Among Thieves

Jenny

It was unprecedented, but Kasterborous had beaten them. For once, brash tactics and overt aggression had succeeded over quick-wit and stealth, which irked Jenny greatly because quick-wit and stealth were her bread and butter. She wouldn't have survived for so long working as a thief and a smuggler without them. It also irked her because of the whole 'ancient Time Lord weapon-of-mass-destruction' thing, too.

"This is lucky for us," River Song whispered, "We have the high ground." True enough, Jenny thought, it was some very high ground. Kasterborous had been tunnelling with incredibly potent space-age dynamite; the explosions had continued to rattle the mountain during the time they waited for Jack's legs to partially regrow themselves (now he looked like he'd torn the ends of his trousers up as part of a zombie Halloween costume, and would be very convincing if he wasn't so consistently alive.) The TARDIS trio had continued along the given route, Jenny's relic lighting up the passages sparsely as they went, and they had poked their heads out of the tunnels and into a final manufactured cavern, at the highest point in the room. The path was supposed to wind around the cylindrical shaft like a spiral staircase at the edges, but had been smashed to pieces by the explosives of Ordov's lackeys, and now they didn't have a proper way down. The illuminating properties of the walls and the map device seemed to be defunct now as well, in lieu of all the destruction.

What she assumed to be the Singularity itself was in the middle of the room, a very small sphere no bigger than an apple. It looked like nothing at all, and if she saw it in one of her father's stashes of space junk she wouldn't give it a second glance. Looks could be deceiving, though, she thought in shameless relation to herself. This chamber appeared very similar to the first one they had been in, with the gravity generator there as a red herring, the floor around the Singularity of the same lowered quality that made it look suspiciously like it might collapse. But this could just be decorative.

"I would not touch it, if I were you," Ordov said to the Conqueror. They had spotted the unusual floor, too, and were being cautious, Kasterborous gathered around the edges of the hole they had made in the wall. Rubble piled around them; some of them sat down on it. There was dust in the air. The dirt from the demolitions, grimy sweat from the jungle and blood from Jack's bleeding, broken legs had now made Jenny look especially filthy. It almost looked like she had been the one to get her legs crushed by boulders.

"It's right there," the Conqueror complained.

"You are not thinking clearly," said Ordov in his heavy accent, the TARDIS crew straining their ears to listen. There was no worry of them being spotted where they were, in the shadowy nethers of the cave's proverbial 'rafters.' Spying. "There is something very suspicious about all of this, do you not see? In the time it took us to gather enough explosive to break through the mountain, the others should have been and gone. And yet this device, it is still here. It makes me think we need to be wary."

"You're being paranoid," said the Conqueror, "Send one of the soldiers over to get it."

"It could be anything," said Ordov, "What is to say it is not the same technology as this map? Only a Time Lord can operate it? Perhaps it will injure anybody who is less. Or worse."

"And there's only one way to find out. Send one of the men, I paid you enough that they ought to be expendable."

"I would rather not."

"Rather not?" the Conqueror demanded, "Just the previous night I saw you shoot one of them in cold blood!" Jenny still remembered seeing that soldier's eyes roll back into his head while Ordov laughed derisively. Now, Ordov was indifferent.

"That is my prerogative, not yours."

"I'm paying for your blasted 'prerogative'!"

"No, no, no, you are paying for my company's assistance in retrieving this artefact. As far as I see, we have done our job, it is right there." River elbowed Jenny to get her attention, the three of them crouching as they observed. Jenny looked at her and raised her eyebrows.

"Use the gun," she whispered, "To watch." Sighing, Jenny pulled her modified rifle around from where it was slung on her back and aimed it, careful to keep her hand away from the trigger since Josephine was loaded. Through the scope she now saw the frustration on the Conqueror's face, and the calmness on Ordov's, and the worry every soldier was exhibiting because they didn't want to be volunteered to retrieve the Singularity from its pedestal. Jenny could see bloody bandages wrapped around Ordov's wrist where she had shot it yesterday.

"What if he's right?" Jack breathed, Ordov and the Conqueror continuing to bicker. "What if this place will collapse, or something, if someone who isn't a Time Lord touches that thing?"

