to the larger ship."
"Unless he doesn't understand the time travel technology as well as he claims he does."
Rory nodded. It was the only thing that made sense. Dammit, he wished the Doctor were here. They needed someone who understood technology. Rory could fix plumbing and basic electrical wiring, but this was far beyond that.
"Well, let's see if we can get inside," said Amy a moment later.
That, it turned out, was the easiest thing they'd done all day as the ship's doors opened for them automatically and a short set of stairs descended. Not willing to look what few gift horses they found in the mouth, the two of them carefully stepped into the time ship.
The interior design looked somewhat familiar, the stylized blue paintwork on the walls reminding Rory somewhat of parts of New New New New York. The layout was simple enough, a long corridor ran the length of the ship with several small rooms to either side of it. When they stepped in front of one, the door slid open to reveal sparse sleeping quarters: a single cot jutting out of the wall above a desk with a ladder hanging down from it. Rory assumed there had to be a hatch or something like it somewhere to get to the ship's mechanics, but he didn't see it on their short trek to the cockpit.
They stepped into the cockpit and immediately a blue light shone down from above, obviously scanning them.
"Visual scan complete," a smooth, gender-neutral voice announced. "Please confirm your identities."
Rory looked to Amy. The expression on her face seemed to echo his own surprise. A moment passed and then Amy shrugged.
"I'm Amelia Williams-Pond," she said loudly.
"And I'm Rory Williams-Pond," Rory added.
There was nothing more for several seconds and then the voice was back: "Voice recognition complete. Identities confirmed: Amelia and Rory Williams-Pond, born 1987, former companions of the Doctor. Welcome to Ship 1292, the Athena."
Rory's eyes widened as the ship spoke.
"How do you know who we are?" Amy demanded.
"Data has been transferred into my database from remains of twenty-first century records of an organization called the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce."
"Wait, if you can recognize us on sight, then how did Kang not recognize the Doctor?" said Amy with a frown. "Does Kang not have access to your database?"
"Negative. Access is denied to individuals not recognized by my database."
"So Kang must've overridden the controls to the ship..." Rory pointed out.
"Of course he did!" Amy exclaimed. She turned to Rory with an excited look on her face. "Remember, he said that when he found the ship, they'd it to auto-destruct. He would've had to have cut the connection between the automated systems, or at least some of them, and the controls in order to do that. At least I think he would've had to have done that."
Rory shrugged. It made sense to him, but he was hardly an engineer, or a computer programmer.
"Confirm. Ship's navigation and engine controls bypassed by outside source. I have limited access."
"What sort of access do you have?" Rory asked.
While they continued to communicate with the ship's AI, trying to figure out if they could use it to help with their situation, neither one of them heard the figure making its way through the small ship towards them.
Tony twisted and turned his way through the floaters in the sky and then turned sharply downwards and in between the two nearest office buildings. They weren't, by far, the towering skyscrapers of downtown Manhattan but they were tall enough that Tony could fly within their shadows and still have plenty of clearance from the ground.
On his rear camera, he saw one of the floaters fail to make a turn and crash into the side of a building. He smirked.
Then he had FRIDAY switch to UNIT's comm channel. "UNIT command, this is Iron Man," he said. "I'm heading towards you with a couple bogies on my tail. Don't suppose you've got some anti-aircraft guns handy?"
"Iron Man, this is Stewart," came the reply before barely a beat had passed. "I think we can now do better than anti-aircraft guns. Just go ahead and lead them this way."
Tony raised an eyebrow, but he was getting too close to say much more than: "Well, ready or not, here I come!"
He shot out from between the buildings and flew by the office building they'd been staying in. Even at the speed he was flying, he noticed the layout of the extensive lawn in front of the building had changed drastically. Mostly noticeably, there were a lot more people there than he remembered leaving behind. Even more noticeable were the odd, wide-muzzled weapons many of the newcomers were carrying under their arms.
Also, there was the lack of hair and the green skin. Or rather, Tony guessed, green scales.
As he passed by them, he saw a number of weapons being pointed upwards. Curious, Tony flew up and then turned to watch as the weapons opened fire on the floaters. The suddenly barrage clearly took the floaters by surprise as they faltered with their own attack. It was only a few moments, but those moments were enough time to turn the tides entirely in the favour of the ground force.
Tony whistled in appreciation. "So, I take it the Lizard People have arrived?" he said into the comm.
