Chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as Rose had entered the TARDIS, she had heard singing in her head. At first she had thought it was because the ship was happy to see her again, just as happy as she had been herself, but now she wasn't so sure. Slowly the singing had become more intense, almost overwhelming her. The tune was familiar, somehow, but she couldn't quite place it, and the more she thought about it the more the answer seemed to evade her.
"Rose? Everything alright?" Donna asked, touching her arm gently.
For a moment Rose was almost disoriented, then she shook off the notion. "Yeah."
"We should go. Everyone else is already outside."
Rose nodded and followed Donna slowly, but with the feeling that the TARDIS was where she should be. She stopped and looked back at the console.
"Rose, Donna!" Jack yelled from the outside, barely audible over the Daleks chanting something. "Come on!"
"Rose?" Donna was waiting for her, only two or three steps from the doors.
Once again Rose tried to shake the notion that had fallen on her and once again began to move towards Donna, but before she had reached her the doors fell shut.
"What the hell?" Donna muttered, then banged at the door. "Doctor? What've you done?" she shouted. "I'm not staying behind!"
Over the singing in her head Rose faintly heard the Doctor say, "What did you do?"
"This is not of Dalek origin!" a cold, mechanical voice said.
"Open the door and let them out!" the Doctor demanded.
"This is Time Lord treachery!"
"No! It wasn't me! Let them out!" Even though he somehow managed to keep his fear out of his voice, Rose could feel it racing through her mind like a shock wave, clearing her thoughts like a bucket of cold water. She needed to do something.
"Donna, grab something and hold onto it, just in case," she said, racing back to the console to do the same.
She had barely reached it when the Dalek screeched, "The TARDIS is a weapon and must be destroyed!"
Then they were suddenly falling.
For a moment she closed her eyes, gathering her strength. Then she pushed herself up, fighting against the acceleration of the TARDIS as the ship fell further and further. Suddenly the lights on the console exploded, scattering the room with glass, and small fires sprang up below the grating.
"What was that?" Donna asked, having got up again as well.
"No idea. But we're no longer falling, or only very slowly."
"It's getting warm here."
Rose nodded. "We must have reached the energy core of this thing. And I don't think the shields are strong enough to protect us. We'll have to get the TARDIS out of here. Do you have any idea how to fly her?"
"No. You?"
She stared at the console and tried to remember what the Doctor did when flying the TARDIS, but it had been too long. He'd never really explained what he was doing, just told her to hold a lever down or flip a switch.
"Not really."
"Bloody alien. A few explanations would have been really helpful now," Donna said conversationally, resignation lacing her voice.
"Yeah."
They exchanged a long look.
"There must be something we can do," Rose muttered, the singing in her head getting louder once more.
"Wait! Jack told me that the Doctor had sent you away from a space station or something, and that you came back to them. Didn't you fly the TARDIS then?"
Rose stared at her for a moment, suddenly everything clicking into place. "Donna, you're brilliant!"
Donna shrugged. "I'm just a temp. Ordinary."
Rose shook her head. "You're not ordinary. You're anything but. He only ever takes the best. And you are one of the best. Besides, I'm just a shop girl." She grinned suddenly. "You know what? That could be like one of those ridiculous superhero movies: Supertemp and Shop Girl Save the Universe!"
Donna grinned back. "You're as mad as him!" Then she became serious again. "And what do we do now?"
A small smile played around Rose's lips. "I'm going to do something incredibly stupid. Again." She paused, considering. "I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen, but I think I will be in some kind of trance. Don't bring me out of it unless you absolutely have to."
"Okay. And how do I bring you back?"
Rose eyed her speculatively, then grinned. "You'll think of something, I'm sure."
Then she touched the console, closed her eyes and concentrated, shutting everything else out. She had no idea if this would work, because she had never been able to contact the Doctor or the TARDIS on her own before, but this time she was already inside the ship, and maybe the physical contact would help. Slowly she began to descend into her mind, searching for the golden knot that represented her connection with the TARDIS. At least this time she already knew what she was looking for. When she had reached the golden knot, she paused for a moment, praying she was doing the right thing, that this would work. Then she reached out with her mind and touched it.
Doctor...
For an immeasurable amount of time nothing happened. Then she suddenly could feel his presence as if he was standing directly behind her, much like it had been in the dreams. He was moving with her around the console, guiding her hand, placing her fingers on the right buttons. She flipped one last switch and the column began to move and the TARDIS dematerialised.
