Chapter Fourteen: A Real Team Effort
"Sixty-six percent in major population areas, and rising."
A muscle pulsed in Colonel Mace's jaw. "Doctor, Miss Tyler, with me please."
Rose and the Doctor shared a look, then followed the colonel back into his office.
Colonel Mace leaned back in his chair, his hands spread out in front of him. "You were right, Doctor. The Sontarans did try to take over the factory. But something has just occurred to me. If they've had this teleport equipment in the building the whole time, and if their battle prowess is as advanced as you claim, they could have stopped us this morning before we took over the factory. They waited until we were inside. Why?"
The answer was painfully obvious to the Doctor and Rose, but they couldn't let Colonel Mace know about Not-Martha. She was the only thing keeping the planet from getting blown apart.
The Doctor leaned forward. "Because they wanted UNIT here. You gave them something they needed. Something now hidden inside the factory. Something precious." Something like the real Martha.
The man frowned, then his expression cleared. "The mole. The person who's been cancelling the missile launch every time."
The Doctor nodded. "Exactly. And I think that means it's time for us to make use of our own mole. Would you mind if we called Donna from here?"
Colonel Mace stood up. "Not at all. I'll go see if Captain Price has had any luck tracing the cancellation signal."
Rose's phone was in the Doctor's hand before the door shut behind Colonel Mace. "Will you keep an eye on our favourite clone, Rose?" he asked as he scrolled through her address book, looking for Donna's number. "Let me know if she's coming this way, or if she looks overly suspicious I suppose."
Rose turned her chair so she could see Not-Martha through the glass door, and the Doctor found Donna's name and dialled.
Donna picked up after the first ring. "What's happened? Where are you?" she asked, her voice rapid with fear.
"Still on Earth," he told her, keeping his voice low and even to calm her down. "But don't worry, we've got our secret weapon."
"What's that?"
He leaned back in the chair. "You."
"Oh." Donna grunted softly, and he could picture the scowl on her face. "Somehow that's not making me happy. Can't you just zap us down to Earth with that remote thing?"
The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck; he hadn't considered she might believe that little white lie. "Yeah, I haven't got a remote, though I really should." He jumped up and started pacing the office. "I need you on that ship. That's why I made them move the TARDIS. I'm sorry. But you've got to go outside."
"But there's Sonteruns out there," she protested.
"Sontarans," he corrected. "But they'll all be on battle stations right now." He shot a quick glance at Rose, then leaned against the wall when she nodded. "They don't exactly walk about having coffee. I can talk you through it."
"But what if they find me?"
It was the obvious question, and he didn't have an answer. Because he couldn't promise that they wouldn't. There was a chance—a bigger chance than he liked—that she would be caught.
He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. "I know, and I wouldn't ask, but there's nothing else I can do. The whole planet is choking, Donna."
There was a long pause, then he could hear her take a deep breath. "What do you need me to do?"
Rose was looking at the Doctor anxiously, and he nodded and gave her a small smile. Once again, their companions were proving why they got invited along in the first place.
"The Sontarans are inside the factory, which means they've got a teleport link with the ship, but they'll have deadlocked it. I need you to reopen the link."
"But I can't even mend a fuse."
The Doctor sighed and tilted his head back. "Donna, stop talking about yourself like that," he said bluntly. "You can do this. I promise."
Donna swallowed hard and looked around at the relatively safe TARDIS console room. She wasn't at all certain she could do whatever the Doctor needed from her, but his confidence gave her the courage to try. She'd been walking around the console to the door, and now she lowered the phone and slowly opened the door, just enough to peek out.
The short, armoured body of a Sontaran greeted her, and she carefully closed the door. "There's a Sonterun," she informed the Doctor, then corrected herself before he could. "Sontaran."
"Did he see you?" the Doctor asked, and she could hear the fear in his voice..
She shook her head. "No, he's got his back to me."
The Doctor whispered, like he was afraid the Sontaran could hear him over the phone. "Right, Donna, listen. On the back of his neck, on his collar there's a sort of plug, like a hole. The probic vent. One blow to the probic vent knocks 'em out."
Donna realised what he was asking, and she couldn't help but voice the obvious objection. "But he's going to kill me."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, and the genuine distress in his voice made her wish she hadn't pointed out that possibility. "I swear I'm so sorry, but you've got to try."
