Amy woke up feeling bruised and scratched as if she'd been manhandled by a tree. Something flat and gritty pressed into her cheek. She opened her eyes to find herself lying on a dirt floor in a cave of some sort. She pushed herself up on her knees and spat dirt off her lips.

She found one of the tripods lying beside her, all three legs curled under his body, looking like an abused stuffed toy. He seemed to be unconscious.

She itched all over, and looking down, realized she was covered in dirt. She could even feel dirt down her bra. She ignored it for the moment and looked around. Light shone in through a round hole in the domed ceiling, she couldn't see sky, but it was too bright to tell if it was some sort of light well or a recessed artificial light. Whatever it was, it wasn't natural.

She turned and surveyed the rest of the room and found Stanley crumpled on the floor at the base of the far wall. She crawled over to check on him. He was alive but unconscious. He was as covered in dirt as she was. It was thick in his hair, turning the red to brown. But he was breathing.

She shook her own hair. Dirt showered out like dandruff. She brushed at her arm. "Ugh!" she hated feeling dirty.

She considered her surroundings. There was air, and there was light. They appeared to be underground. She didn't have any idea how they'd gotten there. And how had they gotten so dirty? The last thing she remembered was the fog swamping her and her brain going all fuzzy.

She suddenly looked around in confusion. How had they gotten in here? There wasn't any door. That light hole wasn't big enough to squeeze through. She frowned and peered closer at the nearby wall, and realized it wasn't stone at all.

She brushed her fingers over the smooth, lumpy surface. It was warm! Well, not warm, but not cold or gritty like stone would be. It was hard, but... She scratched her chipped nail against the surface. It gave off a hollow scritching sound. Her ragged nail caught on the surface and peeled off a small strip.

Amy's eyebrows jumped.

Paper?

Stanley groaned behind her. She turned to see him starting to wake up. She shuffled back to this side and brushed the worst of the dirt away from his eyes and nose. "Stanley?"

He batted her hands away irritably. He floundered up out of the depths of sleep, blinking dirty lashes. "What's going on?" he asked querulously. He swiped a sleeve over his face. "Where are we?"

Amy waved a hand at the cave, which was obviously some sort of holding cell. "We appear to have been kidnapped, like the farmers. And I don't know about you, but I'm going to get as much of this dirt off of me as I can. Then find a way out."

"How do you know she's still alive?" Rory asked, cradling Toftoc in his lap as the ATV sped through the night. "Dutch said a tracer would register even if the person was dead," he pointed out, stumbling over the last word.

The Doctor looked up from across the cabin where he had the tracker board balanced on his legs. "I know because a living human being gives off distinct bio-electric rhythms. And two intersecting energy fields will slightly alter each other's signatures. With this board I can detect the battery in Amy's tracer, analyze the energy patterns, and 'Voila!'" He threw his hands up like a magician. "Life signs!"

"How come they don't know that trick?" Rory asked, nodding at the sheriff who was piloting the ship.

"Ah, well, not everyone is as clever as me," the Doctor said.

The Doctor set aside the board and went and sat down in front of Rory. He uncovered the tripod and carefully took one of the "legs" in his hand, curling his fingers around the spot where the leg joined the body, apparently checking for some sort of pulse.

Rory didn't like the look of the little alien. He had no idea how to examine the little creature, or what to look for. He couldn't even check for concussion because he wasn't sure if it had a skull. The little body felt heavy and a bit squishy in his hands, yet also a bit stiff, like a cross between a starfish and a jellyfish.

The Doctor looked up and gave him a grim look.

"Dutch, can you go any faster?" he asked the pilot.

Dutch turned and saw the little alien's purplish-gray pallor. "Hang on."

The ship leapt forward.

They waited in grim silence as the ATV sped through the night. They could hear the chuffing sound of the chopper pacing them.

Rory twisted and looked out through the darkened window. All he saw was his own reflection. "Doctor, how can the chopper be following us? How could they even call it a chopper? The blades were only about 3 feet long," he said, trying to take his mind off their situation.

The Doctor sat beside him, one hand comfortingly on Toftoc's back.

"Those weren't blades, they were forcefield projectors, " the Doctor answered quietly. "The actual 'blades' are forcefields that cover four times the area of simple propeller blades. They give the choppers a degree of thrust and lift far beyond a regular helicopter. And the force field blades are deformable, allowing the choppers to fly in ways a regular helicopter can't. It makes for a powerful, formidable military craft. Quite ingenious really."

