Episode 06: The Discordance of the Daleks
"Do not move! Do not move! You are prisoners! You are prisoners!"
"Intruders! Intruders!"
"Exterminate! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach had never heard anything with which to compare their shrill, bitterly screeching voices. Voices that were entirely inhuman, mechanical, and yet somehow so soaked with an emotion—hatred, vehemence—that it sent a cold chill racing down his spine. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
In all of the years he had served in NATO, even endangering his life at gunpoint, Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach had never felt the sort of sickening disconcerting feeling that the horrible voices sent racing through his blood.
He tightened his grip on the magnum automatically.
Beside him, Rose had turned white, large brown eyes as wide and glassy as a frightened deer's. The Doctor stood beside her, seemingly frozen, his face twisted into a mask of raw and honest terror. The two who had so blithely pranced into the throes of danger, travelling through space and time with no regard for anything whatsoever, were suddenly frozen with what appeared to be true and genuine horror.
And, as those horrible, shrill and bitingly high-pitched voices grew nearer, Major Eberbach, who had to repress a shudder at the ear-splitting shrieks, thought he might have understood.
"We must EXTERMINATE the irregularities! Inferior life forms detected in Sector J-5. Intruders! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
And there was that damnable thief, looking now more frightened, seemingly due to the Doctor's evident upset more than anything else. And the TARDIS was missing. Just vanished. The smell of sulphur and gunpowder, rot and decay thickly blanketed the still air. The smouldering ruins of land that had once been a city, and was now a war zone, surrounded them. At the Major's feet, the robotic dog's satellite-ears twisted around on its head and it made a low whirring sound, almost a growl, its thin metal tail standing on end.
"Daleks are approaching, Master."
"No!" Rose gasped. "They CAN'T be! Doctor!"
Dorian looked from her to the Doctor, long tumbles of golden curls splaying over his shoulders as he shook his head from side to side in confusion. "What's a Dalek? Doctor? Rose? Why are you so—"
He froze in mid-sentence as the creatures came out of the shadows. Impossible to describe. Klaus swallowed. They were truly the most freakishly un-human things he could ever have remembered seeing. They were about five-feet tall, their identical metal casings pepper-pot shaped shells, seemingly housing something, which moved over the broken terrain on treads.
From the front, each Dalek bore a plunger and a rifle-like stick protruding from it's metal casing, the limbs jerked about mechanically. The tops, one could not rightly call them 'heads' for they lacked anything which the Major might have considered a face, were rounded domes, with a single eyestalk each, glowing a harsh laser-like blue, inexplicably horrid as they shifted and jerked about, violent in even the smallest of movements.
They were so utterly bizarre, that for a moment even the Major quite forgot the gun clutched in his iron grip. Their…eyes? lenses?…so alien, blank piercing orbs, were utterly devoid of emotion, yet glared with a sort of fierce and scrutinizing intelligence that was in no way reassuring. The eyestalks moved and stretched forwards, raising and lowering as they adjusted and focused on the group before them.
Even Klaus felt his skin begin to crawl under their gaze.
"Inferior life-forms detected."
"You are prisoners!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
And they just stood there, frozen, none of them moving or breathing or even thinking, really. Until Eroica's voice finally made its way through to his brain, wavering and laced with a trepidation strangely alien to the carefree thief. "Major…"
"Damn it," Klaus snapped back, raising the magnum at the same time the Daleks were preparing to fire from their gun-arms.
He squeezed the trigger.
Laser fire ripped through the air, burning a smoking crater deep into the earth centimetres from Klaus' right foot, and his own bullets raced towards the metal casing of the Dalek shells, but seemed to dissolve in midair before reaching their targets.
"They have a force-field around the body," the Doctor muttered. "Bullets aren't going to do any damage!"
"Doctor, we have to get out of here!" Rose shouted, as laser fire erupted, sending K-9 skidding sharply backwards, just narrowly avoiding incineration.
"Aim for the eyestalk!" the Doctor told Klaus quickly. "Rose, Eroica—run! NOW!"
The Dalek's eye swivelled towards them, the rifle-arm raised, and in that split-second, Klaus fired. The glowing blue orb exploded in a shattering rain of glass and metal splinters. The Dalek's body shuddered and jerked almost wildly. The other two, which had come up behind it, turned their solitary eyes towards the Major.
"Do not move. Do not move. You are prisoners."
"Intruders, we must exterminate."
"Inferior life forms."
"Affirmative," the thin mechanical voices grated out.
"Damn it," Klaus cursed, involuntarily backing away a step as the creatures advanced, swivelling across the uneven terrain on their flat treads. He felt the momentary shock as he collided with the Earl, and risked a quick glance from the corner of his eye, to see Eroica still standing there behind him, sapphire eyes round and wide, staring at the aliens as though in shock.
Rose Tyler stood a few feet behind him, looking terrified, ready to run, but hesitating on the Earl's account.
The Major began to move, but started when a shrill ringing blast echoed in his ears and a spray of dirt burst up an inch from his feet. K-9's ears twisted around, the red eye-band flashing. "Master—!" The loyal robot instantly fired a volley of brilliant red lasers towards the encroaching Daleks, but it seemed to have little affect as their enemies continued to advance.
Scowling, Klaus turned and shoved Eroica roughly, just barely able to restrain himself from knocking the thief off his feet. "Eroica! Go! Now!" He knocked the Earl down with one final shove—sending the thief behind an overturned slab of rubble as the enemy fire swept over them again.
Ducking to the right, the Major squeezed off two more shots from his trusted magnum, and heard the satisfying sound of another of the glass eyepieces shattering and the inhuman shrieks of the damaged alien that followed.
He could not know what had become of the Doctor or the girl, they had vanished from his now-limited realm of sight as the sky dimmed and the laser fire sent thick dark sprays of dirt up, clouding the air. A curtain of smoke and the scent of burning rubble were enough to obscure most of his senses.
Dropping low to the ground for a second, Klaus reloaded the gun and hazarded another quick glance in the direction of where he had knocked Eroica down. Hopefully at least the damn fop would have the sense to stay out of the way this time.
And why the fuck did he care, again? Like he had on the space station, the Major could not stop himself from…he did care about the bloody degenerate, it seemed. Care…the Major swallowed.
Ah, it was hardly the opportune time to properly deal with such thoughts. But out of the corner of his eye, he could make out the shaky blur of Eroica's wild golden curls slipping away—retreating back, farther from the Daleks and the steady rain of enemy fire.
And that was good.
