Notes: Sorry for the long wait on this one. It took me a bit to get my head going in one direction or another, but I've got a bit of a plan now. I'll be skipping a couple of episodes in this season, but my favourites will be there as I push toward the Day of the Doctor (which I've already half written).
Rose and Clara had changed into formal wear for their trip to Las Vegas. The Doctor changed his bowtie and found some large, dark sunglasses.
"What year are we heading for, Doctor? We finally going to see Elvis after all?" Rose asked him.
"Perhaps. Not at his best in the Vegas years, mind you, but we could do that," he responded as they landed. He dashed over to the doors, Rose and Clara following closely as he shouted, "Viva Las Vegas!"
They discovered quickly that they weren't where he had planned as a sudden jolt threw the time travellers out of the TARDIS and into a darkened control room, with water pouring around them and filling the floor.
"Stranger on the bridge!" someone shouted.
"Who the hell are you?" another demanded.
"Not Vegas, then," Clara stated.
"Not unless they've changed the definition of desert," Rose replied.
"No. No, this is much better," the Doctor told them excitedly, prompting a giggle from his wife. Only he could find disaster more interesting than getting where he planned to go.
"A sinking submarine?" Clara questioned incredulously.
"A sinking Soviet submarine!" he corrected.
"Break out side arms. Restrain them!" an officer ordered.
"Four ten. Four twenty. Turbines still not responding!" one of the men announced as he fought with the controls.
"They've got to!"
The Doctor could see that they were in a rather desperate situation and used his sonic to help find a solution quickly. "Ah! Sideways momentum. You've still got sideways momentum!" he shouted.
"What?" an officer questioned.
"Your propellers work independently of the main turbines. You can't stop her going down but you can manoeuvre the sub laterally. Do it!" the Doctor instructed.
"Get these people off the bridge now!" another man insisted.
"Just listen to him, for god's sake!" Clara shouted frustratedly.
"Geographical anomaly to starboard. Probably an underwater ridge," the Doctor informed them.
"How do you know this?"
"Look, we have just a chance to stop the descent if we settle on it. Do it!" the Doctor shouted as the submarine came closer to sinking past this opportunity.
"Six hundred metres. Sir, six ten!" the officer reported fearfully.
"Or this thing is going to implode," the Doctor continued as he faced off with the Captain.
"Lateral thrust to starboard, all propellers," he ordered finally, the time travellers breathing a sigh of relief.
"Sir?" the officer questioned.
"Now!" he insisted.
"You're going to let this madman give the orders?" the other man argued.
"Have you got a better idea?" Rose asked pointedly.
"Lateral thrust!" the captain repeated loudly.
"Aye, sir! Six sixty, six eighty," the crewman responded and fired the propellers. They heard and felt the vibrations as the sub scraped against the rocks and settled before he reported, "Descent arrested at seven hundred metres."
"It seems we owe you our lives, whoever you are," the captain sighed in relief.
"I'll hold you to that. Might come in handy," the Doctor replied. If their usual luck held true, they would probably need that kind of trust from them again. After all, the submarine was still stuck.
"Search them. Yes, I know there are women. Now search them!" the other officer demanded and a few crewmen carefully checked them for weapons.
"Are we going to be okay?" Clara asked quietly. She didn't have the same level of telepathic connection with them as she did with her parents. She could feel that they were there, and some emotions, but not communicate without touching.
"Oh, yes," her grandfather assured her.
"Is that a lie?" she questioned, trying to interpret just what she was feeling from him.
"Possibly. Very dangerous time, Clara. East and West standing on the brink of nuclear oblivion," he admitted.
Rose stifled a giggle as the man searching her husband's pockets pulled out one of Clara's old Barbie dolls, then blushed the colour of her namesake when he also found a set of pink, furry handcuffs.
"Lots of itchy fingers on the button," the Doctor continued, oblivious to their invasion of privacy.
"Isn't it always like that?" Clara asked.
"Sort of, but there are flash points and this is one. Hair, shoulder pads, nukes. It's the Eighties. Everything's bigger. I would like a receipt, please," he told the man confiscating the contents of his pockets.
The crewmen handed the sonic screwdrivers found on both the Doctor and Rose to the Captain to inspect.
"What are these things?" he demanded.
The Doctor was about to make some excuse for their screwdrivers when the sound of the TARDIS engines taking off made all three time travellers' eyes go wide.
"What is she doing?!" Rose screeched.
