Chapter 10 – Loose Ends Tied
Notes: Last chapter, but fear not, there is an epilogue!
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"Jack?" Martha noticed a speck of blood on his shirt. She frowned. "Is that…blood? Are you injured?"
Her eyes followed the smear down to his ripped trouser leg, and her eyes widened in alarm. "Were you SHOT?"
A fraction of a second later, Jack turned away…not quickly enough.
Think fast, he ordered himself. Think very, very fast,
He coughed and smiled reassuringly.
"Just a flesh wound courtesy of our friend here. The Doctor managed to find a container of nanogenes in his pocket, so it's all healed up now. No worrying about me."
She scowled at him.Martha wasn't dumb. She knew you never trust anyone who says "trust me", you never expect plan A to work, and you never, ever trust Jack when he smiles reassuringly.
"Nanogenes my foot", she said bluntly. "If that bullet's still lodged in there it could turn septic and infected and very highly unpleasant. I'm taking a look at it when we get…back...- what the HELL is he doing here?!" Her eyes had flickered past Jack and zeroed in on L'tral's scowling face. The thug jumped.
"Watch yer tongue missy, I ain't through with you." He spat, growling through a split lip. The intimidating effect was rather crushed, however, bythe zip-ties around his wrists. "Where's the Katseye?"
"Incinerated," Mel replied tartly. She disengaged herself from the Doctor's arms and stalking over, pulling out her blaster. The low hum of the energy weapon powering up was distinct as she pressed the barrel up under the man's jaw. "I jettisoned it in a magnetic container that crashed and burned with your partner's ship. Now, you are going to tell me who in the twin suns sent you after us, or so help me I'll pull this trigger. The effects of a point blank charge even at the stun setting can do wonders to the humanoid brain."
L'tral glared darkly back, his expression of self-confidence waning only slightly. "You wouldn't dare."
She clenched her teeth and shoved the muzzle harder against his skin. "You put my partner through the ringer. Try me."
The Doctor knew Mel. He knew she would never do anything so violent. He was one hundred percent certain…well, eighty percent. Okay, sixty percent. Maybe fifty.
Anyway, he was fairly sure Mel would never just kill a man.
It was still a little unsettling to watch. "I'd listen to her if I were you."
L'tral's eyes darted nervously between Mel's fiery glare and the Doctor's collected gaze.
"I…we…never got a name. Or a face really, he kept it in shadow whenever he contacted us via vid-screen." He finally stammered out. "And the transmissions were always bounced off of a dozen different relay points. I dun really understand much of it; K'ran was the tech-savvy."
"Nothing else?" Mel pressed.
"I swear on K'ran's grave, nothing else. Look lady, I've cooperated, and we's didn't do much to your boyfriend back there, how 'bout letting me goes, aye?"
A rush of anger overtook the redhead's better judgment and she slammed the guy into the rocks, squeezing her finger tighter on the trigger. "Didn't DO MUCH?" she hissed, "Why you arrogant-"
"Mel!" The Doctor's hand gripped onto her gun arm, firm but not painful. The air hung thick with tension for an agonizing few beats of his hearts. His hand remained steady on her arm, feeling her tremble with the rage and pent-up frustration boiling beneath her surface.
"He's not worth it, Melanie. Let him go," he said softly. She tensed, her eyes darting uncertainly between the focus of her revenge and her old friend's gentle words.
Then, slowly, Mel sighed. Her body sagged, and she relinquished her weapon to the Doctor's grasp without resistance.
"No…it isn't," She agreed softly. "Glitz was right; I'm not the violent type." Taking a deep lungful of air to steady herself, she stepped back. L'tral breathed a massive sigh of relief, and started to move away from the rock.
That was when Martha decked him.
With a punch that would've made Mohammad Ali proud, she brought her fist back and launched it with all the force of a force three hurricane. The man hit the dirt with a howl, clutching his bound hands over his bloody nose.
"That was for the overkill use of trichloromethane and methyl trichloride, you sadistic piece of post-mortem Galiraut excrement!"
She grinned with a satisfied grimace as she massaged her wrist, shaking it loosely to relieve the tingling pain that the impact had caused. Then she paused, once she took notice of the others' shocked – and in Jack and Mel's cases, approvingly awed – stares.
"What? Oh come on. You might not be the violent type Mel, but he had it coming," she justified defensively.
"Youb libble bidth," L'tral raged from the dirt. "Youb broke my nobth!"
Jack hauled the unfortunate man to his feet and told him to suck it up, flashing Martha a grin. "Nice punch, Jones."
Martha echoed the smile. "I learnt from the best."
"Have you now?" The Doctor cast Jack a suspicious look, but the Time Agent just shrugged innocently.
Taking a quick consensus, the group started back to Denabi, prodding L'tral along ahead of them at gunpoint. The walk was punctuated by Martha's retelling her harrowing adventure of being kidnapped and how she managed to escape, perhaps with a bit more embellishment on her own part then what actually occurred. Once back in the settlement, Jack took the liberty of hauling L'tral into the nearest security force outpost, while Mel led the way back to the Star-Striker.
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Glitz's sedative had worn off some time earlier, and to Mel's relief looked and sounded a whole lot better after a few hours of proper warm sleep, when the three time-travelers returned to the ship. Naturally he was rather disgruntled over having missed out on the fun.
