"I said, 'We made it through the access point and found the console room of the Battle TARDIS'," Jenny shouted into the central console. "What do we do now? How do we get you out?"
No answer.
Jenny pressed another button, which blew up that one holographic screen and dragged it into the center of the room. Beside it, other views of the world popped up in smaller boxes.
"Great! So now, we can see them," Jenny grumbled, poking at buttons on the console, "but we can't hear them. So we don't know if they can hear us, or what they're telling us." She leaned down, and shouted, "Seo, tell Dad that we can't hear whatever he's saying right now, but we're working on it!" She frantically began pressing a different set of buttons.
On the screen, Kardeni reached out and touched the red light.
Yimi suddenly screamed, clutching her head and doubling up. "Too much! Too much!"
On the screen, Kardeni jerked her hand away, stumbling backwards, not sure what had just happened. The Doctor began talking to her very excitedly, waving his arms around like he'd just made a huge discovery.
"What...? How...?" Jenny looked between the screen and Yimi. Her eyes lit up. "You're the only one who isn't affected by the Apos'alu, when she takes over the telepathic circuits." She grabbed Yimi by the shoulders. "I thought Zeera had a connection with this TARDIS. It must be compartmentalizing the section of its telepathic circuits that communicate with Zeera, to stop the Apos'alu from taking her over. And since you're the only one who doesn't pick up the Apos'alu, the TARDIS directed her thoughts straight into your head!"
Yimi took in a deep breath, as she recovered. She shuddered. "I never want to do that again."
"Sorry, but you're going to have to." Jenny yanked Yimi to her feet and dragged her back to the central console. "Dad built this place, and Zeera rebuilt it. So they're the only two people who know how to save everyone and stop the Apos'alu. We have to find a way to communicate."
On the screen, the Doctor was similarly pushing Kardeni back towards the blinking red light, explaining — Jenny was guessing — much the same thing.
Tentatively, both Yimi and Kardeni reached out their hands.
The moment Kardeni touched the light and Yimi touched the console, they fell silent, their eyes closing as they concentrated. Yimi winced in pain every so often, but did her best to hide it.
"What are they saying?" Jenny asked.
Yimi winced again. "She's... clearer now. She says the Doctor is helping her to control her thoughts so they don't hurt me." She opened her eyes, staring at the screen. "She's right. Seo really does look upset." She shook her head. "Why? I barely know her. Why does she care?"
"Knowing my sister," Jenny muttered, "it probably never occurred to her that she shouldn't."
Yimi seemed rather taken by this.
"That actually wasn't meant as a compliment to her," Jenny put in. "It's a really big problem because... Oh, never mind." She stepped forwards, studying the screens. "Tell the others that we're in the Battle TARDIS' console room." Her eyes shifted to the other exterior shots of the world that the Doctor, Kardeni, and Seo were currently inhabiting. "Tell them that outside, there's a whole flock of those fire-birds flying around, tearing apart anything they can find. Ask them what we should do."
Yimi closed her eyes again. For a few long moments, she was silent.
Then, silently, she nodded. Opened her eyes, scanning them across the console. Then across the row behind it. Then the row behind that one.
Her eyes landed on a blue lever at the back of the third extension of consoles — and she leapt at it. Yanked it down, then adjusted a small knob on the side.
"...that the fire-birds are ascending through the dimensions of the vault," Kardeni's voice suddenly said, blaring through the speakers in the console room. "Oh... wait. I think that worked. I think they can hear us."
"Oh, splendid!" The Doctor waved. "Hello up there! Glad to see you're..."
Seo practically shoved the Doctor out of the way. "Yimi, are you okay? I heard a scream!"
"I'm fine," said Yimi — and as she said it, they could hear the echo of her words far louder on the screen in front of them. Then, rather icily, added, "I... would appreciate it if Zeera could please disconnect from my mind, now."
Kardeni let go of the light abruptly, and Yimi breathed a sigh of relief. She stepped away from the central console, her eyes fixed on the image of Kardeni — eyes that filled with a cold fury and an overwhelming disgust.
"I... never thought..." Kardeni swallowed hard. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean..."
"You're a monster," Yimi said to her, pointedly. "Your mind's made that very clear." She turned away. "Anything I do for you, I do to save my people and help the Doctor regain his friend. If it weren't for that — I'd leave you to rot in there."
Jenny grimaced. "You read a lot more of her mind than she expected, huh?"
"I read enough," Yimi said. She crossed her arms. "Let's just get on with this."
"Yes! Excellent idea! Plenty of time for recriminations later," the Doctor decided. "Right. Jenny, I take it you're up to speed on what's going on?"
"More or less," Jenny confirmed. She skimmed her eyes across the remainder of the holographic screens on the edge of the room, watching as Seo appeared in more and more of them — usually batting off or being attacked by the fiery-bird things. "I'm kind of worried about the whole Seo-splitting-apart thing. How do I get you out of there?"
Seo muttered something about how being paper was rubbish.
"Ah — you don't," the Doctor explained. He gestured around himself. "Seo can't leave at the moment, and I have a feeling I'll be needing Zeera in here with us for the next part to work." He clasped his hands behind his back. "Thing is, regardless of the veracity of Mutajar's initial story, I'd say it's fairly clear that, as of right now, the Apos'alu really is in a human body."
"But she said your prison didn't think she was human," Yimi pointed out.
"Because Biv was a bit clever about that one," the Doctor said. "If it weren't for my TARDIS, she probably wouldn't have been able to get out at all. Ever. It's the same sort of thing I imagine that," he turned to Kardeni, "you encounter, whenever you try to go into the vault. It's hard to get you back out again." He grinned. "Am I right?"
Kardeni seemed surprised. "But how did you...?" She stopped herself, and decided to drop it. "Yes. It is. I got stuck in there for 12 hours once. They had to reprogram half the systems to get me back."
"My point," the Doctor continued, "is that the Apos'alu is in a human body. That means that until she manages to get used to human telepathy — she'll have a lot more trouble controlling her swarm when they finally claw their way to the surface of Galia-4. They'll emerge all across the planet, and she'll need to use something like two TARDIS' worth of telepathic circuits to gather them all together and get them back under her control."
Jenny pressed a few buttons and squinted at the scanner display. "Based on the data up here and my own experience with the Apos'alu's form of mind control, I'm going to say that's probably right."
"Of course it's right! I'm very clever." The Doctor adjusted his bow tie, grinning. "Which means, Jenny — I have two asks of you. First, I need you to get us from this locked-down dimension into the chameleon arch room."
Jenny grimaced. "Right..."
"And then," the Doctor said, "I need you to do something very, very important."