~o~o~o~
Jack's heart broke for the tall man standing in front of him. Only one hour ago, the Doctor's eyes had lit up when he had discovered Rose on that street. Despite the situation, the danger they were in, the Doctor had been happy, really and truly happy. He hadn't shouted his joy at the sky, hadn't danced around the console, but it had been there, quiet contentment that the woman he loved was back at his side.
Only one hour ago, the universe had finally been right again.
And now...
Mickey had railed and raged against the Daleks. Jack had only barely held back from doing the same, but had somehow managed to calm the younger man down by sending him pointed glares. It would do them no good to get themselves killed, and even though his death would have been a lot less permanent than Mickey's, he really could do without repeating the experience. Besides, Rose would probably kill him if something happened to Mickey, he thought, then he remembered. Rose was gone.
The Doctor's face was an expressionless mask when he finally looked up at the Supreme Dalek again. He didn't say anything, in fact hadn't spoken or moved since the TARDIS had fallen through that trapdoor, Donna and Rose trapped inside. Now he just stared at the Dalek that was taunting him, his eyes colder than Jack had ever seen them before.
"You done?" the Doctor asked frostily when the Supreme Dalek fell finally silent, and Jack shivered at the power of barely contained emotions in his voice.
"Escort them to the vault," the Supreme Dalek ordered.
Four Dalek guards moved forward and herded them towards the belly of the ship, until a large room opened in front of them.
"Activate holding cells," the voice that had contacted the TARDIS earlier said, then a misshapen figure emerged from the shadows, the wreck of a man supported by the lower part of a Dalek shell. "Even if powerless, the Time Lord is best contained."
Jack could feel a force field closing around him, and he tentatively reached out. Blue light rippled where his palm touched the holding cell. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mickey doing the same, while the Doctor didn't so much as bat an eye, as if he were somewhere else.
Then suddenly he was back in the room with them. "That all you've got to say, Davros? No pathetic little speech? But then, what else should I expect of the plaything of the Daleks? Because that's what you are. Nothing more than a pet!" He spit the last word out, staring at Davros disdainfully.
"Doc, no! You're gonna get us killed!" Jack hissed.
"My companions are gone, my ship with them," the Doctor gave back, staring at him intently. "Do you really think my life matters to me anymore, Jack?"
The Doctor was trying to tell him something, Jack was certain. It took him a couple of seconds, then he realised what it was. As long as he had known the Doctor, he had never, not once, referred to Rose as his companion. And that meant... He could barely suppress a grin.
He slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again, hoping the Doctor would understand that he had received the message and would play along, providing a distraction if needed. Besides, before they could stop the Daleks they had to find out what they were on about. He couldn't be sure that Mickey realised what they were trying to do, but the young man was clever and would catch on eventually.
"Tell them what you've seen, Dalek Caan!" Davros demanded, and a light suddenly illuminated a platform with a broken Dalek shell, on top of which sat a Dalek in his true form.
"This I have foreseen in the wild and the wind," the Dalek sing-songed. "The Doctor will be here, as witness, at the end of everything. The Doctor and his precious Children of Time! And one of them will die...!" It cackled, and a shiver ran down Jack's spine.
"What's that thing?" Mickey asked, sounding shocked.
"Remember the Cult of Skaro? Canary Wharf?" the Doctor gave back distractedly.
"He's one of them?" Mickey asked incredulously. "I mean, not that I liked them back then, but at least they sounded more or less normal, at least for aliens who wanted to kill each and everyone who was not like them. That thing's just... insane!"
"An emergency temporal shift took him back into the Time War, and he saved me. It cost him his mind, and yet he succeeded," Davros said.
"I flew into the fire and the wild. I danced and died a thousand times," Dalek Caan sang. "And I have seen it. At the time of ending, the Doctor's soul will be revealed."
"What does that even mean?" Mickey commented.
"We will discover it together, Doctor," Davros said. "Our final journey. Because the ending approaches. The testing begins."
Mickey shook Jack a glance. "Is that sort of insanity infectious? Because I don't understand him either."
Jack grinned, despite the situation. Mickey was playing along as well. "No idea."
"Testing of what?" the Doctor asked Davros, ignoring the exchange.
"The reality bomb," Davros said, pressing a button on his control panel.
The voice of the Supreme Dalek filled the room. "Testing calibration of reality bomb. Firing in ten rels. Nine. Eight..."
Davros pressed another button. "Behold, the apotheosis of my genius."
A holographic screen activated, showing a group of people in a chamber together with a large circular device over their heads and a view of the twenty-seven planets at the same time.
"...Two. One. Zero. Activate planetary alignment field."
The Doctor stared at the screen in horror. The planets had started to emanate a white glow that became stronger with every passing second.
