A/N: Not much more left. Kind of a sad chapter actually, and you know with the Doctor, this isn't going to be pretty. Please R/R

Chapter Eighteen: No Second Chances…

Tash looked at the bundles that held the Kasi captain and some of his guard. She went over toward the plant covered bundles and then spat on them in obvious contempt. The Doctor laughed a little, "Okay, Tash I don't think we need to know how you feel about the Kasi."

Tash grinned a little, "Doctor, they are my captives. I didn't kill them, so don't I have the right to play with them, just a little…."

The Doctor sighed and then shook his head, in slight amusement, "I suppose you're right."

Tash took a peak outside the tent and frowned, "More Kasi…."

She suddenly grabbed a few seeds off the vines that were in the tent.

Sarah Jane said, "Tash what are you doing?"

Tash looked a bit impish, "Planting…"

The Doctor chuckled; he was amused at his Mala'shraian friend.

Sarah Jane frowned, "I don't get it."

The Doctor said, "Sarah Jane. Planting means so much to Mala'shrian culture. It's well…it's there way of life. From how they are born to….how they make their technology. And….what exactly are you planning to do Tash?"

"My people are slaves, they plant. So I will plant with them. I will scatter like the seeds amongst them and find out more, Doctor. Then I'll return to you. I must let my people know what is happening. I have a plan. Go to the TARDIS, Doctor. I will return to it in 500 del'ka."

The Doctor smiled, "And what exactly does this plan entail, Tash?"

"That the Kasi have underestimated the power of the Mala'shra. Wish me well, Doctor."

She slipped out the tent and was gone.

Sarah Jane frowned, "What's 500 del'ka?"

The Doctor chuckled, "That is a measurement of time to the Mala'shraian race, and it's the human equivalent of 30 minutes."

Sarah Jane nodded, "So what do we do now, Doctor? Oh no, I know that look, that means you got something in that Time Lordian head of yours."

The Doctor smiled and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "Now honestly Sarah, what makes you say that? Besides sitting here is boring and I am a bit worried about what's going to happen in 30 minutes."

Sarah Jane groaned lightly, "I was afraid you'd say that. And I know you Doctor, you just have that look. I have seen it all those times before you regenerated."

The Doctor smiled and exited the tent and seeing a bunch of tall braided haired Kasi he grinned, "Hello…"

They trained weapons on him. He rolled his eyes and Sarah Jane came out behind him. Finding the weapons trained on her as well.

"I think you better check on your captain….he's a little indisposed of."

The guard barked orders and a few members ran into the tent to find the captain and their members wound up in vine.

A Kasi glared at the Doctor, "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing," The Doctor said with a grin.

"Liar…"

"Oy, I swear to you I did nothing."

Sarah Jane snickered lightly to herself, when the Doctor told the truth, it really sometimes did not sound convincing enough.

"I tell ya, I did nothing. But I am telling ya now; you better leave because in thirty minutes time, it's going to get ugly."

"Are you threatening the Imperial Kasi army?"

"No. Just warning you, because something is coming, if you don't have the sense to leave…."

The weapons suddenly were trained on the Doctor, and they clicked, they were planning on firing on them, and the Doctor suddenly grabbed Sarah Jane, "No body move, or she gets it." He held his sonic screwdriver against Sarah Jane's head.

"Doctor!"

He grinned lightly and whispered in her ear, "You worry too much Sarah Jane."

The guards lowered their weapons and the Doctor backed away from the tents. He then smiled, "Thank you." He looked at Sarah Jane and said, "RUN…"

The two ran and suddenly blaster fire fired at them as the Kasi suddenly realized they had been duped by a hostage situation. Sarah Jane screamed. She was hit in the arm. She looked at her arm; skin had been chard away, leaving raw and oozing flesh.

The Doctor's eyes flared in anger as he saw Sarah's wound. He grabbed her by the arm and ripped part of his suit and wound it around her arm as they were running. Reaching the TARDIS doors, he opened them and Sarah Jane and the Doctor ran inside. He slammed the door shut and he said to Sarah. "Sarah Jane, let me see your arm…"

-0o0-

Tash traveled swiftly and secretly against the land, from the moment she exited the tent she acted like a lowly misbegotten slave. She bowed her head in humbleness and said she would go to work. The Kasi guard let her go, believing her to be nothing more than a simple thickheaded slave.

But as Tash worked the message spread across the fields and areas from mind to mind. For the Mala'shra were telepathic. And the message was thus:

The time is at hand, my children, it is I, your mother and your leader, Tash. The Doctor has brought me to save you. In 500 del'ka reach out with your minds towards the plants you have tended. We are a free people, and a proud people. We are no one's slaves. The very plants we plant and tend are our weapons, and the Kasi will die. Reach out and live my children. For the time of our freedom is near…

The message carried among the Mala'shra from mind to mind….

-0o0-

The Doctor heard the message in his mind as well. After all he was telepathic as well. He sighed and shook his head, he had warned the Kasi, in fact he had warned them twice. That was better than he usually was. He had warned the captain and he had warned the guard. None of them listened. And now the Mala'shra were going to act out on their own. It served the Kasi right. They needed to learn. He could feel the power building as minute after minute passed. He cleaned Sarah Jane's wound in the TARDIS med section, and applied a dermal skin graft to it, "There you go, Sarah. Good as new. Give it a couple of days and you won't even realize you lost your skin to begin with."

The Doctor was quiet and Sarah Jane noticed somberness had fallen over the Doctor. "Doctor, what's the matter?"

"The Mala'shra are going to retaliate, Sarah Jane. I can feel it. Good thing we got back to the TARDIS."

Sarah Jane nodded, "How long till…"

"Ten minutes…nope nine minutes."

"Isn't there anything we can do to convince the Kasi?"

"Nope. No second chances, Sarah Jane. They had plenty of warning."

Sarah Jane sighed, "You're not the Doctor I know anymore. Even after what happened at the school that one time."

The Doctor nodded sadly, "That's true, Sarah Jane. I use to have so much more mercy. But that was before the Daleks came to Gallifrey and that was before I had to…"

Sarah Jane kissed him lightly on the cheek and the Doctor said, "What was that for?"

"Treating my wound and…trying to help you not be so melancholy."

The Doctor grinned, "Aww gee Sarah Jane; I have always been melancholy. You know me."

"Yep, but you were good at hiding it, well most of the time."

The Doctor laughed, "True…"

Suddenly the TARDIS shook a lightly.

"That's the Mala'shra. They are attacking…"

He got up and went to the TARDIS control room. Sarah Jane followed. The Doctor turned on a screen and watched as roots came up from the ground of the planet and swallowed the Kasi by the dozens. Screaming and crying were heard. Meanwhile the Mala'shra were perfectly and quietly still, as the Kasi were swallowed up and buried in the ground. The TARDIS shook again.

"Doctor, are we safe?"

"Sarah Jane, of course we are safe, we are after all in the TARDIS. Better to be in here, than out there…"

The TARDIS gave a bit of a groan and the Doctor said, "I hope…"