"You say 'Silurians' like I should know what you mean," Lizzie said, reaching out to grip Danni's arm nervously. "Are they aliens?"

Danni quickly shrugged off her hand. "Yeah, don't do that," she drawled. "And you're still being rude. You shouldn't talk about people like they're not in the room."

The Doctor took a step forward, gently pulling his wife away from the new woman. It was hard for him to not react to the fact that someone had touched her without permission, but he also knew that the woman hadn't meant anything by it. He couldn't react angrily anymore. Danni didn't need that.

"They are the original rulers of this planet. They were here long before man evolved. Survivors of the race have slept under the ground for millions of years. It seems Mr Pelham has woken them up."

"Underground lizard men from the dawn of time." Lizzie nodded. "Right."

Danni sighed. "They're Silurians," she corrected again. She looked up at the Doctor and he could see the frustration on her face. "Is-Is no one listening to me?"

"Would you close the door, Doctor?" one of the Silurians asked calmly. "We do tend to find the base outside this room rather too cool for comfort."

"Of course." The Doctor did what he asked quickly before realising that they'd addressed him by name. "How do you know who I am?"

The Silurian scientist held up a phone. "The internet is a wonderful source of information, Doctor. It was the work of moments for us to break into the secure files at UNIT. You and your mate have been busy in the affairs of this planet."

"You really work for UNIT?" Lizzie asked.

"That's what you've had trouble believing?" Jack asked and she shrugged.

"I've been posing as your assistant. How can I be sure anything is not a lie?"

It was a good point, but not one Danni particularly cared about. One of the Silurian's stood up. "I am Oclar," he said. "My colleagues are Vondar, Kastac and Eliya."

"I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say that this Fire Ice stuff is your discovery and not Pelham's?" Danni asked and Oclar nodded.

"I knew it," Jack said as if his snooping had all been validated. "There was no way he could have found, drilled and refined it in the time he did."

"Believe me, we do not help him out of choice," Oclar told them all.

"I think that was pretty obvious by the way Pelham stormed out of here," Danni replied. She walked over, sitting down at the table. Both Jack and the Doctor quickly moved to sit by her, but much to Jack's annoyance the Doctor pulled out the free chair next to her first.

Danni ignored the glare shared between the two men. Who didn't enjoy people fighting for their attention? Plus, she rather liked the barrier of the Doctor between her and the rest of the group.

"Why don't you start at the beginning?" she asked Oclar. The Silurian nodded and sat down opposite the pair.

"We were part of a small scientific task force. When our people were preparing to hibernate – before the arrival of the body that you call the Moon – we were given the task of stockpiling a new fuel source for our eventual revival."

"The Fire Ice," the Doctor guessed.

"That is what Pelham calls it, yes," Oclar confirmed. "It was a way of preserving fuel for the future. It provides instant clean energy. Pelham found us about a year ago. He was working on a survey of the ice sheet and his instruments picked up our distress beacon."

"Distress?" Danni asked, concerned.

"Our base is on the bottom of the underground sea below. When we retreated to our shelter, this land was warm and green," he explained. "To wake and find a world of ice and wind…"

"I can see how that's a problem," Danni replied. "Not great for cold-blooded race. So you sent the distress call to try and find more Silurians?"

"We could not find a trace of any others of our race. Then, one day, we had an answer to our distress call."

"Pelham."

"Yes. We welcomed any contact with the outside world. He promised that he could act on our behalf, that he could introduce us to the human leaders. But he had one condition…"

"That you offer up your clean, instant fuel source," Danni finished for him.

"And you believed him?" Lizzie asked in disbelief. "Someone should have warned you!"

Danni looked over her shoulder at the woman. While she understood – and rather agreed with – her disbelief, it also was rather a stupid thing to say. "They were in hibernation. Who do you think would have warned them?" she pointed out before turning back to Oclar. "So that was your peace offering? You give the humans the fuel and they help you escape to a climate much more suited to your needs?"

"It seemed like the perfect solution. Humans are far better at operating at low temperatures than we are."

"So what happened?" the Doctor asked.

"He built a lift shaft to our base – pretending to the world that he was constructing his drilling rig. He and his guards took over our facility one evening. We had not been expecting such treason, and there were too few of us to put up any kind of struggle. He put guards on the hibernation in it with orders to destroy the controls if we resisted. Those of us who were already revived were threatened with being left out on the ice sheet…" Oclar looked away. "After the first death there was no desire to resist."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said sincerely. "Was it someone close?"

