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The Doctor's plan is going horribly awry now... enjoy!

PRIORITY NUMBER ONE

Martha Jones was dancing with the Doctor. Waltzing, as a matter of fact, to Mozart's Spring Song. It was a bit difficult to concentrate on the dancing, given that she was actually being led by the arm down a dangerous corridor, subject to being recaptured and executed at any moment, surrounded by men in rubber masks, but she managed. The weirdest thing was existing in two realities at once; she was completely aware of what was going on around her, but also concentrated the dance inside, being held, as it were, by the Doctor, in a rhythmic trance. Like one existence superimposed upon another. Like she was hitting 'alt-tab' inside her brain, while still seeing two screens.

Having seen him scuffle with the guard, and then struggle to climb into the guard's uniform… well, it was all very nerve-wracking. Fortunately, though, the meditation continued, and the depth of their connection endured. In the reverie, the Doctor was able to calm her – his eyes kept her fixed and entranced. She reckoned she should be experiencing abject fear – and she was – and yet she was cradled in comfort. This was how she knew that things had changed, that she, as well as their relationship were perhaps being pushed to the next level with this depth of connection. Never had she been able to be so wide open, yet so compartmentalised all at once. It was as though the Doctor was bringing her into not just his equilibrium, but also his way of thinking and seeing and interpreting the universe around him.

Though she hardly had time to think about it.

Another voice was sounding in her head. She saw the tall, disturbing officer standing before them…

He made her nervous. Being here made her nervous. This entire business of escape made her nervous. Under normal circumstances, she'd also be exhilarated and excited, but she couldn't afford that now…

…and so she waltzed on.

"Hey, there, Sabrak, is it?"

"Er, yes," the Doctor's voice seemed to say.

"This is Martha Jones, isn't it?"

"Oh God, they know!" Martha said, keeping it all within the waltz. Her steps faltered a bit, but the Doctor caught her, and returned her to proper footing.

"It's all right," he assured her. "You can do this. Just stay in rhythm."

She then heard him deny to the other voice that this was indeed Martha Jones, whom he had by the arm.

But the other man was not convinced. "That's Martha Jones you're seeing, Sabrak. I don't know what you've been told, but that prisoner you've got is one and the same. I'll take her from here."

"What do we do? This is a disaster!" she cried out, stumbling again.

"Don't panic. Concentrate on the waltz."

Inside her mind, the Doctor's grip around her waist became a bit tighter, and he actually counted for her, so she could find her equilibrium again.

"You'll take her from here?" he said to the guard. "No, no…"

"Yes, yes. I'm under orders."

"I'm under orders as well," the Doctor protested.

"I outrank you, Sabrak," the other guard admonished. "My orders supersede yours. Hand her over."

"But…"

"Judge Rabic's plan is to be carried out starting now."

"Rabic's plan?" Martha asked. "What is his plan?"

"I don't know. I'll try and find out. Just dance."

"But, she hasn't even been tried yet," the Doctor pointed out to the guard.

"I know. She'll be injected before the trial. That's the only way it will work."

"Injected?" she heard the Doctor ask."

"Rabic told me himself – I'm to do it personally," said the guard. There was a pause, and then he said, "In fact…"

She watched the guard reach for something at his belt.

"What's he doing? What's he doing?"

And she was terrified to find that the Doctor was not lulling her. Where was he? How was she supposed to keep on dancing and not die if he couldn't hold her inside the meditation?

But he was right there beside her all along, and she realised with horror that he'd been silent because he'd been panicking the last few seconds as well…

Though, on the outside, Martha realised that all of this was happening faster than her inner-self had been keeping up with it, and that perhaps the Doctor did not have time to react.

She felt a tug on her arm, followed, a split second later by a deep pain in the other arm. A prick that seemed to push down, and down…

…and it burned. Something was getting into her bloodstream.

"Ouch!" she cried out loud, suddenly completely drowned in reality. The injection had yanked her from the meditation, and caught in a panic, she realised what had happened. She tried to pull back inside of herself, but the reverie was gone. The waltz was gone. Spring Song was gone. And her heart was now pounding much faster than eighty beats per minute.

A few seconds seemed to go buy in a matter of minutes, as the guard plunged a needle into Martha's body in slow motion, and appeared to pollute her with some unidentified substance.

He hadn't realised that the guard's words had caused him to lose concentration and disconnect a bit from the waltz, and he hadn't been there to keep her grounded when the injection occurred. And all at once, he felt her snap. He felt her inside of himself, explode into panic and pain… and then she was gone.

"Ouch!" she cried out.