"That's Z-Neutrino Energy, flattened into one single stream by the alignment of the planets..." His voice was barely audible, and if possible Jack grew even more scared. Then the Doctor suddenly pressed his hands against the force field, as if he wanted to break it by sheer power of will. "No! You've got to stop this!"
"Doc? What does that mean?"
"Watch!" Davros ordered, and Jack wouldn't have been able to tear his eyes away from the screen if he had tried.
The glow from the planets was almost blinding now, no longer just visible on the part of the screen that showed the Medusa Cascade, but also in the chamber that held the group of people. To his horror their bodies began to dissolve into atoms, until there was nothing more than dust in the chamber. Then the light dissipated, leaving an empty room behind.
"Test completed," the Supreme Dalek announced over the speakers.
"Doctor?"
"Electrical energy, Jack," the Time Lord explained, trying to sound matter-of-factly and failing. "The reality bomb cancels out the electrical field that binds atoms together. And the planets in this alignment serve as a massive transmitter."
Jack stared at him in shock, not really sure if the Doctor had meant what he thought he did, but before he could voice another question, Davros moved towards them.
"This is my ultimate victory, Doctor! The destruction of reality itself. The wavelength will continue across the entire universe, never faltering, never fading. Planets will dissolve to dust, the dust into atoms, and the atoms into... nothing. And still the wavelength will move on, breaking through the rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade, into every dimension, every parallel universe, every corner of creation!"
"So that's why the stars are going out," Mickey said. "We could see it, because our universe runs ahead of this one. Does that mean-"
He was interrupted by the voice of the Supreme Dalek.
"Prepare for universal detonation! The fleet will gather at the Crucible. All Daleks will return to shelter from the cataclysm. We will become the only life forms in existence."
"The final prophecy is in place," Davros declared, his voice trembling with excitement. "The time has come. Detonate the reality bomb!"
Jack's view was captivated by the screen, where the planets once again had begun to glow.
"Universal reality detonation in two hundred rels," the Supreme Dalek announced over the speakers.
"Stop this, Davros! Or I'm gonna stop you!" the Doctor said, glaring at the man sitting in the Dalek shell.
Davros cackled. "And how are you going to do that, Time Lord? Your companions are either dead or prisoners, your ship is destroyed! You're helpless as a child! Nothing can stop the detonation! Nothing! And no one!"
"And that is where you're wrong," the Doctor replied coldly, his words underlined by the sound of the universe.
The TARDIS materialised in front of them, for the moment blocking them from the row of Daleks standing along the wall. The door opened, and Rose appeared, one blaster in her hands, the other on her back. She looked around briefly, taking the situation in, then took a few quick steps away from the TARDIS, pointing her weapon at Davros.
"Let them go," she demanded.
"That's your plan, Doctor?" Davros cackled. "A woman with a gun? Pathetic!" He pointed his finger at Rose and a blast of electricity hit her in the chest. She crumbled on the floor.
"Rose!" the Doctor yelled.
"I'm fine," she managed, drawing in ragged breaths. "Just didn't expect he'd go all Emperor Palpatine on me."
Mickey laughed, despite the situation.
"Activate holding cell," Davros ordered, and a force field activated around her.
"Donna, the console!" Jack shouted at Donna who had appeared in the TARDIS door at the Doctor's scream and had escaped Davros's attention so far.
Without hesitation Donna raced towards the console and ducked behind it, thus avoiding another blast of electrical energy from Davros. "But what do I do?"
"Deactivate the holding cells!" the Doctor shouted.
"But I don't know how!"
"Yes, you do! Donna, you're a temp! You know your way around a computer. Any computer!" Rose said encouragingly, having recovered enough to stand up again. "Deactivate the holding cells!"
Donna regarded the console for a moment, then pressed four buttons whose status lights had been glowing, and the force fields vanished.
"Yes!" Mickey said. "So much for the holding cells!"
"Here, Mick!" Rose chucked the weapon she had been holding to him and took the one she had carried on her back into her hands in one swift movement.
"Thanks!" He directed the blaster at Davros, who was touching the control panel in front of him. "I really wouldn't do that if I were you, mate!"
One of the Daleks had finally moved around the TARDIS and directed his weapon at the Doctor, who was already halfway to the console Donna was manning.
"Extermi-," was all it got out, then Jack blew up its shell with his Compact Laser Deluxe.
"Detonation in sixty rels," the Supreme Dalek announced over the chaos that had descended.
"We've got to stop that bomb from going off!" the Doctor shouted, rounding the console.
"You and Rose do that, Mickey and I have your backs!"