The Major turned his focus back to the problems at hand. Aliens, robots (were they robots? Or was that outer shell some sort of bizarre alien armour? And to what? There was no possible way that a human man could fit inside one of those metal casings—) and his bullets could not, for whatever stupid reason, hit the main bodies, so he was restricted to trying to take out the single bulbous lenses that served as the Daleks' eyes.
From his crouching position, Klaus tightened his grip on the reloaded gun and grimaced. Although the grimace was almost a smile. The danger felt more real—more intense and poignant—than it had in a long time, even against the KGB. The complete and utter impossibility of the situation at hand, yet the definite danger it entailed, had the Major's blood racing.
Perhaps the damn thief was right, he conceded grudgingly, somewhere in the back of his mind, perhaps this was missing before.
The Daleks' mechanical limbs jerked back and forth again, the creatures shuddering slightly, sensors whirring as they prepared for another strike. Klaus leapt up, fired off another six shots, before dropping back down into a defensive crouch behind an overturned smouldering heap of slag, much like the one he had knocked the Earl behind.
On the other side, he could hear the inhuman voices screeching: "My vision is impaired. I can not see. I can not see."
"Exterminate. Intruders must be exterminated!"
"My vision is impaired. I can not see. Unable to comply."
The Major allowed a small smirk to work its way across his face.
"How are we doing?" a voice asked suddenly, startlingly close to his ear.
"God damn it" Klaus growled, as the Doctor crouched down beside him. "You are almost as bad as that insufferable thief."
"Who is safe, by the way,"
Klaus glared at him, but the Doctor kept going all the same. "Look—he and Rose are both safe, well as safe as they can be in this situation. They've run off, got at least ten yards on us by now." K-9 was there, by their feet, scanners working overtime to pinpoint the locations of the Daleks that had surrounded them.
"We must exterminate inferior life forms."
"Unable to comply. My vision is impaired." The Dalek's continued to fire, even with impaired sight, the laser fire bursting against the rubble in wild chaotic explosions all around the Doctor and the Major.
"So what do you propose we do?" the Major growled, ducking his head as a chunk of earth exploded in a rain of shrapnel and smoke inches from his skull. "Never mind, you are an idiot."
"I'm an idiot!" the Doctor retorted indignantly, even as an explosion of laser-fire burst over their heads. "I could have run off with them, you know!"
"Then you should have! For all the use you are!" the Major snapped. "All your alien gadgetry and you don't have a damn gun!"
"My vision is impaired."
"Exterminate! Exterminate!"
"I don't like weapons, so I don't use them!" the Doctor shouted back, seeming genuinely angry for the first time since the Major had met him. "And despite what you may think Major Klaus Heinz —whatever your name is—I KNOW what war is! Whatever you may think, I'VE lived through a HELL of a lot more of it than YOU!"
Klaus was on the verge of either ripping the man's throat out, or at least breaking his jaw, when they both realized the same thing at the same time.
Silence.
The weapon fire had stopped.
The hiss of the still-smoking rubble that had shielded them during the assault and their own somewhat laboured breathes were the only noises. The hard mechanical voices of the Daleks had ceased, the ringing blasts of the lasers had vanished.
The Doctor looked down to K-9 for some explanation. "There is no longer any trace of the Daleks within twenty yards from our present location, Master."
The Major frowned, the Doctor looked intensely worried.
"This can't be good," Klaus said.
"Indeed. Even damaged and blinded, the Daleks would have stayed to the very end, until they had achieved their objective. Suicide missions mean nothing to them, and no offence, Major, but I don't think we were that much of a threat, anyways."
Klaus pulled out a cigarette, scowling darkly, "But they left. I don't like this."
"No," the Doctor agreed, his face tight and sober. "Not at all."
"Master, my scanners detect several sentient life forms approaching," K-9 informed them.
"Could the Daleks be running away from something?" Klaus asked, looking at the Doctor.
"Impossible!" he shook his head, frowning deeply. "The Daleks are one of the most feared races in the universe. And there are very few weapons that can harm them, and nothing that can instil an emotion—let alone fear—in them," he sighed. "They must be regrouping or something. Maybe their leaders called them back for something…"
"Are their leaders are—?"
"Also Daleks, of course," the Doctor answered.
Klaus regarded the Doctor for a moment, breathing in the smoke of his cigarette and crouching on the smouldering rubble-ridden ground beside K-9. "What are they, exactly? Daleks?"
The Doctor smiled bitterly. "I guess you could call them my mortal enemy." He leaned back against a jagged heap of slag, his eyes darkened by the cruel shadows of the past. "First of all, you have to know: the Daleks are utterly ruthless, merciless killers. They have no pity, no sympathy. What you see is just the armour, the transportation device. What it houses is so hideous…a mutant. The final evolution of a race that was at one time much like your own. In order to survive in their mutated forms, building the transportation devices was obviously a necessity. But…"
"They became killers."
The Doctor nodded grimly. "The Daleks—the transportation shells—were created during a war so they needed to be capable of fighting, and killing. However their creator took that one step further…by erasing all sense of pity or sympathy, to ensure that his creations would be capable of killing all of their enemies…the 'inferior races.'
"They exist only to kill and destroy and strengthen their own forces. They will kill millions and millions—all other life-forms, because they honestly believe those life-forms should be dead."
"Ethnic cleansing," the Major muttered darkly, flicking his cigarette into the dirt. It was a term he was all-too familiar with. The Daleks were little different from the God-damn neo-Nazis. Well, at least they weren't German, but the parallels were…he felt himself grimace.
"The Daleks enslaved hundreds, thousands of planets, before they were finally defeated. This must be any one of those worlds that were conquered by their military forces."
"You say 'before they were defeated,'"
"The Daleks fought a war with my people, the Time Lords."
"The Time Lords won?"
"No," the Doctor said, staring into the rising columns of smoke and shadows in the darkening sky. "Both lost. The Daleks were defeated. All ten million enemy ships were destroyed. But Gallifrey…my planet…and the Time Lords…were destroyed.
"I am the last survivor of my race.
"Except for, perhaps, the bloke who's after us." He smiled bitterly, eyes closed.
The Major was silent. It seemed only respectful, and he could respect a veteran soldier. Even a soldier from a war he could not imagine. Not that he truly needed to, the darkness and pain in the Doctor's eyes, the shadows haunting the lines on his face, spoke all-too clearly of the horrors of war.
"I used to hate them too," the Doctor continued suddenly. "The Time Lords, I mean. They were a bunch of pompous idiots—I couldn't stand them and they couldn't stand me! Said I had no respect for authority, but their authority was bloody stupid!"
Klaus smirked a little at this, lighting another cigarette.
