Chapter 38
It's been less than an hour, and it's already post apocalyptic. The fact that twenty-six planets appeared in the sky, a bit too much too close to Earth - and none of them is the sun- is indeed scary, but at least the atmosphere seems to be holding.
Londoners, reasonably, have taken the darkness and the planets as a sure sign of the incoming end of the world, so everybody seems to be drunk, shops are being ransacked, everybody is screaming and trash bins are on fire.
Jack replies instantly. "Zoe, my wandering friend. Please tell me you put something in my drink".
"No such luck. Have you heard from the Doctor?"
"Not a word. You got to London all right?".
My phone buzzes with another incoming call, I don't recognize the number. "Yes. On my way to Chiswick".
I don't know how to call Donna's family but I remember where her house is. I don't know how, but in London, without the psychic link, it's the best place to start looking for them. I tried to phone the Doctor, but his phone's not ringing. I tried Donna's number, and that too has no signal. Which is, to me, slightly scarier than the twenty-six planets, because the Tardis should have a signal everywhere in the universe. What if it turned herself off again, like it did on the Snowpiercer? Are my friends stranded again?
"At the middle of the planets system, there's a huge space base, There's spaceships approaching Earth, Zoe. Hold on- Martha is calling, I'll patch her through -Martha Jones, voice of a nightingale. Still in New York?".
"Yeah. You all right? Zoe?".
"I got to London an hour ago. It's a mess. What are you doing in New York?", I ask.
"I've been promoted. Medical director on Project Indigo".
"Did you get that thing working?", Jack asks.
"Indigo's top secret", Martha says. "No one's supposed to know about it".
"I met a soldier in a bar, long story", Jack says.
"When was that?", I hear Ianto ask.
"Strictly professional", Jack cuts him.
"You people with access to scanners and equipment, what's happening with the spaceships?", I ask.
"Fifteen hundred miles, boys, and accelerating. They're almost here", Gwen says.
"Incoming communication from the earthbound ships, they have a message for the human race", says Martha.
"Put it through, I want to hear it".
The message is unmistakeable.
Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate.
Aw, no. Come on! Really? Fuck.
"No", I whisper, and I hear both Jack and Martha saying the same.
Jack, however, sounds more defeated than her.
"There's nothing I can do", I hear him tell Gwen and Ianto. "I'm sorry. We're dead".
"Jack", I call him. "We've fought Daleks before. It's not time to give up yet".
"You're not seeing this, Zoe. It's a full fleet. Honestly, without the Doctor-".
"Geneva declared Ultimate Code Red", Martha says. "UNIT is at war".
I keep walking as they update me. I am not losing hope, not yet. I know we will find the Doctor, or that we will fix this anyway. How, that's another story. But me, Jack, Martha, UNIT, we are prepared. Earth is prepared, even without the Doctor.
But then, when Jack tells me that the Valiant is down, I start to worry. Gwen screams frantically. "Japan is retreating. Manhattan is next!".
"Martha, get out of there", I plead, knowing she won't listen.
"I can't. I have a job to do", she replies sternly.
Jack insists. "But they're targeting military bases! And you're next on the list".
"Doctor Jones, you will come with me. Project Indigo is being activated. Quick march", someone near Martha orders.
"But we can't use Project Indigo. It hasn't been tested, sir. We don't even know if it works", she protests.
I hide behind cars. I listen in silence as Martha insists. Her superior is making it clear that she's the last resource. "You're our only hope of finding the Doctor. But failing that, if no help is coming, then with the power invested in me by the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, I authorise you to take this. The Osterhagen Key".
I don't know what the Osterhagen key is. Nor what project Indigo - Jack didn't actually tell me. But if Martha is reluctant to use it, means it's seriously dangerous.
"I can't take that, sir", she says.
"You know what to do, for the sake of the human race", her commander pleads.
We hear Daleks repeating their Exterminate order, and finally Martha sighs. "Jack, Zoe…bye".
"Don't do it, Martha!", Jack screams into the phone, "Don't!".
Silence. I hide again in a small park. During my time at Torchwood, I did put a signal jammer and a perception filter on my necklace, but who knows if it's enough to hide from the Dalek fleet.
"Jack?", I ask, whispering, afraid I lost the connection not only to Martha, but to Torchwood too. "You still there?".
"Still here, yeah", he replies, sad.
"What's Project Indigo?" I ask.
"Experimental teleport salvaged from the Sontarans. But they haven't got coordinates, or stabilisation".
"So where is she?", Gwen asks.
"Scattered into atoms", Jack replies, dark. "Martha's down".
I take a deep breath, focusing on my psychic energy, trying to focus on Martha and the residual time energy she still has after having travelled in the Tardis, but there's too much of that energy around. All these Daleks, they're all time travelers. And there's a lot of them on this street, they're gathering everyone. Some people are being beamed away, some are just being shot right away. I spot Sylvia, Donna's mum, and Wilf lurking from behind a corner. What the…
"Jack. I'll have to call you back", I tell him, charging my blaster.
"Good hunting, rockstar", he replies, and closes the call.
I'm not even sure if this blaster actually works against Daleks, but still looks better than the equipment Wilf is sporting.
When I get to them, Sylvia is pleading him to go home. "Dad, please, come home. They're leaving our street alone".
"Yeah, I've got a weapon", he replies, patting his blaster, which is…
"It's a paint gun", I say, approaching them.
"Zoe!", Sylvia says, looking around. "Thank you, I've been telling him that for a while now".
"But them Dalek things, they've only got one eye. A good splodge of paint, they'd be blinded", Wilf replies.
"It's not going to work. I have a blaster, and I don't know if this works". I admit.
"So, you're by yourself", Sylvia states, sadly. "She's not with you, Donna".
"I'm sure she's with the Doctor, they're probably trying to come home-". I tell Wilf, more than her, because I don't know how much she knows.
"They're monsters", Wilf says, watching as an entire family gets killed by Dalek rays as they try to return to their house.
"Please, Dad, come home. Zoe, come with us, don't stay here".
As we turn the corner, a lone Dalek stops us, and just my luck, my blaster lock is jammed.
"Halt. You will come with me", the Dalek says.
"Will I heck", Wilf replies, firing a splodge of yellow paint onto the Dalek's eyestalk. I tamper with the blaster trying to unlock it, while the paint boils off instantly.
"My vision is not impaired", the Dalek says. For a moment, I did desperately hope it would work.
"I warned you, Dad", Sylvia says, scared.
"Hostility will not be tolerated. Exterminate, Exterminate. Exter-" my blaster finally charges, and I fire. The Dalek's head, or top, explodes.
"Wanna swap?", Wilf asks me.
"Actually, I don't think that was me", I say, warily, as the smoke from the Dalek's head blows away, and at the other side of the street, looking at us with a giant Mad Max rifle in her arms, I spot her.
"Zoe?", she says, confused, struggling to recognize me. "And you're Donna Noble's family right? I'm Rose Tyler, and I need you".