Tosh clung to the Doctor and kept her head down as much as she could. She had a scarf wrapped around her head and a pair of ridiculously bright swimming goggles to protect her eyes, but the sand found its way udder the covering and stung her face and arms. They had been travelling for what seemed like days - and if she hadn't lost count then they had driven through two dawns - skimming across the land and then across the Mediterranean Sea without even a pause. She had dozed for a few hours, snatching sleep here and there, but the Doctor had stayed grim-faced and focussed on their destination, holding her in place on the bike the whole time. Since they crossed into the desert, though, the sand had stung at her and kept her awake, no matter how hard she tried to keep it out.

The sun was setting when they crested a hill and the Doctor pulled the bike to a halt, turning side on so that she could see the vista spread out below them. Her breath caught in her throat - the rich light of sunset touched on the ruins of Luxor, casting deep shadows in pools behind the crooked and crazed buildings. "It's beautiful," she breathed. "I never thought I'd see it."

"It's a shadow of what it once was," he told her. "I liked Luxor. It was quiet, comparatively. God could Cleo party. It's all gone now, though..."

"There's no tourists. No birds, no... anything." She looked around, straightening up and wincing as she did so. "Shouldn't there be people here?"

The Doctor dismounted and helped her to do the same. She thought that he wasn't going to answer, and when her leg cramped up she didn't really care, but he caught her and guided her to sit on a rock, then sat next to her and said, "Not here. Not so close to the Lashimi base. They're all gone."

"Oh." It wasn't quite so beautiful anymore. "What are we doing here, then?"

"We're waiting until it's dark before we approach UNIT Marsam. It's not locked down yet, but I don't want to risk approaching it by day. I'd rather only one of them was shooting at us." He ignored Tosh's start and continued, "I need to see Commander Charlond. The fight is coming sooner than he thinks."

"Charlond?" She looked up at him. "Is he related to Anton?"

"His father." Sighing, he looked down at her, and his face was silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky, shrouded in shadow. "He may not yet know - and we don't want to be the ones to tell him."

# # #

They entered the base after nightfall, and Tosh was shivering in the sudden cold by the time they persuaded the guards to let them in to see the commander. A soldier led them through the seven rings of defences, giving them orders in clipped, heavily-accented French, to the nerve centre of the operation. Computers around the wall flashed and beeped with readings and communications from their sensors and from other bases, and soldiers in UNIT slacks hurried to and fro between the computers and their dedicated monitors. Above them were gridded gantries like those at the Hub, and the people standing on them, watching the proceedings below, paused in their conversations to watch their entrance even as the soldiers working on their level ignored them.

A tall, well-built man with close-cropped, greying hair slapped his hand on the railing, said something to the man next to him, and started descending the stairs to them. Each step rang under his feet, and the sound brought the noise levels in the room even lower.

"Doctor," he greeted when he reached them. "I did not expect to see you here."

"Commander Charlond." The Doctor greeted him with a smile and rocked back on his heels. "It has been a very long time."

"For you, maybe. I feel it is not so long for me." He indicated to two soldiers and turned to walk out of the room. The soldiers immediately pushed up behind the Doctor and Tosh, guiding them out onto the corridor behind him. "I do not know what brings you here, but it will not be good, no?"

"Does anyone have good news in these dark times? We have come from Greece..."

"You have come from your travels with my son." He paused with his hand on the door. "I know what happened, Doctor. I do not think that I can forgive."

Tosh glanced at the Doctor and took a step forwards. "Your son was a brave man, sir. He lost his life in saving mine, and I can never repay that debt. He was a noble man; I am honoured to have met him."

"I am proud of him, but I cannot say that it is a relief to hear that he gave his life for yours." The commander pushed the door open and led them into a small office. It was minimally decorated, with a concrete floor and a Spartan desk. A photograph of Anton hung on the wall opposite the desk, and another stood next to the computer.

The Doctor sat down, without being invited, and stretched his long legs out along the front of the desk. "The battle will come to you soon," he told Commander Charlond. "They struck a decisive victory in Greece, but the Master was just a pawn in this war. The Lashimi will strike back now that they know we can do so."

"You say this like I would not be aware of it, Doctor." Charlond sat down stiffly and started shifting reports on his desk. "We are aware of their movements, and of their breadth of knowledge. We are ready for them."

They looked at each other worriedly, concerned by his distracted tone, and the Doctor leaned forwards. "How do you know what they're planning?"

"We have our sources." He spared them a brief, sharp glance, and continued as passively as before. "A device has fallen into our hands - it is an invaluable source of information. It will win us this fight, Doctor."

"If you know their plans, why have you not called for help?" He leaned forwards, propping his elbows on his knees. "Greece is ready to respond to your call, and UNIT is unified against them. They lack focus, but at your call they will rally to you. Why haven't you called for them?"

