With knowledge that Cybermen came to HV67 and somehow obliterated by someone with some type of weapon that cut them down like nothing, the fact that the same person responsible destroyed evidence of their presence, and now Theodore and Lila worked to resolve another issue, the missing colonists.
Wracking his brain as they're searching for the missing colonists, Theodore couldn't comprehend that Cybermen went far as to allow non-Cybermen to remain without annihilating or converting, didn't make any sense, that he reached out to Al.
Al's miffed about this revelation, that he noted that in Medi's history, there hadn't been a point in time where Cybermen were lenient in that fashion.
At most, they enslaved Medi for their own use against the Daleks, but that was for war reasons, they couldn't risk destroying the needed knowledge Medi carried with him against the Daleks.
For them to spare a colony, it just didn't make sense, and the only explanation that Al came up with's that whoever the Cybermen were after was more important to them than colonists, hell, even the Doctor, and that alone's raising alarms for Al.
Cybermen like to claim they upgraded away their emotions, but there's something wrong when even the coldest of steel is afraid of something, so much, they're willing to overlook potential subjects.
Whoever this was, the Cybermen must've tracked them to the colony, captured the colonists to find them, and they got the drop on the Cybermen.
"I don't know anyone who could cut up Cybermen like this," Al's baffled, to the point that Theodore believed him, and when he relayed this information to Lila, she wondered aloud that they're dealing with the T-1000 or King Arthur! Both!
Al couldn't come up with an answer, saying there's no chance anything from Medi's past could've done this and none of the findings they found indicate it belonged to an encounter from another Doctor.
Unique, strange, disturbing, roped into one answer.
Al doesn't think the missing colonists went with whoever killed the Cybermen, highly doubtful the culprit put forth the effort to kidnap over thirty colonists, but Al isn't ruling out that the culprit killed them.
No one to tell all, no evidence suggesting they're even here, a phantom, here, gone another, wherever they went after leaving, hard to tell, as Al couldn't even find a digital signature from the glider that came in.
No sign-ins, digital documents, whoever this was, knew exactly how to cover their tracks, that Al cautioned Theodore that he and Lila needed to temper their expectations on finding the colonists alive.
Heeding his warnings, the two set off to find the colonists or what remained of them, trying to search through areas that the culprit might've stowed them away in, and they went through the usual suspects.
No secret passageways behind the bathroom mirrors, hidden doors, anything like that, the encampment modular, that everything had a place, and there wasn't room for that sort of configuration, or need.
In the silence, they scoured, retracting their steps from the partial footages that remained on the cameras, showing the colonists lined up, and this continued while Al scoured for anything that the culprit might've left behind without realizing.
"Nada," Lila crossed her arms disappointedly as her end turned up nothing, not even a blood spot, there simply wasn't any sign of the colonists in the section of the encampment they're in, and Theodore didn't find anything in his search, either.
None of the colonists looked hurt in the limited footage they had, but Theodore couldn't rule out that the Cybermen might've destroyed them after the corral and they didn't find who they're looking for, but at the same time, it's getting stranger.
Like Al said, few make Cybermen scared, them upgrading away their emotions, but this person warranted this unusual behavoiur.
It made him wonder what'd happened.
In his head, he worked out the timeline.
The Cybermen chased after the culprit through space, the culprit went to the dwarf planet to hide, finding the encampment on the scanners, somehow gotten the colonists to allow them entrance without them knowing about the Cybermen, and the Cybermen soon followed, picking up on the glider and the encampment on their scanners.
The Cybermen found the glider and looked for the culprit among the colonists, but something happened in between, and the culprit gotten an advantage over them.
Lured them all in one room that they couldn't rightly escape from, destroyed them all, but wouldn't want the colonists sending word of this to command, and rather risk them telling all, would want to silence them anyway possible.
Whoever the Cybermen were after, they didn't want anyone knowing that they were here.
Al's right, they're not looking for living colonists, the culprit silenced them all, didn't want a chance of anyone escaping with their lives, and cleaned up after themselves so it's not obvious what happened.
Relaying his deduction, Theodore sees Lila grimacing, before telling her that it's the only thing that made sense, why they haven't seen bloodshed, signs of struggle, if the culprit managed to cut down the Cybermen, those colonists stood no chance, and without anything from Al helping them identify the weapon, they're in the dark.