"Yes, the Silurian soldiers have arrived," said Kate.
As the Silurians lower their weapons, another large capsule erupted from the ground, the front opening to reveal five more Silurian soldiers inside.
"Sir, I am picking up seismic activity from the Bay," FRIDAY suddenly announced.
Tony blinked and then reluctantly turned away from the scene below him and flew higher to where he could see into New York Harbour. "Show me," he told FRIDAY and a new screen of data appeared on the HUD. He scanned it quickly. "Huh, okay, that's weird."
He glanced back out at the harbour and then froze as the gently swaying sea water suddenly began to surge and bubble. His eyes widened further and before he'd finished the thought inside his own mind, he was already flying towards the wide clear tube that was coming out of the ocean at an angle. The closer he got, the more he came to realize it really was just as gigantic as it looked: approximately the width of an oil tanker and probably about as as wide.
The remembered words 'airborne division' had barely passed his mind, when a large shape suddenly shot out of the tube. Tony froze. And then the creature spread its long, leathery brown wings and its large pointed beak spread in a high-pitched screech.
All along the harbour, seagulls took flight, scattering to find shelter from the unexpected predator in their midst. Tony's jaw dropped.
One after another, more creatures flew out of the tube, until the New York skyline was resembling a misguided Jurassic Park set – or possibly a futuristic Dinotopia given the saddles and riders on their backs. Except these dinosaurs weren't a CGI effect or any sort of incredibly elaborate puppet. The fluidity of their movements, the way they took to the air and glided effortlessly across the sky as though it were their birthright, none of that could've been faked by a machine.
Somehow, the most surprising thing about all of this was the bright red, blue and green colouring.
"I didn't think dinosaurs were that colourful," Tony said out loud.
"If I may, sir," FRIDAY interjected. "Pteranodons are not, in fact, dinosaurs but, are rather classified as flying lizards, or pterosaurs. In addition, while paleontologists have, in fact, very little information on the pigmentation of early prehistoric creatures, I believe that if you take a look at the enhanced images, you will find that most of that colouring appears to be some form of body paint."
"Huh, learn something new every day," Tony mumbled as he took a look at the images FRIDAY brought up for him. Sure enough, from close up the colours had edges that were a little too blunt to be entirely natural and patterns that looked too much like symbols or pictographs.
Whatever they were, they were beautiful as they glided gracefully through the air and wove around one another like an elaborate winged kaleidoscope.
He opened all the comm channels. "Uh, guys, this is Iron Man here and I think those air divisions have arrived. I just hope none of you are afraid of flying lizards of unusual size."
Hawkeye was the first to respond. "That depends on what you mean by flying lizards of unu–oh. Holy shit! That's... This is totally the best. Day. Ever."
"You mean other than the whole evil villain wanting to take over the world and possibly accidentally destroying it and its timeline?" Natasha commented.
"Obviously."
"Oh wow!" Rogers pipped up. "Golly gee, that sure is amazing!"
Tony rolled his eyes before he realized what he was doing. "Oh for... Cap, I thought we'd finally cured you of that golly geeing crap!"
There was a long pause during which Tony had enough time to wince when he realized how much that sounded like their old banter.
"Sorry, Tony, guess being back in the forties made me slip back into old habits," said Rogers, the huge smile that had to be on his face clearly audible in his voice.
Tony cleared his throat, suddenly feeling awkward. "Well, this is definitely one habit you should work on, uh, re-breaking."
"Sir, you have an incoming call from an unknown UK number," FRIDAY suddenly announced.
Tony frowned. "Uh, maybe it's one of Kate's people?" he said, though he couldn't think of a single reason any of them would have to call him directly. He picked up the call anyway. "Hello? Whoever this is, I don't know how you got this number but it'd better be good."
"Vision gave it to us," came the immediate reply. "And Rory and I need your help with something."
Tony blinked in surprise as he recognized the voice. "Amy!" he exclaimed with a grin. "It's good to hear from you. Where are you? And where's the, uh, the Doctor?"
"We're on Kang's ship. The Doctor and Bill have been captured by the ship's security drones and have been, presumably, taken to see Kang. Meanwhile Rory and I have found something interesting, but neither one of us are scientists or engineers."