Oclar nodded. "My daughter."

"He killed your daughter?" Jack asked, feeling a sudden wave of empathy with the Silurian. He couldn't help the glance down at the new Danni sat next to her husband and had to wonder if Missy had done the same. After all, she'd had a different body when she'd been taken.

"She had not wanted to be held captive by a man such as Pelham. She said she would rather die first. Unfortunately, Pelham agreed to her wishes," Oclar explained.

Again, both the Doctor and Jack looked at Danni, who had her elbows resting on the table in front of her. Her hands were linked, her chin resting on the small platform it created as she listened to Oclar.

"I can appreciate that," she replied, because she had reached that point herself. Her escape had been a 'do or die' type of affair. She'd run with the aim to get back to the Doctor, but accepting the risk that Missy wasn't going to just let her go lightly. She'd come to terms that she might have been killed if Missy had found her. In fact, she'd just not cared. She had just wanted to be free.

"Is there are a chance that any of your people have managed to avoid capture?" Jack asked them. "A resistance, maybe?"

"No." Oclar looked at Jack, puzzled. "Why do you ask such a thing?"

"Because Lizzie was attacked in the hallway by something small," Jack explained. "And someone is trying to sabotage Pelham's work."

"Someone who has control of something reptilian and prehistoric," Danni added.

"I know from experience that your hibernation chambers tend to have a lot of big, toothy beasts in deep freeze," the Doctor said, standing up and beginning to pace. Danni still loved to watch him muse. His smartness was so incredibly attractive. "And I also know that your people have the means of controlling them, directing them. Someone must have found a way to do just that."

The Silurian scientists glanced nervously at each other, as if the Doctor had hit the nail right on the head. They were hiding something. Something they didn't want the Doctor to…

"Oh," Danni said softly, pulling her husband's attention back to her. "You're not just scientists, are you? You're military as well."

"We are no such…"

"Look," she interrupted. "You can either tell us everything, or you can keep quiet and we can leave. We don't need to waste time and we have a ship parked out there—" she motioned over her shoulder, "- that can take us away and to our next adventure. We want to help, but you can't hide things from us."

Oclar shared a look with his fellow Silurians. "We're not part of the military," he replied. "But the complex beneath us was not just a scientific research facility, it was also used by our military. A squad of shock troops was frozen, along with several genetically altered specimens."

"Myrkas," the Doctor said, shaking his head in annoyance.

"You know about the Myrkas?" Oclar asked in surprise.

"Oh yes," the Doctor drawled. "We're old friends."

Danni looked up at her husband, who had stopped his pacing. He looked rather grim at the news, which was never good. "Myrkas?" she asked.

"A prehistoric creature," he explained. "But one that has been altered to turn it into a creature of war. Able to carry out basic tasks, but basically just a savage killer."

"Of course," Danni drawled.

"That sounds like an unexpected but most welcome bonus!" The rich tones of Rick Pelham boomed from the corridor. The group spun around to find him standing in the doorway, grinning like the cat who'd got the cream. Behind him were half a dozen armed guards, their guns at the ready.

"Even better," Danni muttered in reply, standing up out of her seat. Her hand went into her pocket but she didn't grab her gun just yet. She knew that now was not the time to show that she was armed. Instead she just used it like she normally did; for comfort and calm.

Pelham walked into the room. "I must really improve on my security," he continued. "People keep spouting up from all over the spot. We've not only got a UNIT officer, but her grandfather as well."

"Husband," both Danni and the Doctor quickly corrected.

Pelham didn't care. "It would seem that his mysterious 'dinosaur' exists after all." He waggled a finger at the Silurians like they were naughty children. The Doctor grabbed Danni's arm before she could step forward and berate him for being rude. "You've been keeping secrets from me, Oclar. Naughty boy. I thought that I was just going to be able to make money out of the fuel crisis, but it seems that these… Myrkas could have some possibilities in the arms trade, too."

"Oh, don't be an idiot all of your life," Danni exclaimed. "If I didn't know where they were you don't have a hope in hell of being able to control them. They're killing machines!"