"If that's true, they'd make sure the bodies can't be easily found unless someone tears apart the whole damn encampment," Lila summed that they're looking for bodies hidden away, the murders cleaned up, no chance of anyone discovering the grisly sight unless they dismantled the encampment, piece by piece.
Their searched continued until Theodore found a freezer locked from the outside, molded into a clump of metal, that even with the twist of the Sonic Screwdriver couldn't break through it, leading to him and Lila searching for a way into the freezer.
As they're looking, Theodore warns Lila that he'll be the one that goes into the freezer, not her, she's to remain outside of it until he says otherwise.
No arguing with him, either.
Lila bit her tongue as they looked for something to break off the lock, but unless the culprit took it with them, they're not getting in without a torch.
"Come in, Al," Theodore reached out to him and the AI immediately responded.
Theodore had him arrive nearby, allowing them unfettered access to the TARDIS and broke through the freezer door with the onboard torch that Al pointed towards.
Pulling out the melted mess of the former lock and leaving a hole, Theodore used his Sonic Screwdriver to force it open, with the door sliding into two halves, the familiar smell hit his nose.
It's subtle, but it's there, and he warned Lila not to go near the freezer, ordering her to stay near the TARDIS.
Stepping inside the freezer, the cold air hitting him, Theodore's icy blue eyes surveyed the darkness, using the light from the Sonic Screwdriver, it allowed him to see better.
At first, it looked like a standard freezer used by starting colonies, 63x63 it says on the metal plate bolted into the steel wall adjacent of Theodore.
It's common for starting colonies to have a freezer this size, even if they're small like this colony was, it allowed them a head start for a couple of years, with the pretense that once the planet's inhabitable, they'll start growing their own food.
Pallets of different sized boxes with serial numbers indicating what they are stacked against the walls, giving Theodore room to walk.
Theodore noticed as he's surveying the dimly lit freezer, it's set colder than usual, enough to cause the lights above to dim.
He found a thermostat and saw the temperature, -50C, that shouldn't even gone through on the control panel for the freezer.
That cold would've ruined the supplies and drain precious energy that a small colony needed.
The culprit must've overridden the computer when they tampered with the security footage.
His breath flowing like white smoke, Theodore pushed forward in the bitter cold, ice breaking under his feet as he gone into the deeper area of the freezer, where he found tall shelves on wheels in the corner, with heavy plastic staked on all shelves.
Going towards it, Theodore reached to the closest white plastic, wrapped tightly, used the white heat of the Sonic Screwdriver in order to tear through it, and a vacant eye stared back at Theodore, causing him to step backwards at the sight.
He counted the bundles of plastic, the number of bundles corresponded with the number of colonists living here.
Looking at the eye peering back at him, Theodore uttered a quick prayer that his uncle taught him that lost traction on Gallifrey, before he pried the plastic off the shelf, dragged it gently to the ground, where he ripped it off completely.
It was a woman, around twenty-some years, her frozen skin, made it difficult identifying her, but Theodore was able to see the wound in her chest, straight to her heart.
A long object pierced through her breastplate, heart, sliced through her spinal cord, she was dead the moment she dropped to the ground.
Getting the gist of how the others were killed, Theodore looked at the ground, seeing no blood, they were cleaned and wrapped before the culprit put them inside the freezer.
His icy blue eyes moving around, Theodore spotted something else in the freezer besides him and the stacked bodies, another one.
This one wasn't human, another Cyberman, this one had its head cut off, the culprit must've dragged it in here with the others, for what purpose, Theodore doesn't know, but as he mulled over, he harkened back to the headless Cyberman head he found in the dug hole, and cogs turned in his head.
He concluded that this was the same one, the head came from it.
So, the Cybermen came to the encampment looking for the culprit, trying to find them, when they got the drop on the Cybermen, they singled out this specific one.
Whatever the Cyberman had in its memory bank, it led the culprit to the hole that the Weeping Angels dug, dug it further, and found something.
Why?
What was in that hole?
Cogs turning in his head, Theodore remembered how the TARDIS had its energy sapped and requiring him to fuel it with what they had on hand at the time.
Something in that hole, this Cyberman knew what and where it was, this wasn't a case of the culprit trying to escape the Cybermen, they purposely done this just to lure the one Cyberman into an ambush.
It's clever, Theodore's given them that, but the daunting question he has now…
What were the Cybermen trying to protect?
His mind snapped when he heard Al panicking, "Kid, they're coming!"
TO BE CONTINUED… "Among the Steel"