Chapter 3: Midgame
"What did you do?" Mickey asked. He didn't have much time to explain.
"Mickey, if all you're gonna do is stand around and ask me questions about everything then what use are you. Now just do as I tell you. Pull those yellow wires out and be careful not to get the liquid inside on you," he said and dashed over the last remaining console with power. He had decided a slight detour to the engine room before visiting the TARDIS was in order. Now the playing field was increasingly being levelled.
He pushed in the codes, ancient Dalek ones as this place was obviously originally one of the Dalek's bases before the humans had managed to find it. A small outpost capable of hiding outside of time. Unreachable unless of course you were a Time Lord. The perfect staging point for war. He finished his little surprise then aimed his sonic screwdriver at the console and watched as it fried. He turned to find Mickey standing next to the properly destroyed and discarded wires. "Good, now to visit the TARDIS," he said and dashed off.
"This guy is very clever," he mused as around him his torch showed both Frank and Nelly arming themselves in their combat gear.
"Should we get the power up first," Nelly asked.
"Good idea, I want you and Frank... together to go the engine room, but watch out for traps this alien has a devious mind," he suggested.
"And you?" Frank asked over the whine of a charging plasma pulse rifle.
"I will help with the hunt and kill... Wait a minute, hah I have a better idea. Our assault ship. It has both a transmat and sensors Nelly will go there, get a lock on them and transport them back to their cell. No more running around blind risking a firefight," he said.
"Brilliant," Nelly said and went off.
"Frank you and I are on sweep duty now. We will go from compartment to compartment check 'em then seal 'em until we corner them," he said. They went off.
He glanced around the corner, his eyes had adapted to the darkness. Mickey was fair way back making sure they weren't getting jumped from behind. He could hear them, feel them, two humans close-by, hiding waiting to jump them. However given his rather brilliant mind he had a rather good idea about what to do. He carefully and as soundlessly connected the screwdriver to the wiring of overhead lights, switched the lights off and charged them full of ions. He picked up the loose piece of panel at his feet. The lights started to glow every so slightly from the charge. There was a slight hum. He threw the piece as hard as possible and faced away. There was a massive light flash.
"Arrgh my eyes," he heard the humans yell. He turned, ran forward and grabbed the first one's gun from the floor. He pointed the neural projector towards the other one fired then back to the first one and fired again. To satisfying thumps later he called, "Mickey, come on, the way is free." He went over to pick up the other rifle.
Mickey ran into the room. He made out the two bodies lying on the floor, "Oi mate did you kill 'em."
He let out a long suffering sigh, "Mickey, these are disintegrator rifles, if I had used them to kill there would've been just dust." He turned towards the TARDIS and walked inside putting the second rifle down just inside.
"Now, we've been back. Can we go look for Rose?" Mickey remained at the door tapping his foot impatiently. He made a few adjustments to the TARDIS and asked the old girl to ignore Rose's key until he rescinded the order. He looked at the sensor display taking another better look at the base. There was a life sign that matched the time/space resonance of Rose Tyler three decks up.
He picked up the rifle, made the adjustments he wanted then, walked over and handed it to Mickey. "This trigger fires the neural projector, that one the disintegrator, so don't use it. I've set it to boost the neural projector at the cost of the power cell of the disintegrator. That way you'll just have to hit the general area to win. I know, you know point and click from your games so just think of it like that. Thankfully you can't kill anyone unless you use the disintegrator. Now to go pick up Rose."
Mickey apparently manned himself up, took better hold of the gun and nodded to himself. He took his gun and followed the human back out, making sure the door locked behind with only a thought.
"Anything yet Nelly," he whispered into his com-bracelet.
"Nope, Jack, the ship is having trouble getting through the internal armour, but I do know one thing. The engines are still running at full power, so I guess we could restore power," her voice replied.
"Anything from Chris and Ross," Frank asked a bit nervously.
"Nothing, they're not responding to my calls," Nelly answered.
"Bloody hell, ok, Nelly baby, keep the doors to the ship locked. If you loose touch with Frank and I, then get out, fetch Barnard or call HQ for support, complete communication silence be damned," he commanded.
"Sure, Jack," Nelly replied although he heard a tone of her not being happy stuck on the ship. They were approaching the ready room where the strange blue box had appeared. He glanced down at the short range sensor, there was two human sensor echoes in front of them. He wavered the torch mounted on his rifle down and saw the knocked out bodies of Chris and Ross on the ground.
"Damn they've got them," Frank said. He turned and looked at the timeship that had materialized in the room. It was still there. Which meant...
"You can say that again, we've got to go back up. They've got their guns, a clear way to their ship, so all they're missing is the last prisoner," he explained and rapidly turned around. "Come on," he said and set off running as fast as he could in the dark. Frank pounded along behind him.
