"THE DOC-TOR AND HIS ASS-OC-IATES HAVE BEEN LOCATED!" the Dalek shouted, rolling up to the Dalek commander. It swerved its eyestalk to survey the Dalek instead of the mines below. "WHERE ARE THEY?"

"CORRIDOR NUM-BER THREE-SIX-SEV-EN."

The Dalek Commander turned to another Dalek and screamed, "LO-CATE THE DOC-TOR AND SEND A RETRIEVAL TEAM TO CAP-TURE THEM! THE DOC-TOR WILL NOT ESCAPE THE DA-ALEKS!"

"I OBEY!" the second Dalek said, turning and rushing away. The Dalek Commander turned back to the reporting Dalek. "HAVE YOU INFORMED OUR ASS-OC-IATES?"

"NEGATIVE."

"DO NOT TAKE SUCH ACTION. THE DOC-TOR WILL BE BROUGHT TO THE DA-ALEKS. HE WILL FACE EX-TER-MINATION KNEELING IN FRONT OF THE DA-ALEKS! THE DA-ALEKS WILL TRI-UMPH AGANST THE DOC-TOR! THE DA-ALEKS ARE THE MAS-TER RACE! DA-ALEKS ARE SU-PREME!"

They rounded another corridor. Blue was still icy to the touch, but it didn't seem as though she was suffering. She coughed, but this time, flecks of ice shot from her mouth. The Doctor stopped and Blue stumbled, nearly taking Rose with her to the floor, but the woman caught her and held her up, barely standing. The Doctor opened her mouth and peered inside, his face ashen and his eyes full of dread. "Oh, no." he whispered, barely audible. Blue looked at him weakly, but she fell unconscious before she could ask what was wrong. She went completely limp in Rose's arms which almost brought the both of them down, but Rose managed to stay standing. "Doctor, what's wrong?" she grunted. The Doctor glanced up at her. "There's frost."

"What?"

"In her mouth. She's freezing. From the inside-out. Slowly."

"What can we do?"

"We might be able to thaw her out if we get her somewhere warm."

Rose looked around helplessly. "There's nowhere warm here!" she cried. The Doctor ran his hands through his hair in a frenzied manner but came up with nothing. "I-I dunno!" he finally shouted. They heard Daleks approaching from the corridor behind them and the Doctor scooped Blue into his arms, beginning to walk as fast as he could. Rose looked over her shoulder at the Daleks and realized that running was helpless. They wouldn't be able to get away at this pace. "Come on, Rose!" The Doctor yelled.

"We won't be a able to outrun them!" She cried.

"No harm in trying!" The Doctor said. She sighed knowingly and hurried down the hallway as best she could. They heard the Daleks screaming for them to halt and all the 'exterminate, exterminate, exterminate' nonsense but they kept going, clinging to a shred of hope that they could get away. Suddenly, Blue's body was heavy. Too heavy, and much heavier than it used to be. The Doctor couldn't carry her anymore and her let her slip to the floor. Without warning, Blue was dragged - still unconscious - toward a group of Daleks. "What's happening?" Rose asked the Doctor frantically. He studied the Daleks and came up with a hypothesis. "They've got a concentrated gravity field, but the Daleks don't have that kind of technology. It's too early in their time stream." he said darkly. "They don't have concentrated gravity fields until the Time War…"

Rose was frozen in place. She couldn't go and save Blue, and the only thing she could do was to stay with the Doctor. Her heart was racing, and she didn't know what to do. The Doctor grabbed her hand and looked at her with his big puppy-dog eyes. Eyes that were so sad. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But we can get away."

"And leave her? Again, Doctor?"

"It's the only thing we can do."

"No, it's not."

"What?"

Rose gripped the Doctor's hand tighter and began to walk toward the Daleks. He resisted and tried to pull her back, but she was strong when she was determined, and they approached slowly. "Take all three of us." Rose said to the Daleks. They stared at her for a long time before replying. "YOU WILL FOL-LOW." they finally demanded. Rose smiled at the Doctor and they stepped into the center of the troop of Daleks, being escorted down the hallways. "So… what d'you plan to do with us, anyway?" Rose wondered, poking her tongue between her teeth. "THE DOC-TOR WILL BE KEPT IN THE MAX-IM-UM SECURITY PRISON AND THE HU-MANS WILL WORK IN THE MINES FOR THE DA-ALEKS." one of them replied. The Doctor shook his head angrily. "No." he said loudly. "THE DOC-TOR WILL FOLLOW OR-DERS OR THEY WILL DIE!"

"Rose stays with me. So does Blue."

"NEG-A-TIVE."

"Positive if you want our cooperation."

"THE DA-ALEKS DO NOT NEED YOUR COOPERATION. THE DOC-TOR AND THE HU-MANS WILL O-BEY THE DA-ALEKS OR THEY WILL DIE!"

