Part Three
It was chaos, absolute chaos.
With shots still flying all around, Harry leapt forward to help Ren haul Dilly into the shuttle, while Brunnal took Ren's gun from her hand to lay down covering fire. Crouching to examine Dilly's injures, Ren at his side, Harry was only dimly aware that Brunnal had leapt aboard behind them and sealed the door until the newcomer spoke.
"What's the damage? Is it bad?" His voice was gruff and concerned – and then confused as he added, "Wait, what? Who's this? What are you?"
"An ally," said Ren, without looking up.
"A what? Where'd you find it?"
Harry ignored them both, too busy attempting to staunch the blood flow from Dilly's wound with whatever material came to hand and to remember whatever little he'd ever known of crustacean biology – for whatever good that might do, since this wasn't an actual lobster but an alien being he'd never seen the like of before today. He wondered frantically whereabouts the vital organs were kept, tried to locate an artery to check the pulse, and then reminded himself that he had no way of knowing what the standard pulse rate for such a creature actually was to compare it with.
He was a doctor, not a xeno-biologist.
"Where's the healing unit?" Brunnal demanded somewhere behind him, while shots thudded into the wall of the shuttle and Ren straightened in sudden alarm.
"The cockpit – Brunnal, they can get in, the forward windshield is smashed!"
"What? The hells happened?"
"It's been an interesting day! Get the helm, Brunnal, we have to get out of here, now – go!" Ren's hands were trembling as she gently stroked the smooth surface of Dilly's carapace. "Dilianzathal Enzor-Krallus, don't you dare die on me!" she ordered, voice wobbling slightly, and to Harry she added, "You said you were a healer."
"Yes. I did," said Harry, as shots could be heard from the cockpit – it seemed Brunnal had gone through just in time. A moment later the shuttle jerked violently as it took off at speed and Harry had to put a hand out to steady himself, smearing viscous alien blood all over the furniture in the process.
"Can you heal this?" Ren was tense, all her earlier stoicism drained away.
"The healing unit!" bellowed Brunnal from the cockpit as the shuttle bucked and weaved, moving at what felt like a ferocious speed. "Why aren't you using the healing unit, what's wrong with you all?"
"It's gone!" Ren half rose to bellow back. "Expended on the Earth man!" And the glare she turned upon Harry was pure resentment.
He knew better than to take it personally, knew both from medical training and practical experience that friends and family tended to lash out when a loved one was in danger and they needed someone to blame. The patient was what mattered now. "Do you have a first aid kit?" he asked, and Ren looked blank.
"A what?"
"The unit was low, but how can it be empty?" Brunnal shouted again from the cockpit as the shuttle swerved violently once more. "How much did you use?"
"The Earth man would have died!" Ren was all but seething with helplessness and rage. Harry knew that in this moment she would exchange his life for Dilly's in a heartbeat and felt irrationally guilty, as if his own healing had somehow caused all this.
"Then Dilly will now die instead." Brunnal sounded disgusted and angry and frustrated.
"Look, there's really no need for anyone to die," Harry said, and hoped it was true. "Do you honestly not have any kind of practical first aid at all?" He could hardly believe it. "Bandages, medicines – a hospital or health centre of some kind?"
"There are clinics for those without access to other resource, but very few and none near. For the rest – what would be the need when the healing unit will suffice?" Ren glumly replied.
"This would be the need," he said, and pulled in a long breath, told himself to calm down and concentrate, take one step at a time. He knew first aid and he knew medicine and a wound was a wound, no matter what shape the body. "All right then. We're going to have to improvise."
dwdwdwdwdw
"Oh, Doctor!" Sarah all but threw herself at him, she was so relieved. "We were just coming to…how did you get out?"
The Doctor grinned broadly as he broke the hug and stepped back. "Oh, you know me, Sarah. I can be very persuasive," he cheerfully said, and then added, "They intend to follow us, of course, but I'm sure we can do something about that," and as he spoke he turned to the alien with him, who'd been greeted so rapturously by the little band of rebels that he had to be one of them. "Rikard, it's terribly nice of your friends to arrange this little welcoming committee, but they really shouldn't have come."
"You're being followed?" that hot-headed young grey alien demanded in alarm, and the Doctor shrugged.
"Why else would they let us go?"
"But I thought…" began the young man named Rikard, his voice trailing off as the Doctor shook his head. He was the same species as Valina, Sarah noticed, although they didn't seem to know one another: both dark and sallow-skinned with the same heavily ridged forehead and long, curving double-pointed chin and nose that nearly met in the middle, the same strange sideways movement of the jaw when they spoke. He was tall and wiry with intense eyes, his long hair left to flow loose and untamed in stark contrast to Valina's elegantly coiffed style, almost crackling with energy.
"You've been making a nuisance of yourselves for far too long," the Doctor said, his keen eyes sweeping around the gloomy location and coming to rest on an overhead gantry. "We can't stay here – we're under observation, look."
Sarah peered up at the gantry and saw at once what he'd spotted – some kind of security camera, well hidden but visible when you looked for it. The whole vehicle bay was probably full of them, keeping track of everyone who came and went, no matter how quiet and secure the place seemed.
"They know where we are, then," she said with a shudder, remembering the carnage at the store and wondering that those grim, implacable militia men hadn't come after them already, while Valina blanched, moaning her dismay at being caught on camera in the company of dissidents.
"Oh, mother of mercy. I'm finished."
"But the others – we can't leave them there." Rikard sounded frantic.
The Doctor shook his head. "We can't help them now."
"Do you understand what will happen to them – for the crime of speaking out, for daring to ask for sympathy, for help, for equality?"
"I do." The Doctor was grim-face, resolute. "Our charming hosts made their intentions crystal clear, but we can't help your friends without helping ourselves." He glanced around once more, looking worried. "Listen, there isn't much time. We were released under the guise of negotiating a truce but I'm certain the intention is to use us to ferret out the rest of your group – they'll track us back to your headquarters, trace all lines of connection and supply. We'll have to split up – re-group and then plan the next move."
"Yes, all right, you're right," Rikard agreed with a worried frown, pulling himself together to address his friends. "You'll have to shake off any pursuit and go to ground, scatter." He loudly overrode their protests, resting a reassuring hand on the arm of that agitated young grey alien. "No, it can wait, we'll debrief later, when it's safe."
"Are these yours?" asked the Doctor, gesturing at the two vehicles parked in this corner, and Valina surged into indignant motion, charging forward in defence of her little run-around. "No! That one is mine!"
"You don't mind if we borrow it, do you, Valina?" The Doctor's eyes were big and beseeching, but she shook her head stubbornly.