"I still wish I'd gotten a chance at the crukked idjits," he complained as Mel bullied him into staying put in bed while Martha worked her professional magic by checking his head and properly splinting his fractured arm. "They only caught me off guard in the hold is all, I wasn't ready for them."
"We know Glitz, we know. Next time I'll let you take out the whole battalion of thugs next time you make a dangerous deal behind my back." Mel's sweet smile promised pain; Glitz quickly shut his mouth and stopped whining about the subject, turning his attention to Martha's work and praising the young medical student on her adeptness.
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The Doctor was in the cockpit when Mel left her partner and the good doctor at last, using his sonic screwdriver to repair a few tattered wires that had posed a danger. He looked up as his old friend heaved a heavy sigh and collapsed into her chair, casting him a weary smile.
"What a day, eh?"
He ghosted a grin over his features and flicked the screwdriver off, slipping it into his breast pocket.
"Kidnapping, murder threats, plots to foil, ships to crash – all in a day's work really. Like old times." He grinned brightly as the remark elicited a short laugh from the girl in the chair.
"Yeah; let's not do it again real soon."
They chuckled in unison for a few minutes, before quieting. Mel sighed and leaned forward, checking a few of the instruments to fill the awkward silence. She jumped slightly when he spoke again.
"Mel, that was some pretty amazing flight skills out there," he remarked. She could hear the unspoken 'but' in his tone. "You nearly gave me a hearts-attack when you pulled off that last stunt. I thought for a moment I'd lost you both...but Martha mentioned something about a short-range transmat…?"
Mel grinned sheepishly. "Something I cobbled together. A computer program beamed directly from the Striker here; if the ship's computer is in range, I just punch in the frequency and it transports me and anyone close to me to a nearby point."
His brown eyes were thoughtful and dark with concern. "And if you hadn't been in range?"
She stilled, and met his gaze for what seemed like eternity. In those eyes she could see the last Doctor she knew; past the hope and the brightness for life and the gentle nature, there was deep concern, and fear, for her.
"Then we would've crashed in that ship. I'm not a child anymore, Doctor; I've seen things even you wouldn't believe. I'm not afraid to die. But I'm sorry for taking such risk with Martha on board."
The Doctor nodded silently, and looked away, considering the repair work he was concocting. Then he sighed, and smiled his familiar toothy smile.
"Always forgiven, my dear Melanie. Y'know, I think I may have a replacement for this tertiary power coupling stashed in the TARDIS. Either that or I lost it at Villengard. Did I tell you about Villengard? Used to be a big weapon's factory, but there are banana trees there now. I like bananas. The French court at Versailles found them fascinating, though I probably shouldn't have introduced them to the banana daiquiri…"
Mel couldn't help but laugh.
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The cover of nightfall was all he needed. A silencing blow to the neck, hand clamped firmly over the guard's mouth, and the keys pilfered and left in the archaic bolted lock, and he was free.
L'tral scoffed the poor enforcement policies of the backwater little spaceport as he slipped quietly towards the landing bays. The law was too ruffled by the Larias family to bother with a lowlife thief like him, which was perfect. Made disappearing into the shadows all that more easy.
The humming rumble of engines and the soft voices of passers-by wafted softly into the night as people came and went, and the man lingered hesitantly for some time. He wanted revenge. He wanted retribution, for the Katseye, for K'ran, for everything they had taken from him.
No…
He wanted a drink. He wanted to get good and plenty plastered until he couldn't see straight for more then a few feet. He wanted to wake up with a gaping hole in his memories, and maybe it would take away the pain K'ran and that little whelp with the wicked right hook had left behind.
Thrusting his hands deep into his pockets the brute skulked off towards the Cantiana.
The low murmur of the bar showed just how much a difference there was in customer traffic at night, and L'tral was grateful for it as he slid into a stool at the far corner of the bar, and muttered an order of the most soul-numbing liquor they had. He was technically a wanted man, and some tosser might decide the prospect of a reward would be sweeter then a knife to the gut.
Not that he had a knife on hand.
The bartender set the glass of murky blue liquid down in front of him, along with a small white napkin (did they really care about drip-rings that much in this rat hole?) and L'tral picked it up, draining the glass in a single foul swoop. The liquid burned like fire down his throat, and he coughed, relishing the punishing haze. He set the glass down and gestured for another.
Then he noticed what was on the napkin, scrawled with a delicate script and plain as the bleeding moon.
You were warned.
The note was unsigned, but L'tral felt a deathly chill grip his stomach just the same. He stood up hurriedly, knocking over his stool, and turned to flee the bar as fast as he could.
At least, that was the plan. He even managed to make a few staggering steps before the poison took hold.
He fell like a dead weight, as the cold tightened, spreading through his body like the black nights in Denabi.
Grasping for a nearby chair, and missing entirely, he collapsed to the floor.
The world spun, blossoming into a multicolored atrocity that made an acid trip look like five shades of gray.
Then, slowly, the swirl of colors faded away into darkness. There was no one to see the look of pain and surprise frozen on L'tral's face.
And no one heard the low chuckle that echoed in his ears as he took his last breath.
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In a dirty, second-rate bar, someone recognized the body of L'tral, the wanted criminal, and turned it in for the reward.
All the doctors' could tell (not that they tried very hard) was that the draught was extremely expensive. After that discovery, the matter was quietly dropped.
So no one ever did find out who had slipped him the poison that ended his life. But if the Doctor had been there…well, it might have been a different story.