The Struggle to Go On

The Minister would freely admit Santiny really was such an exquisite planet. A centuries old human colony that had managed to harmonise with nature instead of destroying it. Sophisticated and modern cities nestled in amongst the lush green vegetation that covered much of the planets land masses. It was a rare thing to find such a pure example of nature on a human colony. Of course, the Canisians would have no such regard for the sacred plant life and strip it all back to glean Santiny of all its minerals. He could not allow that to happen. But how, without using his power?

The Doctor always seemed to manage to do it, to come up with some crazy scheme to save a planet without disregarding the code. Sala believed freeing the prisoners at Luria and building an army was the beginning. The Minister couldn't shake his uneasy feeling about it though. Things were too quiet so far.

The terrain took a turn for the worse as they scaled down another hillside. The Minister watched Sala wearily as she leaned a little heavier on the trees and stumbled more frequently over the rocks. It would do them no good if she feel and injured herself further, especially when the clock was against them.

"Come on, give me your arm." He said, offering to take her hand.

"I can manage on my own now, thank you." She replied coldly and he let his hand drop. He was far from convinced though, despite the confidence she tried to project into her voice. Luria had to be close, or else he wasn't sure they would make it. They were covering ground at half the rate they had been yesterday. He did not want to rush her, as he was fairly certain she had not let on everything those Canisians had done to her, but he hadn't wanted to press her into painful memories.

Sala tried to fight it, but the cruel hand of exhaustion was beginning to truly take hold. The constant travelling of the past few hours had taken its toll. It was becoming increasingly difficult to summon the energy to place one foot in front of the other. The way the Minister kept glancing nervously across at her told he was realising it too. She just couldn't go on.

"Snake, wait, I..." She said, leaning heavily on the nearest branch of a sequoia.

"Oh, now here. Get - get up on my back. Come on." Said the Minister, hoisting her up onto his back. She complied and curled her arms around his shoulders, doing her best to stay up, too tired to think.

"I'll do the walking if you can stay awake to navigate. Hup! Sala? Sala?" He said, but she barely registered his words through the fog clouding her mind.

"Keep the noise down, Snake, I'm trying to sleep." She muttered, resting her increasingly heavy head on his shoulder. Could he really carry her the rest of the way? He was a tall build, and clearly had some strength... but that was a problem for later. For now, she just wanted to sleep.

"How can someone with so elegant a figure weigh so much? Did you fall in love with gravity?" He said and she opened her eyes again. His attempt to lighten her mood was not lost on her.

"You're not so thin yourself, for a snake." She replied, going along with his jibe, when something else occurred to her. Something she needed to ask before she gave in to the beckons of unconsciousness. "Why don't you use your power to help us?"

"Mm?" He sighed.

"I haven't forgotten." She went on, she just had to know. After all, this was all for them, for her planet and their freedom. "I know you're something special. Maybe sent to help us. Maybe it's fate. Tell me what I must do. I want to save my people. What can I do?"

"Well, I'm relying on you to navigate." Said the Minister, hoisting her higher to improve his balance. "I don't know this planet. Please, keep your mind on the path, mm?"

Navigate? No, she'd rather sleep. She knew the Minister would find his way alright.

The Minister trudged on as the hours went by. It was a lot trickier now that he was carrying Sala as well, but it was better than making no progress at all. They had to be nearing the prison camp. Sala had said it was an hour and a half hover-car journey, so approximately two days of walking through the forest. He knew it was north, and he had asked Sala to help him navigate but he'd known she was asleep soon after he'd started carrying her. Her breathing had grown deep and even, and he could feel it just brush his ear as she rested her head on his shoulder. Which was admittedly making it a little more difficult to concentrate on the path. Twice, he had almost tripped over a root and dropped her.

It was a mystery to him, how she was even sleeping as he struggled through all the roots and vines and twisted branches. Sala must truly be exhausted, and he couldn't blame her. She had been through a lot over the past few days.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, he felt her stir and shift on his back, followed by a weak cough. He winced as she tightened her grip around his neck as she regained consciousness. "Snake, stop. Put me down. I'm too weak to go on." He didn't want to put her down, they needed to keep moving but he did as she asked, keeping an arm about her shoulders as she sank to the ground. Too weak to go on, what was she saying? He could carry her; it really wasn't that difficult.