Charlond scoffed. "We need no aid. We are strong, no? They will underestimate us, I know it." He glanced down at his desk and shifted his papers over something. "I have seen it."

Before he could move again, the Doctor had reached across the desk to snatch whatever he was trying to hide. Tosh gasped when she saw it, and backed away quickly. "That's..."

"Yes. Tosh here found one of these - she found it in my pocket, actually. Shouldn't have done that, but we all make mistakes. Do you know what it is, Commander Charlond?"

"It is one of their communication devices. Their radio." He gestured at it. "It links us straight to the heart of their plans."

"And it links them to the heart of your plans as well." He turned it over quickly, sniffed it, peered at the cracks. "No way to turn it off. Damn!" Whilst they watched on in shock, he ran his screwdriver along the edges and then tossed the device onto the desk. "Keep it. It's only telling you lies."

"No, Doctor, you tell me lies." Charlond stood up and leaned forwards, resting his knuckles against the desk. "Leave now. You will have to remain with us until the combat is fought."

The door opened again immediately, and the two soldiers who had escorted them down to the office entered to remove them. They were taken to a small break room and left there in silence.

# # #

Ianto found himself walking along behind Jack, rather than alongside him as he had most of the time since they arrived in Africa - maybe even earlier. Something had driven a wedge between them - she was scampering ahead at that moment, on her hands and knees to get through the dunes, but she was as likely to trot alongside Jack or cling to his hand.

The sand slipped from under Ianto's feet again and he yelped as he went down, resigned to sliding down to the beach. It took a moment for Jack to notice, Ianto realised bitterly, and when he did he simply stopped to wait for him and turned to look out across the water.

Something he saw there changed his mind, and he looked around quickly before starting down the slope to the shore. Ianto picked himself up and trudged on to meet him, taking the offered support of Jack's hand to steady himself. "What have you seen?" he asked, and realised that his voice was rough from not speaking all day.

"There's ships coming," Jack explained, tugging him along. "Lots of them. We need to find shelter."

"What about the dunes?"

"Too risky if we don't know where they're going to land," he pointed out. "They could come in right on top of us. The land rises a bit ahead, though - we might find an overhang there."

He nodded and kept tight hold of Jack's hand as they slid and stumbled up the dunes and over the crest, until they were out of sight of the shore. It left them unable to gauge the ships' approach, but being able to see them coming would be no help if they were spotted. Andrea gibbered at them when they reached her, sheltering in a valley between the dunes, and went on only reluctantly.

True to Jack's prediction, when the land started rising they found a rocky overhang that faced inland instead of towards the sea. Jack pushed Ianto into it and dumped his bag, then scrambled up to get another look at the oncoming army. He returned barely a minute later, dropping off the edge and rolling in the sand to cushion his fall. "They're nearly here," he gasped, tucking himself in against Ianto and pulling him in with an arm wrapped around his shoulders. "Now we have to hope."

Too soon they heard the thundering of countless feet travelling at speed towards them, up over the raised ground that was sheltering them. Sand and dust drifted down on them, and Ianto felt Jack tense and pull himself up, ready to shelter Ianto if he needed it. Andrea was pressed against the back wall, curled up as small as she could with her hands over her ears. Ianto closed his eyes and rested his head on Jack's shoulder. "War's coming somewhere," he breathed. "Just let them pass us by."

Jack's only response was to tighten his arms around Ianto, and press him even closer.

# # #

Tosh followed the Doctor down the corridor and tried not to look furtive. It had taken a moment's work with the Doctor's sonic screwdriver to get them out of the locked break room, and then it was a matter of pretending that they were where they were supposed to be. He guided her through a maze of passages to a store room at the back, where outdated computers stood on racks, waiting to be shipped off and recycled.

"There's no way we'll get access to their systems," he told her, "but we might be able to use this to rebuild one of our own and get onto the network, don't you think?"

"Definitely." She started pulling computer parts down from the shelves and laying them out on top of one of the large boxes. "I can walk into the UNIT network, no problem. I wrote half of it."

"Toshiko Sato, you're a genius." He watched her working and, to his credit, did what he was told with a minimum amount of fuss and argument. They got a computer set up on top of a box very quickly, and once they found a Wi-Fi dongle it took Tosh barely a moment to start getting into the network.

"Right." She flexed her fingers over the keyboard and looked up at him. "What do you need me to do?"

"UNIT have an alarm network, don't they?" She nodded, and he leaned over her. "I need you to get into their alarm network and send out a request for assistance. Source it from here, but make it invisible to this base."

"But make the invisibility invisible to everyone else." She smiled up at him. "I'll see what I can do."

"You're a genius, Tosh. You'll do it."

X~X~X~X

Rick sat on a table in the duty room and shuffled his cards. He was the only person in there, keeping an eye on the monitors whilst everyone else had dinner, and he enjoyed the peace and quiet. The monitors had all been silent almost since the invasion, and it was an opportunity to let his mind drift.