"It is registered to me and I cannot have any part in your action – I should never have come here."
The Doctor hesitated, looking curiously at her. "But you did come here, Valina. Why was that?"
"To help me," Sarah quietly said, feeling guilty because she knew, had known all along, how desperate Valina was to avoid getting into trouble, how concerned she was not to let her family down, and she'd taken advantage of the other woman's sympathy anyway because she'd prioritised her own needs more.
The awful thing was she'd probably do the same thing again. Big picture versus little picture, and it was so much easier to ignore what seemed to be the smaller picture when it wasn't your own.
"I thought we were in a hurry. Do we really have time for this?" that hot-headed young grey alien grumbled, but fell silent when the Doctor looked sternly in his direction.
"Of course we have time, we're not thieves." He turned imploring eyes upon Valina again. "I'm sorry you've been dragged into this, Valina, but you came here because you wanted to help, and you still can – you could help us out a great deal. And perhaps if we succeed, you may find that the price you pay for that support isn't so great after all."
Valina's eyes were full of furious tears. "Go," she choked, and she thrust into the Doctor's hands the activation device for her vehicle, gesturing toward the camera, high on its gantry. "If I am seen then I am ruined already, but perhaps you might escape."
The Doctor smiled gently and squeezed her hand encouragingly as he took the device from her. "Thank you, Valina. Perhaps we all might escape – including you. Report it stolen, they might believe you." He turned back to the others. "Go on, off with you, and watch out for any pursuit – they'll be tracking us," and he gestured at himself and Rikard, "I'm certain of it, but that doesn't mean they won't also follow you."
"So lose them, by any means, and go to ground," Rikard repeated. "Await the recall signal."
"I'm coming with you," Sarah was quick to tell the Doctor, just in case he had any bright ideas about trying to protect her by sending her off with the others. She wasn't sure whether to be surprised or not when Valina also stepped up to join them, looking distraught but resolute.
"I come as well. If it is over for me then it is over for me, lies will not be believed, but this vehicle is mine and you are not taking it without me."
The Doctor smiled broadly. "Quickly, then – let's go!"
dwdwdwdwdw
This was field medicine at its purest and, as his patient stabilised, Harry found to his surprise that he was enjoying the experience, adapting human medical techniques to this alien patient. He'd been trained in this kind of rough and ready field medicine, of course, but had only rarely had occasion to put it into practice, and even all those life-and-death struggles with the Doctor, fighting for good against evil, couldn't compare with the rush that came of saving a life like this, hands on.
He checked vitals again, now that he'd worked out how, and was satisfied that the patient was stable and recovering, sat back on his haunches and allowed himself to relax.
"Well?" Ren hadn't stirred from Dilly's side.
Harry smiled, tired but content. "Well, nurse, I do believe the patient will recover."
Ren smiled back at him, and it was the first genuine smile he'd seen from her since they'd met. "We are in your debt, Earth man."
"Then perhaps now we can start looking for my friends," he was quick to remind her.
She nodded and tilted her head to one side, regarding him curiously. "An Earth man in a citadel few Earth folk would choose to enter. Why are you here, Harry? You never did say."
It was the first time she'd addressed him by name. Harry refrained from pointing out that she never had asked. "Well, there's not a great deal to say. I was travelling –"
"With these friends you wish to seek."
"That's right. We were travelling – well, we were supposed to be going home, in fact, but it seems navigation isn't exactly the Doctor's strong point, so…well, we ended up here instead." It seemed a dreadfully long time ago now.
"And then you fell."
He shuddered at the memory, an involuntary reaction. "And then we fell."
"A big blue box, you said." Ren pushed upright, flexing her spine rather stiffly. "All systems are up and running again now. I will programme a search. Someone will have noticed and reported it."
"Thank you."
Ren turned toward the cockpit just as Brunnal stepped – or rather limped – through, announcing that he'd engaged the autopilot now that any pursuit was well and truly lost. She gave him her severest look. "Can you be sure? The Shad won't let this lie. They'll be out for blood."
"They'll have to find us first," he confidently dismissed, folding powerful arms across his chest. "How's Dilly?"
"Recovering," said Harry. "What about you?"
This was the first opportunity he'd had to take a proper look at the third member of the smuggling crew. Brunnal wasn't tall but was solidly built, dark and muscular and more human in appearance than either of his colleagues although still noticeably alien; he had a forked chin and scale-like ridges running from the tip of his nose up across heavy brows along the forehead and back around his head, which was bald over the ridges but was otherwise covered with what looked more like fur than hair, thick and bushy. He looked tired and was visibly bruised, a dark patch of blood staining one leg, but a shake of the head was his only response to the question as he leaned over to check Dilly's condition for himself, then stepped back, grinning from ear to ear.
"Recovering indeed!" He slapped a heavy hand across Harry's back in celebratory fashion and Harry had to put a hand out to steady himself.
"Bit of a patch job, I'm afraid, but I'm satisfied for now. Are you all right?"
Brunnal clearly had no intention of admitting to any hurt. "Ah, it's no more than scratches."
"It is more than a scratch, you're bleeding." Stubborn patients were at least one area Harry felt he had some expertise, and two could play at that game. "Let me take a look."
Brunnal submitted to the examination with a very bad grace and Harry quickly realised that the man had also been shot, in the leg; a flesh wound only, heavily scabbed over, but nonetheless in sore need of treatment. "This isn't a recent wound," he observed as he began to wash it out.
"At the meet, when we were attacked," Brunnal explained, wincing, and Harry paused, startled at the implication.
"That was hours ago – were you offered no treatment for the injury at all?"
"What do the Shad care?" he dismissed, as if it would never have occurred to him to expect any different. "Mindless thugs."
"Mindless thugs whose influence spreads further across the galaxy with each cycle," said Ren.
"Their operation is large," Brunnal conceded with a shrug. "Their thinking is small."
"Their thinking is large enough that they have both our cargo and our payload," Ren pointedly continued, and Brunnal's face fell as he cursed profoundly at the reminder.
"Then we'll just have to retake them, won't we? We have a contract to fulfil, bills to pay."
"Retake them, you say – as easy as that, you think?" Ren scoffed. She stared worriedly at her comrade for a moment, and then looked at Harry; he wondered if he was about to be asked to join another mission before beginning the long-delayed search for his friends, but at last she huffed a weary sigh before shaking her head. "Perhaps, but it will have to wait. We owe a debt to the Earth man."
She went through to the cockpit and Brunnal pushed upright at once to hobble after her, ignoring Harry's protest that he hadn't finished dressing the wound. "What debt? We have obligations to fulfil…"
The door closed and Harry could hear no more, was left to wonder who would win the argument, whether his search was to be delayed yet again.
