"Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.
But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game."
- Guns N Roses: 'Sympathy for the Devil' (Sympathy for the Devil (Single) [1994])
~*~*~
Drilling area
Both Katy and Rose watched with abject horror as the Ood, as one, continued advancing upon not only them, but also Jefferson and his crewmen, who were attempting to hold them at bay with their guns pointed threateningly at them.
"Open fire!" Jefferson gave the order, and then he and the other security personnel start shooting at the possessed Ood. The planet suddenly stops shaking, and the overhead shutters slowly start sliding across, hiding the view of the Black Hole from them.
"We're stabilising. We've got orbit." Zach announces with relief. Immediately, both sisters run for the microphone connecting them to the Doctor.
"Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?" Rose shouted desperately, exchanging a worried look with Katy when neither he nor Ida responded. "Doctor, Ida, are you there?!"
'Open door 25'.
The attack from the possessed Oods wasn't over yet, prompting Jefferson and his crew to aim at the door, prepared to open fire at the intruder coming through. They relaxed a little when Danny suddenly comes through the door, looking terrified.
"It's me!" He reassures. "But they're coming."
"Wonderful, that's all we need!" Katy groaned, warily.
'Close door 25'.
"It's the Ood. They've gone mad!" Danny revealed, and Jefferson focuses on him, the adrenaline of the last attack still pumping through his veins.
"How many of them?" He demands.
"All of them! All fifty!" Danny confirms. Jefferson attempts to shove past Danny to take care of the threat personally.
"Danny, out of the way. Out of the way!"
"But they're armed!" Danny stated. "It's the interface device. I don't know how, but they're using it as a weapon."
'Open door 25'.
Jefferson opens the door, followed by one of his crew members, only to jump back in horror when they see a bunch of Oods standing in wait behind the door. The lead Ood thrusts its globe onto the guard's forehead, electrocuting her to death. The poor frightened woman screams before dying. Jefferson immediately starts shooting to kill.
~*~*~
Control Room
'Close door 1'.
Zach looks up from the computer monitor and sees red-eyed Ood walking towards him, threateningly holding up their globes to electrocute him dead like the poor female guard.
'Open door 1.' 'Close door 1.'
"Lockdown. Seal door 1!" Zach orders.
'Lockdown. Door 1.'
"Seal door 24. Seal door 23." Zach overhears Jefferson over the comm line.
"Jefferson, what's happening there?"
~*~*~
Drilling area
Jefferson was bravely trying to defend both himself and everyone else, as the possessed Ood continued advancing upon them. He briefly checks his magazine before reporting back.
"I've got very little ammunition, sir. How about you?" He announces very hurriedly. Zach looks around for weaponry and sees only a bolt gun.
He groans in frustration.
"All I've got is a bolt gun. With, er, all of one bolt. I could take out a grand total of one Ood." Zach scoffs derisively. "Fat lot of good that is..."
"Given the emergency, I recommend strategy nine." Jefferson suggests, and Katy looks sharply at him, not liking the sound of that.
"What the hell's strategy nine?" She demanded. Both men ignore her question, which only increased her suspicions and anger. "Hey, I asked you a question!"
"Strategy nine. Agreed. Right, we need to get everyone together. Rose? Katy? What about Ida and the..." Zach trails off when he realises that they had been forgetting something. "The Doctor? Any word?" He asks urgently, and Katy scoffs with disgust.
"Oh, now you wanna listen!?" She spits, then sighs when Rose throws her a look. "We can't get any reply. Nothing." Katy explains.
"I keep trying, but it's-" Rose is immediately cut off by static.
"No, sorry, I'm fine. Still here!" The Doctor reports in, and both sisters glare at the microphone in Rose's hands.
"Oh, I'm gonna kill him..." Katy muttered, both in relief and annoyance.
"You could've said, you stupid f-" Feedback cuts off Rose's insult.
~*~*~
Point Zero
"Whoa. Careful!" The Doctor retorts back to Rose.
"This is just anxiety talking here, Doctor. But sometimes I really hate you!" Katy confesses, and the Doctor grins warmly.
"No, you don't." He disagreed, knowing what she was saying was out of fear. "Anyway, it's both of us. Me and Ida. Hello." He confirms brightly, then becomes serious once again. "But the seals opened up. It's gone. All we've got left is this chasm." The Doctor reports back.
"How deep is it?" asks Zach.
"Can't tell. It looks like it goes down forever," the Doctor describes with a slightly disturbed tone of voice.
"The pit is open," Rose stated. "That's what the voice said." She insisted.
"But there's nothing. I mean, there's nothing coming out?" Zach asked, dumbfounded.
"No, no. No sign of the Beast." The Doctor reassures them all.
"It said Satan..." Rose pointed out, sounding vulnerable. But the Doctor scoffs at the idea, and quickly sets the blonde straight.
"Come on, Rose. Keep it together."
"Is there no such thing? Doctor," Rose was insistent, and not about to be mollycoddled. "Doctor, tell me there's no such thing." But he doesn't respond, much to Katy's chagrin.
"Your silence is damning, Doctor..." Katy pointed out, just as uneasy as Rose, but deciding to keep her personal feelings on the matter to herself. There was several seconds of uncertainty before Zach suddenly chimed in again.
