Next chapter's on the 9th of May.
"Get me out!" The Time lord screams at them, eyes wild.
"Why should we do that? You're the one who wanted to painfully murder us just to get back at him." Florence points out, kicking at a cyberman trying to reach past her to Bill.
"She does have a point." Nardole says, nodding sagely as he manages to grab one of their arms and dislocate it with a crack.
"You can't just leave me!" The Master cries out again, desperate as the cyberman tries to pull him from where he is tied.
The Doctor sighs and looks at Missy, eyes widening a little, beseechingly.
"We can't just leave him, can we?" She asks, nose wrinkling in a very resigned gesture, clearly knowing that they're going to have to bring him with them.
"We can't just leave him." The Doctor says, as if he's pleading with the rest of them.
Nardole, Florence and Bill look at each other.
Florence knows that all of them want to leave him- it doesn't take mind-reading to know that.
There's a pause as they come to a stop.
"I suppose we can't." Florence says as Nardole groans.
"We actually could- we could just leave him there and keep going. It'd be easier to get away from the cybermen if we did." The android points out.
"He used to be you." The Doctor tries the Mistress again.
She grimaces but throws her hands in the air, umbrella tucked under one arm and in no way pleased about the situation.
"Fine- I guess we should free him," the Time Lady relents, sighing in frustration and turning back, "Florence, on me, we'll get him out, you three deal with the cybermen or something. I don't know?" Missy orders, frowning and waving her hands at the Doctor and his companions.
Florence complies easily, ducking beneath the cybermen and starting to check his pockets as Nardole grumbles about how much he doesn't like this plan.
It doesn't take long for Missy and Florence to liberate the Master of all the slightly dangerous things he has on his person, few things able to fit into the worn pockets of his outfit, and untie him. The Time Lord does not thank them for this and instead immediately pushes them aside and takes off running as the Doctor wards off two cybermen with an upturned chair, Bill holds up a rather disgusting sofa cushion as a defence and Nardole physically pushes the cybermen away.
"Wait! Where are you going?" The Doctor cries out, throwing the chair at one of the cybermen in his hurry to pull Bill out and chase after the other Time Lord.
"Here we go again." Grumbles Nardole under his breath, halfheartedly pushing two of the remaining cybermen over on his way to follow.
"I'm going to get out of here with your tardis! Thanks for the ride by the way!" The Master laughs, voice carrying down the corridor.
Florence sighs, looking at the Mistress.
"Sometimes I can't believe you used to be him." She says, dodging the last cyberman's arms as the others try to right themselves.
"Neither can I really." The Time Lady replies, taking down the cyberman with a punch to the neck, not defended yet, as it probably would be on future models.
The two take a moment to look at the four cybermen on the ground and the scorched, sparking remains of the laptop but head on, following the shouting before it can get too far away.
The Mistress and Florence manage to catch up to the group as the Master, still with a rather impressive lead on everyone else, tips over a large bookshelf, cluttered with jars and boxes of dusty tools, laughs, and then proceeds to struggle with the heavy metal door which had been hidden behind the fixture, stuck with age.
The Doctor and Nardole start to pick their way through the debris, wheezing slightly from the exertion. Bill stops at the edge, already trailing behind and staring at the floor with a mixture of anger, resignation and exasperation.
It's not the first time that Florence is thankful for the modifications that Missy made on her body given how herself and the Mistress are the only ones still breathing easily when they slow to pick their way through the field of smashed things and metal parts.
Hopefully it'll stop any cybermen who stop to chase them, though the far away screaming seems to be doing that job for them.
The Master manages to heave the wheel on the door around to the right with a grunt of exertion, the internal mechanism grinding the whole time. Sheets of dust filter through the gaps as he pushes it open and almost falls in through the door.
"You'll never catch me!" The Time Lord says, laughing gleefully through his heavy breathing as he attempts to run.
The lights flicker on, power humming to attention at the presence of people, for the first time in what appears to be a long time if the chill to the air, the buzzing of fans coming to life and the distinctly bland smell in the air is anything to be read into.
The Master is already hurrying along the metal walkway they're standing on, suspended so high above the floor that the space below them gets swallowed by the mist which has not yet been extracted from the air by the filters. The Mistress and Florence follow easily, falling into step as Bill finally enters the room, slamming the door behind her, and the Doctor and Nardole tiredly chase after the Master, the Mistress and her companion.
There are small bays, four of them on each side of this walkway, housing what looks to be like maintenance ships or scouting vessels. They look like they're meant for three people, one driver, one worker, one backup in case something bad happens to the driver or the worker needs to be spotted in case of fall hazards. The Master clambers up to the closest, shoes making the grating reverberate with a tang of noise which is distinctly metallic. It opens automatically, if jaggedly, and the Time Lord scoots inside, sliding in as soon as the door is open enough and cackling still.
To his misfortune the doors only continue opening when he slams the button for them to close, giving enough time for the Mistress to climb in and sit in the seat next to his and for the Doctor to hold a hand over the sensor in the door's seal.
The doors remain open with more than enough time for everyone to squash into the very cramped ship.
Florence sits across the chairs' arms between the Master and Missy, Nardole is crushed up behind the Mistress' chair, in the worker's seat so that he can keep an eye on all of the Time Lords, the Doctor is behind the Master's seat, putting himself between the Time Lord and Bill, who is keeping all her limbs very close to her body in an attempt to touch nobody.
The Mistress is inspecting her nails as the control-board light up slowly. These ships clearly haven't been getting the maintenance they should have been for a long time.
There is awkward quiet as the ship whirs into life slowly.
"Well. This doesn't seem to have been part of your plan." The Doctor says, the sound of his voice grinning as he kicks the back of the Master's chair once.
"Shut up." The Time Lord groans, slumping over the dashboard.
This has the secondary misfortune of pressing something with a purpose before any of the people at the front have had a chance to figure out what model of machine they're dealing with and if anyone present will know how to drive it.
The machine clunks and goes silent, all sound outside seeming to disappear.
"What did you just do?" Nardole asks, peering over Florence's head as the Master begins panickedly pushing buttons and the woman tries to stop him.
"Stop it, you idiot! You're going to get us all killed in a different way!" She scolds as the Master laughs, fear intruding on his voice.
"I don't know! I just put my head down and it started doing all this! How am I meant to know what button my head pressed?" The Time Lord asks, teeth bared as he runs a hand through his hair and finally lets himself be pulled away from the console.
"And you thought it was a good idea to then go pressing all the other buttons?" The Mistress asks, sighing and rolling her eyes as she pulls a bottle of nail varnish from her pocket and starts to apply it to one of her nails, bright red spilling over it and clinging smoothly.
"Well I panicked! Today isn't exactly going as I wanted." The Time Lord complains as a new whirring starts up.
"Shh!" Nardole hisses, "I can hear something."
Everyone falls quiet again and the Mistress screws the top back on the bottle, head cocked to listen.
With a sound none of them are able to describe later the small craft rotates and shoots directly upwards, diving into a field of mist, still not yet cleared, and then crunching and shrieking awfully as it tears into the ceiling like a bullet.
Everyone is thrown backwards by the movement of the ship. The Mistress and Florence feel the blink of Bill's mind as she knocks her head against the back of the driving compartment and slips into unconsciousness, the Doctor crashes against her, pushing her enough that is lying against what once was the floor of the craft. Florence just manages to throw herself forwards and into Missy's lap, head wedged against the Time Lady's stomach and knees pressed tightly between the fronts of the seats and the access panels of the dashboard to avoid being dragged from the front of the ship.
Nobody can see anything through the debris and dust and oil which stick to the viewscreen.