He tried not to think about the TARDIS falling or what might have happened to its occupants. It was indestructible, the Doctor had said, and he was hanging onto that statement for all it was worth.
"They both like to think they are in charge, you know," a weak voice spoke up and he turned in surprise to see his patient awake and watching him, reached out automatically to check vitals once more and was pleased to note that they were improving.
"So who actually is in charge, then?" he wondered and Dilly managed a feeble chitter, a gleam of humour entering those bulbous eyes.
"Neither of them!" the odd little creature chirped, and Harry could only laugh.
dwdwdwdwdw
"So how do we tell if we're being followed?" Sarah wondered, trying and failing to get a good look at the view through the front windscreen past the three taller bodies before her. It was quite a squash with four people aboard Valina's little run-around.
"Well, just at the moment," said the Doctor in his most off-hand tone, "We can't."
"Oh, well that's encouraging!"
"They may or may not be following yet, but we have to assume they're tracking us," he said. "Check your pockets, Rikard, there'll be a tracking device of some kind, some way they can trace us back to your headquarters."
Rikard had rather high-handedly taken the controls as soon as they were aboard, while Valina hung back looking tense and nervous, but now he moved aside to begin searching the pockets of his jumpsuit and Valina reluctantly resumed control of her own vehicle.
"Where should I go?" she worriedly asked.
"Stay within this district for now," the Doctor told her, searching rapidly through his own pockets and dumping the contents into Sarah's hands until they overflowed. "Round and round the roses till we all fall down – this is a regulated zone, they won't want any trouble here; we can buy ourselves some breathing space perhaps. Find anything, Rikard?"
The alien man began to shake his head – but then stiffened and held out a tiny device between his thumb and forefinger. "You were right," he said, fear bringing a sharp edge to his voice. "Quick, destroy it."
"Wait." The Doctor snatched the device from the man's hand. "Let's not be hasty."
Rikard was furious. "You want them to find us – destroy us?"
"Destroy the tracker and it'll register, force their hand," said the Doctor, tucking the device away in an inside pocket. "I think we can be cleverer than that – well, I don't know about you, but I can certainly be cleverer than that. No, we can use this to draw them out."
"How?" Rikard waved his hands in exasperation.
"Wait and see," said the Doctor, which Sarah took to mean that, for all his talk, he hadn't the faintest idea, yet, what to do next. "Any sign of pursuit?"
"Hard to tell in this traffic." Rikard leaned over Valina's shoulder to scowl at the small screen mounted on the console. "This scanner is not up to much," he grumbled, and Valina turned on him at once.
"It has always been sufficient for my needs – but of course, I have never been pursued by the militia before," she scathingly declared, and Rikard took exception and began to argue. The Doctor shrugged and left them to it, inclining his head in conspiratorial fashion to beckon Sarah over to the rear of the vehicle with him.
"Did you find anything, Sarah?" he asked in a low voice.
"What?" Clutching at her armful of junk from his pockets, which was threatening to spill all over the floor, Sarah was thrown by the unexpected question and blinked at him in confusion…but a second later her brain caught up and she realised what he was asking, and couldn't believe she'd forgotten, even for a moment. "Oh! Yes, I found the TARDIS, all in one piece." She quickly thrust the bits and pieces back into his hands and reached into her own pocket for the print-out Valina had given her. "It was taken to a waste depot."
The Doctor looked helplessly at the junk in his hands and quickly shoved it back into his pockets so he could take the print-out. He unfolded and studied it intently for about two seconds, then fixed her with unreadable eyes. "Nothing else?"
"There's no sign of Harry, not in the official records – at least not that Valina has access to," Sarah quietly said. "So wherever he is, it doesn't look as if he hit the ground."
The Doctor's face lit up like a child at Christmas. "But that's good news, Sarah! It means there's a chance, a real chance."
"Yes, but what's happened to him? And how are we going to find him – especially if we're stuck in the middle of all this," Sarah asked, worried all over again because if he hadn't reached the ground, then where was he? And 'all this' was so murky. It was politics and economics and shades of grey, a broken system, with no obvious bad guy to pit themselves against, no easy resolution and no quick wins. Technically it was none of their business, even, not that that had ever stopped the Doctor before, and Sarah agreed with that approach for the most part – did here, even, if there was something they could do to help, but still, "We probably shouldn't get involved…"
"Probably not," the Doctor conceded. "But we're already involved," and that was that. He smiled at her. "Chin, up, Sarah – nil desperandum, eh."
He was always so infectious; she couldn't help but return the smile. "Nil desperandum."
"That's the spirit. There may not be a great deal we can do about the situation here in general – there are some battles that people simply have to fight for themselves – but we can help Rikard and his friends out of their immediate predicament, and that's not for nothing, you know. Every little counts."
She hadn't thought of it quite like that. "Well, when you put it that way…"
"We should have stayed with the others," Rikard called across from the front of the vehicle, where he was fiddling with the scanner; trying to improve its range, perhaps. "We could have fought back, taken the centre by storm – they have weapons."
Remembering her brief conversation with the other rebels back in the vehicle bay, Sarah was quick to say, "Oh, but they don't," but neither one of the men seemed to hear her.
"Weapons, pah," the Doctor was saying. "You had weapons at the store."
"A single gun, good for effect only."
"And what good did it bring you? You still think weapons are the answer? After everything that's happened, all those lives lost at your protest today alone?"
"But we must do something. With more weapons, real weapons, we can make them take us seriously, we must make a stand," Rikard insisted. "All we want is the means to survive – equality, subsistence – but they make criminals of us, and for what? For drawing attention to injustice. So what choice do we have but to fight?"
Sarah raised her voice. "There are no weapons," she repeated, exasperated at being ignored, and both men turned to look at her.
"But there must be weapons," Rikard protested. "Tobin and the others – they went to meet with our supplier, they were to join us at the store. They didn't get there in time. If they had –"
"If they had, they'd have died along with all those others," said the Doctor. "Perhaps taken a great many innocent lives with them – is that really what you want?"
"The militia try to silence us and we won't allow it," Rikard sullenly insisted. "Our protests were always peaceful – we seek change, not war. It was they who attacked and forced us to take action. We must be allowed to fight back." He swung around to glare at Sarah. "How can there be no weapons? They went to meet the supplier. The deal was all arranged, watertight."