They swung a corner and found the tight duct with ladders leading up to the decks above. He let Frank go first for multiple reasons, but mostly to keep an eye out for their enemies. They climbed up the two floors and headed onto the command deck. "Be careful," he whispered.
There was a click next to them, a panel fell open. Frank fired his disintegrator. The entire wall evaporated into dust revealing nothing. "Feeling Jump..." he started saying but a white bolt hit Frank in the side. He dropped and rolled. He was too late they were ahead of him in the corridor leading into the command and control room next to their offices. Frank was down. He huddled in the alcove as another few white bolts flew by. Only the apparent mercy of his enemies kept them from simply disintegrating him.
He reached down, feeling a bit sweaty and activated his connection to Nelly and whispered, "Nelly, can you transmat the girl, the remaining prisoner out of here and then me?".
"Quick please," he whispered before she could answer as another neural energy bolt wizzed by.
Mickey covered the dim corridor keeping Jack pinned. He turned and looked around. They had refurbished the Dalek command center extensively. He spotted the massive hole in the wall. He walked closer until he spotted her. Rose lying unconscious and apparently shackled like an animal on a table. She looked horrible and the very thought of an interrogation made his synapses run white-hot with anger. Then he spotted an unexpected H'Fahni corpse on the floor. It had apparently committed suicide. "Now what are you doing here and what happened to you," he mused while reaching for his screwdriver to undo Rose's shackles then suddenly there was a white light and she disappeared out of his grasp again.
"Bloody hell," he cursed and turned around. He programmed his screwdriver to give off a high frequency and activated it. Somewhere deep in the station the noise would trigger his program, his surprise. Jack was going to leave on his ship, so he might as well take away the hiding place outside time that was probably the reason the Chtonians could only sit at Eridani awaiting their fate.
"Mickey, we're leaving," he said, internally noting how much he sounded like his more intense predecessor at the moment. It seemed they shared that trait the intensity when they got upset.
"What about Rose," Mickey asked after firing another shot down the corridor.
"They took her and Jack is also leaving. They'll run for home and take her along," he said while calmly walking out into the corridor. There was another white energy flash in the alcove Jack had hidden in. He intended to let him retrieve his comrades so he just calmly continued on towards the shaft they had used to ascend to this level Mickey following along still looking around in paranoia. However he had deduced the truth. They would soon be the only ones left on this station.
"Command and Barnard is going to have my hide for losing control of this place," he said.
"It's worse than that Jack my boy," Nelly replied and pointed at one of the sensors. The engine which they had never managed to understand was rapidly increasing its output without apparently venting any of its heat into space. The station, their precious base for their operation would go up in less than ten minutes.
"Quick lock on to Frank, Ross and Chris, take them out of there," he said noting that they still didn't have the alien and his friend on sensors although he had no idea why maybe another manipulation or trick. They should never have relied so much on the Dalek base for protection and services. Now someone who understood it better had used it against them.
"I will have them out in less time than that," Nelly said.
"Good, I'll fire up the engines and head for our fallback position. Once we're in real time I'll set off the beacon and call Barnard to us," he explained.
"We have to watch out, that alien and his ally will be coming for us," Nelly said.
"With certainty he wants the girl and to stop us. We have to set a trap for him," he said and immediately started thinking about their options, while setting up the rather convoluted time drive system. He had to focus for a while. Time travel was not an easy effortless affair for their ship.
They got into the room they had landed in as the first lurches of the station warned them off its impending doom. The unconscious Time Agents were gone. They were going to be facing them again, unless he could somehow gain an advantage and bargain for the return of Rose and the end of this war. He needed something that would help. There was the option of fetching the Chtonians and set them on track towards their enemies, but Rose would not approve of being the cause for escalating a war.
"Oi, Doctor, what is happening to this place," Mickey asked and looked around in confusion.
"I set it to explode on my signal, I've given that signal. Now let's get on the TARDIS and follow Jack before we lose them and Rose in the timestream," he said and walked into the console room of his dear ship. Mickey closed the door and went up next to him keeping the gun apparently. He remembered he had thrown his away somewhere in the control room oh well he didn't much approve of weapons anyway. His thoughts continued as he carefully set the TARDIS up to follow the departing Time Agents. There had to be a way end this war between the Humans and the Chtonians. No, he was missing the point again. It was not about the Humans and the Chtonians. It was all about a change in time. The Time Agency acted without the altruism he had expected it to wield. That meant there was a change somewhere. A rotten apple of some kind. That was what he should focus on... However rescuing Rose was first on his agenda.
Ah Jack was trying to be clever. Ducking and weaving through time heading back and forward, through space and back again. It was a good bit of flying for a human, but to a Time Lord in a TARDIS it was rather like an ant tap-dancing on the shoe of a god. He waited patiently until his future friend believed he had shaken him off then set the TARDIS down on Forneth minutes before the humans would arrive.
