Notes: I hope you like the changes I made to this one. It was a short and straightforward adventure really, but establishes a few things. Let me know what you think!
"Alright, granddad, we need a plan and I'm not sure locking him up is going to work out too well," Clara told him.
"Granddad? But you two look the same age," Captain Zhukov argued when they retired to his office to discuss their situation.
"We moisturize," Rose told him and the Doctor snorted.
"The Ice Warriors have a different creed, Clara. A different code. By his own standards, Skaldak is a hero. It was said his enemies honoured him so much, they'd carve his name into their own flesh before they died," the Doctor told her.
"You think I don't know this? I did a research project on the Ice Warriors when I was nine, why don't you-? Ugh, I haven't done it for you yet!" Clara growled.
"Right, have to remember that assignment," the Doctor said.
"An Ice Warrior? Explain," the Captain insisted, not entirely following their conversation.
"There isn't time," the Doctor responded curtly.
"We make time if we want their help," Clara argued. Turning to the Captain, she told them what the creature was and how best they could deal with him, "He is a Martian reptile known as an Ice Warrior. When Mars turned cold they had to adapt. They're bio-mechaniod. Cyborgs. Built themselves survival armour so they could exist in the freezing cold of their home world, but a sudden increase in temperature and the armour goes haywire. Like with the cattle prod thing."
"Like with the cattle prod thing. Bit of a design flaw. To be honest, I've always wondered why they never sorted it. So, what's your plan for dealing with him, resident Ice Warrior expert?" the Doctor interrupted, trying to hurry her along.
"Oi! Doctor, that was amazing, you need to slow down. How dangerous are we talking here, sweetheart?" Rose asked her granddaughter.
"Most Ice Warriors? Dangerous enough. Grand Marshal Skaldak? We would have been fine until they attacked him," Clara replied.
The professor, who they learned was named Grisenko put his headphones on while continuing to listen to their discussion.
"Why are we listening to this nonsense, Captain? These people are clearly enemy agents," security officer Stepashin argued. "In my opinion, Comrade Captain, this creature is a Western weapon."
"A weapon?" Captain Zhukov questioned.
"Survival suit. What is the alternative? The little green man from Mars?" Stepashin insisted.
"Correction. It's a big green man from Mars," Professor Grisenko interjected, prompting a smirk from the time travellers.
"I don't appreciate your levity, Professor," Stepashin said, glaring at him.
"Why does that not surprise me? Maybe they're telling the truth," he suggested, not intimidated by the military man.
"The truth?"
"Yes, a revolutionary concept, I know," the scientist responded.
The security officer scoffed at the suggestion and turned back to the Captain, demanding, "It's essential that we inform Moscow of what we have found."
"The radio's out of action, in case you hadn't noticed, Stepashin," the Captain replied, frustrated with all the arguing.
"They have our last position. They will find us. When they do…" the officer responded.
"Yes?" the Captain prompted.
"Well, the Cold War won't stay cold for ever, Captain," Stepashin threatened.
"For God's sake, Stepashin, you're like a stuck record. We have other priorities right now. I want you back on repairs immediately. We need to keep this ship alive. Dismissed," Captain Zhukov ordered.
"Sir?" Stepashin questioned.
"Dismissed, Stepashin."
The security officer left in a huff, but would presumably follow the chain of command. Everyone seemed to relax a little in his absence, but there was still plenty to worry about.
"If we had honoured him and let Skaldak go, he'd have forgotten us. But they attacked him, declared war. Harm one of us and you harm us all. That's the ancient Martian code. Oh no," Clara gasped when she heard the beeping noise coming from Professor Grisenko's headphones.
"You hear that? Skaldak has sent out a distress call. He will bring down the fires of hell just for laying a glove on him," the Doctor explained.
"Unless you talk to it?" Zhukov asked hopefully.
"I'm the only one who can," the Doctor insisted.
"No, you're not. A soldier knows another soldier. I know you hate to think of yourself that way, granddad, but I'm the least threatening one here that also speaks ancient Martian," Clara argued.