The connection was severed. The meditation broken, eighty beats-per-minute a pipe-dream, as long as Martha's consciousness was flailing free.

"We'll see you at the trial, Sabrak," the other guard said, taking the arm he had just pricked, attempting to drag her away.

And she began to fight.

"Oh, no you don't!" she screamed, twisting away. She only got two feet, before he grabbed her again, this time tighter. "No! Stop! You can't!"

"Sabrak, give me a hand, would you?" the guard asked. "She's not going to go quietly."

"You're goddamn right, I'm not going to go quietly!" Martha screamed, kicking at him, trying in vain to twist away once more. "Let go of me!"

It occurred to the Doctor that if he helped subdue and transport her, he could stay with her and maybe help keep her safe, and he moved to do so.

But two other officers arrived out of nowhere, both grabbing onto Martha, including with one hand over her mouth, silencing her scream of "No!" With three of them holding her, she now had no chance of movement. He could see terror in her eyes, and knew her well enough to know that she was not only scared, but also angry as hell.

It was all the Doctor could do to keep a lid on his temper, and not throw himself at the guards, and get both of them killed kicking and scratching, trying to free her. He forced himself to speak calmly, succeeding only marginally.

"It's okay, guys, I'll help," he said, with gritted teeth. "You can go back to doing whatever you were doing."

"This is what we were doing," said one of the later arrivals. "We were headed in this direction to assist with the transfer of Martha Jones. Now, back sector E with you. Go on."

He couldn't say anything to reassure her. He couldn't think anything to reassure her. He couldn't even give her a look.

They just took her, and he had to watch.

One way or another, this planet seemed determined to break his hearts.

And with that, the three guards disappeared around a corner carrying a restrained, pissed-off, terrified Martha Jones, with a heartrate out of control.

I knew I should've come up with something better than a bloody meditation to keep her safe. I should have known that one good painful jostle would bring her round, and it would be all over…

…but it was all I had! What was I supposed to do? Make a new set of beta blockers with my handy-dandy chemistry set? Please.

But, he happened to notice rather absently, at least she wasn't coughing, sputtering, trying to clutch her chest, turning blue, or anything else. So, that was a plus.

He tried following them. They took her through a door at the end of an adjacent hallway, which shut behind them. The Doctor tried opening it, but it was, of course, locked. He searched the uniform's belt he was wearing – there was a weapon, a repair kit for the goggles, and various and sundry other things… but no keys. And the sonic screwdriver was on the TARDIS console, inside of a hotel room in Portugal, on the planet Earth. Lovely.

He retreated away from the door, lest he be caught trying to get through. The last thing he needed was to get thrown into some other type of cell, especially with Martha taken.

He went back down the hall with his heartrate regulated, but not his panic.

"Think think think think think," he said to himself, moving swiftly down the hall.

He found a door that said "utility," turned the knob, and went inside – he needed a quick place to breathe heavily and mildly freak out without anyone noticing.

It was as he had expected: a small room filled with cleaning supplies, a control panel for heating and water, and a broken chair in the corner.

He paced.

Martha was gone, taken literally kicking and screaming by three incredibly upstanding men, each of whom was twice her size.

"And I just let it happen," he said aloud. He chuckled to himself. "Nice, Doctor. Very brave. How many planets have you saved, again?"

But, he reminded himself of the reason he'd done it: if he had fought for her, they'd know who he was, and the business of escape would have got a million times harder. They would both be under lock-and-key once again, and there would be no-one to roam about the complex, trying to find a way to recalibrate the planet.

Recalibrate the planet. Martha had said it sounded daft. He hoped she was wrong.

Because it was now his priority.

His instinct said to save Martha first, but that was the gut reaction of a man in love. The rational decision of a hard-boiled problem-solver was to start with the TARDIS. Without the TARDIS, Martha's freedom was temporary at best, as was his.

Make this planet safe for the TARDIS. Okay, good. That's the plan.

So, nothing had changed. He still had to push forward and find the central server… or at least the complex's link to it, and increase the maximum heartrate. Martha's personal safety was now priority number two.

He closed his eyes, and swallowed a sob, as well as a swell of anger. This absurd planet has forced me to put Martha's safety second. Which means it's a hell of a lot more fucked-up than I ever realised.

With that, he stepped back out into the hallway. From now on, no more exploring, no more getting his bearings. He was now just looking for a staircase.

An hour or so of searching in the bowels of the building, at last, yielded an official-looking door marked, "Records."

A quick search on the independent server, under the not-so-watchful eye of a librarian-like guard, yielded what he had been hoping for: the knowledge that he was in the main building, held by the Congress of Sercaton. It was, in essence, the main government facility. Like the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., only less grand, if he was remembering the exterior correctly.