"Thanks, Jack!" Rose said. "Do you want to swap?" She nodded at his blaster. "Even though I really don't wanna know where you kept that."
He grinned at her. "Nah, I'm fine. Go help him, Rosie!"
Rose wasted no more time. Slinging the blaster back over her shoulder, she raced to the console, casting concerned glances at the three Daleks lining up in front of it. Jack would never be able to stop all three of them, what with Mickey keeping an eye (and a blaster) fixed on Davros.
"Donna, can you do something about their weapons?" she asked, watching the Doctor press buttons and flick switches. "Doctor?"
"I need to create an internalised synchronous back-feed reversal loop to close the Z-Neutrino relay loops."
"Detonation in ten rels," the Supreme Dalek announced. "Nine. Eight..."
"Right. No pressure, then." Rose regarded the control panel for a moment, then pressed a button and the glow from the planets dissipated.
The Doctor stared at her. "What did you do?"
"Emergency shut-down. First rule of electrical engineering: If in doubt, pull the plug." She grinned.
"Ah."
"You will suffer for this," Davros declared, his right hand once again touching the control pad in front of him.
Mickey quickly pressed a button on his blaster, then fired. "That was the stun setting. Should keep your arm paralysed for about an hour. Do it again, and you lose the limb."
"Exterminate them!" Davros ordered, his breath laboured, and the Daleks moved forward.
"Now would be good, Donna," the Doctor said, urgency evident in his voice.
Donna grinned and flicked one last switch. "There you go."
"Weapons non-functional," one of the Daleks screeched.
"Like Rose said. I'm a temp, I know my way around a computer."
"Right. Let's send the planets home!" the Doctor exclaimed, already working on the controls. "Activate magnetron!"
"Stop it at once!" Davros ordered. "Get them away from the controls!"
The Daleks moved forward again, and this time Donna turned a dial, causing the Daleks to spin. "Huh, didn't think that would work!" she mused, then grinned.
"Systems malfunctioning!" one of the Daleks screeched.
"Rose, I need you to help me send the planets back," the Doctor said. "I'm not sure how long they'll still be able to maintain their atmospheric shells."
"Sure. Just tell me what to do."
They worked together seamlessly, anticipating what the other would do, and one by one the planets disappeared in blinding flashes of light.
"We've lost the magnetron," Rose said eventually. "And there's still one planet left."
"Don't tell me. Earth." The Doctor shook his head. "Typical."
"Any ideas?"
"Yeah. But first..." His gaze became cold, and he glared at Davros. "First I'll have to finish something."
"Doctor?" Rose asked.
"This is a full-fledged Dalek empire out there, and if I don't do something about it, they'll wreck havoc on the universe, with or without the reality bomb. And there's no one left who'd be able to fight them."
"And what are you gonna do?"
He looked her in the eyes, his steel-blue eyes bleak as she had never seen them before. "Destroy them."
Rose held his gaze, searching his eyes as if she wanted to look into his soul. Eventually she nodded. "You're right. We've got to do something about the Daleks. And since it's a waste of breath to reason with them, this is the only way to keep the universe safe. But I'm not gonna let you do this alone. We'll do it together."
"Rose..." He stared at her in astonishment. "You don't have to..."
"No. But I will. You're not alone in this." She paused. "And how?"
"Not even Davros would be so stupid not to leave a backdoor, in case the Daleks decided they didn't need him anymore."
"And he would have hardwired it into their genetic code..." Rose thought aloud.
"...and make it easily accessible, even for him," the Doctor concluded. "Which leaves..."
"...the console or his control panel."
"You're scary when you do that sort of thing," Mickey commented, still pointing his blaster at Davros. "Do you need me to persuade him to give up his control panel?"
"No. It's the console. This needs a bit more power than his control panel," the Doctor said. He stared at the console for a long moment, taking everything in, then his hand moved to one of the buttons.
"This one," he said, lightly touching the button.
Then Rose's hand covered his and she captured his eyes. "Together," she said.
Their hands moved in perfect synchrony, pressing the button, and the Daleks began to explode around them.
"TARDIS, now!" the Doctor ordered, not caring about the chaos descending upon them. He reached for Rose's hand, and together they raced towards the time ship, followed by Donna, Mickey and Jack, who closed the door behind them.
The Doctor wasted no time working on the controls, and before they had even fully dematerialised the Crucible exploded around them, the shock wave following them into the Time Vortex.
"But what about the Earth?" Donna asked, as soon as she was standing upright again.
"Working on it," the Doctor said, re-materialising the TARDIS in space. "Jack, can you contact the Torchwood hub?"
