"Everybody get to cover!"Jack screamed as the air was filled with metallic death. Once again he was steeling himself against the screams of those cut down by Dalek rakes and letting his soldier side come to the fore.
He winced as another person was engulfed in a green x-ray of death and tensed as the Dalek that had murdered him descended towards him. He set his jaw as the Dalek came eyeball to eyestalk with him, knowing his death would be painful if not permanent.
He stared into the blue glow and dared it to do its worse. He tensed and closed his eyes and waited for the searing pain, but it never came and he opened his eyes.
The Dalek was just hovering, the heat from its propulsion unit causing a heat haze underneath it. The carnage was still going on around them but it was like the whole world was only Jack and the Dalek.
The Dalek suddenly twitched its eyestalk and then rose back into the air flew back towards the slaughter.
Jack blinked...did the Dalek just spare his life?
He didn't have the time think about as a pair of hands grabbed him and pulled him into the fighter.
Gwen was yelling something in his ears but he wasn't listening. His mind was whirling with the sight of the Dalek leaving him alive. His heart hoped it was something to do with the Doctor but his mind knew it was more likely that the Darkness was behind it and Jack knew why.
They were being pushed towards finding the next set of clues and if that meant slaughtering innocents, then that was what the Darkness would do.
Jack shook the thoughts from his head.
Gwen was still yelling at him and he turned his attention to the battle below.
He grabbed hold of the steering column and wheeled the fighter round. As the fighter turned he could see that the others had finally managed to organise some kind of resistance.
Several fighters were wheeling around and firing on the Daleks. Small explosions told Jack that they were being successful, for the moment.
He knew it wouldn't be long before they would adapt but it would give them time to flee...he hoped.
He sent the fighter skimming over the top of the remaining ground troops taking out at least two Daleks.
"Why the hell aren't they retuning fire?" Gwen yelled as another Dalek disappeared in a fiery ball.
"I don't know!" Jack yelled back. "Major Lissar, can you hear me!"
"Barely Captain!"the reply came.
"You have to retreat, evacuate the base, and leave the planet!"
"But we are winning, they are not returning fire!"
"Not yet, but they will and with extreme prejudice! Now go!"
There was few seconds silence then. "Fine, but I will not leave you undefended!"
"No, if I'm right you won't need to. Call your fighter off Major!"
Moments later all but Jack and Gwen's fighter left the sky and then Jack knew he was right.
The Daleks followed the retreating fighters and the real slaughter began, but they seemed to ignore the lone fighter.
"What the hell is going on?" Gwen said.
"Bastard, you don't have to do this," he snarled. "Gwen, put in the co-ordinate for the Soltasian Nebula."
"What? We have to stop then, they're slaughtering them!" Gwen said, askance at Jack's words.
"Just do it!" he snarled in reply.
Gwen did as he ordered and wheeled the fighter away from the slaughter.
Ianto dragged Martha into the relative safety of a pile of crates as Daleks streamed towards the airfield.
He knew he should be out there fighting them but the urge to be somewhere else was overwhelming and something told him he should take Martha with him.
He grabbed hold of Martha and began pulling her towards another fighter, but she dug her heels in.
"What are you doing! People are dying out there! Jack and Gwen could be dead!"
She recoiled when Ianto growled at her and she flinched when she saw something in Ianto's eyes...something that she'd only seen once before.
Ianto's eyes were wild and unfocused and his pupils were flecked not with black but white. But her reaction was the same as it had been when it had been the Doctor...fear.
"Ianto, what's wrong with you?" she shouted and pulled against him.
Her answer was a snarl and a vicious backhander and she fell into darkness.
The Supreme Dalek turned away from the screen and addressed its Emperor.
"A fighter has left the atmosphere. Life signs register as Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper. We shall pursue!"
"No, let them go!"
He supreme Dalek moved back. "Why?"
"They are necessary, the others are not."
"Another fighter has left the atmosphere!"
"Leave it, follow Captain Harkness."
"The enemy is being exterminated. Do we leave them also?"
That earned him a murderous look from its Emperor. "I don't care, do as you wish!"
The Supreme Dalek turned away from its Emperor, the feeling that it had just escaped its own extermination causing it to quiver inside its casing.
"Take one third for conversion! Exterminate the rest!"
It turned back to its Emperor who was staring at the pulsing red dot that was the fleeing fighter of Captain Harkness.
"I await orders!"
"Contact the fleet, leave one cruiser here and order the rest to rendezvous just beyond the Soltasian Nebula."
"I obey!" the Supreme Dalek replied.
As it glided away the Darkness watched it. Was there an inkling of questioning his authority?
Inside the little world the Doctor was now trapped in smiled a satisfied smile. The Darkness may think he knew the Daleks, but no-one knew the Daleks better than himself.
He winced mentally as he felt another layer of the wall that protected him peeled away. Soon the Darkness would breach his defences and he would be consumed.
He could only hope that Jack and Gwen found the Light before the Darkness and that the Light had found a host.
He ignored the fear that was gnawing at him and concentrated on strengthening the weak connection he had to the half downloaded data- ghost. He had to help Jack as much as he could.
The Light must be set free and the battle between itself and the Darkness had to happen, no matter the consequences for himself and the Light's host.
He shivered at the thought of what would happen if it did not...feared for the lives of the billions in all the universes if a Dalek Empire ruled by the Darkness prevailed.
The Light must win and the Darkness must be extinguished.