"Something went wrong," Sarah said. "I don't know very much, only what your friends told me." And she hadn't really listened, she remembered with chagrin, hadn't thought it was relevant. She wracked her memory trying to recall the details. "They said that your supplier was attacked and driven away, and some of your comrades were killed – I'm sorry," she added, seeing pain in the alien's face. He'd lost a lot of friends today; no wonder his anger and resentment were burning so hot.
"But the cargo," he managed to blurt out. "Not just the weapons, the rest of it, it was needed…"
"I don't know any more, I'm sorry."
"Who attacked them?" the Doctor curiously asked. "It couldn't have been the militia – if they already knew the dissidents' supply chain they wouldn't need us."
"They did say the name," Sarah remembered now. "I think it might have been…" she dredged the name out of her memory, "Something like…Chad?"
"The Shad!" exclaimed Rikard, and he cursed at length.
"Shad?" Valina half-turned at the console, her air of subdued resentment giving way to curiosity. "I've heard that name."
"I haven't," said the Doctor with interest. "But I should like to know more. Tell me about the Shad, Rikard."
dwdwdwdwdw
Harry wasn't entirely sure what he was eating, but he was hungry enough not to care. It looked strange and tasted rather odd, but he'd eaten far worse in his time, and school followed by the Navy had given him a cast-iron stomach, so he sat at the small table in the rear compartment of the shuttle, alongside Dilly's sleeping form on the couch, and dug in while Ren updated him on the results of her search of the citadel's information channels, or whatever it was she'd done to locate the TARDIS. It was at a waste depot, apparently, awaiting whatever happened on this world to rubbish found littering the streets.
It's indestructible, he told himself again, and then asked if anyone had been found in it or near to it or had been in to claim it.
They hadn't, as far as Ren could tell, but there were news reports of a man matching the Doctor's description being arrested after an outbreak of violence at some kind of political protest, and if he was involving himself in political protests and getting himself arrested, then he couldn't have come to any harm from that fall. It was as if a tonne weight had been lifted from Harry's shoulders.
"Yes, that sounds like him," he said. "If there's trouble to be found, the Doctor usually manages to find it."
It was strange that there was no mention of Sarah with him, though.
Ren glanced up as Brunnal stepped through to the rear compartment from the cockpit, still limping noticeably on his injured leg. "There were deaths at that protest," she pointedly said.
"None of our business – they know the risks, they choose to take them," Brunnal dismissed, and perhaps in other circumstances Harry might have asked him to explain, but just now he could only think about what this might mean for him.
"The Doctor wouldn't have let anything happen to Sarah," he worriedly said, and Ren lifted an eyebrow.
"He allowed you to fall."
"That was an accident," Harry staunchly defended, and then asked, "Er, so where do you suppose he'd have been taken?"
"To detention, in the first instance." Brunnal's drawling voice was dismissive as the alien man reversed and straddled a chair at the table, folding his powerful arms across its back. "Then trial – this regime imposes harsh penalties for sedition, which is why we'll not be sticking around any longer than strictly necessary."
"Well, then we'll have to get him out." There were no two ways about it for Harry, but both aliens looked at him as if he'd gone mad.
"Now that is not possible," Brunnal said with a shrug, reaching over to take a handful of food from a dish on the table and tipping his head back to pour the dry flakes into his mouth like the crumbs from the bottom of a crisp packet.
"Why not? We got you back from the Shad, didn't we?"
"Completely different," said Ren, looking troubled. "And the Shad were bad enough, but they're scavengers, pirates, flying under the radar. They'll not want to attract official attention any more than we do. But a militia detention centre in the heart of the citadel?" She shook her head. "No. No, that's out of our league entirely."
"Well, we have to do something. Or…I do, at any rate," Harry insisted, disappointed by her hesitance but not about to be swayed by it. He'd go it alone if he had to, somehow, and perhaps it hadn't been wise to expect support from criminals in the first place, however friendly they'd seemed and no matter what had been agreed, or was supposedly owed or not owed. "I'm not leaving him there."
"Is that so?" Brunnal looked down his nose at him. "Well, you might choose to throw your life away on a fool's errand, but we have our own business to be getting on with."
"Yes, but…" Ren at least seemed conflicted as she looked from Brunnal to Harry and back again, frowning. Then she brightened and said, "Here's a thought."
"What?"
"There were several arrests made at that protest," she said.
"Yes." Brunnal looked annoyed. "And they'll blame us. We were meant to have supplied them and failed to uphold the deal."
Ren rolled her eyes. "That was hardly our fault, and that isn't my point. Arrests were made. Will the dissidents sit back and leave their comrades to the mercy of this regime?"
Harry saw where this was going and felt a surge of sudden optimism. "You think they'll try to break the prisoners out?"
"Not without our supplies," Brunnal grumbled, scowling. "Supplies we no longer have to offer."
"Yes, what were the supplies you were selling?" Harry began…but then belatedly realised, from context, what this was all about. "Was it weapons?" He was more shocked than perhaps he should have been. "You were gun-running?"
"Only part of the cargo," Dilly's scratchy voice broke in, and Harry turned to see that the creature was awake again, those bulbous eyes blinking owlishly, almost beseechingly in his direction. "We ship food supplies, mineral supplements – whatever is needed. We profit, they benefit, you see?" Dilly's voice was earnest and sincere. "But this is a wretched world, failing – the rich have it all and the poor are trodden down, so they begin to fight back and can you blame them?"
"So now you're supplying weapons for that fight," Harry slowly said. Insurrection and the illegal arms trade – it was a dreadful can of worms to have stumbled into. He told himself not to get drawn into a debate about the rights and wrongs of it all. Priorities, Sullivan.
"We supply any need that cannot be filled through official channels," snapped Ren. "It's business."
Brunnal's scowl was deepening by the minute. "Yes, and we came to this world to carry out that business. Perhaps the rebels can help your Earth man free his friend, perhaps they can't, but they'll have no chance without our supplies. So the deal must come first, whichever way you slice it. We have to go back – strike now, while the Shad are weak."
"Strike now, with that leg slowing you down and Dilly out of action?" Ren scoffed. She was frowning, thinking hard, and at length shook her head. "Well, we'll have to make contact first, whatever our next move – make sure there's still a deal to salvage. Get to the sat-com, Brunnal. See if you can raise your contact."
dwdwdwdwdw
"So you're saying that outside these regulated zones, where everything has to be just so, there are slums that no one cares about?" Sarah still had her doubts about the methodology of Rikard and his fellow dissidents, based on the bloody results she'd seen of their rebellion so far, but the more she learned about this world and its imbalanced economy and social structure, the more her blood boiled with support for their cause.
"Those of us who live there care very much," said Rikard.