"Well, lucky for you I'm both," said Tony automatically, his attention taken by the pteranodons who'd stopped flying around aimlessly and were now forming groupings in mid-air that was beginning to resemble a strike force instead of a flock. Suddenly, Amy's words registered properly and he frowned. "You don't seem too concerned about the Doctor being captured."
"The Doctor will be fine. Thinking on his feet is what he does best and chances are he would've gone to see Kang himself anyway. There's no point in us mounting a rescue until we know where we're heading and what's going on here."
"Uh, fair enough, I guess," said Tony, frankly surprised by the calm in Amy's voice. "So what do you have for me?"
"We found the original timeship, the one he rescued and got the time travel technology from in the first place."
Tony's eyes widened. "Wow. He still has that? Actually, scratch that, he has that with him, on board his current, larger ship?"
"Not only that, but it's actually hooked into the Damocles – that's the name of Kang's ship by the way – systems and it has an onboard AI that he bypassed during his original 'rescue' and has thus never met."
"Okay, now I have so many questions." Tony paused. "First and foremost being the Damocles? Really? Anyway, FRIDAY, bring up your scans of the ship."
The screen on the HUD reshuffled themselves and the initial readout of Kang's ship moved to front and centre. Tony looked over the information again.
"Amy," he said after a moment. "Can you ask the AI to confirm the Damocles's power levels?"
"Keep in mind the AI doesn't have full access to its ship's systems because of the way Kang overrode its programming, but I'll see what I can figure out."
"Good. Also, don't suppose you've seen the engine room?"
"We have. It's very... large, yet contained if that makes sense. And not as chaotic or as stifling hot as some of the ones we've seen."
Tony frowned. "Maybe it has really good atmospheric regulators?"
"Hm, I'll ask."
Amy pulled away from the phone and Tony could faintly hear her speaking to the AI, its artificial voice obvious with its lack of inflection. But he barely paid attention to their conversation as the Silurian airborne division chose that moment to join the fight, swooping into action with a sudden ferocity that caused goosebumps to spring up along his arms and a chill to rise up his spine. The floaters scattered beneath their initial onslaught and weren't given time to regroup before the first laser blasts began to pepper them both from the ground as well as from the air.
Tony grinned and fired up his repulsors to join the fray, hearing Rhodey whooping with delight somewhere on the other end of the comms.
The closer they got to the bridge, the more people they came across, hurrying through the corridors with purpose. Most of them were so intent on whatever their destination happened to be that they barely gave more than a glance at the two strangers being herded towards the bridge by the security drone. All of this was to be expected, of course, but still...
"I know I haven't exactly been on a whole lot of spaceships," Bill suddenly pipped up as they stepped into yet another elevator. "But I would've expected a lot more people even if they are all at battle stations or whatever."
"And you'd be absolutely right about that, Bill," said the Doctor, pleased that his newest companion was so quick on the uptake. Of course, most of his companions were bright young people; it was why he took them with him, after all. "For a ship this size, and an intended invasion force no less, there's really only about a third of the crew size I'd have expected."
Bill frowned. "And what does that mean?"
"Hm, you know I'm not entirely sure yet. There's a few things I've seen here so far that aren't quite adding up. Hopefully talking to Kang will help me figure it all out."
"So, you knew the drone was going to find us and you let yourself get caught then?"
The hopefulness in Bill's voice made the Doctor cringe.
"Well, no, not exactly," he admitted reluctantly. "I was rather hoping to have a bit more time to look around and get my bearings before going to see our soon-to-be host. The security drone was unexpected, though certainly not surprising."
"So, what about–"
"–And now we'll just have to make the most of the situation we're in and hope that others can figure out what we've missed."
He glanced to the side, reassured to see Bill had taken his rather unsubtle hint about not mentioning Amy and Rory by name. Certainly, as far as he knew the security drones' AI weren't complex enough for basic reasoning, but that didn't mean these didn't have some form of recording device installed. While he didn't necessarily believe that either Amy or Rory had the abilities to override any of the ship's systems, he remembered them both being quite resourceful and the longer they could go undetected, the better.
The elevator doors opened into a small antechamber, the walls made from a slightly lighter shade of grey than the previous corridors they'd seen. When they stepped out of elevator, a set of double doors across from them slid open.
They walked into a room that looked down-right cozy compared to the rest of the ship. For one, the walls had actually been painted a warm chocolate brown and the floor featured a soft, peach-coloured carpet. There were paintings on the walls of planetary formations and one or two the Doctor recognized as being landscapes of the various Moon colonies. And in the centre of the room, made from actual wood, stood a large desk.
