Ace realized she was holding her breath. The little snake-light wrapped around her right forearm lit up the access tube ahead of her, but she was still too closed in. How much further? she thought. The weight attached to her left ankle was starting to rub against the tiny hairs of her ankle. She gave the line a sharp jerk and felt the sack of explosives shift up towards her. "How much further?" she shouted.

The cry echoed back along the tube, then faded into the dark. There was silence and she was alone again. She knew he was trouble, but she was doing his job for him. Why did he not reply?

"What?" came the irritated reply.

Ace knew they should have used com-links. But the Warrior was too concerned with getting on with the job. No hindrance, no comebacks.

"How much further?!" she shouted, giving full vent to her frustration. Her neck was beginning to feel tight and her right ear was folded at the edge. Even her shamanic meditation was fading. The space was just too small.

There was again an equally infuriating pause. And more silence. Now she knew he had to have gone away for a nap, or an old man's comfort break, or had just forgotten what she was doing.

"Not far," he replied without any conviction.

"I hate you," she whispered. "I bloody hate you." She wriggled her shoulders forward in the way that she had eventually found most productive. As her left ankle twitched forward, she felt the reassuring tug of the cord pulling the pair of bokken bundled a metre behind her. There was no way she was leaving them behind for this strange stranger to look after. But at the end of that cord was another, less reassuring, line trailing all the way back to the control room and ending at the old man's store of death.

"I'm not deaf," he replied.

"Then answer when I talk to you," she hissed. Her left elbow jarred at the faint seam joining one segment of tube to another. She rotated her shoulder and bicep to free it and moved the other arm forward. It was best not to dwell on every delay or twinge.

"Then say something interesting," he hissed back.

Her finger-tips pulled at the next section of tube. It was getting more damp. There was a slick kind of moisture accumulating in drops and running down the tube away from her. From the vague light behind she could see the drops sparkle like pips on a rotten berry, horrible and organic.

She had thought carefully and - it was true - the best chance of releasing the Doctor from his plastic prison was to destroy the defenses around the Dalek brain. Then the whole prison might just reset itself.

At last there was a hatch. She angled the snake-light on her left forearm to focus on it properly. It was much smaller than she thought. Around the edge was a horrible crust of mold and salt that reminded her of a Victorian men's room. She felt a slight gagging in her throat.

"You're there!" came the voice clear and full down the length of the access tube. He had been following her on the monitor.

"Can you try to open it electrically?" she shouted. She moved her shoulders around again, jarred her slight hips against the sides. Her patience was draining away.

"I gave you a key," he stated. "Use it."

She grumbled and reached for the piece of masking tape positioned above her navel and tore it off. "Ow", she aimed the almost genuine cry back down the tube. She worked the bent piece of metal off the tape with her teeth and spat the taste out of her mouth. It was little more than the tool for putting together a cheap piece of furniture on flatpack Earth. But she could see the six little holes arranged around the edge of the panel, each soiled with a sheen of gunge. "Let's get this done," she thought.

:::

"Careful!" he shouted from back down the tube.

"Are you kidding?" she shouted back. She turned her face again to take in some of air from the open hatch. She had expected it to be foul or sickening, but there was a thick aroma of soft burnt wood like incense. It was still too dark to see the full chamber itself, but somewhere in there was the sweating mass of the Brain. She had half-expected to hear it gurgling, but there was little more than the hiss of idling ventilation.

There was another tug on her leg. She grabbed the thin line and held it taut. She heard the first rattle of the corroding cans as the Warrior fed them into the tube, then she pulled steadily to maintain the tension. "We're both mad," she thought. "But I'm the one pulling the explosives toward me."

She rested the pair of bokken in a little groove in the tube beside her. She felt a little ridiculous now. How could she possibly fight anything in that space? Other than poking any assailant with the sticks. But they were part of her discipline now and that was all that was keeping her calm.

The first can arrived between her heels. She looked down to confirm its presence visually. Slivers of light defined the circular ends. She then fed it up past her belly and over her face then straight away thru the open hatch into the chamber beyond. Three more followed.

"How many?" she quizzed, taking a breath. The cord went taut again and another four cans arrived in the dark for disposal into the target location.

"Warrior?" she called. No reply, then a final tug on the cord. She tried to recall if there had been ten or twelve cans in the pack. But two last cans duly arrived. She let them bump against her skin as she hastily disposed of them. One then two. Her hand held the last can before it dropped. It felt a little light.

"Where's the timer?" she thought.

"Where's the timer?!" she shouted.

Then the darkness lit up.