"But nowhere in this manifesto of woe have you said what you expect to have done about it," Valina argued. "There is so little work available."
"Yet no shortage of wealth among the chosen few, who control all trade – to their own advantage," Rikard passionately proclaimed. "They import vital supplies needed simply to survive on this rock and then cripple us with high prices and taxation, all the while denying us the means to earn our living! There are peoples who would die without mineral supplements that must be imported, they are not natural to this world, yet those supplies are held to ransom. We cannot afford to live and cannot afford to leave, so we must have justice, a fair system of taxation, equal opportunities for all…"
He was off again, his zeal for his cause unwavering and absolute. Sarah glanced at the Doctor to see if he felt inclined to weigh into the debate, but his attention appeared to be fully absorbed by the tracking device, which he'd fished out of his pocket and was studying intently, with a jeweller's eyeglass pinched into an eye socket and his sonic screwdriver in hand. The ball was in her court on this one, clearly.
"So there's a thriving black market despite government attempts to clamp down and control all trade," she said, raising her voice to summarise what she'd learned so far before Rikard could really get into his stride again. "And they've also been clamping down on dissident groups like yours, which have been agitating for change, and that's why you've started asking your off-world contacts to smuggle weapons in for you as well as the other supplies. Only now this group called the Shad have started to muscle in on the act, like…like some kind of intergalactic Mafia."
She watched as the reference went right over his head, of course it did, while the Doctor didn't even seem to be listening. Harry would have got it, if only he were here. But Rikard nodded gloomy understanding of her meaning, nonetheless. "It has happened before – suppliers attacked, their cargo stolen, and whatever becomes of the goods then, they are not offered to those that need them."
"Sold on to the larger corporations, perhaps," Sarah guessed. "You know, I once worked on a story that was a lot like this – a business corruption case. My editor stole the by-line." She'd been very young and very green and it still rankled. "It boosts their profit margins, you see: no import duty, but they can retail for the same inflated rate without anyone knowing."
"What? Is that true?" Valina swung around, wide-eyed at the notion of such corruption, perhaps even on the part of the store where she worked.
"All I know is, these were the last who would trade with us and if they give up, if this shipment is gone…I don't know what we'll do, we need those supplies, people will die – but we have no recourse," Rikard moaned, and the Doctor finally looked up from his preoccupation with the tracking device to bestow a magnanimous grin upon the man.
"What, complain to the militia that your illegal smuggling ring –"
"Necessary!
"…Has come under attack from illegal pirates? No, I don't suppose that would go down terribly well."
"All this talk," said Valina through gritted teeth, the set of her shoulders taut and tense. "Is there a plan to come from all this? Or have I sacrificed my good name for the privilege of flying in circles until my fuel runs out and the militia set upon us?"
"Quite right, Valina, we can't stay here forever," the Doctor briskly agreed, head bent over his work again. Sarah peered over his shoulder trying to see what he was doing.
"I thought you said we couldn't disable that without setting off alarm bells," she said, and he shrugged expansively.
"Who said anything about disabling it? This is a very sophisticated piece of equipment, Sarah." He glanced up at her with a brilliant smile. "Perhaps a little too sophisticated for its own good. Take a look at that scanner."
She did as he said, for all the good it did her, since she hadn't a clue how to read the display, but Rikard seemed to know what he was talking about.
"You've seen it too, then – following our flight pattern exact. It can't be a coincidence. I told you we should have destroyed that thing." He glared at the tiny device in the Doctor's hand.
"Because it's brought the militia onto our tail?" said the Doctor with another dazzling smile. "It may also be our salvation, you know – if I can finish these modifications. What we need is a false trail, so if I can adjust this to bounce the signal…"
Head bent, he was absorbed in his work once more. Rikard made a strangled growling sound that was pure frustration and turned back to the control console. "I need to make contact with the others, find out if they made it out safely."
"The communications channels may be monitored," the Doctor warned but Rikard shook his head.
"We have a secure system that can be accessed remotely, it's safe – if I can tap into it with this antiquated equipment," he said, fiddling furiously with the controls and cursing at them for their inadequacy, to Valina's obvious annoyance. Then he let out an exclamation of surprise. "There's a message – someone trying to make contact!"
"It could be a trap," Sarah cautioned, heedful of the Doctor's warnings, but Rikard shook his head again.
"This is the code used by our supplier," he said, and the Doctor was very interested all of a sudden.
"The supplier who was attacked by the piratical Shad, I take it?" He made a thoughtful moue. "Could be handy. Can you make contact – securely?"
He could and did and in no time at all was deep in conversation with his black market supplier: a dark, burly alien man with a forked chin, ridged nose and rather a haughty manner. His name was Brunnal, and he wasted no time beating around the bush. His group had been attacked by the Shad and their cargo stolen, he admitted, but he was confident his people could retrieve the goods – but only if they were given assurances that the deal was still good, to make the effort worth their while.
"The supplies are needed, the deal must go ahead," Rikard agitatedly insisted.
The Doctor peered over his shoulder. "You know where to find the Shad, then, their headquarters," he said to Brunnal, a statement rather than a question, and on the tiny screen Sarah saw the corners of the alien man's mouth quirk with something that looked like satisfaction.
"In some disarray currently," he said, and the Doctor beamed.
"All the better," he happily declared.
"Why?" Sarah curiously asked, narrowing her eyes because he was up to something, but he simply waggled his eyebrows and tapped his nose as he grinned, always at his most aggravating when he was plotting something.
On the tiny communicator screen, Brunnal half-turned as a door behind him opened a crack, and he spoke briefly to someone just out of sight before turning back to the screen to request the use of a healing unit as part of the deal. "We've a wounded crewmember who would recover all the faster for a dose."
"If you can get us the goods," said Rikard, "Then I'm sure something can be arranged."
Valina glared indignantly at him. "And you're offering my unit, I suppose, since it's my vehicle you're using for your illegal trade, never mind the expense –"
"I think lives are a little more important than expense," Rikard snapped.
"Quite right," said the Doctor. "Now, this is what I propose…"
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"Well?" Ren pointedly asked as Brunnal stepped through to the rear compartment of the shuttle after making contact with his buyer.
"They argued among themselves over the cost of healing and the value of a life," he said with a sniff, and she rolled her eyes.
"Very philosophical."
"But what did they say?" Harry pressed, anxious for an answer. "Will they make a try for that detention centre you mentioned – help us get the Doctor out?"
Brunnal looked down his nose. "Help you, you mean. It didn't come up."
"No, and I don't suppose you bothered to ask, either," Harry grumbled, exasperated. Nothing ever seemed to be straightforward, and he felt a pang of regret at the thought of the nice orderly sick bay he'd presided over back at UNIT – an increasingly distant memory, these days.
