There's a possibility that the update frequency may drop off a bit after this. You seriously, seriously don't want to know about the enormous backlog and upcoming mountain of work (oh, and exams) uni has piled upon my poor soul.
Katherine's less-than-flattering description of the Daleks in this chapter comes courtesy of a mate of mine when we were discussing their visual appearance one day. It is, indeed, highly uncomplimentary and I hope people aren't offended by that, but I laughed so hard when he first came up with it that I simply had to include it.
"Sorry, can I ask again? You mentioned a mistake?"
"Oh, big, mistake. Huge. Didn't anyone ever tell you? There's one thing you never put in a trap. If you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap."
"And what would that be, sir?"
"Me."
CHAPTER 20. Time Lords In A Trap: 3 November 2010
Amy's hearts were beating at two hundred beats a minute – each. Around her were the unmistakable armour shells of five armed and operational Daleks. They were bigger and considerably more colourful than she remembered but they were most definitely Daleks, and they certainly behaved just as she had remembered.
If you've got a brilliant plan, Doctor, about now would be the time to carry out.
"Exterminate!" cried the Daleks in their familiar, staccato-mechanical tones, their voices only just carrying over the enormous din of the disintegrating drill-piece. Evidently, they were in no hurry to inflict doom upon the Time Lord pair.
As always, this proved their downfall.
Had Amy being paying attention whilst the Doctor worked, she would have noticed that not all the cables he'd attached to his little circuit went into the box. Four, in fact, snaked over the concrete oasis they were standing on and onto the metal catwalk, their exposed tips coming into contact with the grated steel.
Five seconds after the Daleks' arrival, the seismic pulse emanating from the rapidly self-destructing drill housed within the massive steel structure reached its peak. There was now nothing that could be done to prevent all the drills on the planet from being destroyed, and the Dalek presence on its surface purged.
Of course, it was only the drill that was destroyed. The structure itself was still in working order for now. Which meant the Doctor still had several million watts of power at his disposal.
"Press five," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "Now." She did so, the purple crystal gleaming as the sonic phone activated.
Just as he'd planned all along, the sonic signal temporarily redirected the current into the four cables leading and into the steel catwalk. Seeking the quickest path to ground, the current shot outwards to conduct to the outer steel wall and down to the ground - which meant going straight through the Daleks and their metal armour shells.
The current surge running through the Daleks only lasted a fraction of a second until the Doctor pressed his own sonic, cutting off the power to the four wires, but the electricity coursing through them for said fraction of a second was originally intended to power an energy drill that could crack through several miles of solid rock. Shields or not, they stood no chance.
Smoke suddenly billowed from the edges of their casings, and sparks shot out of their eyestalks. A horrid, acrid stench of melted plastic and burnt flesh filled the air.
"Run!"
Amy didn't need telling twice.
Jack, Katherine and Rory rushed out of the transmitter room, just as a ten-metre long piece of twisted steel pylon came crashing through the ceiling. The shaking was so intense that they had to grip each other to keep themselves falling over in a heap, swaying from side to side as they staggered as quickly as they could down the catwalk, only just remembering about the boiling steam jets that they had to avoid.
Then, after about a minute, a huge jolt knocked all three to the floor, and as suddenly as it had come, the noise of shearing steel and the tremors running through the steel catwalks ceased completely
"O... kay..." Rory began quietly, picking himself off the metal, suspicious of the sudden apparent return to normalcy. "What the hell just happened?"
"I think that was the Doctor and Amy disabling the drill," Jack surmised. "We should get out of here, though, right now. That transmitter back there was probably to signal them that someone was interfering with the drill, and they'll be coming in droves now. Oh, and this structure will probably collapse soon-ish anyway, based on all that noise. We have to be long gone by then."
"Who's 'they'? They don't sound friendly, whoever they are," Katherine guessed, based on the grim determination in Jack's voice and the bits of shouting she'd heard between the Doctor and Amy before.
"You seriously don't want to know."
"Right." Katherine muttered. She gathered that despite her natural curiosity, if whoever-they-were unnerved Jack as much as this, it probably wasn't in her best interests to find out their identities quite yet. Maybe later.
They rounded a corner on one of the catwalks, still without the faintest clue where the exit was. They'd decided that given that the door was at the base of the tower, their best bet would be to keep going down. They sprinted down another ramp and found themselves less than ten metres from a red-plated Dalek which was inspecting the lower levels, searching for the now-escaped Doctor and Amy.
