"They're probably going to separate us," the Doctor said under his breath as we entered the Dalek lair.
"You'll be going right where they can keep an eye on you and they'll be putting Tressa and I with the other non-important prisoners," I said, and he flashed me an offended look.
"Emma you are important," he said, and I waved my hand at him.
"You knew what I meant." I waited until he nodded before I continued. "Give me the sonic so I can break out."
"Do you have a plan?" He asked as he very carefully slid the sonic into my back pocket and rearranged my shirt so that the Daleks wouldn't see it. I sent him a sideways look about the plan.
"Break out, find Amealia, get to you, figure it out from there." He sent me a grin.
"Sounds like one of my plans," he said.
"Well I learned from the best," I said, and his grin got wider somehow before his face went serious and he grabbed my hand tightly.
"Be careful."
"THE DOCTOR WILL RELEASE HIS COMPANION!"
"Maybe I won't," the Doctor taunted, and I rolled my eyes as we came to a stop at a fork in the hallway.
"Be careful he says and then taunts the murder bot," I muttered.
"SILENCE!" The Doctor dropped my hand without another word and the Daleks moved into formation. "THE DOCTOR WILL COME WITH US!"
"I suppose I don't need to warn you what will happen if you hurt them," the Doctor said, and if I hadn't known him so well, I would have assumed that he was as nonchalant as he appeared. In truth I knew that he hated the fact that we were being split up, and that it wouldn't take much for him to get to the kind of angry that he hated.
"We'll be fine," I said before I reached up and tapped my key gently. He looked between it and my face before he nodded firmly. I kept my eyes on him as three Daleks led him down the right fork. If circumstances were a little different, I would have called out a comment on the fact that the Daleks thought he was so dangerous that they needed to outnumber him three to one to try and make him laugh, but I had a feeling the Daleks would not appreciate my attempt.
"Do you have a plan?" Tressa asked.
"I do. I don't know if it's a good plan, but it's a plan," I said as we headed down the left fork and I focused on counting how many turns we took so that I could at least get back to the fork in the hallway, maybe.
"What is the plan?" Tressa asked once we had been deposited in a cell. I fished the sonic out of my pocket and held it up to her. I realized suddenly that I probably made a really weird picture since I was still wearing my tea stained shirt.
"Get out of this cell, find your sister, get to the Doctor and figure it out from there," I said and headed towards the control panel for the cell door. Tressa groaned.
"That's a terrible plan," she said.
"I did say that I wasn't sure it was good. I'm open to suggestions if you have any," I said. I mentally crossed my fingers as I pointed the sonic at the door. The Doctor said that unlocking a door wasn't complicated, that it was just 'point and think' but he was never clear about how specifically I needed to think, or if I needed to point at a specific part of what I was thinking about.
"I haven't seen my sister in almost three years," Tressa said quietly, and my heart lurched for her.
"I couldn't stand not seeing Lillian for that long," I said.
"Your sister?" I nodded and gave her a smile just as the door sprung open. Tressa heaved a huge sigh of relief and I realized that her prickliness was just her way of combatting her fear of captivity. I decided to keep my revelation to myself, because she probably wouldn't appreciate me pointing it out.
"Any chance that you could get your sister to borrow you and tell us where the Daleks are keeping her?" I asked as I carefully leaned out of the cell to look for Dalek guards.
"It doesn't work that way," she said.
"No that would be too easy," I said idly as we stepped out into the hallway and I watched as all the other cell doors snapped open and several dozen people slowly spilled into the hallway. "Oops. I must have thought a bit too hard."
"Tressa?" One man asked, and Tressa's hand flew to her mouth.
"Jaycen?" They flew into each other's arms and kissed passionately, and I blinked at them in shock.
"I was not expecting that," I said stupidly before I decided I should probably do the polite thing and ignore them, so I pivoted to study the prisoners, hoping that I would know Amealia from the familial resemblance to Mark and Tressa, even though I knew that she wasn't going to be here.
"Do you know where the Daleks are keeping Amealia?" Tressa asked Jaycen so I took that as my cue to turn back to face them. Jaycen shook his head in frustration as he stroked Tressa's cheek rhythmically with his thumb.
"No, I've been trying to find out for months. How did you get here?" He asked, and Tressa inclined her head towards me. I waved awkwardly because this is usually where the Doctor would have formulated the next part of his plan.
"Have you managed to map anything of the building?" I asked and gave myself a mental high five for the good question. Jaycen gave me a nod and waved for one of the older men to come closer and he unfurled a messy hand drawn map.
"A map doesn't exactly help if we don't know where we need to go," Jaycen said. I held up a finger as I leaned over to study the map carefully.