Kang stared at them from behind the desk, his eyes hard and expression unreadable. He didn't bother getting up.
"Ah, hello there, Kang," the Doctor immediately greeted with a cheerful smile. "I thought it was about time we met in person. It's a lovely ship you've got here. A bit empty, I think, though I'm hardly an expert on lunar spaceship manufacturing."
Kang sat in silence for several long moments. "You are beginning to become quite the nuisance, Doctor," he said eventually.
"Oh, well, if I'm only just beginning to be a nuisance then I've still got quite a ways to go yet."
Anyone with lesser powers of observation probably would've missed how Kang's left hand twitched.
"How did you get aboard my ship?" Kang asked calmly.
The Doctor smirked. "I'm a Time Lord, I can get anywhere within space and time." He paused thoughtfully. "And possibly a few places beyond time and space as well, though granted those usually only happen by accident."
Kang's jaw tightened and his hand clenched into a tight fist.
"I will figure it out on my own then. And what, exactly is your purpose here? Did you come to stop me? All on your own with your... primitive twenty-first century human companion?"
The Doctor's eyes narrowed as he pushed aside the anger he felt surging forward in his mind. Beside him, he felt Bill stiffen, but she remained silent. Good girl, he thought, clever enough to know they'd gain nothing by showing Kang their indignation and even less by giving in to their anger.
"You're a fool, Kang, if you're so eager to underestimate them," he said evenly instead. "And, yes, I did come here to stop you. Which I will. The only question you need to consider is whether you'll leave quietly and of your own accord or whether you'll be forced to leave by those who won't hesitate to hold you accountable for your actions in a court of law."
Kang blinked in surprise, and then he chuckled, his eyes gleaming with amusement. "Doctor, do you seriously believe that anyone on this planet has the power to take me down and, well, arrest me I suppose?"
"On this planet, no. However there are several organizations not of this planet whose edicts you are clearly violating and every single one of them have that power. Not that I necessarily need them, mind you, but you should be aware of their existence."
"By the time the Time Agency becomes aware of what's happening, they will no longer be in a position to do anything, Doctor. Mostly due to no longer existing."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow at Kang. "Ah, so you are aware of the changes to the timeline your actions will cause."
"Naturally. They will, however, be changes for the better."
"That's not for you to decide."
"And for who is it to decide then? You?"
Sighing, the Doctor shook his head. He really was sick of people assuming he was an egoist. True, he was much smarter and with eons-worth more experience than just about anyone else alive, but he didn't think he was all-knowing, nor did he believe everything was about him. Even if it often ended up being about him.
"It's not about deciding what's right or wrong, it's about deciding upon a path that won't lead to the destruction of the world," he said calmly. "Which is what your actions will result in. Yes, the twenty-first century will be a rocky one, in many ways moreso than any other period of time before or after it, but how the human race deals with those waves that are about to come their way will shape your species for the rest of its history."
"You mean shape them into cowards that give into what they perceive to be inevitable and run away?" said Kang, not bothering to hide the derision in his voice. His fist was shaking.
The Doctor cocked his head. "Is that what you think happened?"
Kang's fist slammed into the table, his eyes finally showing emotion. "Of course that's what happened!"
The Doctor let the silence in the office stretch as he considered whether or not to tell Kang the truth. There was no purpose to telling him, the people involved were long dead (and hadn't yet been born... time travel was complicated) and past caring what Kang thought of them. He certainly didn't owe Kang the truth, however there was also no advantage to letting him remain ignorant.
Besides, the more time he bought the others, the better.
"History is an interesting creature," the Doctor finally said, his voice soft. "She is set in stone, and yet fickle, a story full of half-told truths, misleading anecdotes and forgotten moments. To put it bluntly, history is a story told by a man who's half-blind and half-deaf and was only really there for about a third of it and heard the rest second-hand from about twelve other people, some of whom may or may not have had an agenda."
Bill snorted. "That's a very fancy way of saying that history is full of inaccuracies and lies," she stated dryly.
He shrugged, not at all bothered by being caught out. "Yes, but my way sounds less boring and cliched."
When he looked back to Kang, the man was looking thoughtful. "Are you saying, Doctor, that there is more to the story than is widely known?"