That meant that in all likelihood, the central control unit for the planet's atmospheric weirdness had to be here somewhere.

He didn't expect the room to be labelled, exactly, but he did pull up a schematic of the complex.

It was huge, labyrinthine, and not at all intuitive.

Well, lovely. So, on top of everything else, all my experience with skulking about in secret alien "complexes" is of no use to me. This planet just gets better and better.

And while he was studying the schematic, another guard wandered into the room, and began chatting up the "librarian" guard.

"Yox, how are you?" librarian guard asked.

"Bored. Could be worse."

"Haven't they got you guarding the hordes?"

"Sort of," said the second guard. "But the hordes are surprisingly subdued. I think they're just waiting to see what they came to see, and then… after that, there will be celebration and anarchy. Not necessarily related to one another."

Oh, that's right! The hordes… waiting to see what they came to see, namely, my hideous death. I'd almost forgotten about them!

It had occurred to the Doctor, two days earlier, to ask Judge Rabic how in the hell they were planning on hosting beings from various planets all over this galaxy for the exciting conclusion of the Time Lord saga, when excitement causes increased heartrate, which, on this planet, causes terrible things to happen. The judge had answered cryptically, giving nothing away.

And now it was occurring to him again.

He used a sort of "screen-shot" function on his goggles to preserve the image he was seeing, of the complex's layout, then saved it for later use.

Then he stood up from the computer, and sauntered over to the other two guards, and pretended to make bored small talk. "Hey there, Yox," he said. "So the hordes are calm, you say. Sorry, couldn't help overhearing – I was just sitting over there."

"Yes," Yox said. "It makes less work for me, but the days go by so damn slowly."

"Hm, I'll bet," the Doctor commented. "Why do you think? They're so docile, I mean?"

"I have no idea," he said. "Out of courtesy, maybe? I mean, considering that they could lose their minds and wreak havoc if they wanted, it really is a mystery. By all accounts, we were expecting parties in the streets, and lots of noise, but there's only been a few respectful gatherings."

"They could lose their minds, all right," the Doctor chuckled, pretending to know what that meant, so that perhaps Yox would give further.

"Yeah," Yox breathed. "With the amount of Zone 2 Corabat they've ordered, it makes you wonder why the rest of us bother."

"Zone 2 Corabat?" the Doctor asked, feigning amusement. Then he let out a long, descending whistle. "Strong stuff."

"Yeah, but… everything's fine," said Yox the guard. "No-one is taking advantage. I reckon they really must fucking hate that Doctor."

"I reckon they must," said the Doctor.

"They must really want to see him burn!" Yox added, breaking out into laughter, which the librarian guard joined.

"What I don't get is why we are using Zone 2, rather than Zone 1?" commented the Doctor. "I mean, both drugs will secure heartrate at a fixed BPM equally well, but Zone 1 is cheaper in this part of the universe. I mean, it comes from closer territories."

"Because it only comes in pill form from Zone 1."

"Right," the Doctor sighed. "Zone 2 can manufacture the drug in almost any form. Got it."

"It's dangerous, if you ask me," said the librarian guard. "Letting everyone behave how they like, have excitement and whatnot. What if they begin revelling? Or worse: copulating!"

"I guess that's a chance the Congress is willing to take," the Doctor said, shrugging.

"But still," librarian said, shuddering. "It's so gross. And right here, on our planet! And they'd survive to do it again! Ugh!"

With any luck, the Doctor agreed, inwardly.

"Well, good chat," he said to the two guards. "I'd better be getting back…"

"Yep, see you," Yox said, waving him off.

He left the room, heading to the left, in the opposite direction from where he'd come. He still needed to find a central server of some sort, that would allow him to recalibrate the planet's sensibilities, and bring the TARDIS in safely…

And while he walked, he couldn't help but think. He was disturbed, as something was on the tip of his consciousness, of his realisation, but he didn't know what yet…

Corabat, Corabat, Corabat… regulates heartrate in somewhat the same way as Propanolol. Yox said they'd ordered an army's worth of the drug, gone out of their way to get it in different forms, probably to accommodate the different species and their differing physiologies – not a bad plan, as diabolical plans go.

The drug comes from Zone 2 in pill form, of course, but also tincture for the tongue, suppository, skin patch and…

The Doctor stopped in his tracks. He was overcome with dread.

…and injection.

And suddenly the pieces fell into place. Based on Martha's interrogation under the icy cold, foul-smelling water, and the intelligence he'd just gained, he now felt he knew Judge Rabic's plan for them.

And he couldn't decide whether to vomit, or weep with despair.

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