"We had business to discuss," Brunnal said with a shrug.
"Then what of that business?" Ren impatiently asked.
"We've agreed to meet," he told her, and to Harry he added, "You can discuss your desire to commit suicide there."
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"What are you up to?" Sarah asked the Doctor the moment the communication channel was closed, suspicious – but in a good way, because he so obviously had something up his sleeve and his confidence was infectious, almost stupidly so. How did he do it? She'd never figured it out. It was just him. Here they were, flying around in circles high above ground with Harry still missing and the militia on their tail, and in spite of it all she was smiling, because the Doctor was planning something, and everything would be okay. This was the effect he had, every time.
Even when she knew he was making it up as he went along.
He waved a hand airily and made a big show of modesty that was completely undercut by how very pleased he was with himself. "Well, I might have an idea or two, Sarah, I will admit."
"But the tracking," Rikard worriedly reminded him.
The Doctor was unconcerned. "The tracking device won't be a problem, Rikard, but the pursuit might – are they close enough for visual contact?"
"If you mean can they see us, I hardly see how they could fail at this range," Valina sardonically stated, and the Doctor turned those bright, brilliant eyes of his upon her.
"Well, we'll just have to lose them then, won't we? Traffic this heavy, shouldn't be hard." His energy was unfailing, invigorating everyone around him – even Valina wasn't entirely immune, it seemed. "The militia we met earlier didn't strike me as especially bright, you know, so perhaps if we…ah." His face lit up. "Just look where we are, Sarah."
Sarah looked, but for a moment couldn't imagine what he expected her to recognise; all the high rises in the citadel seemed to look exactly the same. Then she spotted it. She hadn't seen it from this angle or distance before, but the shape and design of the structure she remembered only too well having so painstakingly climbed up the outside of it only a few hours earlier.
"The re-fuelling station!" she exclaimed. They were right back where they'd started, air cars of all shapes and sizes flying in and out of the openings at every level, and all at once she had a good idea of what the Doctor had in mind for losing their pursuit.
The Doctor leaned over Valina's shoulder, pointing. "Head for one of the busier levels, Valina, nice and steady, let's not tip them off. Oh yes, that's right, plenty of traffic to get lost in. Around that corner now, duck and weave, shake them off – you're a natural, Valina!"
Valina looked unsure whether to take that as a compliment or not, frowning as she concentrated hard on her flying.
"So now I reset the tracking device like so, while we're out of their line of vision," the Doctor continued, doing something complicated to the tiny device with the sonic screwdriver and a pin he'd produced from those bottomless pockets of his. "Then if you'll just head for that exit over there – we're away."
"But the tracker…" Rikard urgently repeated.
The Doctor bestowed his toothiest grin upon the man. "I've set it to project a false signal, Rikard," he cheerfully explained. "To them it'll look just as if their instruments are on the blink, they won't be able to pinpoint us – they'll unpick it eventually, of course, but it'll buy us some time."
"Time for what?" asked Sarah, and the Doctor's grin widened.
"Well, now that's the really clever part," he declared with not the slightest attempt at modesty this time, and told Valina to head for the coordinates Brunnal had given them. "You trust your contact, don't you, Rikard? If they play their part, and I think they will, it's in their interest too, we might just manage to throw both the militia and the Shad off your scent."
"Two birds with one stone," Sarah said with a smile and his eyes met hers as he smiled back.
"Exactly! How's our course coming, Valina?"
"These coordinates take us out of the business sector," Valina replied, frowning. "This location is on the outskirts of the citadel; I've never been there – a very insalubrious district."
"Well, where else would pirates hole up?"
"This is really where you want to go?"
"Absolutely," said the Doctor.
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"Wait, you arranged to meet where?" Ren demanded. Brunnal held her glare stubbornly.
"The rebels are anxious to close the deal, so they are meeting us there."
"At the Shad headquarters –"
"Not at it, near it…"
"Where you wanted to go in the first place – I should have known you'd swing it that way." The way she rolled her eyes suggested that Brunnal managed to arrange things his own way rather frequently.
Harry sighed, heart sinking. "So the mission to retrieve the cargo comes first after all."
"They are meeting us there. I thought you'd be pleased," Brunnal grumbled. "We close our deal and you get to go off with the rebels for your suicide run on that detention centre, since you're so determined. We all win."
"I'm not sure 'win' is quite the term I'd use," said Ren, "But I suppose the arrangement will do."
Harry had no choice but to agree.
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As the elegant skyrises of the business sector gave way to much smaller, sparser buildings in the district beyond, Rikard became very quiet, hanging back at the rear of Valina's vehicle with his shoulders hunched and head bowed, a curtain of wild dark hair falling forward to frame his pinched, worried face.
Valina was at the helm still and the Doctor also seemed preoccupied, standing behind her with a hand on the back of her chair, gazing out at the view, so that left morale on Sarah's shoulders, it seemed.
She moved back to join Rikard, made her voice as warm and gentle as she could. "Are you all right?"
"All this was once industry intended to support the colony," he said without looking up. "But the inner citadels outstripped it, looked elsewhere for their wealth and abandoned the workers they'd imported, with no means of support and no means of escape." He turned haunted eyes upon her and his voice was shaky. "It has to be worthwhile. All of this – so many lives given to the cause – it must have meaning."
"I'm sorry," Sarah offered, knowing it wasn't enough. "Those that died today, they were your friends."
"Their sacrifice will have meaning." He looked desperate. "It must – when we get the weapons…" and her face must have betrayed her doubts, as he fiercely added, "You think we are wrong to fight?"
"No," she was quick to assure him. "No – well, not exactly. Sometimes there's no choice but to fight, if you want to bring about real, lasting change. I understand that, and I don't really know enough about this world to judge, but…"
"But what?" His dark eyes bored into her, quick and keen, apparently eager to hear her opinion.
No point beating around the bush. "Well, I'm not sure that hijacking a shop full of customers is going to get you very far, however much you resent what it represents."
"It was a protest, not a hijack," Rikard began to argue, but Sarah was having none of it.
"Oh, come on – if these other weapons had arrived in time, what else could it be? What did you think was going to happen?"
"We must make our voices heard." He sounded desperate.
"I agree," Sarah told him, but she knew well from Earth's bloody history just how badly revolts like this often ended. "I'm just not sure that kind of brute force is the answer, not when innocent people end up getting hurt, because something like this militia will always have more brute force to meet it with – they've got the weight of the government and the wealth of the corporations behind them. You won't be able to match them, however well you arm yourselves. Not when there are so few of you."