"No," said River, "They wouldn't need tests that only Time Lords could pass if only a Time Lord could use it. It would be much less dangerous, they might not have taken it off Gallifrey. Part of the danger of the Singularity, in the old stories, is that anyone can use it. You wouldn't be coming after it if you didn't know that. What can you see?"

"Nothing," Jenny answered, "They're arguing. This guy's an idiot, he doesn't realise Ordov's betrayed him."

"What do you mean?"

"The Conqueror wants to use one of the soldiers as a guinea pig, Ordov wants to use the Conqueror. He's probably been paid in advance," Jenny explained. That was clearly Ordov's plan. Get rid of the Conqueror, the person who had the slightly more 'legitimate' claim on the Singularity than he did, and not look like a double-crosser. Ordov was a mercenary, his loyalty was to the money, and him possessing the Singularity offered more wealth and power than the Conqueror would likely give him. Jenny didn't know who could be trusted with it less, the one who was actively stupid or the one who was actively evil.

"I think we'd better be safe than sorry," said Jack, nudging her, "You'd better grab it."

"Easier said than done," she muttered, "There's no discreet way down, they blew up the stairs." It was a long drop, too, much too long to survive jumping down, about thirty feet up in the air. "Maybe it would be safer to wait and risk them taking it?" River and Jack looked at her like she was crazy. "What? We could steal it from their ship a lot easier than we could steal it in here. Or I could. There's twenty armed soldiers down there."

"…What do you mean 'discreet' way down…?" River asked carefully.

"Well, I've got rope in my bag," Jenny said.

"Then I've got a plan."

River's 'plan' was exactly the same as Jenny's 'idea' she had completely written off because she thought it was stupid and suicidal, yet she somehow let herself get talked into it. She thought abseiling down the edge of the cliff was a terrible idea and they would be caught out immediately, though River kept assuring her that everyone was too focused on Ordov and the Conqueror. It was resolved that Jenny (who else) would go down, grab the Singularity, and would be pulled back up by Jack and River.

"They won't open fire," River said, "They'll want somebody else to see if any booby-traps will be triggered."

"And what if a booby-trap is triggered?" Jenny hissed at them, holding the rope in her hands. Jack and River were going to be at the top holding her up, so she didn't think she was going to end up falling to her death.

"I'm sure you'll manage. Improvise. Your father does it brilliantly. If Ordov tries to kill you, I'll snipe him," River said. Jenny glared, hanging off the edge of the cliff.

"That doesn't fill me with confidence."

"Just go, you're giving me rope burn," Jack mumbled. She began to descend on the rope. Miraculously, nobody had noticed when they had thrown it down a minute earlier. It was lucky their half of the room was in shadow; the only lights were those that Kasterborous had brought with them, since the cave lights were not triggering anymore.

So many things could go wrong. Ordov, or any soldier, could see her and shoot her in a second; they could accidentally let go of the rope; it could turn out that the room was full of traps and they might all be blown up in a matter of seconds. They had not thought this through at all, and Jenny still thought her plan of waiting for them to steal it and then stealing it back from the spaceship was a better option.

Although, she surprisingly dropped down onto the stone floor silently with no issues. So far. The first thing she did was immediately find her revolver in her bag and make sure that, too, was loaded, so that she wouldn't have to rely on River to take anyone out. Especially since she didn't know how good River's aim was, and it was probably still nowhere near as good as Jenny's. She shoved rounds into all six cylinders and stuck the pistol in the back of her jeans, then began the job of creeping tediously towards the Singularity. This was tense, because it involved stepping onto the bit of the floor everybody was so frightened of disturbing. But it hadn't given way on her in the first room, so she tried to trust that it wouldn't do it in this one.

She touched down one foot onto the stone as gently as she could, and by the time she had both feet on it and had even taken a step, she decided it was reliable. At least until people started messing with the Singularity. Jenny went on tiptoes, decided that if she died on this trip she was going to find a way to kill Captain Jack Harkness once and for all as a ghost. She went closer and closer, nearing the Singularity but also nearing the light. Lucky that no one else was brave enough yet to step down onto the platform and join her, but that wouldn't last one she was seen.