"Listen to me." She continued, looking up at him with pleading eyes as she gripped his arms with unexpected force. "You must leave me here."

"Oh, I can manage. You're not that heavy." Leave her? Absolutely not. How could she think to just throw away her life like this? He would drag her all the way to Luria sooner than leave her. He couldn't bear the thought of leaving her here to die, while the rest of them went on fighting, it just wasn't fair.

"You know you can't. I can't walk." She cast her eyes down, avoiding his gaze. The Minister bitterly hoped she wasn't about to say what he thought she would say. "I have lost too much blood. I didn't show you the injuries on my back."

"What? Why not?" He said, barely keeping the dismay from his voice. He should have asked her sooner. He should not have let her walk for hours in this state. He shouldn't have gotten her into this in the first place. "No, I can carry you."

"Snake, if we free those prisoners from Luria, we will have an army, and a fighting chance." Sala said, her eyes burning with that determined flame once more. "This is more important than my life. It is all I want. Go."

The Minister's heart was sinking lower and lower. How could she even think he would leave her here? The words burned on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't quite say them.

He really shouldn't heal her again. The code forbade it. But the code could go to hell of it meant abandoning Sala.

"Show me your back." He said quietly, catching the hurt that flickered in her gaze at his words. What else had they done to her? Oh gods, if they had...

Sala turned around slowly and began to unclasp her robes at the shoulders and untie what appeared to be her cape wrapped around her abdomen. Had she been cut, beaten, whipped, electrocuted? The possibilities swirled in his mind, and he found himself holding his breath as she let the cape drop from her trembling frame.

The pale skin beneath was inflamed and oozing red. It was incredible that she had come this far with these wounds. She must have been in agony with every step. The Minister unclenched his hands and carefully held them over the tell-tale sharp lines left by a whip. He didn't want to cause her any more pain than necessary.

Focusing on the wounds, he reached into her timestream and reversed it to before her back was injured. Fighting through the vicious currents of time was always difficult, but especially so when one knew that what they were doing was considered a 'waste of their power'. He worked as quickly as he could, but any mistake he made would have disastrous consequences.

The Minister opened his eyes to see the last of the welts seal up, leaving her skin smooth without a trace of her suffering. He looked away, suddenly overcome by the feeling that it was rather improper to be gazing at her exposed back.

The Canisians were going to regret the day the thought of invading Santiny even crossed their minds. It was just as well Sala was facing away from him, so she didn't have to see the darkened expression that stormed his face. What they had done to Sala... The urge to destroy them that he had felt back in the prison camp rose violently to the surface and it terrified him. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold it back.

They rapidly covered ground with Sala once more able to walk herself. The wounds had sealed themselves up with the same strange sensation as her wrist, and it was as if none of the events a few days ago had ever happened. Sala could almost begin to forget what they had done to her, and she was ever so grateful for that.

As the mid-afternoon sun danced through the canopy of leaves above them, it occurred to her that they must be very near to Luria now. She realised with a surge of hope that recognised the valley they were in from flyovers in the hover cars.

"We are not far now." She said excitedly to the Minister.

"Shh." He hushed her to her surprise, grabbing her by the shoulder to bring them to a halt. "I can hear movement, there are others in the valley with us."

Startled, she lowered her voice. "Are you sure it's not just an animal."

"I'm fairly certain." He replied and began creeping in the direction she presumed he had heard the noise.

"Maybe it's Hawk and the others." She wondered and hurried forward. If they had found them, the plan could be set in motion immediately. One less worry for her.

"Wait, Sala!" She heard the Minister call behind her. "It could be Canisians."

But Sala's gut instinct was telling her it was her friends. Fuelled on a sudden burst of energy, she dashed over the roots and under the branches. She almost let out a yelp of joy as the familiar sight of yellow and green robes came into view. At last, they had found the others, and they were all still safe somehow. Despite her exhaustion, the familiar warmth of being surrounded by her people once more buoyed her spirits. Now they really had a chance at kicking the Canisians off their planet once and for all.

"Sala." The one whom the Minister remembered as Hawk called out to her across the small clearing in the trees where the resistance had gathered.

