Chapter Twenty Three
Martha swallowed nervously; the memories of her last meeting with the Cynrog had been unpleasant.
But she took courage from the presence of Ianto and Gwen and stood straighter as she saw the three figures start to form in front of her.
"What do you want human?" the larger of the Cynrog hissed at her.
She rankled at the contempt she heard in the Cynrog's voice.
That dissipated any nerves she had, and her temper rose.
"What do I want? What I want is for you to leave this planet alone, or do you want to answer to the Shadow Proclamation."
The three Cynrog took a step back in surprise.
"What, surprised a human knows about the Shadow Proclamation. Oh, I know more than that, I know this planet is off limits...but I can be persuaded not to tell them."
The Cynrog that had spoken to her stepped forward again. "I am listening."
Jack leant against the outside of TARDIS door, his head reeling from the image that had flashed through his mind.
The TARDIS was almost dark, having let out a shuddering groan and suddenly powering down... she was falling, falling with her Time Lord.
He had to stop it, stop the Doctor...stop him, but how?
Then as if something heard his question, an unsuspecting guard happened upon the TARDIS.
The Doctor lay still, waiting patiently as he felt more and more energy returning to his muscle, soon he would be able to move, and somehow get out of wherever he was.
It wasn't going to be easy, considering he was blind, but he had to move, before he came.
He reached over and undid the straps that were holding him down and then removed the IV, hissing as he felt a twinge of pain as he pulled.
Letting the discarded tubing fall to the floor, he felt his way over to what he hoped was the door and to his surprise, neither this door nor the door to the room next to it was locked.
That must have been Sarah Michael's doing, so without further delay, he slipped out of the room and began feeling his way down what appeared to be an empty corridor.
He carefully moved along the corridor, and nearly fell when the floor beneath him shifted, and the faint rumble of something...explosive reached his ears.
"That's not good, not good at all," he said, before straightening and once again feeling his way along the wall.
He stopped when it suddenly ended, was it a turn in the corridor...no, he crouched down and felt for... it was a set of stairs, going up.
Slowly and very cautiously he started to ascend the stairs, step by step.
He'd gone maybe two or three flights, when he heard someone coming down.
White Coat had fully intended to make his way to his laboratory, but that was twenty minutes ago. He'd found himself distracted by what seemed trivial things, the odd breakdown of machinery that no-one but himself seemed able to fix.
"Enough of this, if you can't fix it yourselves, then throw it away, don't bother me!" he roared and stalked off towards his laboratory.
He was about to enter the corridor leading to it when a dull roar echoed around him and the ground beneath him vibrated...that sounded like an explosion.
With a growl of anger, he turned and locked the door to his laboratory and strode off towards the sound of the explosion.
He never noticed the figure slip out of the only other entrance and out into what was his personal shuttle bay.
Jack winced a little at the explosion; he had no idea what had caused the explosion.
Whatever or whoever had caused it, the results had been spectacular, and they had the desired effect of creating mass panic, which had allowed him to move further into the complex. He hoped that the TARDIS had been right that the Doctor was here, but he fervently hoped that she had been wrong about death.
He'd eventually come across what looked like holding cells, and had managed to bring up what looked like CCTV footage of the cells on the abandoned desk that should have been security, and had stopped, frozen in anger and horror.
The Doctor had been manhandled into shackles and chained painfully tight to the wall of the cell. But it wasn't the chains or the shackles that had angered him; it was the way the Doctor had just taken the abuse.
Then he had looked closer and had seen that the Doctor couldn't see his jailers...he was blind.
White hot anger had seared his heart, had they blinded him so as to disable him...oh, they were so going to pay.
He'd watched as they'd dragged the Doctor out, and had then scoured the log entries for any clues as to where they had taken the Doctor...yes Level Four, a laboratory, and he was on Level Two...time to go.
He looked round for a door or a set of stairs, but finding none he moved away from the desk and found what he wanted just past the cell the Doctor must have been in. There was a flight of stairs and an elevator
He wasted no time deciding and flew down stairs, the weapon he'd stolen from the guard ready in his hand.
He'd gone down only three flights when he stopped suddenly...someone was coming up!
Martha hadn't expected the Cynrog to capitulate so easy. She'd only heard the Doctor mention the Shadow Proclamation once. It was who the Judoon worked for he'd told her; that was all.
Now she was watching as a Cynrog soldier was placing explosives and had ducked for cover along with Gwen and Ianto when the wall imploded loudly and violently.
That had been several minutes ago, now the sounds of gunfire and laser fire were filling the air.
"We have to find some kind of map of this place!" Ianto yelled.
Gwen ducked as another bullet pinged off the wall near her head. "We can't even move, let alone..." she shouted, but her voice was drowned out by gun and laser fire.
The quiet when it descended seemed unnatural, but was broken by the sound of claws on metal, as a large Cynrog specimen walked over to Ianto carrying a small box, and dropped it at Ianto's feet.
"Schematics," it growled and stalked off, joining its fellow soldier in advancing along the destroyed corridor.
"Thanks," Ianto said and looked at the screen of the device. "Yes, it looks like the holding cells are on Level Two, we should start there."
Gwen and Martha nodded.
"Let's leave the Cynrog to do whatever they're going to do. If they kill White Coat, that's fine by me," Gwen said. "Let's go find the Doctor, and I don't know why, but I think Jack's here too."
With that the trio left the Cynrog to take on whatever resistance there was and ran for the stairs in the corner.
Jack slowed as he heard whoever it was ascending the stairs.
They were barefoot, whoever it was and going slowly, they must have heard him. He stopped at the corner, where the steps turned, let them come to him.
Flattening himself against the wall, poised on the steps, and waited to pounce.
He tensed as the footfalls came closer, and as the owner of the footsteps hand appeared round the corner he moved.
The cry that followed caused Jack to stop...the owner of the footsteps was the Doctor!