"But then…to have them all gone. For it all…"
Yes, Klaus thought he could see that, too. As much as he hated his idiot superiors at NATO, especially that fat perverted chief, if NATO itself was destroyed, completely and utterly destroyed…he couldn't even think of it in terms of the entire Earth…
"So we're somewhere in the past, then?" he asked quietly, at length, grinding out the ashes of his third cigarette into the ground beside him. "Before this war?"
"Yes…" the Doctor frowned. "Sometime before the Time Wars, on one of the small anonymous worlds the Dalek forces enslaved. I would never have come back here, we should never have even been able to come here, after what happened during the Time Wars…someone put us here. Someone powerful."
"The one behind Ristead and the Spartens and even the bloody KGB…"
The Doctor nodded. "Someone who really, truly hates us, it would seem."
"Ja…"
"Masters," K-9 interrupted, his metal head perking up a bit, the satellite-ears rotating and whirring distinctly. "Sentient life-forms now within five-feet of our current location."
"Thank you, K-9," the Doctor sighed, picking himself up off the ground. "Well, shall we say hello to the locals, do you think? I imagine they'll be a decent-sort of folk. After all, the enemy-of-my-enemy, and all that…"
"Freeze!" a voice commanded instantly, and the Doctor and Klaus found themselves surrounded by a dozen men in tattered, stained rags, a collection of motley and damaged guns and rifles pointed at their heads. "Who are you?" the leader demanded.
"Who cares?" one of his companions said, lowering his weapon. "They aren't Daleks, that's clear enough."
"They could be allied with the Daleks,"
"No one's allied with the Daleks," his comrade retorted. "Who'd be daft enough to do that?"
"Well…all right, then," the leader consented, lowering his own rifle-like weapon, and his group immediately did the same. "My name is Farr," he said, turning back to Klaus and the Doctor. "We are the Renell."
"The Renell?" the Doctor asked. "Ah…then this must be Ren III, in the Chaia Galaxy around your…nineteenth century, isn't it?"
This earned them more than a few odd looks, but Farr eventually nodded, regarding the Doctor uneasily.
"I thought so," the Doctor grinned. "My history is perfect."
Eyebrows were raised.
"And…who are you, then?" Farr asked.
"I'm the Doctor, and this is Major Eberbach. We're…ah…not from around here."
"A doctor and an officer? Are you from the Roktarr military?"
"Roktarr military?"
"Our allies, they promised to send in forces to help us combat the Dalek invaders, but that was months ago and we've seen no sign of them. As you can see, Doctor, things are bad here…very bad."
"Yes, indeed," the Doctor replied, taking another look around the ruined city. "I take it you've been fighting the Daleks for some time now?"
"Ha!" Farr laughed bitterly. "Only a few months! They've got us completely outnumbered and their weapons are like nothing we've ever seen before! Red lights that strike a man dead with one touch! And their warships are everywhere, they just appeared one day out of the blue and suddenly—they were everywhere! There's nothing we can do!"
"What do you mean 'nothing,'" Klaus interrupted, scowling at them darkly. "It's that sort of useless thinking that is going to hand the victory to your enemies! Doctor, we have no time for such worthless idiots, we would do best to find Miss Tyler and Lord Gloria and locate the TARDIS at once!
"If these fools truly wanted to get rid of the Daleks, they would have organized an affective group and chain of command with a centralized location, catalogue of the weapons and supplies available, maps of the city and surrounding areas with the Dalek-landing sights highlighted and…"
"It sounds like you have a strategy or two up your sleeve, Major," Farr said.
Klaus snorted. "Show me what you have so far."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Wait!" Dorian called after Rose, as she ran ahead of him. They had raced through the grim, greying rubble of the war-torn city and the Major, the Daleks and the Doctor had long-since vanished behind them. The Earl probably wanted some answers.
Great.
"Rose, wait! And kindly tell me what's going on?"
She slowed down reluctantly, stumbling to a shaky halt beside the ruined skeletal structure of what had once been a building of four stories. The windows had been blown out, and were reduced to empty gaping holes. The paint had been burned off, so that only crumbling cement remained, and large holes tore jagged edges through the rubble, so that it looked as though at any given moment the entire structure might simply give-way and collapse to the dust. Her heart hammering painfully and her lungs burning from the run, she gestured hastily to the sloping empty doorway. "Let's duck in there, then."
"To what end?" the Earl asked, rearranging some of his dishevelled golden curls and studying her face curiously. "Rose, I don't understand what's happening here." It was annoying, but the master thief did not look very exhausted by their run. He was hardly even sweating.
She glared at him in annoyance. "To hide!"
"Hide? From those—tin garbage cans? Listen, you might be used to playing the damsel in distress but I certainly don't—"
"You just don't get it do you! Those things are—are—"
"Daleks, right? I still don't see why they're so much more terrible than the Spartens or the KGB or the dinosaurs—"
"Dinosaurs?"
"My point is—"
"They just are, okay? They—last time there was only one of them and it killed—God it killed them all!" she turned from him, raking a hand through her long blonde hair in frustration, and began pacing back and forth. "There were all of these soldiers, and they all had their guns special vests and everything and it just—like they were nothing—"
"They're that bad?" the Earl asked, a worried expression flitting across his face. "We shouldn't have left, then!" he turned back in the direction they had come from. "The Major—!"
"Don't—!" she grabbed his arm, and he looked at her with annoyance and a rare flash of anger. "They'll KILL you!"
"They've never had to deal with me," Eroica replied coolly.
"This is serious!" she cried again, trying to pull him back.
"So am I," he replied evenly. "What about you? Aren't you worried about the Doctor?"
"The Doctor can take care of himself!" she snapped back. But instantly, she saw in her mind's eye the twisted, horrified and malicious look that had taken over the Doctor's features in Van Statten's museum, when he had been confronted with just one Dalek. Now…she was suddenly unsure, and bit her lip, worry for the Doctor flooding into her chest, compounding the horror she had instinctively felt surge through her at the sight of the Dalek forces.
It was too much…too much… "I—I don't know…"
No.
She was not that weak. She had saved the Doctor's life before, just as he had saved hers. This time, she told herself, swallowing the lump that had been building in her throat, would be no different. Taking a steadying breath, she forced herself to look up and meet the Earl's gaze with steadfast determination.
"Alright," she agreed. "Let's go back, then."
"I can see you're afraid. You don't have to come." It wasn't spoken with the mocking-tone she might have expected, but rather with genuine sympathy. And she wasn't sure whether that made her feel comforted or annoyed her, so she brushed ahead past the thief without another word, and began walking back to where they had left their companions…
The place was deserted when they reached it. Rose looked around in frustration, brushing long strands of blonde hair from her face. "Doctor!" she called. "He has a habit of wandering off and getting into trouble wherever we go…" she paused, biting her lip, and turned back to Dorian. "You don't think…?"