"You? No! No! No way. You're not going in there alone, Clara. Absolutely not. No, no. Never," the Doctor told her in no uncertain terms.
"Doctor, listen to her. Her arguments make sense. Jamie was obsessed with the Ice Warriors when he was little, I'm sure he's made her even more of an expert on them than you," Rose assured him.
"I know all of their protocols and rules. I can do this," Clara stated confidently.
The Doctor nodded, hoping that his acquiescence wouldn't cost his young granddaughter another regeneration. He couldn't bear being the cause of it again.
"Right then, while I'm in there, you need to find a way to turn up the heating in here," she said, squaring her shoulders for the task ahead.
##########
"Ready, Clara?" the Doctor asked through the headset she was given. It had a small camera, microphone, and headphones so that she could communicate with the others while locked in with the alien.
"Yeah," she replied breathily as she approached. They had chained his armour securely to some metal shelving, but she knew he could escape from there easily. It was a tactic to give them a false sense of security.
"Grand Marshal Skaldak," she greeted him in his own language and performed the official salute. The humans would hear the words translated by the TARDIS, but it was important to Clara that he not have any sense that things were being translated to him. "Sovereign of the Tharsisian caste. By the moons, I honour thee. Grand Marshal, I'm, we're sorry about this. It isn't what you deserve."
She gasped as the lights went out around her.
"It's ok, Clara. Keep going," the Doctor assured her.
She turned on the torch she had brought with her and continued to address the Grand Marshal, "You're a long way from home and five thousand years adrift in time. Please, let us help you. You are not our enemy."
"And yet I am in chains," Skaldak countered.
"They are afraid. Humans don't know about life on other planets yet. They are terrified of you, as well they should be. Both you and I know that those chains won't stop you, but they feel safer," Clara told him honestly.
"I was Fleet Commander of the Nix Tharsis. My daughter stood by me. It was her first taste of action. We sang the songs of the Old Times. The Songs of the Red Snow. Five thousand years. Now my daughter will be dust. Only dust," Skaldak said.
"I am sorry that you will not see your daughter again, Skaldak, but your people live on across the universe. We can take you to them. Just let us help you," Clara assured him.
"I require no help."
She noticed then, a strange emptiness behind the visor of the armour and approached it carefully. Her advanced senses told her that the breathing she could hear was not coming from the armour at all, but somewhere else in the room. She touched the helmet and it opened to reveal her suspicions to be true.
"Skaldak, they are no match for you. They didn't know what they were doing. Please, let us take you to your people," Clara pleaded.
"It is time I learned the measure of my enemies. And what this vessel is capable of," the Ice Warrior hissed from the darkness.
"No, Skaldak! This ship can't take you off of this planet," Clara argued.
"Harm one of us and you harm us all. By the Moons, this I swear," Skaldak threatened.
"Clara, get out of there. Get out!" the Doctor shouted to her desperately.
Back in the Captain's office, where they had been monitoring the interactions, Captain Zhukov placed his pistol against the Doctor's head.
"Now, I've never seen one do this before. Actually, I've never seen one out of its armour before," he assured the man.
"But she said she knew the chains wouldn't hold it," the Captain argued.
"Clearly, she has studied them more than I have. All the better that she is on our side. Where are we with the heating, love?" the Doctor asked Rose, hoping to change the topic to something more helpful and less bullet...ish.
"Won't it be more vulnerable out of its shell?" Professor Grisenko asked.
"No, it will be more dangerous," Clara answered as she entered the room and looked over Rose's shoulder at the heating systems.
The Doctor quickly embraced her in a tight hug. "Clara! I'm so glad you're safe."
"Not safe yet, granddad," she replied. "What have we got gran?"
"Two nuclear reactors, which are currently offline. I'd light a fire, but that would just burn up our oxygen instead. But we still have electricity to these systems from somewhere. So, what's the plan?" Rose reported.
"I could try to get the reactors back online," the Doctor suggested.