"Yeah, you say that, but when have you actually ever acted on that?"

"SILENCE! THE DOC-TOR WILL BE SILENT!"

The Doctor muttered to himself but did as they said. They moved down more hallways. The Doctor thought to himself that it almost seemed like a labyrinth. Then, a ton of sparks started to fly from one of the Daleks, which promptly started screaming. "REBEL ALERT! REBEL ALERT!" Then, another one started to spark as well and scream the same thing. Soon enough, all of the Daleks around them were shooting sparks and whirling around in circles, screaming about rebels and which systems were impaired and such. Suddenly, every one of them went quiet. They stopped moving. Blue was released from the gravity field and she looked pale and lifeless as a small group of people stepped forward, grinning. The man at their head was holding a huge gun and was dressed in rags, much like the rest of them. "C'mon. That was just a tranq. They'll be awake soon. Let's go." he said.

The Doctor and Rose had no choice but to follow him. They stepped carefully around the Daleks, knowing full well that the Daleks could use their DNA to regenerate and come back to life. That was demonstrated by Rose when she'd first met the Daleks. Just one touch and they'd all be dead. They pulled Blue's body along with them until the man scooped her into his able arms and trotted along the corridor with his gun in a holster on his back. "Erm… where're we going, exactly?" the Doctor wondered. No one replied, but continued to run. The Doctor muttered something about humans under his breath and held Rose's hand tighter. He didn't want to let go. Soon enough, they'd wound around several corners and wiggled through a fair share of ventilation shafts until they arrived at some sort of underground base that was neither as organized or as well-made as the Dalek base. This was how the Doctor knew that they were rebelling against the Daleks. The man set Blue down on a sort of cot and turned back to the Doctor and Rose as a young man scurried over, carrying a tray heavy with glasses of water. The man took one, and everyone else in the small posse, and the tray-man gave both the Doctor and Rose water as well. Rose mumbled thanks and flashed a smile as she took a sip. "I'm Rip." the leader said, scratching the back of his neck with long, unkempt nails. "Rose Tyler."

"The Doctor! Say, Rip, what exactly are you lot doing here?"

The Doctor was excited and upbeat, not to Rip's liking. "Why the hell are you so… happy about this? Shit's going down, Doctor, and it's going down with the Daleks."

"Well, yes, I know that. But what are you all doing here?"

"We were taken prisoner by the Daleks from our home planet. They forced us to work in the mines, but we broke out and dug down. We're good at digging. We've kept recruiting since then, but there's only a few of the original members left."

"There's not much hope for you lot, you know."

"Yeah, we know. But 'not much' is better than none."

"Right. What's that gun?"

"Just a Dalek tranq. It was easy to build, according to our weapons expert. I don't make them, I just fire them."

The Doctor looked around with interest. "Can I meet this… weapons expert?" he wondered. Rip hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Yeah. There's two of them. Yuma and Ty. They had kids on their home planet before the Daleks came." he explained as he walked Rose and the Doctor over. Two people were hunched over a stone desk that was carved into the wall, drawing designs for weapons. A man and a woman. Rip tapped them on the shoulders and they turned to glare at the Doctor and Rose. "Can we help you?" the woman asked. "Yeah. This is the Doctor and Rose. They're… them."

The woman's eyes widened and she leaped to her feet along with her husband, vigorously shaking their hands. Rose blushed and smiled up at the Doctor with confusion. "What's happening?" she asked quietly. Rip heard her and puffed out his chest. "We've heard a lot about you two. Well, only about the Doctor, but you're together?"

They both laughed fakely. "No, what? No, we're not… a couple." the Doctor said. Rose agreed with him, but Rip obviously wasn't fooled, though he didn't take it any further. "So, how did you hear about me? I'm intrigued."

"You're Dalek Enemy No.1. How could we not hear about you? And there were fairy tales about you on our home planet. Colonized Saturn."

"Saturn Three, isn't it? Yeah, I know Saturn 3. Good planet, I saved it from a potential Adipose breeding catastrophe once."

"I remember that."

"So, what are you working on?"

The woman picked up a small portfolio crammed with designs. "Too many to tell. What d'you think?"

He looked over several weapons designs. "Oh, these are quite good. Brilliant! Oh, hold on a minute! One mistake right here. Got a pencil?" The couple looked at each other and the woman laughed a bit. "We're weapons designers. We always have pencils." She said and handed the Doctor a pencil. The Doctor quickly erased something and rewrote something. "There! Good as new! A neuron destabilizer would've been rubbish. It's much better with the neuron collapser." He handed the portfolio back to them and they looked over at it and smiled. "Thanks!" The woman said, a smile on her face. The Doctor returned the smile, and then frowned playfully. "Alright, which is which?"