The Doctor nodded. "The evacuation of the planet wasn't intended to be permanent. Or, at least, they'd hoped it wouldn't be. For decades before the evacuation had begun, an international group of scientists had been working on a solution, a way to fix the planet's atmosphere. They finally had a break-through and invented a sort of partial terraforming process. It wouldn't have fixed everything, but it was supposed to clean up the atmosphere, and then slowly clean up the water using the Earth's natural hydrologic cycle over the course of approximately two years. Humans would then have to take it from there."
Kang looked stunned for a moment, but the expression was quickly replaced by a skeptical frown. "That sounds like a remarkable achievement. Why was it not implemented?"
"Oh, it was." The Doctor allowed himself a bitter chuckle. "Surely you can guess why you've never heard of it?"
"Because it failed."
He looked over to Bill, who was staring at him with wide, horrified eyes.
"That's it isn't it? Those scientists, they were trying to save the planet but they failed, didn't they?"
He nodded. "The problem was that there was no way to test the process. Finding another planet with the exact atmospheric conditions and pollution levels as Earth was impossible. And, yes, six months after initializing the process, those scientists realized they'd not only failed, but their attempt at fixing the planet was actually making Earth's atmosphere worse."
Kang opened his mouth to speak when he was interrupted by a low beep. Frowning, he tapped a small button on the inside of his left wrist. A small green light came on just below his right ear.
"Yes, what is it?" Kang demanded. He paused, obviously listening to someone on the other end of his communicator. Suddenly his eyes widened. "What?!" He grit his teeth and glared at the Doctor. "I'll be right there."
The Doctor grinned. Based on what Amy had told him about the overall situation, as she understood it, he could hazard a guess as to what was going on. A few guesses, in fact, one of which was bound to be right.
"Aah, speaking of the inconsistent annuls of history," he said.
Kang stood abruptly. "You still think these humans have a chance," he said. "Very well. Then I invite you to personally watch as my forces decimate those of this primitive world."
"Oh I think it might already be a bit too late for that," said the Doctor under his breath.
If Kang heard his words, he chose to ignore them as he swept out of the room through a second door, his dark blue cloak billowing behind him. The Doctor grinned as he took his Raybans out of his jacket pocket and slipped them on.
Suddenly a spark of white electricity flew into the carpet between him and Bill. They jumped slightly. Then the Doctor turned to glare at the security drone hovering behind them.
"No need to get testy," he told it. "It's not like I don't want to follow. In fact, I wouldn't miss this for the world!"
And then he and Bill strode onto the bridge. It wasn't the most impressive he'd ever seen, but it looked serviceable. At the front was a window overlooking the city far below them, where the Avengers and UNIT were fighting Kang's floating soldiers.
The Doctor blinked. Those were hover platforms. True, they looked like they'd been retrofitted and upgraded, but still. Hover platforms were used for maintenance work and crop dusting in the Moon Colonies. He frowned. A picture was beginning to form in his mind. He didn't quite have all the pieces just yet, but there was almost an outline now.
A large hologram screen appeared in the centre of the bridge, just in front of Kang's chair – more appropriately described as a throne. A haggard-looking blonde woman was on the screen, looking somewhat panicked.
"Kang, I don't know what's going on," she immediately said. "Spinner's ship is firing on us! Our shields aren't responding and we're taking heavy damage."
As the image shook, the Doctor casually touched the side of his Raybans and turned on their scanners. It took his sonic sunglasses less than a minute to scan the transmission's signal. It was coming from London. He smirked slightly. Kang might've thought he'd done a thorough enough job of researching the twenty-first century, but clearly he'd been wrong. After all, history was an account of things that had been written down.
Torchwood had gone to great lengths to make sure their part in history remained unwritten, and Jack Harkness doubly so.
The Doctor carefully fiddled with the settings on his Raybans. Out of the corner of his eyes, he was aware of the holoscreen blinking out of existence. Kang whirled on him.
"Doctor, what is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
"The meaning of what?" he asked innocently. Settings programmed, he casually removed his sunglasses and placed them on the console to his right. "Oh, you mean that thing with those ships in, I believe it was, London airspace?"
Kang nodded, not sounding at all impressed by the Doctor's attempts at levity.
"Oh, that's just Jack. And probably Martha and Mickey, but mostly Jack. You wouldn't have heard of him, he likes to keep a mostly low profile. He was born in the fifty-first century on the Bo Peninnsula, made a big splash in the community when he got accepted into the Time Academy. Then he got stuck on Earth in the twentieth century, where my companion Rose and I ran into him. He's been around on and off ever since. It's a very long story and I'm sure you're not interested in the details."