"The hell is that thing?" Rory asked apprehensively.
"Dalek. They're the ones who operate these drills," Jack informed him rapidly. He fumbled on his hip for his most powerful blaster whilst trying to force the two mortals away with an arm and his body.
"I thought these were supposed to be the most dangerous aliens in existence?" Katherine asked, eyebrows raised. These large, colourful metal constructs weren't exactly her idea of evil, deadly aliens.
"They are."
"They look like big red upside-down rubbish bins," she declared, utterly unimpressed. "With plungers stuck to them."
Rory burst out laughing at the girl's description despite the bad, bad feeling growing in his stomach. Jack just shot her an astonished, irritated glare. By now, the Dalek had noticed the three, and was turning, the eyestalk rotating slowly to face them.
"Intruders detected! Exterminate!"
Katherine paled, letting out a nervous laugh. "Oookay, make that unfriendly upside-down rubbish bins." They began to back away, eyes darting left and right for some escape. The Dalek began to advance on them, continuing to vocalise its deadly intentions. "We come in peace!" she reasoned, sticking her hands up, feeling like quite the idiot as she did so.
"That, never, ever, ever works," Rory told her. "Time to go?" he asked Jack, his voice beginning to tremble.
"Yep."
They turned and bolted, racing around the corner just as the first silver-blue ray beamed into the wall behind them.
"Okay, I'm going to admit it, that was legitimately brilliant."
The Doctor grinned slyly. "You're complimenting me - you feeling alright in the head, Pond? Not feeling queasy?"
Ordinarily, this would have earned him a punch, kick or some other form of violence, but all her limbs were currently occupied with clambering down the horizontal pipes in the narrow shaft again. Instead, she had to settle for a ferocious paint-stripping glare down at the Time Lord instead.
"Don't get used to it," she retorted, but the smirk remained fixed on the Doctor's face. "And you better not be looking up my skirt, either."
"Most definitely not." He meant it too after one incident a few weeks back, in which the glass floor in the TARDIS console had led to him accidentally dropping a thermocoupling. This had bad results, especially after they'd disentangled the space loop. The only thing more unnerving than Amy shouting at him or flirting with him was when she started doing both at the same time. No, his eyes were fixed firmly in front on the pipes in front of him.
"Good. It's not like you don't get enough of a look at my legs when we're running around anyway."
"Wh – what? I have no idea what you're talking about," he spluttered.
He could tell she was rolling her eyes above him. "Don't give me that. I've had boys staring at my legs for years, I know when it's happening. And you, Doctor, are by far the worst, ya perv."
"I am not!"
"You are so."
"I am not!" He shot her an indignant glare.
"Oi! See? You're already looking up my skirt again."
He gulped and snapped his eyes as low as they would go, tilting his neck downwards to avoid the danger zone as best he could.
A tinkling laugh. "You're adorably hopeless, you know that? Never ever change."
"Try being on the receiving end one day and see if you like it then," he grumbled.
"Are you suggesting something there?"
He went sheet-white. "No! No. Sorry. Should've picked my words a little better."
"No apologising, remember? I'm making that a rule now."
"Since when did you have rules?"
"Since forever."
"You mean, since 1989."
"Whatever."
They continued in this fashion all the way down the shaft – Amy catching the Doctor looking up twice more – when, finally (and mercifully from the Doctor's point of view), they popped out of the bottom, leaping into the service area above the primary control rooms.
"Back the way we came, eh?"
"Don't want to get lost. That would be bad," the Doctor replied, checking his watch. "Plenty of time – good."
"Plenty of time for what?" Amy asked, her eyes narrowing slightly.
"Well, this building is structurally compromised now." He pressed his ear to the metal floor, listening to the distant vibrations still running through it. "I'd give it, oh, an hour before it collapses on top of us. But we don't need to worry about that," he added.
"And why not?" Amy inquired sharply.
"Because the power system will overload in half that time and burn everything inside to a crisp. See? Don't need to worry about it."
Amy groaned. "I swear, I am gonna smack you so hard when we get back to the TARDIS."
"I look forward to it."
They found the half-dislodged panel through which they'd climbed into the service area and dropped back into the primary control room. The lights were now all blinking wildly, various Dalek words and numbers floating across the screens.
"Looks like the security system is activated now. Or rather," he flipped out his sonic screwdriver, and with a flick of the wrist, ran it over the central console panel in the room, causing a number of green flights to change to red, "Was activated."