"No. I locked the door behind me, but that won't hold him for long. Even outside of his armour, an Ice Warrior can rip a human to pieces. We need to get everyone together and protect ourselves," Clara insisted. "Is there some kind of electric heating system? We're in the North Sea and we aren't frozen to death yet," she asked the Captain.
"This is as warm as it gets in here, especially on battery power," he told her.
"Doctor? The signal. It's stopped," the Professor interrupted.
"Skaldak got no answer from his Martian brothers. Now he's given up hope," the Doctor sighed.
"Hope of what?" Captain Zhukov wondered.
"Being rescued. He thinks he's been abandoned. He's got nothing left to lose," the Doctor replied.
"But what can he do, stuck down here like the rest of us? How bad can it be?" he asked.
"You had to ask that?" Rose groaned. "We're on a submarine stuffed to the gills with nuclear missiles and a suddenly angry and possibly suicidal alien on board. How bad can it be?"
"It couldn't be any worse," the Doctor added. Of course, some rocks tumbling outside broke through a hatch at that exact moment and the officers scrambled to stop the leak. "Okay. Spoke too soon."
"Captain, do you still have the devices you confiscated from our pockets?" Rose asked.
"Yes, what are they?" he asked as he pulled the two sonic screwdrivers from his pocket.
"Special tools. He told you we were time travellers, yeah? That's why they don't look familiar. From the future. But we can use them to increase the heating in here and maybe fix a few things for you, if you don't mind?" Rose told him, hoping that he would give them back their sonics safely.
He nodded and handed them to the Doctor, who kissed his wife quickly on the forehead while passing her sonic to her.
"We need to gather everyone in here while Rose and I raise the temperature to something Skaldak won't like," the Doctor told them.
"But you said that it was the armour that reacted to the heat. If he's not wearing it anymore, how will this help?" Professor Grisenko questioned.
"Oh, you are a smart one, aren't you?" the Doctor commented.
"They are still very temperature sensitive. Remember that I said they were lizards? Even outside of their armour, they prefer it to be somewhat cold. Heat makes them slow and sluggish, so at least he won't physically attack us," Clara assured them.
The crew were rounded up and brought together in the control room, including a reluctant officer Stepashin. The Doctor and Rose boosted the heaters in such a way that wouldn't drain the batteries any faster and everyone was starting to sweat slightly.
"Comrades, you know our situation. The reactor is drowned. We are totally reliant on battery power and our air is running out. Rescue is unlikely, but we still have a mission to fulfil. If the Doctor is right, then we are all that stands between this creature and the destruction of the world. Control of one missile is all he needs. We are expendable, comrades. Our world is not. I know I can rely on every one of you to do his duty without fail. That is all," Captain Zhukov told his crew.
They all sat together in the control room and waited, either for rescue or death, they couldn't be sure. Rose and the Doctor kept watch of the entrances to the room, not wanting to be taken off guard.
"So, why have you got a cattle prod on a submarine?" Clara asked the professor.
"Polar bears," he replied.
"Ah, right."
"We run across them when we're drilling. Can be quite nasty, you know," Grisenko told her.
"I'd swap one for an Ice Warrior any day. Cuddlier," she joked, trying to ease the tension.
"Courage, my dear. I always sing a song."
"What?" Clara asked, wondering just how that was supposed to help.
"To keep my spirits up," he insisted.
"Yeah, that would work, if this was Pinocchio," Clara grumbled.
"Oi, it sometimes helps to keep your spirits up. That's why the Doctor and I joke so much even when the world is ending sometimes," Rose argued.
"That's the way. Do you know Hungry Like The Wolf?" he suggested.
"What?" Rose and the Doctor gasped at the same time.
"Duran Duran. One of my favourites. Come on," Professor Grisenko encouraged them, prompting the rest of the crew to mumble grumpily.
"Gran? What is it? You look like you've seen a ghost," Clara asked worriedly.
"It's, it's nothing, just… Why Hungry Like The Wolf? Why that song?" Rose asked him.