For the first time since their entire encounter had begun, Kang looked truly speechless.
And then Bill gasped.
"Oh my God!" she said, her voice sounding oddly awed. "Doctor, is that...?"
The Doctor looked to her and then followed her finger to where she was pointing towards the front window. He froze.
"Are those dinosaurs?" Bill asked. "Honest to God, bloody dinosaurs?"
"That must be the Silurian air divisions," he said absently.
One of these days, he was going to have to visit the Silurian Empire at the height of its power, the Doctor decided. In fact, given all his encounters with them it was rather surprising he hadn't done so yet.
"This is ridiculous!" Kang screamed. Then he pointed at one of the men sitting at a long console. "Contact Captain Westland and tell him he's to go to London to help Silvers. Then tell Dominique he's being recalled to New York."
"Yes, sir," said the man and immediately turned to his task.
The Doctor frowned at the orders. Then he made a slight show of looking for his glasses so that he could then 'find' them on top of the console and slide them back on. Part of his mind added this new oddity to the puzzle even as the rest of it took in the information his glasses had managed to gather.
"Ah, Doctor, so much suddenly makes sense!" Kang suddenly declared.
The Doctor blinked. "Oh, it does?" he asked.
Kang was looking down at a small holographic read-out being projected from the band on his left wrist. He was smiling maliciously. "You were stalling for time, hoping to distract me with your fairy tales so that I wouldn't notice your accomplices. Unfortunately for you, they've been found by my security drones and all three of them are on their way here as we speak."
The Doctor fought very hard to keep a straight face and, most importantly, not to let his confusion show. Three? How were there three of them? Had someone managed to sneak aboard the TARDIS when he wasn't looking?
With one, last triumphant smirk, Kang turned his attention away from the Doctor and back to the battlefield below them. The Doctor glanced back at the readings being displayed on the lenses of his sunglasses. Deep in the tangle of various system codes and signals, a rather familiar signal caught his attention. Now that he'd found it, he tapped his glasses setting them to follow the it to its end. The result was interesting to say the least.
A quick look to confirm Kang was still distracted elsewhere – he was asking about how many world leaders had surrendered themselves to him or some other such rubbish – the Doctor quickly programmed a new set of parameters into the sonic sunglasses.
"You know, even if the world leaders have surrendered themselves to you, that doesn't necessarily mean their people have," said the Doctor loudly. He slipped the sunglasses off and held them in his hand as he gestured. "There will always be enough people to oppose you and your rule. What exactly do you plan to do, destroy every country whose people offer resistance?"
"Wouldn't that just do more damage to the environment?" Bill asked.
Mentally congratulating Bill for her excellent timing, he pointed in her direction with the sunglasses as he took a few steps backwards. "An excellent point, Bill! That sort of destruction most certainly would cause quite a bit of environmental damage. And would only cause more people to turn against you."
"The destruction caused would be negligible and easily corrected with the technology I have at my disposal," said Kang with a dismissive wave.
The Doctor strode forward and leaned over a console, resting the hand holding his Raybans against it as he faced Kang. "Are you sure? Are you absolutely certain you could reverse the damage?"
"I will prove that I can!" Kang smirked. "As predicted, there are quite a few world leaders unwilling to surrender. I expected as much. I am an unknown player, after all, and not everyone would be willing to actually go through with mass murder. I had intended to use Washington, London and Moscow as examples, however I have now changed my mind. New York and the Avengers have proven to be far more irritating than I'd anticipated. And so my first target shall be New York instead. I believe a death toll of twenty million should be enough to prove my sincerity."
Feeling his glasses vibrate ever so slightly beneath his fingers, signalling the completion of their task, the Doctor stepped back and put them on again. He kept his expression blank as Raybans showed him their link to the systems in Kang's ship. Or at least one specific system of Kang's ship.
"Then why haven't you?" Bill suddenly asked.
Kang looked at her, his sharp eyes staring out at her from behind his blue visor.
Bill swallowed at the scrutiny. "I mean, the Avengers haven't done what you wanted them to do, have they? They haven't surrendered and now they're even openly fighting you, so why haven't you just destroyed New York yet?"
