2 The Sun Port.
The Doctor and Ommera walk up to her. Crystelle is very glad to see them. "I've learnt so much about this place."
"We have too." Ommera wants to tell Crystelle all about her discoveries, too. She has already told the Doctor.
The Doctor had met Ommera when she accidentally wandered into the Tardis on her home planet, Slint, thinking it was a museum (in episode Maintenance Mission in this series). Since then she has become his companion. The Doctor has relied heavily on Ommera during some previous adventures.
Crystelle's home planet is Tinsel. She is travelling with the Doctor and Ommera having been of comfort to the Doctor in an earlier episode (Step Carefully in this series). She would like to rescue people and help them.
The Doctor wants to hear Crystelle's information. She tells them about the portal.
The Doctor shares the history of the portal system. It had been a demonstration of portals. The portal installation company had gone bust shortly before completion, leaving the one portal unassigned. As no-one on the planet knew how to complete the installation, they had just had to leave it. But no-one who went through the portal ever returned, so they barricaded it off to prevent accidental usage, leaving a space just in case anyone did ever come back through. But it was off the planet.
That had all been generations ago.
Ommera wants to get some food for them all, so she goes off to the sandwich bar counter. She had seen the odd portal with blue sky and grass but hadn't known more about it. It intrigued her that there was a portal that didn't permit return, and it was said to be off-planet. Sounded like a great dustbin. But probably a nice place to be beyond the portal; it looked nice.
The Doctor tells Crystelle that the residents sometimes try it out with inanimate objects. A stone is sliced off at the point where the portal was touched. A stick is sliced but the cut edge comes back burnt. Now that they have telescopes, they watched the skies to see whether the portal sent things into space. They saw something happen near their sun when they pushed through a large explosive. So, they called it Sol.
The Doctor has some more information. "The inhabitants here call the planet Portintrade. They do sometimes have visitors from outside the planet. The outside visitors humorously call this planet FixMySunPort! But nobody fixes it; it would cost!"
Ommera returns with some food from the counter. They all start to eat.
"I went through the port labelled Ostra and I went to the antipodes on this planet," Crystelle tells them. "It was nearly evening there. I went on a trader's cart and I went to the warehouse there, but it was getting dark. He ordered a room for me to stay over, but I thought it best to run back to the portals."
"Glad you did. Stay safe," Ommera says.
"This planet was lucky to have portals installed for free, but it has never had any inter-planetary trade," the Doctor says. "None of the portals are off the planet… Apart from the faulty one. The problem is that they don't know how to reconfigure them. I'd heard reports of this place but never seen it for myself; far too much else to do. It's really nice here, so I don't need to stay. They've never been targeted by anyone, so they're ok."
After they return to the Tardis, Ommera goes to the Tardis console and tells the Tardis about the off-planet port. She has a gut feeling that it might be useful and doesn't want to lose it.
"Doctor, you said you would show us a net you made to capture a Dalek," Ommera says.
"Yes. I'm keeping it right here under the Tardis console," the Doctor says. He reaches for the net. "You have to creep up very close, then throw the net over the Dalek, twist it to one side so its weapons aren't pointing anywhere harmful, and pull the cord tight, and cleat it. Then stand back – it might take the floor out!"
"Thank you, Doctor, I'll try and remember that," Ommera says. "Shall we pay a game?"
They play a game of Vibratile. Part way through the game the Tardis just starts grinding all by itself. They jump up. The game packs itself away neatly in the box.
"What's happening?" the Doctor asks. He goes across to the Console. "Voice Control is off, so it's not that." He looks at the console monitor screen. "We're on a Dalek battle command ship," the Doctor says slowly and more carefully. "We need to know where they are going to."
"Whereabouts are we on their spaceship?" Ommera asks.
"We're in a small storeroom," the Doctor says.
"Crystelle, could you stay in the Tardis this time please?" the Doctor asks. "Ommera, could you come with me? I plan to gradually go further into their battleship securing each room we go through in turn."
They leave the Tardis. They are in a small undoored storeroom. Outside the small storeroom, there is a much larger storeroom. They pick their way past armaments that will supply the Dalek fire power.
A stack of golden tennis ball sized spheres attracts Ommera's attention. "What are these?" she asks.
"They are replacement spheres for the Dalek's outer casing armaments in case they use them, the Doctor replies. "They can instruct each sphere and send them off to explode elsewhere."
"Are they any use to us?" Ommera asks.
"No, the Daleks have to program them," the Doctor says. "If we held one, a Dalek could activate it and make it explode as we held it. Very undesirable."
Large power supplies adorn the walls. "These are to power the spaceship's weaponry," the Doctor says.
"How can we find out their destination?" Ommera asks.
"I don't know yet," the Doctor says. He has thousands of possible plans milling around his head. He just has to pick one that might fit the current problems and opportunities. "We must make our way through to their control room."
Two Daleks enter the larger storeroom. They are talking. "The target is Earth," Dalek Da says. "They won't know what's hit them and they are totally unprepared. Their weapons won't touch our spaceship. We might feel a minor shipquake, that's all. How many Dalek warriors do we have?"
"We have five thousand," Dalek Bej says.
The Doctor has a good look at the Daleks. "We are interrupted, but we know their plan now," the Doctor whispers. "We can go back to the Tardis when we they go."
Ommera has encountered much less capable Daleks before; they were easily dealt with. These appear to be much more capable. She is scared.
"I smell fear," Dalek Da says.
"So do I," Dalek Bej affirms.
Will the Doctor and Ommera be discovered? Will they escape? What will happen?