"So they don't know where here, yeah?" Amy asked, unable to keep an ever-so-slight note of fear from her voice.
"Nope. They know we're somewhere in the structure based on the readings, but they don't know exactly where." Another cock of the wrist to inspect the sonic. "Yeah, there we are. Lots of Daleks, two Time Lords, so that's us." He motioned to put the sonic away, but just as he was about to do so, something on the sonic reading caught his eye. "Hold on..." He frowned, inspecting it.
"What? What?" Amy's voice couldn't help but rise as the colour rushed from the Doctor's cheeks, his eyes wide as saucers.
"There are more readings here. Other readings. Not just us and the Daleks." He swallowed. "Human readings."
Amy felt as if a train had hit her. Her shoulders slumped and her face paled as the Doctor's had. No. No. No, it can't be. Please, no. "How... how many?" She whispered.
The Doctor, trembling, looked the Time Lady straight in the eye.
"Three."
Miraculously, the three humans didn't meet any more Daleks on the catwalks as they ran about the lower levels of the structure, still searching for some sign of an exit. It struck Rory, however, that this might have been a sign that they were ice-cold in their search.
After ten solid minutes of running in what seemed suspiciously like a rather large circle, they came across a rather familiar looking catwalk junction.
"Great." Rory groaned, "Here again. We're going round in circles."
Without warning, a sharp tremor ran through the metal, accompanied by a loud rumbling noise akin to a passing train. Not expecting it at all, the three were knocked off balance, clinging to the railings to keep themselves upright.
"What... was that?" Katherine asked quietly.
"There's no way this structure is stable," Jack replied. "We seriously have to get out of here, right now."
"Easy to say, hard to do, if you hadn't noticed," she reminded him. "I vote we go that way." She declared, pointing down one of the catwalks.
"Isn't that the way back to the primary control rooms?"
"Yep."
It clicked. "So the idea is to find the Doctor and Amy and get them to lead us out?"
"Pretty much," she replied brightly.
"Lead on, then, Miss Broad."
"We have to find them. I have to find them!"
Before the Doctor could let out another word, Amy had dashed off, her footsteps echoing down the network of rooms. He cursed and raced after her, but she'd already had a healthy headstart. By the time he reached the entrance to the primary control rooms, she had disappeared out of sight. He muttered another Gallifreyean curse to himself – there was absolutely no way he could tell which way she'd gone, and if he picked the wrong way, the chances that any of them would escape were very, very slim. Almost as slim as they were right now, given that he knew that without guidance, there was no way she'd be able to find the exit in time. He had to find her.
He had only one card left to play.
Amy. Amy, can you hear me?
Nothing. Just noise, both of a temporal and emotional nature, washing all around him. She probably hadn't even noticed him in the psychic din. He closed his eyes and placed his fingers on his temples, wringing every last drop of psychic power out of his Time Lord brain.
Amelia, can you hear me? Please, Amy. I need you to hear this.
Still nothing. Panic began to rise in his throat. I can't let this happen. I'd sooner die myself than let this happen.
Amy... please.
Doctor? Doctor, is that you?
Sheer, pure relief washed through him. He sighed, leaning back on the wall, the tension flowing off his shoulders.
Thank goodness. Yes, Amy, it's me.
Right. Thought it was some random memory or something like that. Care to explain WHAT you're doing inside my bloody head? For good measure, she added an undertone of annoyance and suspicion to underline her point.
The Doctor swallowed, trying to hide his nervousness behind his barriers. I'm not in your head. I'm just sending you messages, that's all.
Which involves planting them inside my head. Which involves you GOING inside my head. I read the book, Doctor.
Technically, yes, but only in the very outer fringes. I can't see anything inside. I'm just talking to you, that's all.
A brief pause, evidently whilst she weighed his answer, another subtle indicator of how badly he'd abused her still-brittle trust, not just in the past few weeks, but for her entire life. Alright. I'll make an exception this time, she answered at last. Now what exactly is so important that you feel the need to put big flashing signposts up in my head saying 'Oi, give us a shout'? Make it snappy, Doctor, she added irritably, I'm kinda busy at the moment.
Fine. Can you get your sonic out?
Sure. A pause. Right. Got it. Now what?
Press zero-one-one-five-one-
Nine-eight-nine?
That's cheating, Pond.
I can recognise my own birthday, mister. OK. Done. Now what?
