Brona braced herself for trouble as she watched the two ice warriors marched towards her and the Doctor.

The alarms and taunting announcements had been more than enough to attract the attention of the large aliens, and now their revengeful rage was focused squarely on the culprit responsible for disrupting their plans of being able to eliminate all life on the planet below. Even so, it looked at though they would take equal satisfaction in wiping out this obstacle, perhaps much more than seeing through their original plan.

"Here they come, Doctor." She warned. "I hope you know what you're doing?"

"Trust me." The Doctor assured. "I know ice warriors."

Lord Hasskar wasted no time on formalities as he stormed over to the Doctor and human female accompanying him. Breathing heavily in his anger, it was hard to resist the temptation to shoot them both dead with his sonic blaster.

"You have sabotaged Coldstar!" He hissed. "You have condemned this moon and everyone on it to a fiery death."

"Yeah, but we're not crashing into a populated world anymore." The Doctor reasoned. "So that's a plus."

"What do you propose now, Doctor?" Lord Hasskar questioned back. "I have my warriors and weapons. You have nothing!"

"The way I see it, everyone dies or no-one does. I prefer option two." The Time Lord bit back. "Give me my TARDIS, you let everyone go now and everyone survives. Leave your war in the past where it belongs."

The way in which Lord Hassakar chuckled at his demands was enough to make the blood in the Doctor's veins run cold. It was a lumbering and deep boom of a laugh that held within it a sinister undertone that taunted his naïvety of thinking that this was a situation to be negotiated. The ice warriors had changed since he had last met them, and not for the better.

"You believe it is so simple?" The martian spat. "You believe that you can give me, Lord Hasskar of the Sectarian Cast, an ultimatum?"

"Yes, I do." The Doctor told him. "Bring me my ship, and we can all walk away from this."

"Your ship? But I already have a ship."

Even though the Doctor's mind in someway processed the meaning of what was about to happen, it took him a moment to quite believe what was happening as he came to the conclusion that Lord Hasskar either did not have his TARDIS or that he really was being malicious enough to keep him from it even in these trying few minutes. Could he and his warriors not see beyond their thirst for revenge and bloodshed?

"What?" He began to ask. "You don't…"

"Slaan, give the order!"

Commander Slaan bowed obediently as he prepared to carry out his commander's wishes.

"Yes, Lord Hasskar." He replied. "Warriors, board the vessel designated Volta's Pearl."

Brona's attention was grabbed the moment the name of her ship was mentioned. No one, and she really did mean no one was able to board her ship without her expressed permission. She didn't care who these ice warriors thought themselves to be, they had no right to claim her Pearl for themselves, let alone fly it without her captain in charge.

"That ship is mine!" She argued. "That's Volta's Pearl, and I'm Brona Volta."

"Then you come with us." Lord Hasskar snarled.

"No, no that's not how this works!" The Doctor argued back. "Lord Hasskar, I am telling you -"

"Shut up, Doctor. We've saved the planet, maybe we should just go?" Brona hissed. "But I'm not leaving without my boy."

This last part was said much louder for the benefit of Hasskar and Slaan. There was no way that Brona was prepared to leave here without her son, and the Doctor felt exactly the same way about Rose and Peter. They, along with Lorna couldn't be left behind as Coldstar hurtled towards the sun. It was a fate he wouldn't have wished upon his very worst of enemies, and it was something he simply wasn't going to allow to happen today to anyone.

"Rose and Peter too." He added. "Not to mention the recycling girl. They're all coming with us."

Lord Hasskar shook his helmet covered head slowly and with great seriousness.

"We leave immediately." He hissed. "Or I kill this one!"

Brona yelled as the ice warrior reached out and seized hold her by the scruff of her neck. The colossal alien's pincer hand had a crushing grip on her collarbone, and that would have been enough to frighten her even without the sonic blaster that was now being pointed straight towards her head.

"Ah!" She winced. "You need me to fly the ship!"

"To fly it efficiently, perhaps." Lord Hasskar argued back.

"I know ice warriors, they're an ancient and honourable race." The Doctor told him. "They will listen to reason."

But what he thought he knew about ice warriors and how Lord Hasskar and his troops were behaving were two very different things. These were not the same martians which had come to terms with the conflict they had so valiantly participated in. For them, it was total annihilation of their enemy even if it resulted in their own demise.

"You do not know me!" Hasskar bellowed. "If you wish to live, then we go. Slaan, seize this Doctor!"

"Ah!" The Doctor screamed. "Wait, no!"

Shoved forward as Slaan pinned his arms behind his back, he didn't have much choice but to follow after the commander of the ice warriors as he took alongside him a reluctantly departing Brona. But if there was one thing the Doctor had left, it was his voice. Arguing back might be pointless, but it was all he could do right now as he was forcibly removed and taken off to the docking bay.

"Do you wish to stay?" Lord Haaskar teased. "Is it still as you said, everyone dies or no one does?"

"No, please." The Doctor begged. "Just give me my TARDIS! The blue box, please. We can all get away!"

Lord Hasskar chuckled at his continued pathetic attempts to reason with him that had no resulted in the once arrogantly confident man almost sinking to his knees in despair over losing his compatriots lives and his minuscule vessel. It was almost enough to make him want to leave him behind out of pity, but the sweetness of revenges for ruining their plans would come upon the destruction of Coldstar. Everything this Doctor cared for would be burnt into nothing, and he would know the pain of this before he died.

