"We need to get him back inside now," Martha advised. He was still feverish, but he was shivering violently with the effect of being out in the cold Arctic air and they had to be cautious about not putting him into more biological shock by trying to cool him down too much too quickly. Martha supported the Doctor's head for a moment as Jack got out from under him and then eased him up into his arms. As he lifted him up he thought for a horrible moment that he had stopped breathing altogether but then he wheezed a harsh gasp. Jack silently prayed to anyone or anything that was listening, promising to do anything that was asked of him, if they let the Doctor get through this.
They carried him back through the cargo ship to the closest thing they had to a bed. They all wanted to keep him as far away as possible from the lab where they had done this to him, but they also needed somewhere that he could lie comfortably. As Jack eased him back down onto the vinyl topped bench the Doctor moaned softly.
"Doctor?" Martha came immediately to his bedside. "It's Martha, can you hear me, Doctor?" she asked him. She caressed the side of his face. He didn't feel overly warm now but she knew that the infection was still raging within him and they had to make sure that his fever didn't get as dangerously high again. At least she had a reasonable gauge of how hot he could get without it having the serious consequences of convulsion. She expected they were going to be cooling him down more times before this was over for him.
The Doctor moaned and tension rippled through his body. It wasn't the start of a convulsion it was a clear indication of pain and discomfort. Martha caressed his head and Donna came in and took hold of one of his hands. His fingers were limp in hers for a moment, but then they curled around Donna's hand in a loose reflex until he moaned when his grip became tight. Donna clamped her other hand on top of his to try and support him. He arched and keened on the bed and his breathing became more strained.
"Jack, can you help me ease him up a little?" Martha asked worried that his breathing was going to cause them issues. They could hear the effect of the infection rattling in his chest and she didn't want to be dealing with pneumonia if they had any chance of avoiding it.
The Doctor whimpered as Jack brought him up a little. They had nothing left to support him with. The back of the couch didn't come up to a therapeutic level and they didn't have any cushions. Donna took her warm weather coat off and rolled it up and they tried to use that, but it wasn't ideal. When they laid him back down against it he twisted slightly as it wasn't even and they had to hold him. He tensed as a rough cough contorted him. Martha got the oxygen again and placed the mask over his nose and mouth, his lips were beginning to show the tell-blue tint of cyanosis. She looked to Jack. "How quickly can we get to the Valiant?"
Jack caressed the Doctor's head and then went to left the lab area to go back up on the deck to get a better signal on the satellite communication aspect of his wrist computer. He had to pass through the area where the three aliens were being held custody. "Is he dead yet?" the smaller one sneered at Jack as he walked through. Jack didn't grant that comment with a verbal response, he simply strode up the alien who had said it and punched him hard enough in the face that the back of his head struck the metal wall of the field lab pod. He slumped forward with his hands cuffed behind his back.
"Make sure he doesn't suffocate," Jack gave the instruction to one of the soldiers guarding them and then he walked out of the pod and went up onto deck. Jack made contact with the Valiant. They had made good speed but they were still five hours away. He contacted the UNIT helicopter that had brought them in. They had been refuelled and were awaiting instruction. The helicopter wasn't fitted out to carry out an emergency evacuation but it had carried all the troops in as well as Donna, Jack, and Martha. They would have to lie the Doctor over a row of seats and they would have to fly low so that the reduced air pressure didn't further risk his breathing. It would be about a two hour flight but at least it would get him to the Valiant more quickly.
He gave the instructions to make it happen. It would be about thirty minutes until the helicopter made it to the position of the boat. It wasn't going to be able to land so they were going to have to be winched up to the helicopter deck and without the equipment for a medevac that was going to be difficult with the Doctor, but they'd get him up there and to the Valiant. Jack went back down to the field lab pod again.
"We have got the helicopter returning. We are going to winch up with the Doctor and intercept the Valiant so that he can receive the required medical treatment as soon as possible," Jack advised the soldiers who were holding the prisoners. "Depending on how his condition is best managed we will either continue on the Valiant to retrieve you and our prisoners, or, a separate vessel will be despatched to take you on board."
"Understood, Sir," the man in charge of the unit confirmed.
Jack went through to the room where the Doctor was lying. Donna had taken to wiping the sweat from his brow with a piece of cloth that she had found in one of the drawers, but there was nothing else there of use. Martha couldn't even get to work on trying to determine what the virus was and how it was attacking the Doctor's systems because she didn't understand any of the equipment around her and many of the instructions were written in a language she could not read and was not translating for some reason.