"There isn't any blood," Eroica replied, his gaze tracing the ground and surrounding debris carefully. "And these other footprints in the dirt here look more human than Dalek…"
"Good. So. Then. We just have to find them, right?" she asked, gesturing a little with her arms.
Dorian smiled. "I'm sure they'll be okay. They're amazing chaps, really. Your Doctor and my Major."
"So, do you just want to wait here for them, then? Or find some shelter?" she asked.
"I suppose it might not be wise to wait around out here in the open in this sort of place," the Earl agreed, surveying the ruined city once more. "So depressing, really," he murmured. "War lacks all sense of aesthetics, don't you think? Such a waste…I wonder what it looked like before…"
Together, they picked their way across the ruins and ventured a few feet into one of the near-collapsed buildings. They sat on the ground with their backs against the cold cement walls. "We shouldn't have gotten separated again, what a pain…" Eroica mused. "I suppose it won't do any good to go around looking for them, I don't think I would care to run into another group of those Daleks, not with just the two of us, anyways."
"No…" Rose murmured in agreement. "But I can't stand this waiting around…" she picked a piece of rubble out of her hair and flicked it away, turning to regard the thief once more. "Listen…I want to apologize for if I seemed…nasty, when we first met."
"Do not dwell on it," the Earl murmured, leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed as though he were dozing. He looked quite serene, actually, as though they weren't in the slightest bit of danger, stranded and alone on a Dalek-infested alien planet. "After all, all that we do is fleeting…in the golden light of the morrow today's troubles will be but memories…"
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you always have to be like that?"
"Like what?" he asked, giving her the perfect look of wounded innocence.
"All aristocratic and snobbish!"
"Snobbish? Moi? What a vulgar term, I am merely a poetic spirit," Eroica replied, touching a hand to his chest in a moment of solemnity before breaking out into a wide grin. "Honestly, Miss Tyler, we may be stranded here for some time. It would be nice if we could pass it without fighting for a few hours, don't you think?"
She smiled slightly and shook her head at him, but it wasn't a 'no.' "Alright then, let's be civil to each other, shall we?" she grinned. "We'll call it a truce, then."
Eroica blinked. "I didn't know we were at war."
The silence lengthened between them. The thick grey shadows which hung heavily overhead were slowly eaten away by the thick blackness of night, and the air became cold, although the smell of distant fires burning still carried on the wind. The old ruined building creaked and moaned around them, and Rose shifted uncomfortably, drawing her knees up to her chest. "I hate this, you know?"
"Completely. It's so terribly dull. If we were somewhere familiar—"
"You mean Earth?" she grinned.
He smiled. "I would have made off long ago. Or at least gone to see if there was anything worth stealing in the neighbourhood."
"I know. But it's so…"
"Alien,"
"But that's the fun of it, though,"
"Completely," he laughed.
"But, I still miss my family, you know…Mickey, and my mum…" she said, tilting her head to one side, long blonde hair spilling over her shoulder as she studied the Earl's profile.
"Mickey?" Eroica asked, one golden eyebrow piquing with some interest.
"My boyfriend," she murmured, feeling her face flush slightly at the memory of her sweet but nerveless sweetheart.
"Boyfriend?" Dorian asked, sounding quite like he didn't believe her. "What about the Doctor?"
Rose felt her face instantly burn, like it always did when people thought she and the Doctor were together. WHY did everyone think they were a couple? It was getting painful to have to deny it every single time.
"The Doctor and I are NOT a couple!" she practically shouted. "He—why he isn't even human for one thing. And the age difference is astronomical…"
"Love can conquer such trivial things, supposedly…" the romantic Englishman mused, twirling one of his golden curls around one finger with a bemused expression on his face.
"ANYWAY," Rose coughed loudly, wanting very much to AVOID the topic of her relationship with the Doctor for the moment. Her own feelings on the subject were quite painful enough without discussing them. Dreaming for an impossible romance…what was she, a fourteen year old? She shook her head however, unable to stop herself from thinking about how it had felt when the Doctor had told her she was beautiful, and the warm glow it brought back to her cheeks as she heard his voice in her memory.
"Rose…?" the Earl asked, sounding a bit concerned.
"Uh—right—anyways—let's um…where were we? Oh right, my mum—I miss her terribly sometimes," she said hurriedly. "We fight awfully and she's a bit barmy, and a downright pain at times. She flirts with everyone, even my boyfriends! It's downright scary sometimes, I swear she thinks she's still in her twenties!
"But she was terrified the first time I left…I'll never forget the look on her face when I came home and she thought I was dead.
"What about you?" she asked, looking at the Earl. "Do you have any family you miss?"
"Oh yes," the Earl smiled fondly. "My poor little James…that's my accountant…the poor dear must be positively hysterical by now. And Bonham, and Jones…all my boys. I wonder what they're doing now? Wondering where I am? They aren't too worried, I hope. Not to the point where they think me dead yet, at any rate."
"Oh…" Rose replied. It hadn't been quite what she meant, and she looked at the Earl curiously. It would probably be good manners to drop the subject rather than press. But, well, she was sure that by this time there were plenty of people and aliens in the universe who could vouch for her lack of social etiquette. Besides, the Earl had asked her an uncomfortable question, bringing up her relationship with the Doctor. So, she pressed: "But don't you have any family? Your dad and your mum?"
Besides, she was bored, and it couldn't be anything that bad, he was a rich aristocrat after all. He had, no doubt been spoiled rotten as a child!
So she was unprepared for the brief flash of a raw pained and the stony expression that flitted across the Earl's smooth features. It was only there for one brief, unguarded instant, before it was replaced quickly with one of the Earl's usual sunny smiles.
But it had been there.
An almost frightened look.
"Well, my father passed away a few years ago…" the Prince of Thieves shrugged, although Rose thought the sunny smile then appeared slightly dimmed. "I miss him…wherever I am…whether here, or back on Earth."
"Oh…I know how you feel. My father also…I'm sorry for bringing it up," she sighed, toying with a strand of hair.
"All that we do is fleeting, gone in an instant," he smiled wistfully, peering up through his golden curls towards the black night sky. "We can't see the stars here," he mused quietly, and after a moment, returned his gaze back to her, although the sapphire eyes seemed focused on some distant point not really there. "You're lucky, that somewhere out there, you have a mother who is worried about you, waiting for you to come home."