Panic warred with determination. This was obviously the only plan the Doctor had. If she didn't manage to get that teleport working, the Earth would choke. Her mum and granddad, everyone she knew—they would all die.
Donna took a deep breath and walked up the ramp to the console. The mallet the Doctor liked to use for what Rose called "percussive maintenance" hung from a small hook. She took it in hand and slunk back over to the door.
The Sontaran didn't move when she slipped out of the TARDIS. As she crept up on him, she saw the spot the Doctor was talking about—a small circle inside of a larger circle, right on the back of his neck.
As silently as she could, she raised the mallet and brought it down hard on the pro—on the vent thingy. To her surprise and absolute delight, the four-foot killing machine went down like a sack of potatoes.
Donna did a little dance and brought the phone back up to her mouth. "Back of the neck," she cheered quietly.
"Oh, well done!" the Doctor breathed. "Now then, you have to find the external junction feed to the teleport."
Donna's heart raced as she crept through the Sontaran ship. Taking down one soldier with his back to her was one thing; risking running into more was quite another.
"What, what's it look like?" Her eyes darted back and forth, taking in every detail of the dark grey corridor, alert to anything that might indicate another Sontaran was coming.
"A circular panel on the wall," the Doctor replied. "Big symbol on the front, like a, like a letter T with a horizontal line through it. Or, or, two Fs back to back."
Donna frowned, trying to picture that. As it turned out, it didn't matter yet. "Oh. Well, there's a door," she told the Doctor when she turned the corner.
"Should be a switch by the side."
She nodded, even though he couldn't see her. "Yeah there is. But it's Sontaran shaped; you need three fingers."
"You've got three fingers."
"Oh, yeah." With the adrenaline rushing through her, she didn't even mind his slightly condescending tone of voice. She just adjusted her fingers to the shape of the switch and pressed, holding her breath that the room on the other side would be empty.
The door slid open, and there was no one in sight. "I'm through."
"Oh, you are brilliant, you are."
Donna rolled her eyes at the Doctor's cooing. "Shut up," she snapped, even though she glowed with pleasure at the praise. "Right. T with a line through it."
She waited for the next direction, but instead, the Doctor suddenly said, "Got to go. Keep the line open," and ended the call.
Donna looked at the phone in her hand. "Keep the line open," she hissed. "Who am I going to be taking calls from?" She looked back the way she'd come, but without a guarantee that it would be any safer than what lay ahead, she took a deep breath and kept going.
There was another door a few yards away, and she approached it cautiously. She still hadn't found that T with a line through it—if she could find that before the Doctor called back, hopefully he'd get her out of here finally.
She was almost at the door when it slid open, and Donna just barely had time to spin and hide behind the bulky door frame. Two lines of Sontarans marched through, and she kept waiting for one of them to spot her. They were soldiers, though, focused on their mission and not any details that might be out of place.
Still. As she watched them march past, she added this to the list of things she would yell at the Doctor for when she saw him again.
oOoOoOoOo
The Doctor pressed the end call button and slid the phone into his pocket. Rose had just told him Colonel Mace was back and marching around the room purposely, and frankly, he wasn't sure he trusted the man not to have come up with yet another plan that would lead to UNIT deaths.
"Doctor," the colonel said when they stepped out of the office. "Your plan to keep Sontarans inside the warehouse alone has worked, but there's been a difficulty we didn't consider."
"What do you mean?" the Doctor argued. "Everyone's out and alive." As soon as he said it, the problem was obvious. "Everyone's out. They're all standing around outside, and you don't have enough gas masks to go around, because why would you? You didn't expect this kind of situation when you left headquarters today."
Colonel Mace nodded. "Exactly. But I think we've come up with a solution." He tossed the Doctor and Rose both gas masks. "Positions. That means everyone."
The Doctor grabbed his coat and had just gotten one arm into the sleeve when Not-Martha came around the corner and glared at him and Rose.
"You're not going without me."
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said breezily as he finished putting his coat on. "Would we, Rose?"
"Definitely not," she agreed.
Rose pulled her gas mask on and grinned up at the Doctor. "Hey Doctor."
"Are you my mummy?" they said in unison, then broke into giggles.
Not-Martha looked at them in absolute disgust. Which really, if they hadn't already known she wasn't Martha, that would have been a big indicator right there. Because after travelling with them for a year, Martha knew their quirky sense of humour.