As a result, it took a while for him to realise that the ringing was in the room with him. He jumped to his feet and hurried over to the chair, dropping into it and pulling the headset on. The data scrolled across the screen repeatedly, showing the cry for help. "Tosh..."

He scrambled up again and hurtled through the building to the mess. They turned to stare at him, and he fought with the urge to tell them about the troll. "There's a UNIT back-up request alert come through. Marsam are calling for allies."

All eyes turned to King Kiron. His eyes filled with pain for a moment, but he stood and nodded to Rick. "Then we move to Marsam. We ride at dawn."

# # #

Tosh joined the rush through the halls, as it was easier than fighting against the crowd. She tried to memorise the route again, but they moved so fast and so easily, and she was swept along in the middle, unable to see how many doorways she was passing at times. Most of them spoke in Arabic, either fast, fluent and fluid or in broken, accented scraps of sentences. Those who didn't speak Arabic mostly spoke French, and she was able to pick up enough of what was happening from them. An outer defence had fallen, and the Commander's son had returned with them.

The defensive circles of the base were filled with twisting corridors that every soldier knew like the back of their hands, but which would trap any invaders in deadly dead ends. It seemed to be miles before they got out to the mess hall where the returning troops, those who had survived, were gathered, tending their wounds and avoiding people's gazes. They moved with the slow lethargy of those carrying grief and pain, and everyone in the mess knew it well enough to hang back and give them their space.

All apart from the Doctor.

He hovered over them, questioning them quickly, needing to know who, what, how. Most of them brushed him off angrily, but their leader - who was clearly the commander's on, even if the resemblance to Anton wasn't as clear - pulled him aside wearily. Tosh hurried over to them to reattach herself to the Doctor.

"Yves Charlond, Doctor," the man introduced himself as she arrived, and gave her a tired smile. "Madame. You are a friend of the Doctor?"

She nodded quickly. "I worked for Torchwood. We've been travelling together since this began."

That brought him up short, and he gave her a curious look. "Torchwood, I am seeing everywhere."

"You've seen Jack and Ianto?"

"Just yesterday," he confirmed. "They were safe, when they left us. They are travelling with another - not human, I believe."

The Doctor gripped his shoulder. "Which way were they going? Were they coming here?"

"No, they were to go by another route." He gestured towards the wall behind him. "Below the sea there are tunnels. They planned to go by the hidden routes." The Doctor's face had darkened, and Yves leaned forwards. "Doctor?"

"What?" He turned back to them and gave them a clearly forced smile. "Nothing. They'll be fine."

He turned and walked away, passing through the crowd as if surrounded by a physical aura, and Tosh bit her lip. "Now I really am worried," Yves told her, voicing her own thoughts.

# # #

Tosh was led to the operations centre again. The Doctor was already there, watching impassively from the corner whilst the bustle rushed around him. Commander Charlond looked up at her entrance and beckoned her over. "Miss Sato. As you are to remain here for the foreseeable future, and we are in a time of danger, I would ask you to join with UNIT temporarily. If you choose not to, we will have to imprison you, as my men cannot be spared to guard you."

She glanced over at the Doctor, who gave her no reply to her unasked question. "I would like to make myself useful," she decided. "I will consent to being seconded to UNIT for the duration."

He nodded and gestured one of his aides over. "Hosni will arrange it. You will follow all orders given to you. I will not risk the lives of my soldiers on protecting you, or on your misbehaviour."

"And yet you will risk them on a mission to retake a position that has already been lost and overrun," the Doctor spoke up at last, striding across to slam his palm on the table and lean towards the commander. "It's not going to work, and they will die. That's all that can come of it."

"Doctor, Marsa Alam is our last line of defence before this base," Charlond sighed. "If we attempt to retake it, we will at least hold them back a while longer. At the moment, this is possibly the best we can hope for. It will force a show of their strength. I dare say that their strength will be sufficiently limited that we will retake it without trouble."

He growled and ran his hand through his hair. "You're wrong. You're just going to get them killed. Your men, your son!"

"It seems to be my lot in this war, Doctor." His eyes were cold when they landed on Yves. "I'm sure that he will do me proud."

Tosh flinched back from it and signed her name to the papers quickly. Yves' eyes were as empty as his father's were cold, and he turned away and left without another word.

She was startled when Hosni handed her a pass card and a UNIT insignia badge. "This pass card will get you access to all the parts of the base you need to reach. Stay close to your group - the passages are easy to get lost in, and you would not want to be trapped if we have to fall back."

"I've always been a tactical person," she admitted, "but I can cope with that. I've done enough field service in Cardiff. I just hate not knowing what we're going to face, you know?"

"Every day is different. A different threat." His eyes were bleak, as were the rest of the team's. "I do not believe that we will ever be safe again."

She found that she couldn't argue with that.