She looked at him curiously, but it didn't feel right to say anything. He had a strangely distant look in his eyes as he smiled at her. "A mother's love is supposedly one of the most beautiful things in the world. Or so I've read."
Rose watched him silently, with wide eyes. This was a side of Eroica she had not seen before. Gone, were the thief's gleeful overtures and masks of frivolity. And for that one silent moment, the pomp of the cosmopolitan aristocrat and the debonair grace were also shed, and Dorian was just another human being, like herself, with old long faded scars of sadness resting in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "For whatever happened. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories, or anything."
"No, it's nothing," the thief smiled, looking at her again with the mask of blazing happiness once more firmly in place. "Old things, I've long forgotten. Water under the bridge, as they say. Besides, I guess it should hardly come as any surprise that I'm not exactly the 'ideal son' for trying to conserve a family bloodline, hmm? Your mother may embarrass you with her barmy antics, but it beats being locked in a dirty old tower all alone for hours on end, let me tell you!"
It was said lightly, with a smile and a good-natured laugh, but Rose noticed that the blue eyes weren't quite so bright as they should have been, and she herself, suddenly felt like a heel.
She had just assumed, since they had first met, that the Earl had grown up spoiled and pampered with all of the advantages the rich received and normal folks like she and her mother, living in their tiny apartment in London, could only dream about. She'd never even thought to consider what should have been obvious—the personal and social ramifications of Dorian's lifestyle. If she considered how homophobic and intolerant a lot of people were in the year 2005, she could only imagine what it must have been like decades earlier, in the Earl's time. He could not be the airhead she had seen at first glance, she realized, because an airhead would never have bothered to follow his heart when that simple choice proved to be so unfairly difficult. If he was an airhead, he would have taken the easy way out and at least pretended to be straight, normal. 'Someone to continue the family bloodline…'
She swallowed, suddenly feeling terrible. Even if she did fight with her own mother at almost every opportunity, and the woman nearly drove her mad with her flirting and immaturity, Rose had never once in her life felt like her mother didn't love her.
"Rose? Rose, are you alright? You look a touch ill," the Earl was gently shaking her shoulder, looking quite concerned. "How are you, dear? Not dehydrated, I hope? Do feel faint?"
"I—I'm fine," she answered uneasily, I just haven't been thinking about you as a fellow human being since we've met—! God, she bit her lip. "She didn't really lock you in the tower did she?"
Eroica merely laughed and moved to stand up, stretching his back and arms as he did so. "Don't worry about silly happenings from the past, my dear! Besides, my father always came to let me out again. I had the most wonderful father. It wasn't as though my life was that bad!" he laughed, gesturing with one hand as though to clear away her concerns.
"Now if you don't mind, I have had quite enough of this senseless and dreary waiting! If I didn't know better I would say that those two were meaning to leave us here—although I doubt your Doctor would ever do that to you—what do you say we go find them? By this point I don't much care whether we run into those dreadful garbage cans—"
"Daleks," she corrected, giggling.
"Daleks," Eroica grinned, "Anything is preferable to this insufferable waiting!"
"Agreed!" Rose nodded, dusting the grey dirt and rubble from her sweater as she stood beside him.
"Well, shall we?" Eroica asked, offering her his arm with a quite exaggerated show.
"Why, Lord Gloria, I thought you'd never ask!" she giggled, taking his arm, as they made their way out of the ruins and back into the Dalek-enslaved metropolis.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
It did not take long for Farr to lead the Doctor and Major Eberbach to the shoddily constructed shelter that the surviving Renell had constructed beneath the city-streets. They had constructed trench-like passageways, partly from existing tunnels that might have once served as sewers or a subway system, with more tunnels and escape-routes hastily dug out, clumps of dark earth supported with shaky wooden rafters and slipping buttresses. The central meeting place where the survivors stored their weapons and supplies was also located directly beneath an old factory which, the alien informed them, housed highly explosive chemical materials.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor could see Major Eberbach regarding the shoddy work with an unimpressed scowl, but at the same time, the officer appeared to be enjoying the obvious danger of the situation, the atmosphere and danger of the approaching warfare. By 'enjoying,' of course, the Doctor meant that he merely noted a hard glint in the German's green eyes and a slight twitch upwards at the corners of his mouth.
"So, what have we got here?" the Doctor asked, turning back to Farr and rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "These are the most ruthless creatures in the universe we're dealing with here, you had better have something for us to work with!"
The Major was, in the mean time, intently studying the maps the Renell hastily retrieved for him. He already had them scurrying about in fright and following his orders, the Doctor noted this with some amazement. It seemed at least one of them was in his element.
"You! Bring me the plans for these tunnels. And you! Don't just stand around gawking like an idiot! I want a list of the points the Daleks have established stations at, as well as a complete account of the supplies stored here and…"
The Doctor shook his head and ventured a ways farther down the tunnel, poking about until he practically collided with a short dark-haired girl. She was pale and thin, streaks of dirt marking a sharp contrast to her pale face. Wide brown eyes looked up at him in startled fright, but he had on his usual manic grin, which seemed to put her at ease. "Hello there, I was wondering if you could show me were you keep the weapons?"
When she smiled nervously, he thought it best to add: "The really, really BIG weapons."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"I wish we knew what happened to the TARDIS," Rose continued, as she teetered uncertainly on one jagged piece of rubble before jumping off and landing beside Eroica. "Check the TARDIS key the Doctor gave you," she told him, pulling her own small silver key from the pocket of her jeans.
The keys lay in their hands, flat and cool and perfectly ordinary. Dorian raised an eyebrow at her. "Are they supposed to be doing something?"
She sighed. "When the TARDIS is nearby, they glow."
"Oh. Then this isn't a good sign, is it?"
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"What do you think, K-9?" the Doctor asked, hoisting an enormous black and silver cannon up onto his shoulder. "It's not dalekanium, but do you think this'll do the trick?"
A little antennae equipped with a small round red disk stretched out of the robot dog's eye band and towards the weapon. K-9 paused for a moment as his data banks scanned the equipment before the mechanical voice chirped: "Affirmative, Master. If a direct shot is fired upon a Dalek at a range of 6 meters there is 87.592 chance of resulting in irreparable damage to that Dalek. There is 92.345 margin of error in that calculation. Approximately."
"Thank you, K-9. Now I want you to go and find Rose and Lord Gloria, and bring them back to this shelter, alright?"
"Affirmative, Master."
"Oh, and K-9?"
"Yes, Master?"
"Be careful."
"I am familiar with Daleks, Master. I have been programmed with data files from—"
"Yes, yes, what I meant was—don't get yourself incinerated."