Rory looked down at the Doctor sitting cross-legged on the floor beside him. He felt dread, like lead in his stomach. "What are these things, Doctor? What are we fighting?"

The Doctor ran a hand over his face, "I don't know, Rory. But I have some very nasty suspicions."

They arrived back at the airfield to find it illuminated with floodlights. They set the ATV down outside the square of activity and the Doctor undogged the hatch. He turned and scooped Toftoc out of Rory's lap, jumped down and sprinted across the tarmac to the Tripod's ship.

"I called ahead to warn Jhael, he'll be waiting!" Dutch yelled after the Doctor.

Rory followed the Doctor, only vaguely registering the chopper setting down behind them, crowding the already crowded airfield. They pounded up to the huge Tripod ship, its pink brilliance muted to a silvery white in the moonlight and reflected floodlights.

A ramp extended down from the side and the remaining tripod stood silhouetted in the small round hatch at the top. The Doctor ran straight up the steep ramp, he stopped at the hatch, it was only two feet across, there was no way he'd be able to fit inside.

"He said you had medical supplies," the Doctor said.

"We've got a stasis chamber," the last tripod said. "And an autodoc in our ship at the spaceport." He pulled forward a small round hover-pallet. The Doctor carefully lowered Toftoc onto it. The injured tripod hadn't regained consciousness.

"The Captain?" Jhael asked.

"Taken, with Amy and Stanley. Our next job is to locate and rescue them," the Doctor answered.

"If you need help, be sure to call on us," the tripod said, activating a force dome over his injured crewmate.

"I will. Take good care of him," the Doctor bounded back down the ramp, almost knocking over Rory in his haste. The tripod pulled the pallet into the ship and sealed the hatch. A second later the ramp started retracting. The Doctor and Rory hopped off the end.

"Get clear!" The Doctor shooed Rory toward the lights, and less than a minute later the huge pink craft sailed upward with a backwash of air, pivoted on its axis and sped away into the night.

"Are we going to rescue Amy now?" Rory asked anxiously.

"There's nothing we can do tonight," the Doctor said, as he led the way to the lighted quadrangle of the airstrip. "Colonel Tildaith refused to fly at night and I hardly blame him."

"What about the Tardis?" Rory prodded.

"Even the Tardis needs to know where to land. I know it's hard, Rory. But you need to relax. Conserve your strength. We'll do everything we can tonight. We know Amy is alive, we just have to hope she can hold out until daylight."

"Don't you care?"

"Rory!" The Doctor's bellow startled Rory backwards a step. The thunderous look on the Doctor's face made him blanch and Rory realized he'd crossed a line.

The Doctor shoved both hands through his hair and visibly harnessed the power pouring off him. He sighed out.

"I love Amy as much as you do," he said calmly, looking Rory in the eye. "I am not taking this lightly." He turned and stalked off. Rory followed, chastened.

He found the Doctor within the lit quadrangle rifling through the equipment on the forensics table. Picking up things, examining them, and discarding them.

"Ah!" He picked up a wand that looked a lot like a smaller version of his portable sunlight. With pleasure he started running it over his hair like a brush, though it had no bristles, and it didn't straighten his fly-away hair.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Rory asked, his eyebrows beetling as the Doctor then ran the light over his face, around his neck and down his arms.

"This," the Doctor brandished the wand with no evidence of the irritation of a minute ago, "is a molecular scanner - used for skimming up the smallest traces of evidence."

He ran the scanner over his stomach, legs and boots, he even twisted around and skimmed his bum. Then he struggled out of his jacket and skimmed the back of it before reskimming his shirt, front and back, pushing up his cuffs and skimming his wrists and hands. "I need to get rid of the gas residue before it starts to break down. Can't go passing out right in the middle of rescuing Amy. That would be inconvenient."

The curly-haired boy in blue tweed came bustling up just as he finished. "I'm sorry, sir. But this is a very delicate equipment. I'll have to ask you to..."

"Ah, Clarke!" the Doctor said. "Just the man I wanted to see. Here." He shoved the medical device at the boy. "Chart the breakdown of the residue in this and compare it to the residue you found here. That should give you a timetable for when the farmers were taken."

Clark stared at the unexpected boon. He grabbed the skimmer and jumped into his ATV and its on-site lab to get to work.