For no more than a few seconds, she heard distant and familiar whispered arguments, which were interrupted by a decidedly male scream somewhere behind her. A decidedly male scream that attracted the attention of everybody else in the room. Staying as still as possible, she turned around to see Jack falling through the shadows. Then half a dozen flashlights were pointed at him as he landed on the stone with a thud and a crunch. For a second, Kasterborous were so focused on Jack falling that they didn't even notice Jenny, frozen, her hand outstretched towards the Singularity.

"…Fancy seeing you here," Jenny to Ordov as soon as he spotted her. Behind her, Jack groaned. There was a moment where she met Ordov's eyes, before he went to draw his gun so she drew her own in a flash. It was like a duel in a Western. She cocked it immediately, and they were at a stalemate. Unless Jack had brought the rifle down with him when he'd decided to be all gung-ho and follow her, he was unarmed. "How've you been since I, you know, shot your hand apart?"

Ordov laughed, "I'll live, which is more than can be said for you."

"Dunno. I'm the only one who can work the magic orb over there," Jenny said, "Didn't seem like either of you were going to try and take it. Especially since your guesses about this place being booby-trapped are correct."

"And look, we have here the girl who can guide us through the traps. How wonderful," said Ordov, nodding to his men, who all raised their guns.

"There's a sniper aimed right at you," Jenny told him, trusting that River was aiming right at him. Luckily it was much too dark above for anyone to spot her. "You shoot me, you'll die."

"And then my men will eliminate you."

"Will they, though? Seems to me like you like to shoot them for sport," Jenny said, "Would they really follow you, or are they just following whoever has the Singularity? And that looks like it's going to be me."

"Oh, is that so?" Ordov took the risk and stepped down onto the platform with Jenny. Jack groaned behind her, but she saw him getting to his feet out of the corner of her eye. He hadn't quite died that time, just broken himself a bit. She could have swiped it and gotten out of there if he hadn't jumped down like that! What was he playing at!? Trying to snatch it and use it or his own mischievous purposes before she had a chance to break it into pieces, probably. Being reckless. "You are a coward. You would let me walk right up and take it before you would kill me." And he did walk, too. "I wouldn't even need my hands to take that device, it is all-powerful, it could make me into a god."

"That's mine, Ordov! I paid for it!" the Conqueror shouted. Ordov turned for a split-second and shot the Conqueror, landing him a nasty gut wound that made him stumble backwards. None of the soldiers went to his aid. Jenny kept her gun pointed at Ordov, but he was calling her bluff in a way people never normally did. Nobody since Iveanne. And Iveanne had had to die.

Ordov's gamble did not work. He thought that if Jenny was safe on the platform, he was safe on the platform. He was wrong. It was this moment that the map and the cave lights decided to kick in again, and the entire place was glowing with spindly, golden patterns. They did not stay gold for long, though, instead changing to be mauve, just like the 'lightbulbs' in the last room had done when they were about to blow. The universal colour for danger, as Jack had reminded them. Accordingly, the room started to shake. Ordov stopped in his approach.

"They don't want humans getting their hands on it," Jenny said.

"I can move quicker than this room can collapse, and our excavated tunnel is not controlled by the ghosts of your ancestors like the rest of this tomb," Ordov said coolly, unfazed by the mountain beginning to shake. "You see this man?" he pointed his gun at the Conqueror again, who had sunk to the floor and was clutching his side in agony, bleeding heavily through his costume robes. "He is worthless. Pathetic. He knows some history, has become obsessed with these… delusions. As if I would ever let a worm like that take the most powerful device ever created away from me. I only needed him to get this far, but now there is you. You are more capable, and you have helped us find the mountain and the route inside and now the secret to the Singularity's capture. And you are too much of a child to stop me from-"

BANG.

Ordov's head popped. The side of it was completely blown out by a powerful projectile, entering smoothly in one side and leaving a gaping hole and a residue of brain and skull on the stone platform on the other. She held up her hands in surrender immediately, though all the soldiers watching knew it had not been Jenny who had pulled the trigger. No. That had been River, perched up on the ledge with Josephine and the hollow-point rounds. She was furious at River, as she watched Ordov's body go limp and crumple, but she buried her anger and tried to salvage the situation, stepping towards the soldiers.