"Understood, Master. That would impair my ability to locate Master Gloria and Miss Tyler," the dog's ears twisted around once, twice, and then it skidded sharply backwards and twisted around, trundling off, its pointed silver tail sticking out behind it.
The Doctor shook his head. He couldn't decide whether or not it had been a good idea to build the fourth K-9 unit. Every time he looked at him, it brought back memories of faces no more to be seen, previous companions who had left him, disappeared into the sands of time and the vastness of the universe, that he would never see again. Leela, Sarah Jane and Harry, Romana…but he had seen Romana again, hadn't he? His dearest friend, fellow Time Lord, in the end she had become the president of Gallifrey…but Gallifrey, the Time Lords, Romana, Leela…they were all gone.
He gripped the heavy cannon over his shoulder tightly, taking one deep, shuddering breath. Gone, because of the Daleks. Now he was the only wanderer in the Fifth dimension…except perhaps…he thought of what that rat Ristead had told them, and then the TARDIS...
"What IS going on here?" he muttered darkly, distracted as Major Eberbach stormed in. The Major was scowling darkly, and looked ready to strangle someone, but was settling for smoking another cigarette instead. So in other words, the situation was under control and they had a solid plan, the Doctor mused.
"Morons! They have NO survival instincts whatsoever! According to what they've told me, the Dalek army has been searching these tunnels in a slowly widening circle for weeks now. If they continue this pattern the Daleks should be on top of us in HOURS, if not sooner! And these idiots didn't even think to MOVE!"
The Doctor almost pointed out that the Renell really had no where left to move to, and weren't a species that was accustomed to warfare, hence their alliance with the mysteriously not-present Roktarr military. But then he decided it really wasn't worth the effort, and merely watched the Major continue his rant.
"I got the idiots to set up explosives along the inner walls of the tunnels. Hopefully, we can trap some of the Daleks underground. Then, we move to the abandoned factory above us, also lined with explosives—"
"The one that's filled with combustible chemicals?"
"If we can trigger a large enough explosion, Farr seems to think we could get the attention of the Roktarr military that's supposed to be coming. Their other forms of communication have been shut down since the invasion. It could be used as a sort of S.O.S. signal."
"Alright, so we lure the Daleks into the factory and then blow the entire mess sky-high. Here, take this," the Doctor added, shifting the alien cannon from his shoulder and tossing it to the Major. "The recoil's deadly, but not, I suppose, to a man who can fire a Magnum with just one hand."
The Major snorted. "And you?"
"I'll live. But I'm more worried about Dorian and Rose. I told K-9 to find them and bring them back here."
The Major's expression suddenly changed to the utterly blank mask which seemed to jump up whenever the thief was in danger. A mask of guarded concern? The Doctor wondered. "I'm sure they'll be fine. K-9 makes a good guard-dog."
"Sir! Lookout says the Daleks are coming this way," one of the Renell cried, running up to them.
The Doctor couldn't help scowling a bit. He'd travelled all over the universe for centuries and people had never called him sir. They'd usually been too busy trying to kill him. Shoot him, or stab him, or blow him into tiny bits, or dissect him…
The Major was busy giving the Renell a series of orders. The Doctor didn't really listen, but the dark clouds of memories were once more rolling in over his mind. He had to fight to keep his mind, his emotions, under control. He refused to lose control again, as he very nearly had in Van Statten's museum.
They would get through this. And they would leave.
Somehow.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Dorian started as Rose screamed, and the ground jolted out sharply from beneath his feet. The towering buildings looming above them creaked and shuddered, thick columns of grey dirt slid down from the walls and ceilings, bursting into great dark clouds as chunks of ceilings and walls crashed to the ground around them.
"Rose!" Dorian shouted, grabbing her arm and pulling her back in time to narrowly escape a giant piece of crumbling mortar that slammed into the earth, exploding into a thick burst of shards and debris.
"Uh…thanks," she gasped, brushing her hair from her face. "What's happening?"
Dorian's eyes grew wide. In the sky, racing towards them, were the burning, spiraling lights of missiles, columns of smoke tailing out behind them. For a moment, he just stared, in shock. "Get down!" he screamed, pulling Rose to the ground as the missiles crashed over their heads, swerving down and exploding in the ruins behind them.
The entire ground reverberated with the echoing blast, and hot air tore over them in a violent wave, whipping their hair back and forcing a sheet of dirt and sand across their skin.
"Dorian!" she tugged at his arm and he raised his head to peer across the wasteland that surrounded them…straight into the bulbous glass eyes of the Daleks.
"Inferior life-forms detected. Humans. Intruders into Dalek-occupied space."
"Do not move. You are prisoners." One of the mechanical voices grated out, as the creature raised and lowered it's rifle-arm in short, jerking movements.
Dorian and Rose remained huddled on the ground amidst the smoking ruins as the Daleks surveyed them. There were at least a score of the aliens, their metallic heads twisted as they studied the human intruders, their eye-stalks stretched and lowered as they examined the thief and the girl.
"What are our orders?"
They seemed to be communicating with other Daleks somehow. Finally, the creature nearest Eroica made a cutting gesture with it's rifle-arm. "Stand up. You may serve some purpose before you are exterminated."
Rose shakily stood, Dorian saw that she was trembling, and not exactly without reason, as the creatures proceeded to surround them. He stood beside her, and one of the Daleks rolled up behind them, pointing the barrel of its weapon into the Earl's back. He glanced to his side, and blue eyes met brown, he knew that both probably looked terrified.
He wanted to reassure her, somehow, but there were twenty laser-rifles aimed at them. Not even the Prince of Thieves knew how to get out of this one.
"Move," the Dalek commanded.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Iron Klaus pulled back the trigger on the weapon the Doctor had handed him. It was almost a rocket-launcher, the ammunition it fired appeared to be a blinding sphere of light the size of a basketball. He wasn't sure how it made sense, or what it was made out of, but he had to hand it to the Doctor, at least the thing made a decent explosion.
Hmph.
The recoil was enough so that he definitely felt it, like an incredible kick in the chest, which hardly mattered to THE Iron Klaus, he thought, straightening and firing another shot, from his station along the barren rooftop of the abandoned factory, at the encroaching Dalek forces. He watched as the ball of energy surged and exploded in the far distance, resulting in a quite satisfying burst of earth and Daleks. This had been missing in NATO. This had definitely been missing in NATO. He smirked at the pure madness of it.
The explosion that had collapsed the Renell's underground tunnels had succeeded in trapping some of the enemy forces, but not enough. No matter how many they killed, more and more continued to appear. The Daleks fired missiles and continued to advance, seeming not to care in the slightest that their comrades were being destroyed right in front of them. The Major thought about what the Doctor had told him earlier, and reasoned that, perhaps they didn't.