"They sound perfect." Pelham laughed unpleasantly.

"No." Lizzie spoke up, startling everyone into looking at her. "It's gone far enough."

She raised her hand, revealing a small black device that she held onto tightly. Her finger was poised over a red button on its side.

"Lizzie," Jack started lowly. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, Jack." Her voice was trembling. "I know I lied, but this man, this… monster has to be stopped. There's a bomb in the power room. This is the trigger. I'm going to blow this facility to pieces!"

"Oh, well done Fielding," Pelham snarled at the Time Lord. "Just a photographer! Just a journalist after a story! I thought that working for UNIT meant that you had to be clever! I knew she was from Wholeweal!"

"What? Can't a girl lie anymore?" Danni retorted. "Do you not think shouting is a bad idea when there's a bomb involved?"

"I can do what I like, this is my base after all. I don't need to do anything, especially when some UNIT lackey is telling me to."

Danni glared at him. "Honestly, how did you manage to be in any sort of power?"

"How dare you, you stupid, little…" Pelham started.

"How about we stop arguing and deal with the woman with the bomb?" the Doctor interrupted. As much as he really wasn't happy with the way the man was talking to his wife, he also knew when to get angry and when to try and defuse a situation.

And then get angry.

However, he didn't have much of a chance to. Jack took a step towards her, his eyes trained on the trigger device Lizzie held tightly in her hand.

"Lizzie," he started calmly. "I know how frustrated you are feeling. Men like Pelham don't seem to care about the impact on the world around them. But this isn't the solution to that problem."

"Yes, it is," she replied shakily. "If Pelham gets his way then the Antarctic will be covered in his factories. Another wilderness lost. Another bit of the planet torn apart just to make him rich."

"But a bomb isn't the way to stop that," Jack said. "You're going to damage the environment as well."

"This base has a new power-cell system. It's not nuclear, there won't be any fallout, but the bomb will start a chain reaction. There'll be nothing left."

"Yes, you're right," Jack agreed, startling her slightly. "His Fire Ice will be gone, his machinery and any chance of anyone taking his place. But you know what else will be gone? The people. Us, you, all of the workers. There's a man in the sick bay who saw a dinosaur and is going to be blown up for no reason than needing a job." He motioned to the scientists. "There's the Silurians, who you'd never heard of until just a moment ago. They're the things that you'll be destroying, not just Pelham."

He took a step towards her when he saw his words were getting through to her. He knew they would. Lizzie was not comfortable holding that trigger. She didn't want to blow anything up. This wasn't her idea nor her want at all. "Lizzie," he said again, repeating her name for the familiarity of it. "I know that people like Pelham are actively trying to destroy the world, and to sit back and watch is the hardest thing to do. But this won't solve the problem. This just makes you part of it. There are better ways to save the world, trust me."

Jack held his hand out to her for the trigger. "You're better than this, Lizzie," he promised. "You're better than them."

There was total silence in the meeting room, every eye on the Doctor and Lizzie. Slowly she bowed her head, and placed the trigger device in his hand.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, ashamed and a little exhausted.

"I know," Jack replied kindly as he turned off the device. He then turned and chucked it towards the Doctor, who put it in his pocket for safe keeping. Jack didn't trust anyone else but his daughter and her husband with it.

Danni grinned as the tension from the threat of imminent death left the room. She looked up at the Doctor. "He's my dad," she said happily.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh no, don't start singing his praises."

She nudged him. "I thought you wanted me to get along with my parents more. You used to try and force that on me all the time."

"Yeah, Doc," Jack retorted, walking over and chucking his arm around Danni's shoulders. "We can finally be one big, happy family."

Their banter, though, broke the spell that had settled over the group. Pelham's guards rushed over, grabbing Lizzie roughly by the arms and restraining her.

"Ow!" she cried, struggling in vain. The guards clearly weren't going to take any more chances.

"I'm impressed, Captain," Pelham replied, eyeing Jack with a new respect. "There's clearly more to you than meets the eye."

"There's no need to treat her like!" Danni scolded. "She's not a danger anymore!"

"I intend to make sure of that," Pelham said. "Take her away and lock her up, and this time do it properly!" The guards did as he said, bundling Lizzie roughly out of the room.

