"Well, I got the profiles the mothership sent over, but I'm not sure if it'll be enough to convince him," Al tells Theodore that he wasn't sure if the idea of Al putting his processors to the test and taking multiple forms of the deceased crew mates at once to convince Albert would work.
Pointing this out as he kept Lila close to him on top of the crates as Albert made it clear that none of them move without the captain's say, Theodore tells Al, "You have the sound bytes from them, you can run them through your database, that way, it sounds authentic. With the mothership helping, you've got access to countless audio clippings, records, that should be enough. He's already hallucinating they're alive, hearing their voices wouldn't be far fetched."
Running the numbers, Al proceeds to tell Theodore that it could work, but Theodore needs to be ready for the moment the illusion breaks.
It's difficult to know what Albert's capable of when the illusion breaks, but if Theodore can catch him when he's distracted, that'll be a good way to apprehend him and check him for bites.
Due to their bites, Albert won't feel anything until he'll start complaining about abdominal pains.
When they bite, cockroaches make sure it's not overtly apparent, their saliva contains an enzyme that numbs the area surrounding the bite.
Like mosquitos, but worse, and they make sure the bites aren't overtly obvious, as to prevent intervention by the victims.
Their favorite places are the back of the necks.
Since Albert seemingly survived this long, how he escaped them this long, maybe he wasn't bitten, at all, just broken by the trauma, some would suggest, but it wasn't Al's first extermination job.
Under the stress, Albert wouldn't have realized it, until he doubles over in paint, letting out a bloody curdling scream.
"How are we on our cockroach problem?" Theodore asked how Al's working out a way to keep the cockroaches from catching a whiff of their presence and Al told him that he got into the access point aboard the Ourang Medan, he can ward off the cockroaches by tricking them by setting off various alarms, mixing the gases to mimic human breath, to lure them away from the converted armory.
There's no way for him to safely space all the cockroaches without risking them getting caught in it, he investigated the schematics of the ship, and it only has escape pods, that's about it.
"The only effective measure outside piloting the ship into the sun's exploding it by overloading the engines and the reactor," Al summed that they're limited by what they can do to eliminate the cockroaches.
Still risks of complications, but that's par course with the numbers game, Al only managed to reduce the chances of Theodore and Lila getting bitten by the cockroaches by a third.
It wasn't much, but it's enough to get a head start, that said, Al's proactively working on replicating the deceased crew, while having a backup plan if it doesn't work.
If it comes down to it, Al won't hesitate leaving Albert behind, though he sympathizes with the commander, when it comes to his promise to Medikus, Al prioritizes Theodore and Lila's lives.
Patching Lila into their conversation after catching her up, Al tells them that he'll start small then work his way up to the captain's chair, theorizing if he projected the captain too early while Albert's mind adjusts, they'll run into problems.
And since he's running them as projections, cockroaches will see through them because of their compound eyes and the lack of CO2 emitting from their breaths.
It's also why Medi, and in extension Theodore, couldn't use his pocket watch against them, because of their compound eyes and their penchant for catching the scent of CO2 from a potential host, even when disguised.
Surprisingly, they can't see rifts or tears, though that was a good thing, it never made sense to Medi and Sarah until Medi came up with the theory that they didn't evolve to see them.
Since their primary prey never used them, their compound eyes didn't evolve to see the spectrums of energy.
Prey disguising themselves as other things or hiding, that's something their compound eyes and proboscis evolved to catch, which led to the ineffective use of the pocket watch.
"Okay, I got them rigged up and ready, here goes nothing!" Al finished rigging projections of the deceased crew, working with what the mothership provided, he's able to slowly bring them to life once again, in the positions that Albert sees them in.
"We need to get out of here!" Cartwright shouted at Albert and Captain Bahaman as she paced around the converted armory, uneasy.
Albert fell for the projection with ease, as he turned towards her as she paced around, telling her, "I… I know!"
The other crews came to life, Al played their parts well, able to use them to coerce Albert into showing himself to them, proving that he wasn't bitten by the cockroaches, thus alleviating their fears of having a giant cockroach explode out of someone in front of them.
The overlapping voices were enough for Albert to accept the projection of Captain Bahaman as the real deal.