Beside him, Farr was busy shouting orders to his men. The Doctor stood at the other end of the rooftop, studying the Dalek forces through some sort of binocular-like gadget. "STOP!" he shouted suddenly, turning to face the Major. "Stop, don't fire!"
"What is it!" he snapped angrily. "Do you want them to kill us!"
"They have Rose and Eroica!" the Doctor shouted, tossing him the binoculars. "Look!"
Klaus jerked the binoculars to his eyes and glared across the field. Sure enough, that stupid God-damn mad idiot thief had gotten himself and the girl caught. The two were surrounded by a group of the Daleks, stumbling forwards, laser-guns pointed at their backs. And surprise of surprises, the bloody thief actually looked scared for once.
The Major felt the casing of the binoculars crack under his grip and threw them quite forcefully back to the Doctor, his jaw clenched almost painfully. "What do they want?" he growled.
"We have prisoners," the Daleks stated in their raw, emotionless manner, once they had gotten so near the building that they stood directly below the Major and were all but walking in the front doors. "Obey our commands or these two will die."
The Major felt his blood boiling with anger. At the Renell for being so inept, at the Doctor for bringing them here, at Eroica for being stupid enough to get caught, and the Daleks for daring to use Eroica to get to him, for pointing their freakish alien weapons at the Earl. For… damn it. He'd just seen the Earl shot and almost killed. For whatever stupid reason, it hurt more than he thought getting shot himself would have.
He wasn't going to go through that again.
Damn them. Damn him. Damn everything.
"What do you want?" the Doctor asked.
Klaus studied the man, he wore an unusually serious expression, the manic grin and shining eyes had been replaced with a grim sobriety. He looked much like Klaus felt, for that moment.
And damn it, but…Klaus thought, looking down at their captive allies once more, but the thief even looked sorry. Their eyes met for one single second. The blue ones worried, scared. So strange to see Eroica looking at him that way. Klaus felt his hand clench into a tightly curled fist as his gaze moved slowly to the Daleks that surrounded them.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
What do I…? Eroica bit his lower lip, worriedly glancing to the girl by his side and the Dalek army that surrounded them. There has to be some way…
He looked back up, to where the Major stood watching from atop the crumbling old infrastructure of the factory. The man's long raven-black hair was pushed back in the wind, the large alien gun resting on his right arm, and he leaned forwards ever-so-slightly, looking down at them, like a might war-god from antiquity.
The Major even bore an expression of…Dorian caught his breath. The Major looked worried for him. It was that same softened, dangerously unguarded expression as he had seen the officer wear in Greece, when the KGB had pushed Eroica's red Maserati from a cliff, and the Major had, briefly, believed the Earl was dead.
Oh, Darling, you should know better than anyone else, I can get myself into these situations, I can always get out again…of course even I could use some help now and again. And doesn't the universe rather owe me? I mean I did get that solar-diamond-thing back for those strange purple aliens…
"Move, prisoner!" the hard metallic voice of the Dalek behind them commanded, and the thief felt the hard metal barrel of the alien rifle jab sharply into his back, causing him to stumble forwards shakily.
"Now hang on a minute!" he snapped. "I don't think that just because you have a gun at my back gives you the right to push me around!"
"Silence, impudent human," the Dalek commanded, raising the rifle threateningly.
"Look out, Master!" the sudden intrusion of the dog's voice briskly chirping across what had, moments before, been a grimly silent battle ground, caused Eroica to look up with a wide smile.
"K-9!"
"Master, Mistress, please get down."
A moment later, a burst of red laser-fire shot out from the dog's nose, burning into the thick metal shell of the Dalek behind them with a loud sizzling crackle. The Daleks instantly turned their sights to the new threat, and Dorian grabbed Rose's arm hastily and pulled her out of the way. She stumbled into him, and they ducked low as laser fire exploded around their heads.
"Run!" Dorian shouted, pushing her in the direction of the factory.
She hurried ahead of him, but stopped part ways through the door, looking back, over her shoulder, long blonde hair swaying in front of her face. "Oh my God, K-9!"
Dorian looked back as well, through the wall of red lasers and the thick columns of smoke and explosions that had begun again as the aliens stationed atop the factory resumed their attack on the Dalek invaders. The entire building shuddered and creaked around them, debris dribbling in a smoky rain from the supports in the ceiling, as the structure groaned and screeched in protest and the ground lurched beneath them. Eroica felt his legs tremble violently at the tremors and saw Rose grasping the nearby wall for support.
A great portion of cement exploded above her head and she shrieked, falling to her knees as the world heaved beneath them once more. Smouldering pieces of wall slid down over her head and shoulders, and Eroica watched with wide eyes, stumbling back against the side of the wall, as one of the Daleks approached, it's singular eye jerking back and forth, scanning the area.
"Humans detected. Orders are to exterminate. Exterminate."
Its laser-rifle jerked upwards in preparation, aimed squarely for the girl.
"Mistress!" The red burst of light exploded through the smoke and shadows, striking the Dalek directly in its rifle-arm. The creature flailed for a moment, seeming confused, and a second laser fired, striking the crumbling ceiling directly above the Dalek's head.
In a deafening crash and thick cloud of smoke and rubble, the alien threat was buried.
Dorian rested for a moment against the shuddering wall, catching his breath. And then he saw the little robot dog make its way through the rubble and gasped.
K-9's metal casing was cracked open, the bright collar around the neck splintered apart, and sparks and wires crackling with sparks of electricity stuck through the ruined metal. The dog slid forwards a few more feet, slowing, its battery packs obviously struggling. The head hung limp to one side, swaying, cords and wires hanging loosely from the shoulders. The red eyeband was cracked and smashed apart, and the entire robot shuddered and shivered as though it would fall to pieces at any moment.
"Oh no…" the Earl murmured, crossing to the little robot's side, he looked down on it in horror. "K-9…"
"Maaaaa……sterrrrrrr….."
"Oh K-9, hang in there!" he said without thinking, kneeling down beside the dog. "I—I'm sure that the Doctor can fix this! Only—oh hang on!"
"Dooccctorrr…."
"Oh K-9, you've been a—such a good dog!" Eroica exclaimed, finding his throat catching as he looked down at the damaged robot. It was just a robot, wasn't it? But still, he felt absolutely wretched seeing it that way.
"Maaa…sterrr….?"