"Just a favourite of mine," he answered confusedly.
"Nothing to worry about," the Doctor insisted. "My wife just has a thing about wolves."
A thing? That's what he wanted to call it? Of course, there was no sense in scaring any of them more than they already were. Maybe it was only a coincidence, Rose thought as she worried over a possible reappearance of the Bad Wolf. It was usually a force to save her family, but she still hadn't learned to control it at all. In her distracted state, Rose completely missed Skaldak's approach before he wrapped his arm around her neck threateningly.
"Rose!" the Doctor cried at her shriek.
"No, please don't hurt her. Please!" Clara begged.
"You attacked me. Martian law decrees that the people of this planet are forfeit. I now have all the information I require. It will take only one missile to begin the process. To end this," Skaldak hissed as Rose struggled to breathe in his grip.
"Grand Marshal, there is no need for this. Listen to me," the Doctor tried, but found he couldn't get through to him.
"My distress call has not been answered. It will never be answered. My people are dead. They are dust. There is nothing left for me except my revenge," he insisted.
"There is something left for you, Skaldak. Mercy," the Doctor told him.
"Mercy?" Skaldak sneered disgustedly.
The temperature was almost unbearable for the humans and had to be affecting Skaldak as well, but his grip around Rose's neck was firm. Clara hoped that it would mean he was at least slower than usual and was quite confident that he wouldn't be able to activate his armour remotely in the heat.
"For your revenge you want to destroy everyone on the planet? Where is the honour in condemning billions of innocents to death? Five thousand years ago Mars was the centre of a vast empire. The jewel of this solar system. The people of Earth had only just begun to leave their caves. Five thousand years isn't such a long time. They're still just frightened children, still primitive. Who are you to judge them?" the Doctor argued.
"I am Skaldak! This planet is forfeit under Martian law," he insisted.
"The Doctor's right. Billions will die. Mothers, sons, fathers, daughters. Remember that last battle, Skaldak? Your daughter. You sang the songs," she reminded him, hoping to encourage him to remember his own family.
"Of the Red Snows," he continued.
Clara used grabbed the Doctor's sonic and quickly programmed it with an updated signal for the Ice Warriors, just in case they didn't recognize a signal from five thousand years ago. She was surprised to find that she not only got an instant reply, but there was a ship already in orbit. The submarine shifted slightly as a tractor beam lifted the vessel to the surface. Skaldak released his grip on Rose's neck and listened to the reply that Clara was receiving.
"What's going on?" Rose questioned.
"My people live. They have come for me!" Skaldak gasped.
"We're rising. We're rising!" Zhukov cheered.
"We've surfaced. Your people have saved us," the Doctor said.
"Saved me, not you," he snarled.
"No, Skaldak. They aren't at war with the Earth. Listen to them when you join them on their ship, please. Ask them about James Tyler," Clara insisted.
In a flash of light, Skaldak disappeared, and Clara knew that they had also transmatted his armour as well.
"Just what kind of mischief has my son been up to with the Ice Warriors?" the Doctor asked curiously.
"Ask him at the next family dinner. I remember that story quite well," she replied with a smirk.
They climbed out of the top of the submarine and onto a nearby iceberg. They assured their Russian friends that they would get their own lift home while they waited for their rescue ship.
"The TARDIS! Where's the TARDIS?" Clara demanded.
"As I said before it was the HADS. The Hostile Action Displacement System. If the TARDIS comes under attack, gunfire, time winds, the sea, it relocates," the Doctor explained.
"And because she knew there was an Ice Warrior on board, she was worried that he might commandeer her and who knows what he'd do," Rose reasoned.
"Haven't used it in donkey's years. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, never mind, it's bound to turn up somewhere," he told them as he scanned for the ship with his sonic. "The TARDIS is at the pole."
"Not far, then," Clara said happily.
"The South pole," the Doctor admitted.
"Suppose I'd better call your father, Clara," Rose sighed and pulled out her mobile. "Jamie, dear, could we get a lift?"