"Then what would you do, in my shoes?"
It was a good question, and she had no good answer to give it.
"I'm hardly an expert," she had to admit. "And I don't know much at all about your world, but…well, I'm a journalist, so I suppose I'd use that – I'd use every possible tool. I'd try to get the media onside, try to sway public opinion –"
"You think we have not tried?"
"I'm sure you have," she conceded. "But you must keep trying – and you need the right kind of coverage, you know. Being seen as terrorists does you no favours at all. So work on people like Valina, perhaps, those caught in the middle: get them on your side. They're on the receiving end too, in their own way, trapped in an unjust system. The more public sympathy you can win to your side, the stronger your position."
Rikard nodded. "It's true, but –"
"I hate to interrupt your little tête-à-tête," the Doctor called from up front. "But I believe this is it."
Abandoning the debate, Sarah stepped across to join him at the controls, gazing out of the viewscreen at wide, unkempt streets of run-down, dilapidated buildings – this was as close to ground level as they'd been yet and it wasn't inviting, to say the least. Rikard had talked about the poverty and deprivation that lay beyond the elegant, immaculate inner citadel, but actually seeing something of it really drove the point home. "Insalubrious is the word," she murmured.
"That rooftop there," the Doctor told Valina, pointing toward what looked like an abandoned industrial building of some sort, and Sarah leaned forward to get a better look.
"Looks as if your supplier is already here," she called to Rikard, who pushed to the front to see for himself.
"They've been in the wars," the Doctor observed, peering down his nose at the vehicle as Valina made her approach, and he wasn't wrong – the waiting vehicle, quite a bit larger than Valina's little run-around, had scorch marks along one side, the scars of gunfire by the looks of it, and the front windshield was broken.
"At war with the Shad, we knew there had been skirmishes. You're sure we are not being followed?" Rikard nervously asked.
"Oh ye of little faith," the Doctor cheerfully assured him. "Of course I'm sure."
"All right, here we go." Valina sounded more nervous than Rikard as she brought the vehicle down. "We're doing this. We're really doing this. Oh, I'm so stupid."
Sarah squeezed her arm. "No you aren't."
"I am. I felt sorry for you, and look where it's brought me." There was no rancour in her tone now – she seemed more philosophical than anything, having come this far – but still Sarah felt the reproof and knew she was guilty, let her hand drop and turned away to look out at the other vehicle again, now that they'd landed.
"That's Brunnal, isn't it?" As the alien man stepped out of the vehicle, she recognised him from their video communication earlier.
"I'll talk to him, complete the deal," said Rikard, heading for the door, and the Doctor followed.
"Yes, I'd like a word with friend Brunnal too – there's rather a lot still to do, you know, for this plan to work."
While Valina hesitated, Sarah followed the men automatically, not about to be left out of the action – the militia were still searching for them, after all, and the Doctor never had explained the full detail of this cunning plan of his. She caught up just as Rikard was saying, "Brunnal. We've not met in person, but we've done business many times. I am Rikard."
"Yes, and I'm the Doctor," said the Doctor with his most fetching smile, striding forward to shake Brunnal by the hand. "Delighted to meet you, we've a lot to talk about and not much time, so –"
"Doctor? Is that…? I don't believe it!"
The shout came from Brunnal's vehicle and the voice was familiar, almost painfully so. It couldn't be, it simply couldn't be, but there was a frantic scramble at the door of the vehicle and a wild-eyed figure came stumbling out, staring in disbelief, and Sarah was running almost before she knew it.
"Harry!" She hurled herself at him and felt his arms close around her, warm and solid and breathing. "But how? I thought you were dead!" She pulled away to smack his arm, suddenly cross because she'd been so very afraid, had imagined such awful things, and here he was all in one piece as if nothing had happened.
"So did I for a moment there, old girl," he rather soberly admitted, and then the Doctor was on him, grabbing his hand and shaking it vigorously before pulling him in to one of those startlingly abrupt split-second hugs of his, grinning like a loon.
"You had us worried, Harry."
"Well, I could say the same about you," Harry retorted.
The Doctor stepped back, still beaming. "I'm delighted to see you again, Harry – and splendidly intact I see. I am pleased."
"So this is the careless pilot who dropped a crewman into heavy traffic from a great height," a new voice interrupted, and Sarah looked past Harry to see that another alien being had stepped out of the shuttle behind him, a woman, tall and stately with mottled indigo skin and a fringe of tentacles running around the back of her otherwise bald head, eyeing them curiously with multi-faceted eyes that were bright with intelligence while her lip curled, baring cat-like, needle-sharp teeth.
The Doctor made no attempt to defend himself against the charge. "Yes," he quietly agreed. "I am the careless pilot."
The woman lifted an eyebrow. "Lucky for you it was my shuttle he fell into. The residents of this world are not always, perhaps, so generous."
The Doctor looked at her and looked again at her shuttle, then looked Harry up and down rather sharply – he'd got changed, Sarah noticed for the first time, the smart suit he'd been wearing when he fell replaced by some kind of flight suit, a snug fit, the synthetic material tight across his chest, and she was still wondering about that as the Doctor nodded toward the shuttle saying, "Did you do that, Harry?"
Harry looked at the broken windshield and said, "Er," and then said, "I rather think I did, yes," and the Doctor's searching gaze drilled into him again.
"But you're all right now?" he demanded, and Sarah looked from Harry to the damaged shuttle and suddenly understood what they were talking about, shuddered reflexively as those nightmare images of what became of a human body that fell from a great height leapt back into her mind again.
There was patently nothing wrong with Harry now though, which he confirmed with a nod and cheerfully said, "In the pink, Doctor. Ren patched me up, good as new."
The Doctor strode forward and shook the woman's hand vigorously. "Then I'm extremely grateful to you. Sarah and I are very fond of Harry, we should hate to have lost him – isn't that right, Sarah?"
"That's right." Sarah tucked an arm through Harry's and squeezed it, and he went a bit pink but pulled his arm away to wrap around her shoulders in a quick, clumsy sideways hug.
"Well, I'm glad you're all right, too," he said, while the woman, Ren, shrugged at the Doctor.
"The debt is already paid," she dismissed.
"Oh, but, er, the healing unit," said Harry, looking toward a rather bemused Rikard. "Do you have one we could borrow?"
They did, although Valina had grumbled mightily about the loan of it, worried about the expense when she had a family to feed. Sarah held it out, explaining, "It belongs to Valina, who gave us a lift here, but she can only spare a single dose."
