Julius strode through the door, carrying his own gun, which he pointed at Lathezia. Lathezia instantly lifted his gun and pointed it at Julius.
"A free clone," Julius said to him. "Your Scorch Project actually succeeded in turning her out. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. She's going to cause problems for you in the future, what with having her Last Cycle uncompleted."
"And whose fault is that, Krize?" Lathezia snarled. Julius smiled.
"Proud of it. I wonder how you plan to start the Final Stage."
"The Changers are clever, Krize," Lathezia spat out. "They can work around simpletons like you. A pity you won't see it."
"I plan to be there as it fails. You, on the other hand, won't be. If nothing else, I can bring you in for impersonating an officer. However, I'm sure all the non-interference laws you're breaking will be enough for execution."
"I know your kind," Lathezia said with a sneer. "You're terribly lenient when it comes to Jahra. After all, we don't have any control over our own fates. We're just tools."
Katie nudged the Doctor with her elbow, getting his attention. She nodded at the generators, then at the arguing men. He nodded back, catching her meaning. Katie stepped slowly backwards, grabbing hold of Jennifer's arm and moving her as well. The Doctor stepped forward, closer to the two men.
"At risk of seeming rude, I'm going to interrupt with a few questions, the first being what the Krize are doing here."
"You're worried about the Krize?" Julius said incredulously.
"Yeah! The Rahki throw their Jahra clones all over the place, but the Krize, well. I don't think I've ever seen them outside of the Centennial Ambassador's Meetings. So what are you doing off your planet?"
"Trying to prevent disaster, Doctor, one that the Rahki have been planning for a very long time."
"What disaster?"
Julius had a pained look on his face, as though he wanted to say but couldn't. "It involves your personal timeline Doctor. Non-interference is key. If we had been able to prevent—" Julius cut of his own words and started again after glancing quickly at Katie. "If we had been able to locate you before the pivotal moment, then we could have warned you."
"What moment?"
"Oh please," Lathezia said, "Are you really that thick? I thought that as the Doctor you knew it all! It's that child you've been toting around, Doctor. She—"
"Say another word and I'll shoot you," Julius snarled, cutting him off.
"And risk upsetting the universe by killing someone before their time?" Lathezia scoffed. "Really, you Krize are far too delicate. I'll show you."
Without warning, Lathezia swung his gun around and fired. Jennifer, who had been standing next to Katie behind the generators dropped, a bullet lodged in her skull. Lathezia turned back to Julius. "See? Simple."
"Simple?"
Julius and Lathezia turned at the sound of Katie's low voice. Her expression was almost cold enough to match the Doctor's. "You just shot a woman whose name you don't even know and you say, 'simple?'"
"I didn't know her. That's what made it simple. It isn't as though you haven't done the same. It's part of your nature, your programming. You can't escape it."
Katie gripped the control panel so hard that the metal started to dent. Though he was infuriated at Jennifer's death, the Doctor didn't want to see Lathezia dead as well. It was against his nature. He spoke up.
"What? Just because she came out of a test tube she's supposed to be like you?"
"Yes," Julius said turning towards him. "Yes she is Doctor and though this goes against everything I believe, I have got to warn you. She—"
There was another report of a gun and Julius collapsed, blood coming from the wound in his throat. His eyes were wide with pain and shock as he tried to breathe.
"You killed him!"
"Oh, he's not dead quite yet. He's just silent, which is what I need him to be. I'd do it again in a heartbeat Scorch," Lathezia said, the word sounding like a swear. "Some secrets are meant to stay that way."
"What secret!" the Doctor said. "What's so huge, so fundamentally important to time that even Jahra Rahki wouldn't risk letting it be known?"
Lathezia was silent for a moment. "The end of a tyranny and the beginning of an empire."
Turning his arm over, he quickly pulled back the sleeve to reveal a wristband before hitting a button on it. There was a small flash. When it was over, Lathezia was still standing there, but Katie and the Doctor knew that this was the real one, not a Jahra copy. Whatever the 'Scorch Project' was, their chance of finding out more about it had just left.
"Step away from that panel," the real Lathezia snarled at Katie. "It took an awful lot of pressure on the Iuhin scientists to set it up."
"Oh, I don't know if I want to leave it. I've grown kind of attached to it," she said, her voice almost cheerful. "Lots of colorful buttons on it. Funny language you people have, but I've managed to work it out. Mostly. Pretty sure. I think." She looked at the Doctor. "It's the red button that you're never supposed to push, right?"