"Yeah," she said harshly, "I think Colonel Mace is waiting for us outside, if you're done messing about."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow and gestured for her to go first. Then he took Rose's hand and they followed the clone outside.
What do you think the colonel is going to do? Rose asked.
The Doctor shook his head. Not a clue. I have an idea personally—the terraform device at Rattigan Academy. But a) that won't do any good until we stop the source of the gas, and b) I doubt UNIT knows he's got one of those.
Colonel Mace was pacing impatiently when they reached him, and the Doctor couldn't resist needling him a bit. "Reporting as ordered, sir!" he said, snapping a sloppy salute.
The colonel rolled his eyes. "If you could concentrate." He whipped off his own gas mask and replaced it with a cap matching his khaki uniform. "Attention, all troops. The Sontarans might think of us as primitive, as does every passing species with an axe to grind. They think we're an easy target for their poison gas, but we will not just sit here and choke to death. We have more technology available to us than they realise, and we will use what we have to give us enough time to fight back against the warriors of Sontar." He tilted his head to speak into the radio clipped to his shoulder. "Trap One to Hawk Major. Go, go, go."
A massive downdraft caught the Doctor by surprise and nearly knocked him down. He felt Rose grab onto his arm to hold herself upright, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from the rapidly clearing skies. There was something up there, but he couldn't quite make out yet what it was.
"It's working," Colonel Mace said into his radio. "The area's clearing. Engines to maximum."
The breeze strengthened, and he and Rose braced against each other to stay upright. The shape in the sky was recognisable now.
"It's the Valiant," Rose shouted over the engines.
"UNIT Carrier Ship Valiant reporting for duty," Colonel Mace said proudly. "With engines strong enough to clear away the fog."
The Doctor took his gas mask off and laughed as he ran his hand through his hair. He had to admit he never would have thought to use the Valiant like that. "Whoa, that's brilliant."
Colonel Mace rocked back on his heels. "Thank you, Doctor." A furrow appeared between his eyebrows. "Of course, that only helps the greater London area, but just like you are instructed in a plane crash to put on your own oxygen masks before helping anyone else…"
The Doctor nodded. "Best if we can keep breathing for a little bit longer here. That way, we have time to save the entire planet. I'm truly impressed, Colonel," he said sincerely.
Colonel Mace stood a little straighter, a proud smile on his face. "And your plan, Doctor? Is it—?
"Going exactly as expected," the Doctor said quickly, before Colonel Mace could give Donna's location away to Not-Martha. "In fact, I think it's time to initiate the next phase." He raised his eyebrows at the clone and bounced lightly on his toes. "What do you say, Martha Jones? One more run with Rose and me, for old times' sake?"
She glanced at the colonel, and he nodded sharply. "Permission granted, Dr. Jones. You have my permission to follow any orders the Doctor gives—or whatever he likes to call his directives—that seem necessary for the salvation of this planet."
Not-Martha nodded and snapped a salute, then grinned at the Doctor. "Ready whenever you are."
The Doctor started to return her smile, then pretended to remember something. "I left my sonic screwdriver on Colonel Mace's desk," he lied. "Rose, why don't you and Martha get into the building? I'll catch you up. And be careful of the mines!" he ordered as he jogged towards the trailer.
As soon as he was out of Not-Martha's sight, he pulled Rose's phone out of his pocket and hit redial. "Donna, hold on. I'm coming," he assured her, then he ended the call and dropped the phone back in his pocket.
He caught back up with Rose and the clone just inside the building, at the top of a flight of stairs. "All right, let's see if we can solve this poison gas problem, once and for all," the Doctor said. He scanned the building with the sonic screwdriver, winking at Rose as he did. "Scanning for alien tech, just like you always wanted, love."
She grinned at him, her tongue peeking out. "Finally, some Spock," she teased as she took his hand.
"Alien technology, this-a-way," the Doctor said, leading the way down the stairs and through empty hallways. He knew most of the Sontarans were up on the ground floor, attempting to break through the barrier that would let them out of the factory, but he'd been worried that they might have left a guard behind. He should have known the Sontarans would be more interested in warfare than guard duty.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Not-Martha drop her phone back into the pocket of her lab coat. UNIT hasn't given up firing on the Sontaran ship, he told Rose. I really thought Colonel Mace understood.
Rose brushed her thumb over his as they walked down the stairs, the motion-activated lights turning on overhead as they walked. Can you blame him, Doctor? You say they'll die if they take on the Sontarans, but if the gas reaches 80%, the whole planet dies anyway.