The woman gestured to herself first, and then her husband. "I'm Yuma and this is my husband Ty. He can't speak. The-the Daleks removed his tongue."

"Why would they do that?"

"Experimentation." Yuma's voice betrayed her understandable disgust. "Don't worry." Rose said with a warm smile. "We're gonna get them, alright?"

"I trust you. So does Ty." Yuma said. Rip gave her a hug and then lead the Doctor and Rose away from the two. They approached the man that had given them the water earlier, and he turned to look and smile at them. "Hello!" he said cheerily. Rip smiled. "This is Janeth. Our tea-boy. Well, he would be our tea-boy if we had tea, but we only have water. I guess that makes him our water-boy."

The Doctor glanced at Rose and Blue, who was still unconscious and a miniscule team of medics were working on her. "Tea-boy? Isn't that what Owen calls Ianto? In Torchwood, I mean." Rose said to the Doctor. He nodded. "Well, I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose."

"Pleased to meet you." Janeth said. "But I've got some paperwork to do."

Rip nodded and they went over to where Blue lay, with three people gathered around her. "These are the people that are better than others at putting stitches in you." Rip introduced from the left to the right: "Tygha, Buzi, and Opiah."

"Those are interesting names, innit?"

"Yeah. Not from Saturn 3. They're from Venus Mark Twenty."

"Venus Mark Twenty? I don't think I've been there yet! Is it new?"

The woman called Tygha replied, "Yeah. This is the first year people started living on it."

"So how'd you get in a mix with the Daleks?"

"Well, me and these two were out on a space salvage mission when our ship was attacked and we were taken hostage."

The Doctor looked around the room and he couldn't help but to feel his hearts sink. All these people… they'd had lives before the Daleks swooned in and took that all away. They were all dressed in rags and they were dirty, smelly, and sweaty. The Doctor and Rose weren't bothered that much, though. They had to sympathize with these people and help them. "That's all we are. Small, but we're getting more people to join. Understandably, some people don't want to join. The Daleks wouldn't just exterminate us if they found out. They'd torture us. They'd experiment on us. Soon enough, we wouldn't be us anymore."

"What would you be?" Rose asked quietly.

"We dunno. All we know is that we wouldn't be like... this." she said plainly. Finally, Rose whispered, "Is Blue gonna be okay?" Tygha looked at them. "Who is she? Is she your kid or something?" She glanced between Rose and the Doctor. They looked at each other and laughed. "No, no. Not at all!" They cried. "She's more... like a little sister." Rose decided. Tygha sighed and rubbed her hands together a little. "I hate to say it, but a lot of our people have died because of this technology. We've tried to find a cure, but... haven't had any luck." Rose's eyes widened. "You'll try, right?" She whispered.

"Of course! But, you know we've never seen this before. I mean, Rip's dealt with Daleks before, but he's never seen this."

"What d'you mean?"

"Well… the victims… they're freezing inside-to-out. We've done scans on everyone that got hit by a death ray and survived. X-rays, internal viewing drones and everything. Their insides are frosted over… like the grass in the morning on a cold night."

The Doctor glanced from Blue back to Tygha. "What do they think?" he asked with a nod at Buzi and Opiah. Tygha glanced over her shoulder at them before replying. "They're just as stunned as I am. We've got our research team working on it, but on the Internet for the entire Universe they've found nothing."

"Could I meet this research team?"

"Yeah. Buzi will take you over there." Tygha said. Buzi stepped forward and lead the Doctor away so Tygha and Opiah could continue their work on Blue. The two were lead through the rebel camp and to a tiny desk with one small computer and littered with papers and books. "They've got books at a Dalek camp?" the Doctor wondered as Buzi thanked them and rushed back to Blue's side. The one girl sitting at the desk whirled around, a shocked expression on her face. She wore pink and black glasses, her hair was wavy, layered and black in the shadows and reached about down to her shoulders. "Woah! Sorry, you took me by surprise!" she cried. The Doctor apologized and leaned in to look over her shoulder at all the books. "Like I said. Books?"

"Well, we were able to sneak into the garbage and steal these. This is what they do with the stuff we get captured with. The only things we're allowed to keep is our clothing. And then we're forced to work in the mines. Everyone. If you don't work, you get exterminated."

"Children and elders, too?"

"Yeah. I've seen… kids get killed. For either fun or just because they can't work as hard as the Daleks tell them to work."

"So. What're you researching at the moment?"

"Well, we've had several people shot by Daleks and survive. And then later we find that they're getting frosted over. So I helped Ty and Yuma make those medical machines to see what was going on. Right now, I'm trying to find out if that's common for Daleks. As far as I've gotten, it's not."

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair and shoved on his spectacles, peering at the computer screen. "Oh, this technology is rubbish."

"Hey! It's the best we could do, given the circumstances!"