Now do whatever you have to do. I'll come find you.
A pause. Have you been playing with my sonic phone?
He hesitated.No, of course not. Well, a little. Just a teensy bit. A tracking device, that's all. Don't want a repeat of Stroyet where you're out of psychic range, or lost in noise... it's not exactly good with the whole finding-people business, telepathy.
I can do it easy enough, she huffed.
Yes, and for the rest of us normal telepaths, life is a bit trickier.
Noted, she replied, throwing in a little note of smugness just to tease him.
That girl, he thought, seriously... Have you found them yet?
Nah. They're somewhere below me, in the lower levels, but I'm can't get a lock on them. I just hope they're OK... She trailed off, worry and guilt replacing her psychic voice.
Amelia, you'll find them. I know you will.
No answer. She was too busy worrying about Rory, feeling sick to the stomach about the way she'd treated him – the way she'd almost gotten him killed. Might have already gotten him killed. Without her knowing it, a piece of her internal thought leaked into the psychic field. My fault... convinced him to stay on the TARDIS...
He flinched. She shouldn't have to bear this pain. Not when it was in no way her fault at all.
Amelia, listen to me. We will find them. No one dies today. I swear, on my life, I will find you, find them, and then we'll get the hell out of here in one piece. Are we clear?
Crystal, Doctor, she replied curtly. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to shut you out for a while. I need to concentrate.
"Are these things shielded or something?" Rory yelled from behind a steel pillar. "I can't say we're exactly hurting them, and we sure as hell ain't missing." As if to illustrate the point, he craned his head and arm around and fired a blaster shot at one of the three Daleks at the far end of the catwalk. The glowing plasma ball appeared to strike the red outer shell before fizzling meekly, doing no discernible damage.
"Yeah, they are. Sorry, should have warned you." Jack, ever the gentleman, always found time to apologise, even in the midst of a firefight. They'd barely gone up a few levels when they'd run headlong into several patrolling Daleks. There was always the option of turning around, as Rory had suggested, but Katherine and Jack both pointed out that they'd almost certainly get lost again, and given the choice between fighting the most deadly aliens in existence, or getting lost in a collapsing tower, they both chose the former without hesitation. So they got to work.
"Just keep hammering away, their shield density has to be low now," Jack shouted above the cries of 'Exterminate!', jerking his head back behind the pylon as another beam of deadly blue light pierced the pocket of air it had been occupying just previously. He'd already been hit once, an event that had scared the daylights out of Rory and deeply unnerved Katherine, even though she was already in the know.
"How about we concentrate on one at a time? Focus fire, like," Katherine suggested next to him as they stood in their little spots of cover, backs pressed to the steel pylons protecting them.
"Good idea. Take the one on the middle first, on three. Clear?" Rory and Katherine nodded. "Good. On one, two-" he raised his blaster, ready to fire. Rory and Katherine mirrored the gesture. "Three!"
They spun out from behind their pylons, simultaneously firing at the central of the three Daleks. The combined plasma ball at the point of impact went straight through the Dalek's shields, striking and piercing the metal armor. It expoded instantly, blue-yellow flames erupting from what had once been its dome as shards of metal and eyestalk went flying upwards and out of sight.
A triumphant cry, then all three hurriedly spun back into cover as the Daleks returned the salvo, attempting to avenge their fallen comrade. One down. Two to go.
It had been the fastest ten minutes of Amy Pond's life.
The calculating, analytical part of her mind knew that there was almost zero chance that even with her psychically souped-up intuition she would have been able to find them within ten minutes.
That leaves twenty... twenty minutes to find them and get the hell out of here before we all get electrocuted. Damn damn damn damn damn. This is all my goddamn fault. If I hadn't been so bloody stupid, so bloody selfish this would never have been necessary. Would never have happened. She was sinking into the pit of despair again, her pace slowing, her shoulders crumpling.
But this time luck, not always her best friend, was on her side.
"Amy!"
"Doctor?" She spun around, spotting the tall, tweed-jacketed form of the bow-tie wearing Time Lord striding towards her. Without a second thought, she raced into his arms, holding him fiercely. Her very-much-justified anger and suspicion towards him aside, he really was the last good thing in her life. Without him, she was nothing. "I'm sorry about being so sharp with you earlier when we were having that telepathic chat thingy. And for yelling at you before. It's been a tough day."