I know. You're right. It's just…
You wish he trusted you. And he does—look at how much he's been willing to give. Don't blame him for wanting to do something. It's his job to protect the planet, after all.
The lights flickered on when they reached the main basement corridor, and the Doctor turned slowly, trying to get a direction from the sonic screwdriver. "This way," he said when he got a heading.
The beeping of the sonic sped up as they approached a door at the end of the hallway. The Doctor glanced down at the device, then pushed the door open and walked through yet another set of plastic flaps.
A body on a gurney caught his attention immediately, and he and Rose jogged over to their former companion. "Oh, Martha, I'm so sorry." He pressed his fingers to her throat and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt her pulse. "Still alive," he told Rose.
Behind him, he heard the click of a safety being removed. He glanced over his shoulder, and Not-Martha had a gun pointed at him.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Rose growled. She took a step towards Not-Martha, but when the Doctor quickly shook his head, she stopped. You'd better have a plan then, she told him, looking at him through narrowed eyes.
"Wish you carried a gun now?" Not-Martha taunted.
The Doctor turned back to the real Martha, looking for the tube that connected her to the clone. "Not at all," unable to keep a note of triumph from his voice when he found it.
"I've been stopping the nuclear launch all this time."
The Doctor straightened and turned to face her. "Doing exactly what I wanted," he said, enjoying the confusion and uncertainty that flickered across her face. "I needed to stop the missiles, just as much as the Sontarans." He slowly circled her, trying to keep Rose and the real Martha out of the line of fire. "I'm not having Earth start an interstellar war. You're a triple agent."
Her brow furrowed as they turned in a slow circle. "When did you know?"
"About you? Oh, right from the start. Reduced iris contraction, slight thinning of the hair follicles on the left temple. And, frankly, you smell. You might as well have worn a t-shirt saying 'clone.'" He'd come full circle, now standing behind Martha's head. "Although, maybe not in front of Captain Jack. You remember him, don't you? Because you've got all her memories."
Something glinted in her eyes, and she lifted her chin. "You're right, Doctor. I do have all her memories. Enough to know that the best way to get a reaction out of you… is this."
She moved her arm, and the weapon was now pointed directly at Rose.
"Martha, don't," the Doctor growled.
The clone smirked. "But I'm not Martha, remember? I'm a Sontaran operative, following their agenda. And they need to keep Martha Jones unconscious for a while longer."
The Doctor tried to move himself in between Rose and the clone, but she shook her head and gestured with the gun for him to stay where he was.
He flexed his fingers and reached for Rose over the bond. Get her talking, Rose. If you can distract her, I can unhook our Martha from the machine, and that will debilitate the clone.
Rose stepped towards the clone. "There's one question I've wondered ever since we realised you were a clone," she said. "Why do the Sontarans care if Earth fires at them?"
Not-Martha smiled condescendingly at Rose, and for a moment, her gaze was off the Doctor entirely. He reached down quickly and grabbed the tube off her neck, and the clone collapsed as Martha gasped for air.
The gun, Rose, he ordered as he supported Martha with hands under her back. He heard the weapon skitter across the floor.
"It's all right, it's all right," he told Martha as she latched onto him. "I'm here, I'm here. I've got you, I've got you."
She wrapped her arms around his waist. "There was this thing, Doctor, this alien, with this head."
Rose's phone rang in his pocket, and the Doctor let go of Martha and grabbed the phone. "Oh! Blimey, I'm busy." He accepted the call and brought the phone to his ear. "Got it?" he asked Donna.
"Yes. Now hurry up."
He raked a hand through his head and started pacing, only sparing a glance for the clone on the floor. "Take off the covering. All the blue switches inside flick them up like a fuse box, and that should get the teleport working."
"Oh, my God," Martha gasped. "That's me." She started to get off the gurney, but looked at her state of dress in obvious embarrassment.
"Here." The Doctor took off his coat and handed it to her, then lay down on his back in the teleport pod.
Rose and Martha shared a smile as Martha pulled the coat on. "I see he hasn't changed much," Martha commented as she got down on the floor with Rose and her clone. She reached out for the clone.
"Don't touch me," the clone stammered.
"It's not my fault," Martha protested. She looked at her clone for a moment, trying to think of the best way to convince her to help them. "The Sontarans created you, but you had all my memories."