"D'you mind if I give it a little upgrade?" the Doctor wondered, pulling out his screwdriver. The girl got out of her chair and nodded, and then watched the Doctor as he worked on the computer. "I'm K.D., by the way."

"Hallo, K.D.! I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose."

"A Doctor?"

"Well, I say Doctor, but - "

"Like a real doctor?"

"Sort of. I'm not really that kind of Doctor, but I've got some experience with Daleks."

"Oh my gosh! Rip!" K.D. called over to the leader. He was talking to someone - a woman - and the two of them walked over. "What's up?" the woman he was talking to said. "This is the Doctor!" K.D. shouted. The woman rolled her eyes. "Duh. Dalek Enemy No.1 right there."

"Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"You didn't ask."

Rip sauntered away and Rose tapped the woman on the shoulder. "'Scuse me, I'm Rose."

"Yeah, the Doctor's boo. I know."

"Wha'?"

"You two are lovebirds. I know who Rose Tyler is."

"Right, but who are you? And we're not lovebirds."

"Ha. Sure. I'm Mello."

"Mello? That's a fun name, then."

"Yeah. I'm from New Earth."

"Oh? The Doctor and I've been to New Earth!"

"Good for the Doctor and you. It's destroyed now. A Dalek planet-splitter. They took the refugees prisoner. I used to be a four-star general for the New United States Air Force."

Rose looked impressed. "You hear that, Doctor?" she asked. The Doctor frowned. "Yes, I heard." he grumbled. Mello eyed him. "What the hell's his problem?" she demanded. Rose shrugged. "He just doesn't like soldiers."

"Yeah? Well we're all in the same boat now, so he should get used to it."

The Doctor whooped and stood abruptly, gesturing at the updated computer with grandeur. "Molto bene! There you are! All better, try it out for size!" K.D walked over to the computer. "Dang. You were right. That looks loads better." She said, a grin on her face. "Thanks!"

The Doctor nodded and smiled at her enthusiasm. "Your welcome." He said. They left the desk and moved onto another area of the base camp. "This is… humans, huh?" Rose chuckled. The Doctor held her hand and chuckled along with her. Just then, Mello sprinted up to them and leaned against the wall. She caught her breath and brushed her fiery red hair out of her eyes. "We've got a Dalek alert. They're trying to locate the base. Again. You wanna help out?"

The Doctor and Rose exchanged a look, but before they could reply she wrapped her hands around their wrists and dragged them to where Yuma and Ty were arming people with weapons. Ty shoved a gun and a small smile at Rose and she smiled back, but the Doctor's face was stony. Ty frowned and pushed the gun into his arms again, but the Doctor resisted. "No." he said. Ty nudged him with the butt of the gun again. "I don't like guns."

"Well you're gonna have to. We're up against fucking Daleks. Just take the damn gun, Doctor." Mello cried.

Ty gently nudged again, but the Doctor kept his arms at his sides and didn't accept. "I'll use my screwdriver." he said darkly. Mello laughed out loud. "What's a screwdriver gonna do against Daleks?" she demanded sharply. The Doctor kept refusing the gun and Ty gave up, instead passing the gun to K.D. who stood behind him. "Is… everyone going on this little outing?" the Doctor wondered. Mello shook her head. "Not Janeth. Janeth does the paperwork and takes care of things while we're gone."

"What if Daleks get in here while you're away?"

"Oh, don't worry. Janeth knows his way around a gun." Mello chuckled. Once everyone but the Doctor was armed, they shimmied through small tunnels and ventilation shafts again. "Erm, what exactly are we doing?" the Doctor called up to Mello. She was in front of him. "We're on a recruiting mission. We get into the mines by hiding our weapons and pretending to be slaves, and then we get people to join our cause. Also a reconnaissance mission and to get the Daleks away from HQ." she explained. The Doctor struggled to look down at Rose and managed a shrug. "You're all very… military, then?" he asked up at Mello. She let out a halfhearted chuckle. "Yeah. Most of us come from military backgrounds. I guess you'll have to learn to like soldiers, Doctor. Now shut up."

They crawled along in silence, struggling to fit through the tight tunnels that were carved along to the rebel's base. They finally were able to stretch out a bit as they entered some cold ventilation shafts and crawled along. They made hollow thumps and bumps, but no one seemed to be concerned. "Erm, sorry, but won't the Daleks hear all this racket we're making?"

"Yeah. They'll send in some drones to either fix the problem or kill the people but our weapons manage to destroy them." Mello said. Her voice bounced off of the walls. After a bit more of this, they could hear the noises of the Daleks moving around above them. "HU-MANS DE-TEC-TED! SEEK! LO-CATE! EX-TER-MINATE!" they cried. The Doctor could hear Mello snicker and everyone paid the Daleks no attention and kept on crawling to the mines.