"K-9!" the Earl quickly put his arms around the little dog and carefully hoisted him up. K-9 was quite heavy, and he staggered a little under the weight, feeling the ruined metal casing of the head bump dully against his side. "Oh K-9, you poor old thing! I'm sure the Doctor can fix you!"
He turned back to Rose, holding K-9 in his arms, "Come on, we've got to find them!"
"You have," a familiar Northern accent said behind them, and Rose and Dorian turned to see the Doctor clamouring down the stairs. He leapt to the ground beside them.
For one long moment, Dorian watched as Rose and the Doctor stared at each other in silence. Dirt trailed from the crumbling structure, the walls shuddered, and the air seemed still and empty but for their trembling breaths.
The Doctor and the girl were both silent, staring at one another, and then she was in his arms, and the Doctor was clutching her tightly, protectively, against his chest. She pressed against the leather jacket that covered his shoulders, and his arms tightened around her for one long, clear moment, before he released her and stood gazing at her.
He said nothing, it seemed as though he had forgotten how to speak, his eyes were darkened and moist, and his expression was heavy, weighted with guilt and worry, and it almost seemed, Dorian thought, studying them, a sort of heartbreaking realization that for some reason seemed very, very sad.
"Doctor…" Rose whispered, staring at him in confusion as one hand reached forwards and brushed a few stray strands of gold from the side of her face.
"I could have lost you."
"It doesn't matter. It's alright now. We're fine, see?" she smiled, but there were tears shining in her soft brown eyes. "Doctor—" and she was in his arms again. He buried his face in her golden hair for a minute, breathing in deeply. "I'm so glad I met you!" she gasped, pulling away and wiping the tears from her face.
"Me too, Rose…" he murmured back, watching her, again, with eyes that seemed just a little too saddened, as though he carried some inner secret knowledge that…
Dorian frowned.
"Can you save that for later, when we're all not dead?" he asked, as the building around them gave one last shuddering groan and the explosions outside drew nearer. "And Doctor, your dog…"
"K-9!" the Doctor exclaimed, rushing over and quickly lifting the heavy burden from Eroica's arms.
"What are YOU IDIOTS still doing here!" another very familiar voice bellowed, shaking the decrepit walls even more than they were. "The Renell have all evacuated already! The enemy has taken over the front end of the building! The explosives are set to go off at any minute! I can't believe this!"
But you knew we would still be in here, and you came back to find us, Dorian thought, smiling a little. "For your information, Major, K-9 is critically wounded!"
The German regarded him with a blank stare for several minutes before dryly stating: "It can not be 'wounded' it is a robot—a machine—"
"Can you fix it?" Dorian asked, turning back to the Doctor and pointedly ignoring the Major, probably for the first time in their lives.
The Doctor was cradling the dog in his arms and studying the damaged circuits and wires with a deep, unsettling frown on his face and a line of concentration creasing his forehead.
"You must be able to fix it!" the Earl exclaimed, unable to stop the worry from flooding into his voice. Even if K-9 was a robot, he seemed more like a living being, he had a personality, he was…a companion. A friend.
Eroica caught his breath.
"I should be able to fix it," the Time Lord replied, tilting the metal body a little so that it made a non-to-healthy rattling sound. "I am the Doctor, after all," he looked back at the Earl with a reassuring grin.
Eroica felt himself smile a little at that, although he could not help regarding the broken thing in the Doctor's arms sadly.
And that's when he caught the Major staring at him. It was so sudden.—As though something like staring was ever done suddenly!—But the Earl felt his heart jump as he caught the Major in the corner of his eye, and when he turned, he was staring directly into those beautiful deep green orbs. Klaus never stared at him. Well, he glared at him sometimes, before he hit him for instance, but he had never, to Dorian's recollection, stared at him before. And the expression—difficult to read—almost, oddly, sympathetic?
"I—it is little more than an elaborate toy, Lord Gloria. I doubt it can feel any pain…"
"But K-9 is—"
Then it hit him. So hard the realization cut off what he had been going to say.
The Major is trying to comfort me?
"SHIEßE! What! What are you staring at!"
Me?
"Oh. Sorry, I guess I just do it out of habit nowadays," he smiled. "Although I am happy you're trying to make me feel better, darling…"
The Major's eyes instantly grew wide and all the colour drained from his face. It was actually really rather comical, the thief mused, tapping his fingertips against his lips thoughtfully. Klaus actually looked more terrified then when the Daleks had been shooting at them. "I—I was doing no such thing! I was just—it is just—a—a matter of fact and common sense—"
The Doctor, who had been watching the exchange between the two with a somewhat amused expression, suddenly frowned thoughtfully. "Wait a minute. Aren't we forgetting something here?"
"Yeah," Rose added. "Didn't you say something about explosives?"
"Verdammt! The explosives!"
"What? Explosives?" Eroica blinked, shaking his head so that the curls flew wildly. "What explosives? Where?"
"HERE, YOU IDIOT!"
"HERE!" Eroica squeaked. "Why didn't you say something earlier!"
The Major positively growled at him, he looked ready to murder Eroica this time, but to the thief's surprise (and relief) he merely grabbed his upper-arm in an iron-grip and began to pull him quickly down the hallway. Dorian stumbled after him, wincing a little at the bruising grip on his arm and the awkwardness of trying in such a manner.
"I can run on my own, Major!"
"Shut up, idiot!"
The Doctor and Rose were on their heels, and the walls continued to collapse around them. In the distance, they heard the whining screech of laser fire and the bursts of rubble and cement cracking and exploding. The thin high pitched voices tore through the chaos like a knife, shrieking. "Exterminate! Exterminate!"
Dorian felt himself shudder at the voices, and nearly tripped over the Major's feet, stumbling so hard he probably would have fallen if not for the—now excruciating—grip on his arm. Klaus somehow managed to shake him roughly at the same time as dragging him—and the next thing the thief knew, they were through the factory doors, and running through the cold black night.
Through the corner of his eye, Dorian glimpsed Rose and the Doctor run out beside them and sprint several more yards to the left. "Major, how many explosives did—"
There was a crash like nothing the Earl had experienced before. The entire world seemed to erupt behind them in a fire blaze of inferno, the blast cracking through the air with such a force that Dorian thought his skull might burst. The hot scalding air swept over them, a wash of pain so thick and burning he wanted to scream, but could not remember how to work his throat, or where his mouth was. Everything seemed twisted and pushed beyond reality, and the next thing he knew, the ground disappeared beneath his feet and the entire world twisted around on itself.
Somewhere, he heard a distant fall, a thick rain of dirt and debris. There was a shuddering blow that ran throughout his entire body, and then everything went blissfully dark.
To be Continued in Episode 07: Dancing in Versailles, in 1689