Pain was drawn on the clone's face in sharp lines. "You've got a brother, sister, mother, and father."
Martha's heart ached at the thought of her family, out there somewhere, choking to death on the poison gas. "If you don't help me, they're going to die."
"You love them," the clone observed.
Martha nodded fiercely. "Yes. Remember that?"
There was a loud clanging noise behind them, and then the Doctor demanded, "The gas. Tell us about the gas."
"He's the enemy," the clone cried.
Martha put a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Then tell me. It's not just poison; what's it for?" The clone's eyes were going dull, and Martha knew they didn't have much time before she died. "Martha, please," she implored, hoping the use of her name would soften her.
She swallowed hard, and looked right at Martha. "Caesofine concentrate," she said, her voice raspy. "It's one part of bosteen, two parts probic five."
"Clonefeed," the Doctor groaned. "It's clonefeed!"
"What's clonefeed, Doctor?" Rose asked.
Martha looked at him over her shoulder as he launched into a rapid-fire lecture, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. "Like amniotic fluid for Sontarans," he explained. "That's why they're not invading—they're converting the atmosphere, changing the planet into a clone world. Earth becomes a great big hatchery. Because the Sontarans are clones—that's how they reproduce." His eyes widened. "Give them a planet this big, they'll create billions of new soldiers. The gas isn't poison. It's food."
He ran off again, but Martha honestly didn't care about the Doctor right now. Her clone was clinging to the metal pole, trying desperately to stay alive.
"My heart," she stammered. "It's getting slower."
Martha shook her head sadly. She'd been trained about this kind of clone in her introduction to UNIT—once the signal was broken between the original and the clone, there was no way to keep the clone alive. And if she knew that, then so did her clone.
"There's nothing I can do."
The clone looked at her. "In your mind, you've got so many plans. There's so much that you want to do."
"And I will." Martha nodded. "Never do tomorrow what you can do today, my mum says, because—"
"Because you never know how long you've got. Martha Jones. All that life."
The fervent desire to have that life for herself was written on the clone's face, and Martha wished there was a way she could give her that. She'd insisted earlier that this wasn't her fault, but it wasn't the clone's fault, either. She'd been brought into existence to serve a purpose, and now that her purpose was over, she would die.
It wasn't fair. Life was more than that. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then the clone finally died.
The Doctor looked up when Rose's shadow appeared on the floor of the teleport pod. Martha's clone just died. Felt kinda out of place over there.
He nodded, then finished what he was doing on the controls. Donna's harsh whisper of his name echoed in the pod a second later, at the same moment as the lights all came on. He reached up and grabbed the phone.
"Yeah?" he whispered.
"Blue switches done."
Before he could cheer, she said one more sentence.
"But they've found me."
The Doctor leapt out of the teleport pod and pointed the sonic screwdriver at the controls. "Now!"
Donna materialised a moment later, still holding his mallet and gasping and panting in fear. "Have I ever told you how much I hate you?" she shrieked as she hugged him.
He squeezed her tight, then pushed her towards Rose. "Go hug Rose," he told her. "Got to bring the TARDIS down." He watched Rose as he manipulated the controls on the teleport with the sonic screwdriver. When she smiled in relief, he grinned back at her. The TARDIS was back where they'd left her.
"Right, now. Martha, you coming?" he called out as he deadlocked the teleport system open so the Sontarans couldn't lock him out again.
She stood up and held out her phone as she walked towards him. "What about this nuclear launch thing?"
"Just keep pressing 'N,'" he instructed. "We want to keep those missiles on the ground."
"There's two of them," Donna stuttered, looking from the Martha wearing his coat to the one dead on the floor.
Rose put her hand on Donna's back and guided her to the teleport pod. "She's a clone, Donna. It's a long story."
The Doctor grinned at them. "Here we go. The old team, back together. Well, the new team," he amended as he reset the coordinates he wanted the teleport to connect to.
"We're not going back on that ship!" Donna cried out, her voice shrill with panic.
"No, no, no. No," the Doctor reassured her. "I needed to get the teleport working so that we could get to"—He pressed the button and the ATMOS factory disappeared, replaced by the Rattigan Academy—"Here. The Rattigan Academy, owned by…"
Luke stood in the middle of the room, pointing a gun at the teleport pod. "Don't tell anyone what I did," he babbled, and the gun shook dangerously in his hands as he walked towards them. "It wasn't my fault, the Sontarans lied to me, they—"
The Doctor met Luke halfway, snatched the gun out of his hands, and tossed it away. "If I see one more gun," he muttered as he strode out of the room.