"Now you beg?" He cackled. "Now there are no ultimatums. Bring him, Slaan."

"Then leave me behind." The Doctor continued to plead. "I can save the others."

"It's no use, Doctor," Brona shouted back. "They won't listen to us."

"This one sees the truth." Lord Hasskar agreed. "I decide!"

Already they had reached the docking bay, and there ahead of them was Volta's Pearl parked right alongside an Enyo renewables recycling truck.

The two ships could not have been more different if they tried, with the Peal being one of the old-school beauty of pirate ships from aeons ago. She even still had masts and a crow's nest just like the forefathers of pirates once had. The only changes now, of course, were that an oxygen shield surrounded the metal hull of the craft whilst it cruised through space rather than the high seas, and solar sails powered by the sun rather than wind propelled the ship onto its next plunder.

Enyo renewables vessels were rectangular and almost completely unforgettable in comparison.

But it was not the recycling ship that the ice warriors were taking the Doctor and Brona to. Instead, they were dragging their prisoners in the direction of the Pearl where the two other ice warrior to have awoken were stood awaiting their arrival. Positioned beside the boarding ramp of the pirate ship, they bowed respectfully as Lord Hasskar and Commander Slaan approached with their hostages.

"Let me stay!" The Doctor continued to protest. "Please!"

"You have set yourself against me." Lord Hasskar hissed back. "I will demonstrate what happens to my enemies."

It didn't take long for Volta's Pearl to launch itself clear of Coldstar, and with Brona stood at the controls the privateering vessel sailed smoothly away from the giant satellite and the sun that the melting freezer was now hurtling towards.

Where the wheel of a long-ago buccaneer's ship might have once stood on an open deck was now an enclosed observation platform with a complicated control panel that Blackbeard himself would have never been able to comprehend. It was from here Brona steered her craft as the Doctor, Lord Hasskar and the three other ice warriors watched on.

"Turning about." She reported. "For a view of the Coldstar."

"Brona!" The Doctor growled. "Don't do this!"

Held back by Commander Slaan as he tried to reach the space pirate and the controls of her ship, he was powerless to stop her from increasing the distance between them and everyone still trapped aboard the doomed vessel. Even if he broke free now, he knew that he wouldn't get very far.

"What choice do I have?" Brona bit back. "There's nothing we can do now, Doctor."

"She is correct." Lord Hasskar hissed.

"We need to go back, Lord Hasskar." The Doctor retaliated. "I'm a Time Lord. You do not want to get on the wrong side of me. Go back, now! Or I will not be responsible for what happens next."

"You are responsible, Doctor.." The martian taunted. "That is what I wish you to understand."

The Pearl's console beeped loudly, and Brona leaned over the instrument in order to read what it was detecting.

"It's losing integrity." She reported. "The whole freezer bay is breaking off and burning up."

"People are still on that ice moon!" The Doctor shouted. "We have to go back."

"You should have considered this before you obstructed my revenge." Hasskar snarled. "Bring him closer, Slaan."

Dragged forward and right up to the observation platform at the front of the bridge, the Doctor was almost pushed up against the artificial shield protecting the thick layer of glass as he continued to plead his case.

"Rose and Peter are in there!"

"And my son, Doctor." Brona reminded him bitterly.

"A wise leader adapts his strategy," Hasskar announced. "Coldstar is lost. Very soon the star will consume its remains. Slaan, release the Doctor and have his box brought up from the hold."

The Doctor couldn't believe what the martian had just said. The ice warriors had been in possession of his TARDIS this whole time, the only thing that was capable right now of saving all of the lives still aboard Coldstar.

"What!?"

"Yes, Lord Hasskar," Slaan replied, bowing. "At once."

Landing with a thud on the metal ground as Slaan threw him down, the Doctor glared up at Lord Hasskar with as much fury as he had felt in a long time. Ever since the time machine had vanished, he had assumed it had been because of a mistake or malfunction on the blue box's part.

But, no. The ice warriors had stolen it.

"You've got my TARDIS?" He gasped. "Here, on this ship!?"

"Of course." Lord Hasskar told him. "I monitored Coldstar's systems from the moment the ice began melting, and we awoke. I made my plans. I saw your arrival and believed it might prove a useful contingency, like this vessel. So I had it brought on board."

"Yes, I am begging you, Lord Hasskar." The Doctor pleased. "Let me use it to save them!"

"If you wish to beg, Time Lord. You should be on your knees. But the answer will still be no."

A great boom travelled away from the sun and Coldstar across to the Pearl, announcing to everyone that the ship did not have long before it was finally consumed by the fiery inferno that made up the colossal ball of solar energy.

"That's it. Coldstar is in the suns gravity well. It won't be long now." Brona said. "Callum, Rose, Peter… That girl. I'm hoping they'll all pass out before they're burnt to a crisp."

"Then that is my mercy." Lord Hasskar declared.

The Doctor could barely watch. All he could think about were the two young lives he had put into such danger by bringing here. Both of his companions should have never ended up in a situation like this. It had been him who had wanted to stay and investigate Coldstar and its melting ice, not them.

Now Rose and Peter were going to die, and it would be his fault.