"Single dose, is it?" Harry looked worried and turned to Brunnal, who nodded.
"It is enough for Dilly. That is what matters."
"Splendid. Well in that case, I think we've a few minutes to spare," the Doctor said. "So let's leave these good people to thrash out their business, Sarah, while Harry sees to his patient."
"Ren's healing unit was used up on me, I'm afraid," Harry told them as they followed him inside, and Sarah wondered how far he'd fallen before he hit the shuttle, how hard the impact had been to cause the damage she'd seen – and what kind of miracle cure this healing unit really was. "And then Dilly here got shot while we were rescuing Brunnal from the Shad, so I've done what I can, but I'm sure a quick dose of this will do wonders," he added in typically nonchalant fashion, only Harry could sound so vague and casual about such things, and the Doctor laughed.
"You've been busy, Harry."
Harry turned the device over in his hands, studying it rather worriedly. He glanced sideways at the bulbous bulk of some kind of strange creature lying dozing on a low couch, and wrinkled his nose. "Er…I don't actually know how to use this."
"I do, silly," a weak, rather scratchy voice spoke up, and Sarah was startled to see the patient stir, reaching out with a gigantic crab-like claw to take the device from Harry's hand and then gently poke at him with it. "You found your friends."
Harry looked up and caught Sarah's eye, smiling. "I suppose we found each other," he said. "And just when we were least expecting it."
"I'm pleased." Although weak, the injured alien did sound delighted for him.
As Harry bent to take instruction on the use of the healing unit, always ready to learn a new medical technique – even using alien equipment he was never likely to encounter again – the Doctor watched him for a moment with a fond expression and then said, "Why don't you tell us about your new friends, Harry."
"Oh. Well, er, they're smugglers," Harry offered.
"Yes, we knew that," Sarah told him.
He smiled down at his patient, one of the oddest-looking creatures Sarah had ever seen. "Well, all I can tell you is that they've been very good to me," he said. "They just want to get this deal over and done with now so they can get themselves off-world again. Have something to eat, Sarah," he added as if he'd only just thought of it, waving a hand toward some food on a small table nearby, which almost certainly wasn't his to offer but Sarah's stomach rumbled loudly at the mere sight of it.
"What's it like, any good?"
The first bite of something that looked vaguely fruit-like was already in her mouth when Harry replied, "No – but it'll fill a gap if you're peckish," and then grinned at the look on her face when the taste hit. She kicked his ankle – gently, because the relief hadn't worn off yet, but hard enough to make the point – and forced the foul-tasting mouthful down, wondering if she was hungry enough to stomach any more. Then something else occurred to her.
"Hang on: if they're leaving the planet, what were you going to do?"
Harry didn't answer for a moment, too busy with his patient, peeling off a stained wound-dressing to examine the seemingly unmarked skin beneath, the miracle cure clearly taking effect already. "I say, that's remarkable," he murmured to himself before turning back to Sarah. "Well you see, Ren looked up a sort of news channel and found a report about the Doctor being arrested after some kind of political demonstration – at least, I thought it was you," he said to the Doctor, who had a little smile on his face and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying just listening to him rambling toward his point.
"It was," said Sarah, setting her half-eaten fruit aside.
"In league with the local rebels, eh," Harry grinned. "Yes, I thought that was it. So I thought perhaps if I could join up with those rebels," and he waved a hand toward the door and the negotiations taking place outside, "Well, we could see what was to be done about it all."
The Doctor beamed beatifically. "A logical plan," he approved. "We're one step ahead of you, of course."
"Of course," Harry dryly replied, no longer as bemused by the Doctor's high-handed ways as he'd once been – friendship with the Doctor was one long learning curve, as Sarah well knew.
"Yes, but the militia are only one step behind us," she quickly pointed out, because it didn't do to let the Doctor's head swell too much and he seemed to have forgotten that not-so-minor detail.
"Quite right, Sarah." He was all business again.
"Militia?" Harry and his alien patient, Dilly, spoke up almost with one voice, the one sounding puzzled and the other alarmed, and Dilly pushed up off the couch, allowing Sarah a good look at the creature for the first time: grey-brown in colour and shaped like a giant lobster, with a myriad of legs and arms and antennae, bulbous eyes on waving eye stalks and gigantic claws which it clicked frantically while making a curious chittering sound of unease. "Are militia coming? Why are the militia coming?"
"They're after us," Sarah admitted, hastily adding, "But it's okay because they can't find us – not yet anyway. And the Doctor has a plan."
Both Dilly and Harry stared at her for a moment and then stared at the Doctor.
"A plan," Dilly snapped at Harry, arms and antennae waving agitatedly. "Your friends bring the militia upon us and they have a plan. Will it work?"
This last was directed at the Doctor, who in return offered a languid smile and rather reproachfully replied, "Of course it will work, and to everyone's benefit – including our friends out there."
To that point, the negotiations outside had become rather noisy, and it sounded to Sarah rather more like disagreement than accord. "Our friends out there don't seem to be getting on very well," she observed.
"No, they don't, do they?" the Doctor agreed, wrinkling his nose. "I suppose we'd better find out what's wrong."
With that, he marched out of the shuttle to ask if there was a problem, prompting everyone out there to begin angrily talking all at once. Even Valina was moved to poke her head out of her vehicle to see what was happening. The Doctor listened for a moment, then pulled a paper bag out of his pocket, emptied its contents into his hand – jelly babies, of course, which he dropped back into his pocket loose – and blew into the bag to blow it up like a balloon. Then he smacked it against the palm of his hand. Bang.
It was only a little 'pop', really, but it worked. Everyone stopped talking and the Doctor smiled. "That's better. Now tell me again: what seems to be the problem?"
"Militia," snarled Brunnal. "You lure us here under the pretence of a deal, knowing all the while that the militia are in pursuit."
"Oh, Rikard mentioned that, did he?" The Doctor gave the rebel rather a reproachful look, as if chastising him for failing to break the news diplomatically enough to forestall this reaction. "Is that a problem?"
"Is that a problem?" Brunnal started forward in fury and had to be restrained by Ren, not that she was any less furious.
"Yes, it's a problem. Of course it's a problem. Can you explain this, Earth man?" she spat at Harry, who opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish, because of course he couldn't.
"It isn't a trick," Sarah called out, anxious to defuse the situation. "I mean, it is, but we aren't tricking you. The Doctor has a plan…"
It sounded weak even as she said it; Dilly certainly hadn't seemed convinced and these two were much fierier customers.
"A plan, is it? One that will see us all brought to what passes for justice on this world?" Brunnal produced a gun and levelled it at the Doctor. "Start talking."
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