"All of you had better run now," she said to them, "Before this entire place collapses. And if any of you think about coming back here to get that thing, don't. It'll have been destroyed." And they scarpered. Cowards, all of them. Their insane leader was dead now, though, and they were in an alien vault on an alien planet. They probably wanted nothing more than to escape. Jenny would have fled too, if she didn't have a stake in what was happening.

"Jenny, catch!" River shouted. Jenny looked around, the floor rocked and began to crack and she lost her balance slightly, but saw her rifle flying through the air towards her. She forgot all about the Singularity when faced with the potential destruction of Josephine, and dived to catch it. She managed to, at least, and then River had teleported to the ground next to the bleeding-out Conqueror to help him when no-one else would.

"I've got it!" Jack declared, and Jenny whirled around to see him just about manage to grab the Singularity from where it sat.

"DON'T TOUCH IT!" she yelled, but it was too late. Jack wasn't listening to her, he was too desperate to get his hands on the thing. There was an enormous shift in the mountain and then chunks of the platform started to collapse and Jenny wobbled. River was pressing her hands to the Conqueror's bullet wound, the pair of them out of the immediate danger of the falling floor.

"RUN, RUN!" Jack was barrelling towards the other two to get off the platform, and Jenny followed his lead, jumping over Ordov's corpse right as the ground turned to rubble and she tripped up. Jack had made it to the edge, just, but the walls and the ceiling were crumbling to dust as well. It was all very psychedelic coupled with the dark red lights and the earthquakes. For one terrifying moment she thought she was going to die. Beneath her was a chasm and she barely managed to jump for the edge before the entire base the Singularity had been on was gone. But someone grabbed her arm and caught her. "I've got you," said Jack as she held onto him and he pulled her up.

Jenny landed on top of him in a heap, and for a second she was there looking into his eyes. Until she remembered he had just caused the entire place to start caving in. When she remembered that, she head-butted him and rolled away.

"Gah! Where'd you learn to kiss like that?"

"You total- I can't believe-"

"Enough of your lover's tiff," River said as Jenny raised a fist to hit him again, "This idiot is going to die." Jenny scrambled to get to the Conqueror's side, leaving the Singularity in Jack's hands, the whole mountain rumbling. A giant stalactite came crashing down from the cavern roof and down past them into the abyss below.

"Well then, we need to get out," Jenny said, putting her gun away again, "And quick-" She was cut off by seeing the tunnel Kasterborous had come through cave-in. "Oh, great. Now we have no way out in this teleport-proof…"

"I can get it working, give me a second," Jack said, messing around with the Singularity, "Like River said, it's not just Time Lords who can make this thing work, that's why it's so dangerous. Imagine if the Daleks got their hands on it."

"Yes, well, Davros did manage to build a reality bomb all on his own anyway," River said, "And besides, Daleks haven't got hands."

"Reality bomb? What does this thing actually do?" Jenny asked.

"A Time Lord…" the Conqueror choked, "Who doesn't know… their greatest creation…"

"Yeah, alright mate, shut up or maybe I'll think twice about saving your life," she snapped.

"It does more or less everything Rose can do," explained River, "Funnels the raw power of the time vortex into the hands of whoever uses it, without any of the physical evolutions that make someone able to handle that kind of responsibility, or the risks."

"Oh great," Jenny complained, "It's a Bad Wolf emulator. Because things weren't bad enough with one Bad Wolf to begin with."

"And it's a damn sight easier to control," said Jack, "Doesn't take over your personality and make you go loopy."

"You don't sound like a Time Lord," the Conqueror mumbled.

"Wait until you meet my dad," Jenny said.

"Ah-ha!" Jack exclaimed, and the Singularity lit up vibrant gold, "Everyone grab on! This is what I've been waiting for!" All of them lunged to grab hold of the Singularity as it took them away from Rospaonus and the destruction of the Time Lord vault. But where was it taking them was the next question…