"Now, Doctor," Pelham continued, saying the Doctor's name like it was some great secret that he was revealing. "Give me that trigger device. Then perhaps you can explain to me exactly what these Myrkas are like."

As the words left Pelham's lips, there was a shattering roar. One wall of the meeting room was ripped to shreds by powerful claws. A huge shape smashed in through the hole, its tough, leathery hide glistening with snowflakes.

"I'm going to guess they're something like that," Danni stated as she stared in surprise at the huge beast. It was at least twice as tall as anyone in the room, and incredibly bulky. It stood on four legs and had incredibly sharp claws. Its tail swung wildly and the fin on top of its head stood rigid as it roared again.

The room scattered as the Myrka tore its way through the base. The guards opened fire but the bullets just bounced off its thick hide. The Doctor grabbed Danni by the hand, pulling her for cover. She, in turn, reached for Jack and the trio ran towards the wall.

Oclar just stared in disbelief but the Doctor also grabbed him to pull him out of the way. "Don't touch the skin!" the Doctor called to the guards. "It carries a lethal electrical charge."

The warning came too late for one of the guards. Having run out of bullets, he tried to use his rifle as a club. As the weapon connected with the Myrka's scaly skin, there was a flare of light and a scream of pain. The man then dropped to the floor, dead.

Danni turned to Oclar. "You sure know how to make your war machines!" she exclaimed angrily. "The most damage with as much pain as possible!"

As the Myrka forced its way further into the base a small, fur-covered figure suddenly appeared through the ragged hole torn in the wall.

"Father!"

Oclar stared in amazement. "Partock?"

The figure pulled back a heavy fur hood to reveal the delicately scaled face of a young Silurian girl. Oclar embraced her warmly. "I thought you were dead!"

"I'm going to guess that's who attacked Lizzie," Jack murmured to Danni, who nodded in agreement.

"She seems a bit young to be in charge of a war monster," she replied lowly.

"Looks can be deceiving," the Doctor pointed out. "Look at you."

Danni frowned. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, you're not as short as you once were, but you're not exactly intimidating to look at," the Doctor pointed out. She opened her mouth, about to defend herself, but he continued. "But after spending even a moment with you, no one is going to think you're anything but a force to be reckoned with."

Her offence deflated and a small smile appeared on her face. Jack was slightly taken aback by it. Not because the Doctor had made her smile - because that happened all the time, they were infamous saps - but because she was actually smiling. He filed that away to ask about later, because he'd not really noticed it until that moment. What was worse was the fact that the lack of smile seemed to sit well on her face; what happened when she regenerated?

"I've got no time to explain now!" Partock exclaimed, shaking herself free of her father's hug. "We must go whilst we have the chance."

Oclar stared fearfully at the driving snowstorm outside. Already the temperature in the based had dropped dramatically, something Danni had noticed. She pulled her coat around her closer. "We won't last long out there…" Oclar pointed out.

"Oh, I'm guessing Partock has already thought of that, hmm?" the Doctor asked.

Partock shot the group a glance. "Who are they? Pelham's thugs?"

"No." Oclar shook his head. "They're friends."

For a moment, the young Silurian looked as though she was going to argue, then she gave a brisk nod. "Good. I'll need your help to get Father and the others to the lift building."

"Hang on, what about Ginormo over there?" Danni asked, motioning to the Myrka. "We can't just leave it running about, it'll kill everyone!"

"Let it finish what it's started," Partock snarled. "The humans deserve no better."

"I'm sorry?" Danni asked, voice low. She took a step towards her. "You're not going anywhere without our help, and I'm not helping you until you call that thing off!"

"They deserve…"

"No!" Danni snapped before pointing at her. "It's going to get colder and colder, and we—" she motioned between the three, "-at your only help. Call. It. Off."

They stared each other down for what felt like an age, but Danni wasn't backing down. She was more than happy to let Pelham be torn to shreds, but there were people on the base that were just getting on with their jobs. Innocent people who did not deserve punishment at Pelham's deceit.

Partock reached into her furs and pulled out a small flute-like device. She raised it to her lips and blew. An electronic warbling filled the air and the Myrka's head twitched upright. It was almost like a dog responding to its master's whistle.

"It will return to its lair," Partock grumbled grumpily.

"What a well-behaved little Myrka it is," the Doctor praised, almost sounding as if he meant it. "Now we've stopped acting like children perhaps we should get a move on."