"The chopper will be here within half an hour and then it will be a two hour flight to get him to the Valiant," Jack advised Martha. "We will need to get him up to the main deck and then the only way on board is by winching. I will go up at the same time as him to make sure he is safe, but that means you and Donna are going to have to be winched up together."
"If it gets him the help he needs then we need to do it," Donna advised. "That will be better, won't it Spaceman, a nice comfortable bed and all the medicines that you need to help you feel better," she assured him. It was unclear if he was aware of anything but the virus ravaging his systems as he whimpered and wheezed and occasionally writhed in weak throes of tension. "It is all going to be alright, Spaceman. You're not going to let a silly virus get the better of you are you?"
"We will put a fresh bag of fluid up for him before we go," Martha instructed.
"It is still outside, I will go and get it," Donna offered. She knew where the bags of drip fluid were and she went out to get them. She didn't even look at the three prisoners. She wasn't sure what she would do if there were not soldiers standing there. As far as she was concerned they were not guarding them they were protecting them from her.
She returned with the drip bags. They were icy cold. Martha checked there was no actual ice crystals but the solution contained various salts that would make it freeze at a lower temperature. It was fine and she put the drip bag up. She changed it over and started by squeezing some of it in to begin with as he was beginning to feel warm again. As the cold fluid ran into his arm he moaned. She knew it couldn't have felt comfortable to have it running into his vein.
"I'm sorry, Doctor, your body temperature is too high, this will help to keep it stable," she offered explaining her actions even if she didn't think the Doctor could hear her. She didn't want to tell him that she was trying to keep him alive long enough to get him to the Valiant in the hopes that she could start looking at the damage the virus had done and how to start putting it right. She caressed his shoulder and he moaned again. She was worried about that shoulder. She'd get some scans of it when she got on the Valiant. It wasn't obviously dislocated or anything but she could tell it was causing him pain and there was a chance that a direct blow could have caused him damage.
"Watch him for a moment," Martha went through to the area where the prisoners were again. She addressed Coljai as he seemed to be the most willing to assist. "He is still fighting," she told him. "And, we are taking him off this vessel and to our own medical facility."
"From what I understand you're taking him urgently because you don't think he is going to last long enough for your ship to get here?" the shorter meaner Bylaxian advised.
"We are going to do everything that we can to save him and to ensure that you do not benefit from what you have done here," Martha told him, but she sighed. "Coljai? I need to know as much about the virus as you can tell me? He is weakening and he is dying. He is the last of his species. What happens today if he dies because of this is genocide and I don't believe that is what you set out to do. Please? If there is anything you can tell us about it? How does it replicate? How long does it live inside the body and outside of it? What does it need and how does it do the damage that it does?" Martha asked him. "The man you have done this to is my friend, Coljai, and he is a good man."
"I am sorry to tell you that you are wasting your time," Coljai advised her. He sounded like he was genuinely sorry for what had been done.
"You elected the Time Lord because he is stronger and has a stronger immune response to the virus than your species does. Maybe with the right treatment we might be able to support him so that immune response gets him through the sickness? Please, anything that you can tell me that will assist in that then we need to know. What is the virus even called?"
"Anyest R-16," Coljai advised. He looked at Martha and then he looked at his two companions, one of whom remained impassive and the other who was just plain angry. He regretted what they had done. He had been driven by the desperation of infection, not his own infection with the virus but with the infection of his family. "The virus has been well described by our own scientists and biochemists. There are some palliatives that can reduce the symptoms and allow the subject a longer life but they ultimately succumb. I am sorry, but we introduced an overwhelming amount of the virus into your friend's systems. The chance of slowing the effects of the virus do not exist for him. He was almost immediately symptomatic. All of the information that we have on the virus is included on a reference disk. There is a copy of it in the room where your friend is."
"Where?" Martha asked. "Come and show me?" she nodded to one of the soldiers. They indicated for Coljai to get up and follow Martha into the room. He remained at gun point and was not going to run, but he showed Martha where the disk was.
Coljai paused and looked to the Doctor. He was writhing and sweating and whimpering between noisy harsh wheezes. "What are you looking at?!" Donna exclaimed. "Get out of here! Don't you look at him! You've done enough!"
"I am sorry." Coljai bowed his head. "His symptoms are too severe. He is not going to survive much longer."
"He is stronger than you think," Donna exclaimed. "He's not going to die because of what you have done to him. You don't know him. He's not going to die," Donna shouted. "Tell him, Martha!" Donna insisted but Martha couldn't say that. She looked away from Donna and down to the floor. "I don't care what either of you think," Donna stated firmly. "He is not going to die."