5 The Challenge Must be Given.
Meanwhile, in the Cybermen's spaceship Navigation control room, the Doctor examines a few things.
Crystelle pops her head out of the Tardis door. "Do be careful, Doctor."
Ommera steps up and pops her head out of the Tardis door. "Do come back in, Doctor."
"I have to challenge them," the Doctor says. "I can't just let them carry on unchallenged."
"Can't you do it in a safer way?" Ommera asks. "I thought you were dead. The Cybermen just seem to shoot."
"They aren't very relaxed, are they?" the Doctor admits. "They shot me because I didn't fit in with their program. I obviously wasn't a volunteer for upgrade. Anything that gets in their way is eliminated."
The Doctor steps over to a pair of doors which open as he gets close; like the Star-Trek doors.
Beyond the Doctor, through the open door, the Cybermen's small on-board upgrade factory is idle just now, powering up, preparing for their prisoners.
Delivering the Challenge.
A Cyberman is standing nearby. He turns towards the Doctor when the Doctor speaks.
"I challenge you to stop what you are doing, or I will stop you," the Doctor says. "Find another way to live without recruiting."
"What are you that you think you can stop us?" the Cyberman derides him.
"Stop now and I will spare you," the Doctor offers. "I am the Doctor."
"Hah. Rubbish! Join us or you will be deleted," the Cyberman says.
"Do you decline my challenge?" the Doctor clarifies his challenge.
"Certainly, we decline! You will be deleted. Delete. Delete," the Cyberman says.
The Cyberman raises his arm revealing the gun nozzles. The Doctor steps away, sensing that the Cyberman means business. But too late. The Cyberman shoots the Doctor. The Doctor falls in the doorway.
Ommera screams. Crystelle darts forwards and rapidly drags the Doctor's body into the Tardis and closes the door with Ommera inside.
The Doctor dies.
Ommera cradles the Doctor as he lies dying in her arms. She checks the Doctor's pulse. "No pulse. Not again!" she sobs.
Golden swirls of regeneration energy circle around the Doctor. The Doctor regains consciousness and looks at Ommera. Ommera is overjoyed, but rather annoyed as well. "That's twice in one day you've died in my arms!" she says crossly.
"I'm difficult to kill – two hearts; and I partially regenerated!" the Doctor says, smiling.
Ommera kisses the Doctor. "But one day that will be it! I want you safe." Then she covers the Doctor with kisses.
"That's not how life works," the Doctor says. "Not mine anyway."
"We need to take all these people back to Cookerama," the Doctor says. "But just when should we drop them off? We can't drop them off the same day or the workman at Cookerama wouldn't have commented that there were spacecraft left at the end of the day. Leave it too long and he might have said that the spacecraft had to be disposed of, or that they stayed around for a long time. But he didn't, so we know something might have happened."
"Should we drop them off on the next day?" Crystelle suggests.
"No," the Doctor says. "We must give the staff time to notice that the spacecraft have been left behind. Maybe the day after that?"
"Ok. Good idea," Crystelle says.
"It's rather subjective."
"What if we get it wrong?" Crystelle says.
"At the worst, what the workman said might not alert me enough, so I might not have started on this mission. Can but see."
The Doctor goes across to the Tardis Console. He types in the co-ordinates of the Cookerama spaceship park, and the time – just two days after they last visited. He pulls a lever. The Tardis grinds. The picture on the Console monitor screen starts to dissolve from the Cybermen's spaceship small flight control room to the Cookerama spaceship park.
The Cybermen's Spaceship Flight Control Room.
In the Cybermen's spaceship flight control room, the Cyberman is pounding on the Tardis door.
The Tardis starts grinding. He steps away for a moment in surprise. The Tardis departs noisily, grinding. The flight control console stays in the Tardis.
The Cyberman looks down at the absence of the small flight control console. "Where's the flight control console gone to?" He says gormlessly.
THE END
Information note: The previous episode in this series is called "Double Master Plan".
The next episode in this series is called "Daleks in the Tardis".
Spoilers.
1. When the rescued person 2 asks Crystelle if they could destroy the Cybermen's spaceship, the Tardis acted on the Voice Control and positioned itself around the flight console. When the Tardis departed, it left with the console, completing the rescued person's request.
2. Crystelle could have sent the Cybermen's spaceship, say, into a local sun, but that would have been morally wrong for her to do that, and she isn't like that. Instead, she had no idea what to do, and just left well alone.
3. This, of itself, wouldn't destroy the Cybermen's spaceship, but it would require that they devise some alternate way to navigate and fly the spaceship. Since Cybermen are all just volunteers for upgrade and tend to be just ordinary people (not spaceship engineers), they would take rather a long time to work out what to do, effectively spoiling their plans.
4. Nobody in the Tardis had any idea that any problem had been caused for the Cybermen.
5. The flight control console on the floor of the Tardis Control room would have to be disposed of; probably ejected from the door above a planet where space junk is collected.
Information note: The previous episode in this series is called "Double Master Plan".
The next episode in this series is called "Daleks in the Tardis".