Partock pulled her furs tightly around her head and grasped her father's arm. The scientists were already shivering violently. She started to guide everyone out through the ragged hole in the base wall.

Danni turned to look at the two men. "What about Lizzie?" she asked. "I mean, she was going to blow us up, but I'd rather not leave her with Pelham."

"If we want to save everyone we have to go with Oclar," Jack said. "We need their help to mount a rescue attempt, so we need to keep them on side."

Danni turned to her husband. "What do you think?"

The Doctor looked over his shoulder at the doorway. He felt very much the same about the woman who'd been unnecessarily carted off. She was just a human trying to do good in a way she'd been convinced was the only way to go. She'd not wanted to harm anyone. However, Jack was right.

He reached out, rubbing both of Danni's arms to try and keep her warm against the ever-dropping temperatures. "If we have their help we can go back for everyone, not just Lizzie," he explained.

With a nod of her head, Danni turned and followed the Silurians out of the room. Jack turned to the Doctor. "What happened when she regenerated?" he asked.

The Doctor knew exactly what he was referring to. "That's not my tale to tell," he replied, as he still really didn't know how she'd regenerated. "And now is definitely not the time to tell it."

~0~0~0~

The storm was in full force as they all struggled to follow Partock out of the base and across the snow-covered terrain outside. The Silurians were particularly struggling as the cold winds battered against them. Snow swirled in the air and made it just that little bit harder to see even a couple meters in front of them.

Jack held up one scientist who could barely walk as Partock half-carried her father forward. Danni huddled up against her husband, who'd had to be forcefully talked out of giving her his jacket to keep her warm. His arm was around her shoulder pulling her close and she pressed herself as best as she could against his side. He was so glad that she was letting him close again, but both of them would have preferred for it not to be in the middle of the Antarctic.

Behind them roars echoed over the howling wind as the Myrka tore itself free from the base. The grinding of metal and plastic was joined by one last shattering roar before it vanished into the storm. Soon there was only the sound of blaring alarms and terrified voices.

As they arrived at the drill-head building, the scientists were shaking with cold and Jack didn't feel too far behind them. One of them, the eldest one that he'd helped make the journey, was almost in a coma. Even Partock in her heavy furs was starting to get slow and sluggish. She fumbled with the locked door, her fingers numb with cold.

The Doctor gave Danni a squeeze before stepping forward. "Here, let me help," he offered kindly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his sonic sunglasses, popping them on his head before setting them off. The door opened and warmth quickly wafted out. The trio helped Partock drag the Silurians inside and Danni locked the door back up behind them.

"L-Let's not do that again," she stuttered out. The Doctor took a step towards her, but Jack slipped off his own jacket and draped it over the top of her rather similar one.

"I think we can all agree with that," he replied, giving her arms a quick rub. "You alright, Danni-Girl?"

She nodded, looking over his shoulder. "I will be when…" she started slowly before trailing off. She rushed over to the wall after spotting the heating control. She gave the room a quick boost of heat and the sound of the heater powering up was music to everybody's ears.

The Silurians immediately seemed to feel the benefit, with Oclar giving a hiss of pleasure as his body temperature started to rise once more. "Thank you, Danielle. We would not have survived much longer."

"Well, the Antarctic isn't exactly the best place for a cold-blooded race," she replied. "I'm sure we can all appreciate a good blast of warmth."

"You've been lucky to survive," the Doctor added to Partock.

"Lucky?" she scoffed." There has been nothing lucky about it."

"How did you survive?" Jack asked her. "Pelham left you out on the ice, you shouldn't have survived at all."

Partock was silent for a long moment as she decided whether or not to tell her story. "I lay in the snow, watching as Pelham took my father and the others back to the base. He assumed that the cold would kill me, and it nearly did. I almost died right there, but then I looked at what you apes have done to my world. A world made cold and damp and dark. In the end it was hatred that kept me alive. Hatred of humanity."

Danni really wanted to speak up and scoff at her declaration. Humanity would and had done some damage to the planet, but did she really think that they'd created the cold at the poles? However, the story was important so she kept quiet.

"I forced myself to stand, to follow the tracks left by Pelham's machines. At last I stumbled across a series of primitive wooden structures, nothing more than shacks."