What are you going to do, Doctor? Rose asked as they reached the "visioning lab."
Luke was building devices to terraform a new planet. I'm going to use it to terraform Earth instead.
Donna, Martha, and Luke arrived as he started running around the lab, gathering the parts he needed. "Caesofine gas—that's why the Sontarans had to stop the missiles. They were holding back." He looked at the slightly curved bottom of one part and shook his head, then spun around and grabbed his mallet out of Donna's hand and banged it, hard. "Because caesofine gas is volatile, that's why they had to use you to stop the nuclear attack. Ground to air engagement could spark off the whole thing."
"What, like set fire to the atmosphere?" Martha asked incredulously.
The Doctor nodded as he fit the ignition pin into place. "Yeah. They need all the gas intact to breed their clone army. And all the time we had Luke here in his dream factory. Planning a little trip, were we?" he snarled as he used the sonic to weld the pieces together.
Luke hunched his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest. "They promised me a new world," the teen said petulantly.
"You were building equipment, ready to terraform El Mundo Luko so that humans could live there and breathe the air with this." He put the final piece in place and the lights turned on. "An atmospheric converter."
The Doctor draped the cables over his neck, then picked up the device and raced out to the park in front of the house. What little bit of clearing they'd been granted by the Valiant was rapidly filling with the caesofine gas again.
"That's London," Donna mumbled, sounding shell-shocked. "You can't even see it. My family's in there."
He pressed his lips together. They all had family in London, and if this didn't work… "If I can get this on the right setting."
"Doctor, hold on," Martha ordered. "You said the atmosphere would ignite."
The atmospheric converter clicked onto the right setting, and he jumped up and ran back a few steps. "Yeah, I did, didn't I?" he said, then pressed the button.
An energy pulse shot up into the sky and disappeared in the fog. A moment later, they heard an explosion, and the caesofine gas caught on fire.
The back-blast from the explosion hit them, and then the fire started moving, following the fuel.
"Please, please, please, please, please, please, please," the Doctor mumbled.
The fire burned for an unending thirty seconds, and then it disappeared, leaving blue skies behind. "Oh yes!" the Doctor cheered, punching the air.
"He's a genius," Luke stammered.
"He's the Doctor," Rose said.
The Doctor wanted to bask in her pride, but he knew the Sontarans wouldn't take the loss of their clone world lying down. "Now we're in trouble," he grunted as he picked up the atmospheric converter and raced back to the front room of the house.
He set the device down on the desk and used the sonic screwdriver to adjust the firing mechanism, putting it on a timer instead of a simple trigger ignition. "Ninety seconds should be enough," he mumbled to himself as he worked.
"Enough for what?" Rose asked.
Reconnecting the last wire started his ninety seconds. The Doctor moved fast as he picked the weapon back up and carried it into the teleport pod. "Sontarans are never defeated. They'll be preparing for war. I have to stop them." He hefted the device. "I've recalibrated this for Sontaran air," he explained.
"But you put it on a delay, because you have to give them a choice," Rose realised.
"Exactly." He pressed the teleport, and as he disappeared, he told her, I love you.
Rose's fear buffeted him for a moment, then he felt her try to control it so it wouldn't distract him. It was a gesture he appreciated, since he was now on the Sontaran ship, staring straight into the face of General Staal.
"Oh, excellent," the Sontaran said.
The Doctor set the atmospheric converter down and grabbed the trigger. If they thought he had to press the button to get the device to go off, they wouldn't expect it to be on a timer.
Fifty seconds left.
"General Staal, you know what this is," he said, rocking back and forth on his feet until he was back within arm's reach of the teleport controls. "But there's one more option. You can go. Just leave. Sontaran High Command need never know what happened here."
"Your stratagem would be wise if Sontarans feared death, but we do not. At arms," Staal ordered. Sontaran soldiers filled the room, helmets up and weapons at the ready.
The Doctor sighed; he'd expected this from the Sontarans, but he didn't like the thought of killing an entire ship of soldiers. "I'll do it, Staal. If it saves the Earth, I'll do it."
"A warrior doesn't talk; he acts," Staal scoffed.
Twenty-five seconds left.
"I am giving you the chance to leave," the Doctor pleaded desperately.
"And miss the glory of this moment?"