"Mauve actually," he responded in the same cavalier tone. "Red is camp."
"Camp? Like tents and the woods and things?"
"Oh, remind me never to travel with an American again."
"Fine then. I'll just get this over with." Katie slammed her hand down on the mauve button and then rolled to the side. She stayed hunched down for a few moments, expecting some kind of explosion.
The control panel sparked and the sound of the generator died down, giving a loud clunk as a finish. She looked up at the Doctor who was staring at her curiously.
"What are you doing?"
"Isn't there always an explosion?"
"It's temporal energy Kathryn. An explosion would decimate the planet in milliseconds. There's dozens of preventions on those things."
"Oh." She stood up. Lathezia looked stunned, and was a rather sickly shade of green.
"You…you…" His eyes rolled backwards and he passed out, the sudden transfer he had just been put through too much for his body.
"Yeah," the Doctor said, wrinkling his face at the unconscious man. "Just…stay here and work it out. Won't matter soon anyway, the Iuhins will be flooding through here. They'll take care of the other generators."
"Other ones?" Katie questioned.
"Yeah, there'd have to be more than one to cover a planet. Come on, back to TARDIS."
"Just a second," Katie said. She crouched down by Julius still form and went through his pockets carefully, pulling out a CeaXhell and another communicator with Krize markings. Katie put the CeaXhell to broadcast before setting it by Jennifer's body and closing the eyes. She looked at Julian for a moment, then looked at his communicator.
"Kathryn," the Doctor said, holding out his hand. She silently gave him the communicator. He pushed a button on the side and said something in what Katie guessed to be the Krize language. It was very fast paced, reminding her vaguely of Aramaic, though she didn't have the least idea of what he was saying. Katie didn't really want to. The Doctor's voice was low and tight, both of which were very clear signals of suppressed anger.
He finished after a few moments, then soniced the communicator before setting it next to Julius' almost dead body. If he'd been a lesser man, or really anyone other than the Doctor, Katie would have expected him to do something particularly horrid to Julius, though why she got that feeling she wasn't sure. She didn't pause to think about it.
Katie walked out the door, tapping the Doctor's arm as she passed him. "Let's go."
The Iuhin camp was nearly empty when they arrived. They were all out freeing their friends and using the surprise of the Labyrinth while they could. Katie and the Doctor had been very quiet on the walk, but the Doctor beamed when he saw TARDIS.
"A sight for sore eyes. I've certainly missed her."
"Yeah, and you'll have to fix her too," Katie said. "That temporal split in the vortex shook her up pretty bad. Still, she'll make one trip to somewhere."
"That eager to leave?"
"Yes."
The Doctor looked at Katie as she pulled out her key. They never talked about the Rahki or the Krize, or where she really came from. He knew that they were both avoiding the topic, not really wanted to know about why she had been made the way she was. They couldn't dance around it much longer, not after today. Something was coming, something centered on his companion. But it wasn't like with Rose and that whole 'Bad Wolf' thing. It didn't have the same feel to it. 'Bad Wolf' had felt random, a bunch of words simply scattered about, pointing in a general direction. This thing with Katie was planned, organized. Someone had put a lot of time and effort into this, carefully arranging everything. They were still playing behind the scenes somewhere, carefully orchestrating it all. But for what? What would be worth all this?
Not his death; that could have been handled well before now. Jahra-Lathezia could have done it back in the generator room. Something to do with the Krize/Rahki feud? Then what would it have to do with him, and his personal timeline? What had nearly driven a Krize—a strict non-interference at all costs race—to nearly break the rule that had held their planet together for millennia? What was the 'Scorch Project' and why would someone as lax and uncaring about the Laws of Time as a Jahra Rahki kill to keep it a secret?
More importantly, what came next in this huge puzzle?
"Come on Doctor!" Katie called from inside TARDIS. "We've got whole new worlds to discover!"
The Doctor smiled. Whatever she was, it was brilliant. And just a bit frightening, like a reflection in a mirror.
*Constructive critisisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*
So what'd you think? No seriously, I'd love to get a PM or reveiw on what you readers (of which I think there aren't very many) thought about this last episode, and particularly what you think is really going on with Katie.
Anyway, the next episode should be out soon. "Coup at the Institute." Oh, I can't wait to show you guys.