"A code," Meikaila said distastefully. We'd found the right door only to discover that the lock was deadlock sealed, so I couldn't use the sonic to open it. The lock required a four-digit code from what we could tell.
"I didn't think the Daleks would use a code," Jaycen said. I tapped the sonic against the palm of my hand.
"The door is probably designed to open automatically in the presence of Dalek DNA. The code is probably here so that we struggle breaking her out," I said.
"Or so that we can't get Amealia out," Aliss said.
"it looks like the code changes every twenty minutes," Franch said and I sighed deeply.
"You're all being very helpful," I muttered under my breath. Tressa moved forward and ran her finger along the seam of the door.
"We could try and force it?" She suggested and Jaycen shook his head.
"There's no way the Daleks didn't booby trap the door," he said.
"Four-digit numerical code. Dalek is too long. Skaro is too long. All the words that we could turn into numbers that are associated with the Daleks is too long." I shoved my curls away from my face in frustration. "There's something I'm missing."
"What if it's not a word into a number? What if it's just a number?" Rickard asked.
"If it's just a number then we've limited our options to approximately three billion," Gerold said.
"Three thousand one hundred fifty-two," I said, and everyone stopped to look at me.
"What?" Tressa said as I moved towards the lock again.
"Before we left Mark said to remember the number three thousand one hundred and fifty-two. He said it was important, and what's more important to a little boy than getting his mother back?" I rested my fingers on the keypad lightly and took a deep breath to steel my convictions before I punched the numbers in. We all froze in place for a few seconds before the light turned green and the door opened. Tressa raced in first.
"Amealia," she cried in relief as she came upon her sister. They looked almost exactly the same, similar enough that I wondered if they were twins, except that Amealia was more of a strawberry blonde than her sister's bright red hair.
"Tressa," Amealia said and held up her arms to embrace her sister. I knelt down on the ground and focused on undoing the chains that were holding her to the ground. When she was freed Amealia stood up and embraced everyone from the rescue party including myself.
"Thank you, Emma, for Markus," she said, and I nodded.
"Yeah of course. No problem."
"We need to go. We've been too lucky thus far," Jaycen said and I winced despite myself.
"What did I say about jinxing?" I said.
"YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
"Go! The Rendezvous!" Rickard shouted as we all spilled out into the hallway to see which way the Dalek was coming from. I hadn't even considered that there would be an alert on the cell lock, which was stupid of me. The rescue party took off down the hallway away from the Dalek. I was just about to open my mouth and tell Rickard to catch up with them when he pivoted and shoved me back into the cell and pulled the door shut. I scrambled up as fast as I could and yanked on the door only to realize that Rickard was still holding it shut from the outside.
"WHERE IS THE PRISONER!?"
"Gone. Gone and you will never get her back," Rickard said, and I heard the Dalek fire and Rickard cry out. I shoved my hands over my mouth so that I wouldn't scream, wouldn't panic, wouldn't make his sacrifice totally useless. I waited several, long agonizing moments before I pulled the door open. I knelt down next to Rickard's body.
"I'm so sorry. Thank you." I pressed a kiss to my fingertips and then rested them on his cheek before I stood up and started walking down the hallway. I focused on just putting one foot in front of the other until I felt like I wasn't so much on the brink of a panic attack anymore. I was so focused on it that I didn't hear the Dalek coming down the hallway adjacent to mine until I rounded the corner and came face to face with it.
"EXTERMINATE!" I screamed despite myself as the Dalek fired. Green filled my vision as a great weight slammed into me and I fell to the floor. The green faded away a few seconds later and I blinked and realized I was looking up at the Dalek from the floor where I'd fallen.
"EXPLAIN!"
"I would really love to give you an explanation," I said distantly. I was trying to determine how I was going to tell the Doctor about this because he was either going to murder me or have a heart attack when he found out.
"GET UP!" I stood without a moment's hesitation and raised my hands in surrender for good measure. There was one positive aspect to this scenario, I wouldn't have to wander around aimlessly trying to find the Doctor because I was pretty sure that this Dalek was about to take me to him. I was proven correct when we entered what almost seemed like a control room of a ship. The Doctor went ramrod straight when we locked eyes.
"Emma!" He shouted and banged his fist against whatever forcefield was keeping him contained. I gave him a weak smile. "Are you alright!?"
"STAND BACK!" The Doctor fixed a harsh glare on the Dalek before he pressed himself against the opposite wall. The forcefield opened up and I walked through at the Daleks prodding and it fell shut behind me again. The Doctor's arms were around me in an instant, hugging me so tightly that he lifted me off the ground slightly.
"Emma are you alright?" He asked again, and I nodded.
"I'm fine," I said.
"Your hair smells funny," he said. I bit my lip and pulled away from him slightly.
"Do you want the good news or bad news first?" I asked, and he frowned immediately as he set me back on the floor. He was absolutely about to murder me.
"Bad news," he said firmly as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"I got shot by the Dalek who brought me in here," I said.
"What!?" He bellowed, his expression torn between anger and disbelief as he snapped his gaze between me and the Daleks.
"But hey, good news! I didn't die! So that must mean that the Daleks can't kill me with their lasers," I said with as much fake enthusiasm as I could muster.
"What the Hell Happened!?"