"You know, Bill," the Doctor said, his thoughts rapidly cycling through possibilities as he touched his glasses to bring up schematics of the ship, trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with the picture they were showing him. "You are a treasure trove of good questions today."
"The time has not yet been right," said Kang imperiously. "I am, after all a man of my word and a deadline is a deadline."
A few things suddenly slotted into place. The Doctor couldn't help the grin that stole across his face.
Kang frowned. "You think this is amusing?" he said. "You are my prisoner. Your companions are my prisoners and neither the US military, UNIT, nor the Avengers can defeat my forces. You have lost, Doctor!"
"Oh, I very much doubt that," said the Doctor.
And then the door behind them slid open, admitting Amy, Rory and some odd-looking man with reddish-purple skin and a yellow jewel stuck in the middle of his forehead. The Doctor had a vague recollection of having seen him out of the corner of his eyes in the conference room as he'd been heading out to the TARDIS. One of the Avengers, most likely. They were followed by another dark grey security drone.
But what immediately caught the Doctor's attention was that neither one of the three looked defeated or frustrated. They stepped into the room as though there wasn't a security drone that fired lasers dogging their steps.
And then Amy met his eyes and smiled at him. "Hello, Doctor," she said.
"Oh, hello there Amy, Rory, odd reddish-skinned man in a yellow cape I don't know," he said with a sly smile of his own. "So, Kang here says he's going to destroy New York."
Amy snorted. "Not likely," she said.
"According to Tony, he's going to need a bit more power than what he's carrying for that," Rory added. "Not to mention actual weapons."
The Doctor smirked. "I suspected as much."
He turned to Kang. "To use a quaint Earth phrase: the jig is up," he told him. "I'm calling your bluff, Kang. You want to destroy New York? Go ahead then, do it. I'll even promise not to try and stop you, just this once. It's a limited time offer, just for you."
A new emotion flashed through Kang's eyes. It was quickly covered up by anger, but not quickly enough for the Doctor to not recognize it: fear.
"Security drones, alpha sixty-three gamma override!" Kang barked out the order. "Kill the intruders!"
The Doctor's eyes widened. Standard security drones weren't supposed to be powerful enough to fire lasers of lethal capacity! He whirled around even as he cursed his own carelessness at not scanning them for modifications.
Sure enough the top of the drones' casings were pulsing with red light.
"Doctor?" Bill said, fear and uncertainty in her voice.
"Bill, get behind me," he said as he reached out for her.
And then a beam of yellow light hit the drone. Energy sizzled around it for a moment before it dropped to the ground like a very round stone. The Doctor blinked and then glanced over to the others... in time to see the unknown man shoot another yellow energy beam at the second drone from the jewel in his forehead.
"Huh," he said. "Well, that's handy."
Then he turned back to Kang, who looked absolutely furious.
"You're a phony, Kang," he began. "This giant spaceship is nothing but a very elaborate ruse. New York was never really your target, was it? You simply used the Avengers as an excuse to keep the ship stationary above the city, never expecting they'd be a real threat."
"It's also why you were so quick to attack them," Amy added, stepping forward. "And not just once, but twice, three times if you count this attack now. You wanted them injured, demoralized. Maybe that's even why you sent Steve, the man you probably thought was their leader, to the past. Did your sensors really detect some sort of time anomaly or did you make that up?"
"Hm, another good question," the Doctor acknowledged. "And, really, don't bother trying to threaten the city again. I know you're recalling one of your other ships from Washington, but if those are what I suspect they are, then by my calculations it'll take it approximately one hour and, oh, about sixteen or so minutes to get here."
He snorted. "Kang the Conqueror indeed. What exactly did you conquer? One or two of the Moon Colonies? It explains everything, the modified tech everywhere, the security drones, the lack of personnel, the lack of hand weapons, the low energy readings from the ship... All this ship is, is an empty shell housing some basic propulsion and the modified time machine! What was the plan, exactly? Were you really planning to just intimidate the world into surrendering? Well, I commend you for attempting something so daring, but if you've actually studied human history then you should know that sort of bluff almost never works."
Kang was practically shaking with fury now, but the Doctor knew it was an impotent fury. His best weapons gone, his ruse discovered, he had no cards left up his sleeve.
"I believe there's another quaint Earth expression that is appropriate now," the Doctor said as he once more reached for his sonic Raybans and activated the program he'd set earlier.
"It's game over, man."