"Sure." He pressed a few buttons on the console. "Jack Harkness calling the Torchwood hub. Are you receiving me?"
"Loud and clear," Owen said over the speakers.
"Torchwood hub, this is the Doctor. I want you to open the rift manipulator. Send all the power to me."
"What for?"
"Well, I could leave the Earth in the Medusa Cascade, but then the atmospheric shell would break down over time, and people would die. Plus, I really don't fancy dealing with the aftershock when the absence of Earth somehow causes your solar system to collapse." The Doctor looked at Jack. "Is he always like this?"
Jack shrugged. "Normally he's worse." He once again pressed the button at the console. "Do what he says, Owen!"
"And why?"
"Because I say so."
"Alright, alright," the other man grumbled. "Opening rift manipulator now."
"What do you need the power for?" Rose asked.
"It's like a tow-rope for Earth." The Doctor grinned at her manically and she grinned back. "Now we need all the computer power we can get."
"Tosh?" Jack asked. "Anything you can give us?"
"There's our computer, but that won't be enough. The UNIT computer centre was destroyed when the Daleks hit Geneva. The same applies to the data centres of the Pentagon, basically all intelligence services, the NASA, ESA, you name it."
"Damn!" Jack said.
"Wait!" A fourth voice made itself known, a woman with a Welsh accent. "What about... What was her name? There are rumours she's got a computer that's basically a Xylok."
"Oh, I know who you mean, Gwen," Tosh said. "You should know her, Doctor. Sarah Jane-"
"Smith," the Doctor completed the sentence. "Can you contact her?"
"Doing it now, sir" a new voice said, and the Doctor looked up and stared at the speaker, looking thoughtful.
Less than two minutes later Sarah Jane Smith's voice could be heard over the speakers. "Doctor?"
"Hello, Sarah!"
"Doctor, what's going on? Someone from Torchwood called me and told me you needed help. Does that have something to do with the Daleks? They invaded us and then they suddenly retreated. Are they coming back?"
"The Daleks have been dealt with," the Doctor said coldly. Then he continued, sounding warmer now, "We have to tow Earth back to where it belongs. We need a supercomputer to harness the power of the Cardiff rift and loop it round the TARDIS. Can you help us?"
"Sure. Mr Smith, did you get that?" Sarah Jane asked.
"I regret I will need remote access to the TARDIS base code," the supercomputer announced.
"Sarah, K-9 should have them," the Doctor said.
"Affirmative, Mistress."
"The tin dog," Mickey threw in, shooting a grin at Jack who grinned back.
"K-9, give Mr Smith the base codes," the Doctor ordered.
"Master. TARDIS base code now being transferred."
"Good dog," the Doctor said, then turned to the people in the TARDIS. "Right. This is a bit more complicated than just flying the TARDIS-"
"And we all know you're a rubbish driver," Donna interrupted.
"Oi!" He shot her a glare, then continued, "therefore I'm gonna need a couple of additional hands to pilot her. Rose, that dial. You need to reach a level of 90. Go slow, because higher would be several kinds of bad. Jack, I need you to keep an eye on the temporal stabilisers. Donna, hold that lever down, until I tell you differently. Mickey, that control. Activate those buttons when I tell you."
He pulled a lever, then the time rotor began to move.
"Mickey, now!"
The other man pressed the buttons, one by one, and the status lights changed.
"Donna, flip your lever!"
For a full minute nothing happened. "Doctor?"
"Just watch!" He indicated a monitor that showed an image of the Medusa Cascade with Earth.
It was barely visible at first, but then it became clearer. The Earth was moving.
"It's working!" Rose said, her eyes jumping between the dial and the monitor. "We're at a level of 50 now, and increasing."
"Remember, go slow. Jack, what about the stabilisers?"
"Looks good to me."
Five minutes later, Rose announced. "We've reached a level of 90."
"Jack?"
"Temporal stabilisers holding," he said, exhaustion lacing his voice, then he yawned. "Sorry. Must be the adrenalin wearing off."
The Doctor looked at the four humans in the console room. All of them were dead at their feet, and if he was honest for once, he wasn't much better off.
"It'll be at least twelve hours before we can start the braking action and bring the Earth back into orbit around the sun. Until then, all that's left to do is occasionally checking the instruments. Go get some sleep."
"What about you, Doc?" Jack asked.
"Need to check a couple of instruments we're gonna need for the breaking action."
Whatever it was that Jack saw in his face, he simply nodded, cast a glance at Donna and Mickey, and the three of them left the console room in search of a bedroom without any further comment, leaving the Doctor and Rose behind.