Having to play the part, Al couldn't simply have the projection order them to take up arms, and go through the one-way doors, so he "discussed" ways of escaping with Theodore having to put his acting to good use while Lila helped provide backup to his points and eventually Albert became convinced, they should escape to the TARDIS, allowing Al to channel what they wanted to Captain Bahaman.
The projections took up arms, Theodore and Lila retrieved theirs from the weapon locker, Albert grabbing another weapon off the rack, about 30-watts plasma rifle, he says the heat's enough to shave off a follicle.
With Albert properly convinced, they're freed from the converted armory, allowed to go through familiar halls, retracing their footsteps.
Al's keeping Albert occupied with the projections, giving Theodore and Lila time to think about their situation.
"I find it hard to believe the probes didn't pick up on the planet hosting cockroaches, they picked up on the elements just fine," Lila privately talked with Theodore, their eyes trained on sudden movements from the vents, anywhere that a cockroach could use as a trap, spring up anywhere to try and take them as hosts.
Theodore agreed with her assessment, saying that all provided probes follow the same standards, from colonies of spores to water, probes know all, and the probes used by the Ourang Medan should've picked up on the cockroaches within minutes.
"Unless, they didn't use the probes," Lila broached an idea that what they know of the captain, using the probes would've alerted the mothership of their discovery, and if he didn't want them asking questions, he wouldn't use the probes.
Not the first time something like it happened.
Cogs turning in Theodore's head, he reached out to Al in his mind, asking if he can check if the Ourang Medan sent probes down to the planet, and Al got back to him within seconds, confirming what Lila theorized.
"The captain would've had the authority to send the probes," Al tells Theodore.
Cogs continuing to turn in his head, Theodore looked towards Albert, asking Al how possible it was that part of Albert's mental state came from the choice not using the probes.
Mumbling to himself, Al then answered with, "Hm, possibly, if the captain didn't want the mothership knowing, he would've tried to keep everything quiet, tried bribing the crew if he had to, and maybe Albert felt guilty going along with the plan."
Captain Bahaman's authority superseding Albert's rank, he knew that he couldn't change his captain's mind, and this is purely speculation on Al's part, maybe Albert tried to stop this from happening, but it was too late.
He noticed blocked messages from a terminal to the mothership, pleading with them to do something about the captain, there's details about the plan on keeping the discovery of the planet secret.
The integrity of the messages has been purposely corrupted, probably due to fear of Captain Bahaman finding out, but due to the network aboard the ship, the corruption prevented the messages from being sent to the mothership.
Curse the safety feature born from wars of yore where parties used vulnerabilities to send custom malware in messages through terminals.
If indeed it's Albert, he should've known that when he tried sending the messages, they wouldn't go through.
"What if it was a desperate attempt?" Theodore asks him.
Thinking on it, Al responds with, "Given how quickly the first cockroach moved and the subsequent cockroaches after, he would've tried anything. Even if it's for naught. My guess's that he tried his terminal, realized it wouldn't work, tried Yeoman Kelly's terminal, that didn't work either, probably couldn't get to the captain's terminal by then."
Albert couldn't override the network restrictions on his own, none of them could, the mothership's the only one capable of removing it, and they won't do it out of fear of sudden attacks.
The only way he could communicate with the mothership's through the captain's terminal.
"If that's true, no wonder he's having the breakdown," Theodore subtly frowns as he realizes there's more to this than it seemed.
Greed, an old enemy of life as they knew it.
Captain Bahaman saw prospect and, in his quest, to keep the mothership from knowing about it, brought ruin to himself and his crew, instead. Resulting in a broken man who had to witness it all.
The guilt coming from the fact that Albert thought he could've done more, and maybe if he did that this wouldn't happened, but maybe if he tried, he would be dead, too.
"Movement!" Al conveyed through one of the projected crew members of movement he picked up from his scanners, a red dot's coming towards them in one of the ventilation ducts.
Alarmed, Theodore kept Lila close to him as they raised their arms, Albert's eyes wildly moving around as he clutched his plasma rifle.
Her chestnut eyes moving between the vents, Lila heard subtle movements coming somewhere in the ventilation ducts.
A deep skittering squelchy noise.