"Hawk. It's Luria." She said, loud and confident, once more the Senator Sala the Minister had first met. "We must attack Luria now."

"The Canisian computer system is down, but it won't take them long to put it right. You must attack now." Added the Minister as he followed Sala over to the copse of trees where Hawk was standing.

"It's true. They have a camp full of resistance sympathisers hidden at Luria." Said Sala, slowing as she approached, her posture deflating slightly. The sprint through the valley had clearly taken something out of her, the Minister noted. Not that she would be the first to admit that.

The Minister watched as Hawk processed their words. Hopefully he would have the good sense to believe them and act quickly. "Everyone, to your units, quickly. Prepare to march for Luria." He called out and the others began shuffling around, packing away equipment and supplies. There was a hundred, maybe two hundred. They definitely needed the prisoners in Luria.

"Sala, you're injured." Said Hawk, turning his attention to her. The Minister narrowed his eyes as Hawk embraced her and cast an accusatory stare at him over her shoulder. "You let them torture her!"

Let them torture her? This man didn't know what he was talking about. After all he and Sala had been through, he had the nerve to accuse him of allowing Sala to come to deliberate harm. It was true, in a way, but that was what riled him most. The Minister drew himself to his full height and was about to give Hawk a piece of his mind when Sala bet him to it.

"No," she said, the soft voice of reason. It was a melody in his ears. "He saved me, Hawk."

A twinge of pride flickered in his heart at her words. Yes, he had gotten her out of the prison complex, but there was a part of Sala which was saving him, drawing him out of the shell he had retreated into for too long.

The relief Sala felt at re-joining the resistance was soon replaced by unease. The more age looked around, the slimmer their chance of defeating the Canisians seemed to become. To say the least, they were a rag-tag bunch of senators and citizens who had just marched for three days through the Santine wilderness. Some were even clutching onto children who had been with them at the time of the invasion. How they had gotten this far with them was a mystery to her, but she would make sure they were nowhere near the prison when the attack began.

The burden of resuming command also weighed heavy. In the event of an invasion, it was agreed between the senior senators and the president that Sala would lead the resistance. Her decisions could mean survival or destruction for her people.

Sala pushed back her nerves and gave the other leaders her orders as they moved out of the temporary camp. It wouldn't do them any good to have a weakened leader. She reminded herself they had something the Canisians didn't. They had the Minister. If she could just convince him to use his power against them, the Canisians would be finished. Why did his stupid code have to make things so complicated?

Somehow in the scramble to get moving she lost track of him, but it was not long before she spotted his tall frame trailing behind a group of Hawk's unit and made her way over to him.

The Minister's eyes brightened at the sight of her and he opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. Again, that internal battle flashed in his eyes. Sala raised an eyebrow in curious anticipation.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that." He began. She found for once she wasn't quite sure what to say so she let him continue. "I fear I was so intent on the job in hand that I failed to take sufficient account of your well-being."

The genuine regret and apology in his voice had her momentarily stunned. But she lifted her chin, fixing him with a hardened gaze. "Don't go soft on me now, Snake. We did it, we made it."

They wouldn't get through this final battle if she didn't portray a strong front. He simply nodded his head once, the corners of his mouth twitching into a gentle smile, clearly grateful she had made no more of a deal out of his apology than that.

"Come. We must re-join my unit." Sala said, beckoning him forward. Surprised by her own boldness, and not entirely sure what came over her, she turned back to him and said: "Take my hand."

The Minister met her gaze with a look she couldn't quite make out, somewhere between warmth and surprise. Reaching out, he took her offered hand and they fell into step as she led him towards her unit near the front of the procession. She wasn't sure why she did it but she was glad she did. It felt like the right thing to do.

Hand in hand they marched towards fate. Sala knew it was ridiculous, but she felt all the stronger for the connection. He had seen her weakest moments, her darkest fears. He had literally carried her through the forest and given them a chance to strike against the Canisians. Hawk may have accused him of letting them hurt her, but it hadn't been his fault really and the torture had been a small price to pay for a chance at freedom.

Sala closed her eyes and for a moment it was just them and their joined hands. She smiled up at the Minister. "Thanks to you, General Tannis won't know what hit him."