"No! No, no, no, no, no, no. No, not now!" the Doctor called, pushing past the officers as he tried to reach his ship before it disappeared.
"Doctor, what did you do? She's never left us before," Rose questioned accusingly.
"I reset the HADS," he admitted.
"The what?" Clara asked.
"The HADS. The Hostile Action Displacement System. If the Tardis comes under attack, it relocates," he told them.
"Why would she think she was under attack now?" Rose wondered.
"It is us who are under attack. I want these three confined immediately," the officer who had been arguing with the Captain earlier demanded.
"Captain, we didn't attack of your ship out here. Now we need to get the pumps working to get her afloat," the Doctor insisted to the man who trusted him a few moments ago.
"Yeah, we'll last till the rescue ship comes," the Captain assured everyone.
"If it comes," Rose argued.
"Oh, the sinking is just a coincidence, is it? Who are you?" the Captain accused the Doctor, glaring at him.
"All right, Captain, all right. You know what? Just this once, no dissembling, no psychic paper, no pretending to be an Earth Ambassador. Doctor, Rose and Clara, time travellers," the Doctor told him, earning an odd look from his wife.
"Time travellers?" the Captain questioned disbelievingly.
"We arrived here out of thin air. You just saw it happen," the Doctor insisted.
"I didn't," the other officer argued.
"Your problem, mate, not mine," the Doctor told him. "Listen. Captain, breath's precious down here. Let's not waste it, eh?"
"You're right. Maybe I can save a little oxygen by having the three of you shot!" he countered.
"What does it matter how we arrived? The important thing is to get... out," Clara gasped as she stared at the creature breathing heavily behind her grandfather and grasping her grandmother's hand fearfully.
"Exactly! Number one priority, not suffocating. Now, what sort of state is the sub in?" the Doctor asked, oblivious to what everyone was staring at.
"Doctor," Rose said warningly.
"What about the radio? Can we send a-" he continued babbling.
"Grandad!" Clara shouted.
"What?" the Doctor responded. He heard a hissing noise behind him and wondered at the worry that he felt from both Rose and Clara. "What is that? Gas? Could be gas."
He turned around to look at what the others were afraid of and was faced with a very tall, green, Ice Warrior.
"Ah. It never rains but it pours," the Doctor sighed.
"We were drilling for oil in the ice. I thought I'd found a mammoth," one of the crew told them.
"It's not a mammoth," the Doctor informed him.
"No," the man agreed.
"It's an Ice Warrior. Tharsisian caste judging from the uniform," Clara told them.
"Very good, Clara! Exactly. A native of the planet Mars. And we go way back. Way back," the Doctor added.
"A Martian? You can't be serious," the Captain protested.
"I'm always serious. With days off," the Doctor replied.
One of the officers raised his gun toward the alien threateningly, prompting the Ice Warrior to do the same.
"No, no, no, no, no, no! Please, please. Wait, just. There is no need for this. Just hear me out. You're confused, disorientated. Of course you are. You've been lying dormant in the ice for, for, for how long? How long, Professor?" the Doctor asked the man who thought he had found a mammoth.
"By my reckoning, five thousand years," he told them.
"Five thousand years? That's a hell of a nap. Can't blame you if you've got out of the wrong side of bed. Look, nobody here wants to hurt you," the Doctor told the Ice Warrior as he pushed the human's gun down. "Please, just. Why don't you tell us your name?"
"What are you talking about? It has a name?" the Captain asked.
"Of course it has a name. And a rank. This is a soldier, a highly decorated one and he deserves our utmost respect!" Clara insisted.
"This is madness. That is a monster!" the Captain argued.
"Skaldak," the Warrior growled.
"Grand Marshal Skaldak," Clara gasped, eyes wide with recognition of just who they were facing.
"Oh, no," the Doctor mumbled.
Everyone jumped as electricity suddenly coursed over the surface of Skaldak's armour. The Ice Warrior roared furiously before collapsing to the floor, unconscious. Behind him stood an officer with a cattle prod.
"You idiot! You idiot. Grand Marshal Skaldak," the Doctor cursed.
"And who's he?" Rose wondered.
"We are in big trouble. Sovereign of the Tharsisian caste. Vanquisher of the Phobos Heresy. The greatest hero the proud Martian race has ever produced," Clara listed as she paced through the ankle deep water in the room.
"So what do we do now?" the Captain asked.
"Lock him up," the Doctor ordered.