"An abandoned whaling station," the Doctor commented. Partock ignored him. "Inside were clothes, stinking rotten furs that kept out the cold. I found crude bladed weapons and hunted the mammals that swam beneath the ice. I forced myself to eat their flesh. I regained my strength. Wrapping myself in the furs I made it back to the base. I needed somewhere warm to hide where I could plan my revenge."

"The power room," Jack guessed and she nodded.

"Pelham's guards are even more stupid than the rest of the apes. Hiding from them was easy. I learned how to tamper with the controls. I could plunge the base into darkness whenever I wished. The humans do not deal well with the dark. Perhaps a part of them remembers how we used to hunt them in the forests of the old world."

"You know, I'm starting to wonder if helping you was the best idea," Jack commented.

The Doctor opened his mouth to tell him to be quiet. "I agree," Danni interrupted him. "How about we keep the ape insults to a minimum, yeah? We get it, you hate humans. It's getting old and we're running out of time for grudges."

Oclar patted his daughter on the shoulder as she seemed to get agitated at being told off. She backed down but obviously didn't seem pleased about it. "It was easy for me to use the shadows to find what I needed, to make my way back down to our base beneath the ice."

Oclar shook his head. "But how did you find out about the Myrka herds, the military? Those files were secret, known only to me and a handful of others."

"You are too trusting, Father. It was easy to break into your secret files and learn the true nature of our facility. I revived the Myrkas to attack the humans."

"You have gone too far, daughter!" Oclar voice was shaking with anger. "You will only make the situation with the humans worse."

In an attempt to peace keep, Danni took a step forward with her hands up. "Look, we've all done some things we regret while trying to survive," she started. "We've all made decisions that we wish we hadn't, ones that will haunt us long after the fact. You've got your father free, you can all head back underground until the Earth is ready for you, we don't need any more Myrkas on the rampage, do we?"

"The Myrkas will provide the means to bring the humans to their knees! We can wipe out the rest of these primitives with ease!"

"No!" Oclar cried. "I will not allow it!"

The Doctor could see an argument brewing. He needed to take hold of the situation. Partock was not going to allow any of them to take charge of the situation, but she also had not control either. He needed to get them all down underground, where he could clean up what was happening and pull some sort of resolution from this mess.

"I think we should get down there as fast as possible," he said, ushering them over to the lift. "We don't want a herd of confused Myrkas destroying the place. If they've been unfrozen, it should be easy enough to refreeze them."

The lift door opened with a slight scrape of metal on metal. The Doctor jumped back in surprise and both Jack and Danni reached for their guns. Jack, however, still didn't have his and so Danni pointed hers at the strange figure. The moment they came into view, however, she had to wonder if her gun would be any use at all.

The creature was tall. Hugely tall, actually. It towered over the group with room to spare. It wore combat gear and a fierce looking helmet where its black eyes glinted wickedly from. Its fins poked out from underneath the helmet, and it held a disk-like gun aloft ready to attack.

"Die humans," the creature hissed, its voice filled with hatred.

"No!" Partock knocked the weapon aside. "The humans are helping us."

Danni leant in close to the Doctor. Jack did the same from the opposite side. "That's not a Silurian," she muttered under her breath.

"It's a Sea Devil," he replied. "Closely related to the Silurians, but a different species."

"He looks like a cross between the Creature from the Black Lagoon and a Stormtrooper," Jack commented.

"You look like the cross between a World War 2 officer and a male escort, you don't hear us pointing it out," Danni retorted. "Stop being rude."

Jack tried not to laugh, and the Doctor tried not to seem smug at the fact that Danielle was telling him off. "The body armour suggests a commando squad. Probably highly trained."

"That doesn't sound too promising," Jack replied.

"Is everything ready?" Partock asked the Sea Devil.

"We await your command."

"What is the meaning of this?" Oclar pushed forward, struggling to speak through chattering teeth. "You had no right to revive the military…"

"I had no choice!" Partock snapped. "Pelham and the rest of the apes cannot be trusted. They need force to control them. General Veldac's troops were provide that force."

"That's all well and good," Danni called over. "But you mentioned guards being in the hibernation chambers. That's probably going to be an issue."

"And you thought I hadn't already dealt with them?" Partock shot her a despairing look before turning back to the general. "Start your attack."