The Doctor shrugged back into his jacket and he and Rory turned to survey the activity in the quadrangle. A lit plaza had been constructed by the three parked ATVs, another had apparently arrived while they were gone and had set up a catering table under an awning beside their craft.

The searchers and forensics teams, soldiers and police were apparently wrapping up for the night, converging for a meal before heading back to the city or whatever accommodations they'd arranged for the night.

"They're not clumsy," Rory observed.

"Pardon?" the Doctor said, as he reached around to straighten his collar, settling his bow tie and straightening his jacket.

Rory turned to look at him. He waved at the plaza full of 12 year olds. The ghostly reflection of the airfield tower loomed behind in the darkness.

"They don't move like children. Most children are a bit clumsy, always testing their bodies. Running a bit faster than they are capable of and falling down, trying to lift more than they can carry. They don't." He turned back and watched a group of four helmeted and armored soldiers join a catering line. A 12 year old girl in a pigtail trotted a briefcase of evidence over to the ATV behind them, sticking her head in to address a comment to Clarke. The cooks across the way laughed and joked, their childishly chubby cheeks red from the steam as they competently ladled up food for the crowd. "It's like they've had years to learn their body's strengths and weaknesses."

"So they have," the Doctor said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and slouching comfortably, his floppy hair falling over his face, a little boy grin on his own 900 year-old face. Rory shook his head at him and turned to watch some more.

"It's weird," Rory said. "They move like adults."

The Doctor gave him a few minutes to soak it in, then clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go find Colonel Tildaith."

The chopper was a large aggressive bulk looming behind the ATVs. Most of the soldiers had already gone to get supper, but four alert guards held a perimeter around the craft, and waved the Doctor and Rory through.

They found Tildaith in the opened body of the craft, with his pilot and what looked like his unit's technical guru. The three Feyanorans turned as the Doctor and Rory climbed up into the combat chopper.

"Let's take a look at those scans," the Doctor said by way of greeting.

Tildaith nodded to his technical boffin and the ginger-haired girl bent over a portable workstation calling something up on her screen.

"What can you tell me about these aggressors, Doctor?" Tildaith asked. He looked as crisp and efficient as ever, somehow wearing his body armor more like a well pressed suit than as kevlar. Without his glasses, Rory noticed, he had a somewhat handsome, ferrety face, sharp nosed, with flashing gray eyes that didn't miss anything. "I checked up on your records," Tildaith continued, "And you seem to have extensive experience dealing with unknown species. Can you tell me what we're fighting here? I'm assuming from what evidence we have, that we aren't dealing with humans."

"And what does the evidence tell you about them?" the Doctor asked, curious.

"That they are covert, organized, intelligent, and many. Capable of working together toward a goal, finding the resources they need, removing large numbers of people in a short time, and setting elaborate traps. They are physically large, strong, apparently immune to the gas they use, and they can fly."

The Doctor smiled, "A very concise summation, Colonel."

"Is there anything you can add to it?"

The Doctor nodded toward the tech's monitor, "That depends on what these scans show us."

The girl turned her screen toward the grown-ups and activated the scan files. The view was blurred by fog and distance, the view shot from above. Three indistinct forms were flying low over the wheat field.

"I can't tell anything from that," Rory protested.

"That's as enhanced as I can get it, sir," the girl tech apologized.

"Perhaps you'd let me...?" the Doctor raised his eyebrows and nodded at her equipment.

She looked to her Colonel, he nodded. She stepped aside and the Doctor bent over her boards. He flicked through the controls, pulling up screen after screen of text too fast for Rory to follow. The Doctor made little, indistinct thinking noises, humming and ah-hahing to himself, his fingers flying, ignoring his audience.

"Doctor," Rory said in a longsuffering tone he'd adopted from Amy. He could see why she found the man so annoying. "Explain." His heart gave a little pang, hearing Amy in the word.

"According to your sensors they are endothermic, roughly the mass of a horse, and show no indicators of technology. The conformation is not mammalian and does not conform to any other form on the planet."

"So they are alien," Tildaith pressed.

"Yes," the Doctor answered. "And considering their behavior, and your local stellar cluster, I have a bad idea I know who they are." His fingers whipped across the board, calling back up the earlier picture and flashing different enhancements and pattern matching patterns over it. "Just need to boost this a little..."

The screen started to resolve, the fog cleared away and the blobs enlarged and snapped into focus.

They looked like giant wasps.


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