That alien in his ship was very very good at piloting his strange blue box. For a while he was afraid, it would follow them again. But they finally shook them off and headed for their secondary fallback on Forneth. He activated the signal to alert Barnard to divert in their direction hoping the other team lead by the operation leader wouldn't jump into what ever white hot cloud of plasma would replace their former base.
Behind him the girl groaned and stirred. "Don't make any sudden moves," Nelly said and held her gun under the nose of the obviously dangerous neo-human. He still had the memories of M'Chelk's fresh corpse in his mind.
"When and where am I?" the girl asked. She was obviously not scared witless by her situation even if her tears reddened eyes betrayed her earlier breakdown.
"You're our prisoner for now. The alien you travel with, is he really a Time Lord?" Nelly asked.
"Yeah, his name is the Doctor," the girl replied. He recalled that M'Chelk had named her Rose, a nice name really.
"Okay, Rose listen cutie. You're interfering with a legitimate Time Agency operation. You're obviously humanish, so you should be on our side. Our war with the Chtonians is legitimate. They fired first," he said not mentioning that they would not fire first for another 50 years and that the Agency had decided not to wait for it to do so.
The girl looked at him, her expressive face revealing her distrust of him still it was also obvious she was listening. "Now please Rose, I am sorry for the interrogation, but we really need to understand more about your friend the Doctor. He blew up our base endangering all our lives even yours. So please tell me about him," he asked putting on his most endearing smile and his best sincere look.
"Stop that Jack, you're embarrassing yourself. I won't doubt the Doctor ever. He will come for me and you won't be able to stop him. Just listen to him instead of fighting destiny. He knows more about time and space than your entire agency put together," she said and he could see in her eyes she believed her own words fully.
There was an insistent beeping from the flight computer. He grabbed the controls and started guiding them in for the atmosphere landing and said, "Nelly sweetheart, make sure the message goes out to Barnard correctly."
Rose felt her head spinning. She had been on some rough trips with the Doctor but getting her mind invaded by an alien outdid even what Cassandra had done to her. She felt like puking, but forced herself to remain focused. She heard Jack instruct his friend and saw the woman's eyes focus on a nearby panel, while the gun pointed at her trailed off target. It was her chance unshackled and her captors distracted. If she could grab it she could pressure her way out. Sure she would never use it, but this Jack wouldn't know.
She lunged forward wildly grabbing the gun. However the female agent Nelly had a wise-like grip on the weapon. She pried at her grip. Jack was already turning around, yelling something. She pulled as hard as she could making sure the gun wasn't pointing at anyone. The other woman got out of her chair as they struggled. Suddenly the Agent kicked her hard in her stomach sending her back. She watched as the woman lowered her gun. She lunged sideways. The gun fired.
"No!" Jack yelled then there was a massive thundering boom and wind whirled around them. The ship started to spin and she got flung backwards. Alerts, noises and the intense rush of the wind filled the air. Nelly disappeared like she had gotten sucked out of a hole. The light of the room changed. There really was a hole in the ship. She was sliding towards it. Desperately she grabbed for a nearby pole on which a chair was mounted, while her feet swung around the floor towards the hole..
Jack turned around, his eyes full of fury and hurt he commanded, "Ship emergency eject crew." A strange blob of thick green plastic like goo covered Jack before he disappeared through the roof along with his seat. Behind her the three unconscious agents strapped in their seats did the same. The vehicle started to spin out of control.
She fought with all her strength trying to get into the seat and copy his action. She couldn't she wasn't strong enough to fight the wind and turbulence. Finally the wind seemed to slow down, but she never managed to get into the seat.
"So we just wait for them here. That is not much of a plan," Mickey said.
"Not entirely, what we want here Mickey is to establish a dialogue. Make them understand that if they don't give back Rose I'll make them understand why even monsters fear me," he replied. They both heard the shock wave as the ship circled in towards landing on the cleared landing strip next to what looked like an abandoned mining colony in the middle of a verdant jungle. The animal noises disappeared in a fearful hush. He easily followed the rapid craft with his eyes, while Mickey seemed to look around at random. Then suddenly as it made its final way towards the landing strip the ship lurched continuing forward at full speed as objects and even if his eyes worked correctly a human body was flung from the craft.
"What is happening?" Mickey asked having also spotted the problem.
He wished with all his being that his dear young friend wasn't the one hurtling towards the jungle below. He didn't know what he would do if that was the case. The ship continued now clearly out of control. Then the ship deluged three blobs of green, a classical Earth emergency eject system he realized. The ship soared past them with its engines dying before disappearing into the jungle, there was a large thunderous boom.
"Come on, we need to see who made it out alive," he yelled as he ran all he could towards the far end of the landing strip. Mickey slightly wide eyed followed as best he could.