Over the tannoy, another Sontaran announced, "All weapons targeting Earth, sir. Firing in twenty."
Fifteen seconds.
"I'm warning you," the Doctor said, his fingers twitching towards the teleport controls.
"And I salute you. Take aim."
Ten seconds.
"I'll do it."
"Then do it!"
The Doctor dropped the trigger and slammed his hand down on the teleport control. The last thing he saw as he disappeared from the ship was the sudden realisation on Staal's face.
Rose threw herself into his arms when he rematerialised, and he welcomed her hug. The mixture of relief and regret when he won the day by killing the other side was always difficult to deal with.
You did what you had to do, Doctor, she told him as she ran her hand through his hair soothingly. You gave them a choice, and they still were going to destroy the planet.
He sighed and pressed a kiss to her neck. I know. Thank you for reminding me.
She squeezed him tight, then let go of him and took his hand instead.
The Doctor glanced around at his team. How much fun could they have if they travelled with both Donna and Martha?
Then he spotted Luke Rattigan, shifting towards the door. "Oh, no you don't," he told the teenager, collaring him quickly. "You can claim all you want that the Sontarans lied to you, but I bet you understood those fifty-two deaths perfectly. You were willing to let people die so you could have your own planet."
"It's not… people don't… I was tired of being an outsider!" he exclaimed.
The Doctor took a zip tie out of his pocket and bound his wrists together, then looked at Rose over the top of Luke's head. "Rose, call UNIT and get us a ride out of here."
She nodded and pulled out her phone, and he focused his attention on the teen again. "No, you felt like your intelligence entitled you to more attention, more praise than the world gave you. And when they didn't fall at your feet, the way you thought you deserved, you cast them aside." The Doctor growled in the back of his throat as he dragged Luke outside. "An entire planet sentenced to die, and all because one teenager had delusions of grandeur."
Luke scuffed the toe of his trainer against the gravel driveway. "I know. You're right; I know."
The Doctor blinked. He hadn't expected that. "Really?" he asked skeptically. "The sudden change of heart wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you're being taken into custody, would it?"
A scowl crossed Luke's face, but then he sighed. "No. It was watching you, Doctor. Because I used to think that I was the cleverest person in the world, and that meant people should praise me. But you—you're way more clever than I'll ever be, and you use it to help people. You went up on that ship even though you knew they might shoot you on sight." Luke looked over the Doctor's shoulder. "I'd never do something like that."
The Doctor tilted his head and looked down at the teenager. He really was just eighteen, he remembered. Plenty of people who did stupid things at eighteen went on to be fine, upstanding citizens. Okay, so maybe most of those people didn't agree to turn the entire planet over to an alien force, but the theory held true.
"We'll see what UNIT wants to do with you," he said, keeping his answer as non-committal as possible.
oOoOoOoOo
Donna slept the night in her old bed. They'd only lived in this house for a little more than a year before she'd left, so it still didn't feel like home. Instead of childhood trinkets, the few knickknacks were the things she'd picked up on her travels.
No one woke her up the next morning, and when she came downstairs after getting a hot shower, her granddad handed her a cup of coffee. "Your mother is off doing the shopping," he explained. "Didn't want to wake you—thought you looked done in when you came home last night."
Donna snorted. "It's never stopped her before."
"Now, Donna," he said. "Remember, she thought we were all going to die last night."
That triggered a memory of the one other time Sylvia Noble had let her daughter have a lie-in without nagging at her to get up: the day after her almost-wedding.
"Yeah, I suppose." Donna took a sip of coffee, then looked at her granddad. "I'm going back out there with them, Gramps," she said quietly.
"Well of course you are! My granddaughter, helping save the world!" He beamed and patted her on the shoulder. "I always felt like you were meant for more than just a regular life."
The front door swung open and Sylvia walked into the house, groceries in hand. "The streets are half-empty. People still aren't driving. There's kids on bikes all over the place. It's wonderful. Unpack that lot, I'm going to see if Suzette's all right."
Donna and her granddad shared a look, and then he shook his head. "I won't tell her. Best not. Just keep it as our little secret, eh?"
"Yeah," Donna said, trying to ignore the wistful notion that maybe someday, her mother would be proud of who she really was.
"And you go with them, those amazing friends of yours. You go and see the stars, and then bring a bit of them back for your old Gramps."