"Yes, it does help us because we can determine where we need to go by what's not on the map," I said and jerked my head up to look at them all in surprise. "Wow that was actually like properly brilliant. I'm brilliant."
"What do you mean?" the older man asked, and I pointed at one hallway that lead to nothing.
"How long have you been making this map?" I asked.
"I've lost count."
"Right exactly, so you have walked past this hallway probably dozens of times and you guys have been every where else." They all nodded when I peered up at them, so I continued. "Which means that the Daleks are specifically keeping you from going there and the only reason they would do that is if there was something that they absolutely did not want you to find there."
"Emma that is brilliant," Tressa said after a few moments of stunned silence.
"Why didn't we think of that?" Jaycen asked.
"Outside perspective does wonders," I said and took a deep breath as I tried to take the information we'd gained and turn it into a plan. How the Doctor managed to do this without pause would never cease to baffle me.
"Okay so the next logical step is going there and breaking her out. But the question is how do we do that without getting killed by Daleks?" I released a huge gust of breath. "God this is stressful."
"We can't bring everyone," Jaycen started and the older man nodded.
"The rest of us could try and sneak out through the sewage system." I was momentarily thrown by that because I hadn't expected the Daleks to have included a sewage system in their lair, since I didn't think that they needed one of those.
"We could get Amealia to tell Craick to rendezvous with you at the tower," Jaycen said and Tressa shook her head.
"It will have to be the cave. The tower's gone," she said and Jaycen paled immediately as horror descended over his face. "Markus is fine. The Doctor and Emma got him out before the Daleks got to him."
"Exiting will probably trip a perimeter alarm and some of the Daleks will come after us so that will give you better odds," the older man said. Jaycen reached out and clasped forearms with him.
"We'll take five volunteers with us if anyone wants to come," Jaycen said as he gestured towards Tressa and I. Tressa looked relived that she wouldn't have to argue with him about her coming along and I just sighed in relief that everyone thought my plan was worth following.
"I suppose we'll just have to operate on a 'cross our fingers and pray that the Daleks don't see us' plan for the rest of the rescue operation," I said, and Tressa sighed.
"I don't like it, but I don't see any other options."
"What is our plan once we get Amealia back?" Jaycen asked as five people walked over.
"You guys will head to the rendezvous and I will go find the Doctor and pass off the plan making torch," I said. I smiled at the volunteers. "Can I have your names please?"
"Why?" One girl asked slowly.
"Because you are people and I intend to treat you as such," I said simply.
"Meikaila, Aliss, Gerold, Rickard, and Franch," Jaycen said as he pointed to each person. I nodded at each one of them and smiled again.
"I'm Emma. Thanks for coming along," I said.
"If it frees the seer, I'll follow you to my death," Gerold said and I blinked at his words.
"I appreciate the sentiment, but let's try for that to not happen," I said and laughed slightly. Everyone gave me confused looks. "Sorry it's just that I sound just like the Doctor."
"We've got the map," Aliss said and held up the piece of paper for proof.
"Okay then, let's go." I fell to the back of the group and Tressa fell into the step beside me and patted me on the shoulder gently.
"You're a good leader," she said. I blushed.
"I had a good teacher," I said, and she shook her head.
"You have your own merits that make you good, and they're the kind of merits that can't be taught." She gave me a teasing smile. "You're definitely right that you learned your plans from the Doctor though."
"It happens when you spend a lot of time with someone." I dashed forward to peer at the map. "Where would be a good place to wait for the alarm to go off before we head into the hallway?"
"What do you mean?" Meikaila asked.
"It seems like it would be smarter to wait until the Daleks are responding to the perimeter alarm before we headed into the hallway," I said, and Rickard rested his finger on a little room that was adjacent to the hallway we were going to explore.
"Here would be a good place, but I don't know how comfortable we all feel with waiting," Rickard said slowly as he looked amongst our group. I definitely understood why because getting out of captivity didn't exactly lead to great desires to hide in a small space.
"It's only in case we make it there before they make it out. A lot of our plan is reliant on not having as many Daleks roaming around," I said.
"What happens if we do see a Dalek?" Franch asked.
"Scatter," I said, because I was pretty sure that one Dalek couldn't take out all of us if we all took off in different directions.
"There it is," Gerold said as we rounded another corner and pointed towards another hallway that I couldn't really differentiate from any of the others we'd walked through, but I trusted that they knew way more than I did.
"It's lucky that we haven't seen any Daleks," Aliss said and I winced.
"Don't way that you're going to jinx us," I said just as the alarms started to ring. "Although it appears that the universe is still on our side for now."