Okay, I'm going to admit up-front that the aliens' plan isn't the most original. Fortunuately, it's not the point! Thank you for your understanding. :-)
THIRTEEN
"Why would we create a disease to bring mankind to its knees, and then develop an antidote?" Plexaphedros asked. "That would be couterproductive."
The Doctor felt as though someone had kicked him very hard in the chest. If there was no antidote, then Martha was going to die. He was short of breath and enraged. "How can there not be an antidote?" he screamed at them. "You just blindly decided to kill the woman I love in hopes that I would help you out of the goodness of my hearts? Are you completely mad?"
"Well," Ahedruma said, leaning back on the console, "If you take this boat to 2007, there will be antibiotics, saline drips, electrolytes, all sorts of things to help her. If you choose not to, and we stay here..." she lifted her arms in a shrugging fashion.
"What then? You'd release bubonic plague on the population again in 2007 so you can eat up their collective zed waves of misery?" Captain Jack asked. "Lot of good that will do, what with, as you said, all the antibiotics and medicines in the twenty-first century." And then, inside his head, he intentionally asked, or do you have something more dire in mind for the twenty-first century?
Ahedruma looked at the Doctor. "Your friend is very astute, and very foolish at the same time."
"Tell me about it," the Doctor sighed.
"We do indeed have more interesting plans for Martha's century of origin," Plexaphedros admitted. "Of course we know that mere viruses won't frighten people then as now, and that they won't kill as they do now."
"Well, not biological viruses, anyway," Ahedruma said.
"But how will the technoheads survive without their precious computers?" Maude asked, gloating.
"Maude, I command you to stop talking," Plexaphedros snapped, showing the first sign of emotion either the Doctor or Jack had seen him exhibit.
"That's your master plan? You're going to give them a computer virus?" Jack asked. But as soon as it was out of his mouth, he began to mentally scan all of the things that would shut down as a result. Traffic lights, hospitals, fire dispatch, mobile phone carriers, public transport, and possibly even private transport. Eventually the cities would run short on food, there would be no broadcasting or any other kind of communication, no hospitals to heal the sick and wounded, no way to leave town, and no point. There would be looting, violence and vandalism out of frustration and desperation, and martial law would eventually prevail. And on a personal level, his people at Torchwood would be trapped forever in their underground bunker. It would be the Y2K crisis come to roost seven years too late. It would take a while for the world as we know it to end, but eventually, it would become a shadow of itself and fade away.
Perhaps it would not cause death and panic in the same way as the black plague, but when a feeling of utter helplessness penetrates a people who think they are invincible and entitled, a kind of anarchy is possible that the 14th century could not have fathomed.
When Jack came out of his stupor, Ahedruma was staring at him evilly, with a terrifying grin. She was reacting to his thought, his panic at the thought of all that their virus plan implied. Then she turned to the Doctor.
"Once we get there, we'll give you 24 hours to get your girlfriend to a hospital and treated however they do, under my supervision, of course. And then it's open season on the humans," she stated, almost with glee. Her smile deepened the Doctor's anger, but his face betrayed nothing but a simple scowl.
No one moved for about a minute. Jack wondered if the Doctor's non-reaction was a way to buy time.
The Namuh continued to address the Doctor. "Tick tock, Time Lord," Plexaphedros said. "Your Martha languishes more by the moment. Very soon, with the pustules and the way they're prone to blister and break and scar, she'll be so disfigured, even if she survives, you won't have the caffè-lattè-skinned goddess you had when you awoke this morning. You'll have something decidedly more reptilian. Wouldn't that be sad? Though, I suppose it would be a good way to test your love, I mean, you're bound to change your look one of these days. When that happens, when you regenerate out of this striking form into a mad scientist or a circus clown, if you can say that you were there for her when she became a walking bubble of pus, she'll owe you one. Hm, everybody wins."
Ahedruma added, "We'd leave you to her, to spend your last moments together, except that the TARDIS is resisting interfacting with us. It likes Time Lords and humans... fortunately, we are decidedly inhuman." He gave a sickening smirk. "We need your expertise, I'm afraid."
With the Doctor's face now the way it was, Jack had a feeling that these aliens were going to meet a sad, sad end. The benevolent Doctor was normally against genocide, but this kind of taunting in early stages of his violent love for Martha? He'd be ready to blast their planet right out of the sky. And what made it worse was that Jack and the Doctor knew very well what Martha would have to say about all this: Let me go, save the Earth. Oh, that made it so, so much harder. It made them both want to save her even more.
An idea occurred to Jack. What if he could simply will them to drop their plan? Could he get them to react to a conscious thought that they should release their grip on the human race? What did he have to lose?
As the aliens continued to talk, taunt the Doctor with the appalling things that could happen to Martha, Jack closed his eyes and concentrated on a single thought: Let my people go. Find another way to thrive, and leave our planet forever.
When he opened his eyes, Ahedruma was talking about the genius of her invention of bubonic plague, and how it causes a painful death in stages, and makes fairly short work of a human being. And making it airborne? That was a handy labour-saving tactic that meant that the Namuh could stay put and not have to travel...
Jack's approach wasn't helping. Even though the Namuh Gnieb were insane to keep talking, and he knew that they were simply incriminating themselves by continuing to reveal their plans and ambitions and boast about their inhuman accomplishments, and even though he knew that the Doctor could use whatever they said against them, he wanted them to stop talking. He wanted them to quiet their minds so that he could transmit his thought.
He tried again, only tried specifically to aim his transmision at Maude, who seemed to be the most weak-minded of the three, who wasn't speaking, didn't seem to have a plan to crow about, and who had not shown any sentient signs for several minutes.
He opened his eyes again, and again was disappointed. Even Maude was unfazed by his thoughts. He couldn't understand it. It had worked each time before, even when he didn't know about it, even when he hadn't necessarily wanted it to work. But now? Nothing. These beings who react to the thoughts of humans were showing no sign of even registering his thought. After one more earnest, but failed attempt, he gave up. He opened his eyes, and threw himself back into the proceedings.
The Doctor was standing with his arms crossed formidably across his chest, and his scowl at full force. Jack knew that look. He knew that the Doctor's mighty brain was, right now, concocting some way out of this mess. He knew that any moment, the Time Lord would say something utterly brilliant, something that would lead the aliens astray, throw them off their game and help the good guys win the day. He would have already thought of a way to save Martha, cure the plague in 1350, keep the TARDIS from transporting them to 2007, and send the Namuh back from whence they came, without committing genocide. He tried to clear his mind so that the Namuh would not react to this knowledge. He trusted in the Doctor's process, and tried to think of elephants at the zoo. Gwen at the computer. A bowl of fruit. Anything...
So, imagine his surprise when the Doctor said, "All right, I'll do it."