He stroked her hair, shushing her gently. "I know it has, and you should remember your own rule. Now, come on. I managed to stabilise the power supply temporarily, we should have an extra fifteen minutes or so."
It was as if someone had ignited a bonfire within her. A discernible shudder ran through her arms, her muscles tensing, ready, filled with new purpose and energy. "Well, what are we waiting for, then?" She asked excitedly. "Let's go!" She grabbed the Time Lord's hand and sprinted down the catwalk.
Together, they made considerably quicker progress, barrelling down the ramps towards the lower levels where Amy could still vaguely sense the others' presence. After ten minutes, however, they'd still not found them and the strength of their psychic signal hadn't increased markedly. In a sign of just how desperate she was to find them, Amy let the Doctor co-opt some of her psychic abilities, his expertise coupled with her ability narrowing their potential location considerably. But it still all too vague, muddled with interference from the temporally complex Dalek presence surrounding them. There was too much to search, too little time. They'd find them eventually, but unless they did it soon, they'd all be turned into human-Time Lord crisps shortly afterwards.
Fifteen minutes, the sum total of the Doctor's borrowed time, passed, and still they hadn't found them. A familiar, terrifying tightness was building in Amy's chest.
They jogged down a metal catwalk, still holding hands to form the touch-conduit that allowed the Doctor to utilise the Time Lady's abilities. They were both at the limits of their desperation, their eyes searching only for any sign of the navy-blue greatcoat, a lock of flowing blonde hair, Rory's jittery walk. So much so that they barely bothered to take in their immediate surroundings.
This, as it turned out, was a big mistake.
Behind them, a loud clanging noise indicated the slamming of metal on metal. The pair spun around to see that a large metal grille had closed behind them, one that they'd completely failed to notice as they ran past. The catwalk and everything beyond it was now sealed off. They blanched simultaneously, knowing full well what was about to occur – this catwalk was long with sharp drops on either side, so the only way to leave would be to move down its length. There was no other way of escape. But if they did... the Doctor guessed they get ten metres before their way was blocked by an incoming Dalek. Permanently.
They were trapped. And this time, the Doctor had no brilliant plan for escape.
The Doctor took out his sonic, his breathing shallow as he ran it over the edge of the grate. Somehow, he knew the answer before he flicked up the sonic to inspect the result.
"Deadlock." He stated, with an air of quiet, dignified resignation and finality.
Amy didn't need to ask. She already understood. She threw herself into his embrace, immersing her senses in everything that was him for the last time.
So this is how it all ends. Exactly how you would have wanted it. Maybe not so soon, but just how you wanted it.
"I'm sorry, Amelia." He was ready. He'd lived for centuries upon centuries, seen and borne horrors unimaginable, witnessed the universe in all its glory and all its horror. It was time for his story to end... but hers was just beginning. How fitting that a life as dark and twisted as yours would end with one, final, terrible mistake, he thought bitterly.
"I told you," she whispered. "Don't apologise."
And she meant it. What was there to be sorry about? Yes, he'd hurt her, more than he would ever know. But he'd never done so deliberately. And the pain was just a down payment, the price for the extraordinary, boundless joy she'd had the privilege to experience in return. With him. She'd waited, waited her whole life for him.
Was I worth it? He asked, a final, simple curious little question in her mind, like a child asking a parent if they liked the sweet little drawing they'd spent the last half hour creating.
Of course you were. Every single second.
They smiled, a smile of pure, untarnished satisfaction. Nothing mattered now. Not the anger. Not the pain. Not the darkness. Just the two of them, together, complete, at last.
My beautiful, magnificent Amy Pond. The girl who waited for me. Thank you, Amelia... and goodbye.
Goodbye, Doctor.
A sudden crackling noise, a rush of air, a creaking of metal.
"Exterminate!"
It was time. They breathed in their final breaths, waiting for the end. The twin strikes, one to kill their bodies, one to end their lives.
It never came.
Instead, they heard a triple crack of plasma blasters, the unmistakeable sound of rushing flame, the screaming of metal being torn asunder. Astonished, the Doctor opened his eyes to see the mangled lower half of a Dalek casing, bluish flames flickering within.
"Seriously, you two," Jack Harkness said with a roughish grin fixed on his face, stepping out from behind the flames, holding a glittering silver blaster. "Get a room."
Way to ruin the moment, Captain.
I briefly considered ending the chapter three "paragraphs" earlier but even I'm not sufficiently evil to leave you on that sort of cliffhanger. Yet.