Donna's throat closed up at the sight of her granddad's tears, so she stood up and walked around the table until she could wrap her arms around his shoulders and press a kiss to the top of his head.
"Love you," she managed to say through the tears that threatened. She squeezed his shoulder, then walked out of the house, away from the one thing it was hard to leave behind.
oOoOoOoOo
Rose poured Martha another cup of coffee. She'd come over for breakfast that morning, and they'd spent an hour just catching up on everything that had happened since they'd seen each other last.
"So you've worked with Jack a few times?" the Doctor asked.
Martha nodded. "I'm the closest thing there is to a liaison between UNIT and Torchwood. Since I know Jack already, it works out."
Rose leaned back and took a sip of her tea. "Now, there's one more thing we haven't talked about."
Martha blushed and tucked her hair behind her ear. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"See, that's it." Rose raised an eyebrow. "You keep smiling, like you're thinking about some secret you have. Who is he?"
Martha sighed, but she smiled happily. "Tom. Tom Milligan. We met at the end of that year, and then when everything went back to normal, I looked him up. He's a doctor working in paediatrics."
"Oh, a doctor?" The Doctor straightened his tie. "I hear we make excellent romantic partners."
Martha rolled her eyes. "We've been together for about four months. But he's in Africa right now, so…" As the sentence dangled, unfinished, she wrapped her hands around her coffee mug and stared down into it.
Rose nodded, then pushed back from the table. "Come on, Donna should be back any minute." She had a hunch that Martha's relationship wasn't completely perfect, but she wasn't going to push for answers until her friend was ready to talk about it.
The door opened as they reached the console room and Donna walked in, her lips pressed together in a slight grimace.
"How were they?" asked Martha.
Donna shrugged. "Oh, same old stuff." She wiped a tear from her face. "They're fine."
Rose looked at their two companions, current and former. Somehow she'd never thought of their friends meeting up on Earth after travelling with them, but this adventure with the Sontarans had shown her how valuable it could be to have a network of friends who knew each other and knew how to get in touch with them, when necessary.
Maybe we could take one trip together to cement their friendship and get Team TARDIS going.
She tilted her head back and looked at the Doctor. When he nodded, she nudged Martha with her elbow. "Hey, why don't you come along with us for a trip? Just one quick adventure with the new team, for old times' sake?"
Martha sighed and ran her hand over the railing. "Oh, I have missed all this, but, you know…" She nodded firmly. "I'm good here, back at home. Plus, I've got Tom, and who knows when the Doctor would bring me back?"
Rose, Martha and Donna all laughed when the Doctor rolled his eyes. "All right, all right."
Martha started for the door. "But this still isn't goodbye," she said, waving her finger at them. "You'd better come as quickly the next time I call as you did this time."
Rose felt a glimmer of the TARDIS' intent a second before the doors slammed shut. "What are you doing?" she yelled at the ship, circling the console, looking for an idea.
"What? What?" the Doctor demanded as he did the same thing. The time rotor was chugging up and down, so they were definitely in flight, but there were no indications anywhere of where they were going or why.
"Doctor, don't you dare!" Martha clung to a strut as they rocketed through the Vortex on a rather bumpy ride.
"No, no, no. I didn't touch anything." He grabbed the monitor and pulled it around to face him. "We're in flight. It's not me."
"Where are we going?" Donna shouted.
"Not a clue," Rose said tersely, staring at the blank nav panel. "She's not telling us anything. Wherever we're going, it's supposed to be a surprise, I guess."
"Well both of you listen to me." Martha tried to cross her arms over her chest, but quickly reached out for the console when she started to fall. "You take me home. Take me home right now!"
"We can't, Martha," Rose snapped. "If we could, we would, but we can't, all right?"
Martha's eyes narrowed, and Rose knew she'd sounded just like the Doctor, once again.
"So you can't stop it," Donna said, her voice rising in pitch a little as they hit a patch of turbulence. "But why'd she just take off like that, without any warning? And she seemed to want you along, Martha, the way she slammed the doors in your face."
Time spun around Rose, pulling them away from the ever-present nexus of timelines down one golden path. The TARDIS hummed in the back of her head, and Rose took a deep breath, then closed off her awareness of the future as much as possible.
The ship hit a temporal bump, and Rose laughed out loud when she was jolted into the Doctor. Martha and Donna looked at her with wide, frightened eyes, and she grinned at them.
"Hold on tight, ladies!" she crowed. "There's something big coming."