"I came around a corner trying to find you and the Dalek saw me and they kind of operate on a shoot first ask questions later policy, I don't know if you've noticed and so it fired, and it hit me, and nothing happened," I said and gestured to myself. The Doctor looked livid and for a moment I thought he was angry at me before his gaze shifted back to the Daleks and I realized he was angry because I'd been in mortal danger.
"EXPLAIN!" One of the Daleks demanded, and the Doctor laughed lowly.
"Explain!? You try to murder my companion and you want me to explain!?" I scuttled out of the way as the Doctor stormed up to the front of the little cell. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him this angry. Maybe with the Master, but that had been more pain and less anger.
"YOU WILL EXPLAIN!"
"I will not. It drives you insane doesn't it? The fact that there's finally someone in the universe that you can't kill and it's just a puny human. So much for the superior race," the Doctor sneered. I didn't bother commenting on the fact that he'd referred to me as a puny human because I was pretty sure that he was talking from the Daleks point of view.
"YOU WILL EXPLAIN!" The Doctor laughed loudly.
"I will not." At his words another force field fell between us and I looked up at him in alarm just as there was a funny vacuum sound and I was suddenly choking. Some small tiny still rational part of my brain that wasn't focused on sheer panic figured out that the Daleks had sucked all the oxygen out of my side of the cell. The Doctor flew over and hammered on his side while screaming as I hit the ground roughly.
"I'll tell you! I'll tell you now STOP HURTING HER!" At his words all the air came rushing back in and I gasped and coughed so harshly I thought I would throw up. He rested his head on the forcefield and slammed his eyes shut.
"Emma's blood is filled with pure time energy. And because your lasers cause instantaneous cell death that time energy was probably enough to prevent that from happening." he said. I coughed again and rolled over slightly so that I could look up at him. He looked away the instant I did, and I could feel the guilt pouring off of him. I really hoped that I wouldn't have to kick him again.
"YOU HAVE DESTINED YOUR COMPANION TO NEVER DIE." The Doctor's hands turned into fists.
"Yes." It was a slight lie, but I decided not to call him on it because he definitely was not in the mood for my sass right now. I suddenly remembered that I still had the sonic in my back pocket and fished it out carefully. My fingers felt a little weird which I thought was reasonable since I'd just nearly suffocated, so it took me a few tries before I succeeded. I pointed it at the main control panel and thought about the forcefield disintegrating. I don't think either the Doctor or the Daleks noticed when it dropped because no one moved until I reached out with my hand and nudged the Doctor's foot with the sonic.
"Get the Daleks off this planet," I said once the Doctor looked down at me. He stared at me in awe for a few moments before he knelt down, grabbed the sonic and pivoted towards the Daleks in one smooth motion sonic whirring and the Daleks flew backwards shrieking. I smiled as he stormed towards them before my limbs went funny again like Amealia was about to borrow me for a few moments, I breathed a sigh of relief that everyone had made it to the rendezvous as she took over.
"Doctor some of our people have lined the sewage system with explosives. If you can disable the Daleks for long enough, they should be taken out with the explosion," Amealia said and the Doctor nodded and flipped a few dozen switches on one of the control panels.
"Done. Where's my TARDIS?" He asked as he pulled a pen out of his pocket and handed it to me while kneeling down next to me.
"Here," Amealia said and drew a crude map on the back of my hand. "Doctor be safe, be happy and no matter what Emma says she can't stand."
"I mean I could if I tried hard enough," I said as she left me. The Doctor swept me up in his arms without comment and stood up off the floor. "What did you do to the Daleks?"
"They move using a sort of magnetism. I altered how it interacts with the floor, so they can't move," He said as he dodged a few Dalek lasers before starting to run full tilt down the hallway. I awkwardly wrapped one of my arms around his neck so that carrying me would be easier on him and left the other one resting on my chest so that he could read the map easily.
"I lost someone," I said softly into his shoulder.
"What do you mean?"
"Rickard. He volunteered to help Tressa and I find Amealia and he sacrificed himself so that everyone else could get out," I sucked in a huge breath of air as I shuddered through a sob. I'd told myself that I wouldn't cry until I got to the TARDIS, but my body was starting to betray me.
"Oh Emma," he breathed into my hair and kissed me carefully on the top of my head.
"I should have done it. I should have been the one who sacrificed themselves because I can't even die that way." The tears welled up in my eyes and spilled over before I could stop them, so I figured I should just let them come.
"You didn't know," he soothed, and I shuddered my way through another breath.
"You wouldn't have let him," I said just as we entered the room with the TARDIS. The doors flew open before either of us had the chance to snap our fingers.
"Emma do you know how many people have sacrificed themselves for me over the years?" I shook my head as he set me down on the jump seat. The TARDIS started even though neither of us were facing the console properly, so she must have been in just as much of a hurry to leave as we were.
"Too many to count. I would have given anything to have you never experience it, but I won't let you tell yourself that you are less than me because of it," he said, and I nodded.
"It sucks," I said stupidly, and he nodded as well as he sat down next to me on the jump seat.
"Would you like me to lie to you and tell you that it gets easier?"
"No. Just get over here and give me a hug." He wrapped his arms around me and tugged me gently until I was sitting mostly in his lap and I leaned my head on his shoulder as I watched the TARDIS rotor move up and down as she departed for us.