"Ida? I recommend that you withdraw." He orders. "Immediately."
"But we've come all this way!" Ida protested, dismayed.
Zach let out a stressed-out sigh, obviously due to a lack of sleep. But he pushed through the irritation and reiterated himself.
"Okay. That was an order. Withdraw." He insisted, firmly. "When that thing opened, the whole planet's shifted." Both Katy and Rose's eyes widened in shock; they had literally been inches away from death. "One more inch and we fall into the black hole. So, this thing stops right now!"
"But it's not much better up there with the Ood," Ida stubbornly points out.
"I'm initiating strategy nine, so I need the two of you back up top immediately. No ar-" Ida turns off the comms.
She turns to the Doctor, looking indecisive.
"What do you think?" She questions him.
"He gave an order," the Doctor stated, looking grave.
"Yeah, but what do you think?" Ida insisted. The Doctor hesitated, he was just as worried as the sisters about the idea of the Devil being real and quite literally beneath their feet in that pit that had just opened up, threatening to shift the planet directly into the path of a black hole.
"It said, "I am the temptation."" He responded.
"Well, if there's something in there, why is it still hiding?" Ida reasoned, and the Doctor frowned thoughtfully.
"Maybe we opened the prison but not the cell?"
"We should go down," Ida decided, defying Zach's orders. "I'd go. What about you?"
"Oh. Oh, in a second," the Doctor cracked an almost smile. The idea to go down and investigate what was hidden in that chasm was tempting beyond belief; but he also had a promise to keep to both his companions. "But then again, that is so human. Where angels fear to tread." He walks over and peers carefully down into the gaping chasm, frowning. "Even now, standing on the edge. It's that feeling you get, eh? Right at the back of your head. That impulse. That strange little impulse. That mad little voice saying, go on. Go on. Go on. Go over. Go on. Maybe it's relying on that."
Ida watches him, having doubts about going down into the chasm now. The Doctor puts on a resolve face and makes a decision.
"For once in my life, Officer Scott, I'm going to say retreat." Then he scoffs to himself. "Oh, now I know I'm getting old." He switches back on the comm to address his two companions. "Katy? Rose? We're coming back!"
~*~*~
Drilling area
Both girls sag with relief when they hear those anticipated words from the Doctor.
"Best news I've heard all day," Rose responded.
"We'll see you soon!" Katy added, already planning on cussing out her boyfriend when he got back up to the top for not responding straight away and leaving her and her sister wondering if they had lost him permanently, and then bear-hugging him within an inch of his life and never letting go again.
She suddenly hears Jefferson cocking his gun and turns to look at him questioningly. He was pointing his rifle at Toby, who was only just regaining consciousness from earlier when he had been possessed by the Beast.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"He's infected," Jefferson reminded her and Rose. "He brought that thing on board. You saw it."
"Oh, I see. And the first thing that came to mind was to shoot first and ask questions later?" Katy was appalled.
"You going to start shooting your own people now. Is that what you're going to do?" Rose was in agreement with her sister.
Jefferson didn't blink an eyelid.
"If necessary."
Both Katy and Rose go over and stand in front of Toby, glaring angrily at Jefferson. Since travelling with the Doctor and learning about his ethics, they both had developed a very healthy respect for guns but had no love for those who believed violence was the answer for their problems.
"Well then, you'll have to shoot both of us, if necessary," Rose pointed out. "So, what's it gonna be?"
"Look at his face," Katy stated, willing to defend Toby, despite something strongly nagging at her that something still wasn't quite right about the man. "Whatever it was, it's gone. It passed into the Ood. We both saw it happen. He's clean."
Jefferson hesitated. But eventually lowers his gun and disengages it.
"Any sign of trouble, I'll shoot him." He warns the sisters, before turning and going about his job. Rose turns and squats beside Toby, who had gone pale when he realised what his colleague's intentions had been.
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah. I don't know," Toby admitted. Katy stands with her arms crossed casually over her chest, looking down at him cautiously.
"Can you remember anything?"
"Just, it was so angry." Toby admitted, shaking like a leaf. "It was fury and rage and death. It was him. It was the devil." Both sisters look at each other, still a bit freaked out themselves at the possibility too.
Rose reaches out and helps Toby to his feet.
"Come on," She comforts him, and wraps the terrified Toby into a hug.
~*~*~
Point Zero
The Doctor and Ida reluctantly return to the capsule to go back up to the surface. But there was something nagging at the Doctor about what Zach mentioned about 'strategy nine' and he decided to confront Ida about it.
"What's strategy nine?"
"Open the airlocks. We'll be safe inside the lock down," Ida explained and the Doctor looked horrified. "The Ood will get thrown out into the vacuum."
"So, we're going back to a slaughter?" the Doctor was appalled. Ida winced at the expression on his face.
"The devil's work." They climb into the capsule, and Ida alerts Jefferson so he could bring them back up. "Okay, we're in. Bring us up."
"Ascension in three, two, one."
And the power suddenly goes out.
~*~*~
Drilling area
Everyone looks about in confusion.
Then suddenly:
"This is the darkness. This is my domain." The computer monitor in front of Katy and Rose flickered with images of the Ood. "You little things that live in the light, clinging to your feeble suns which die in the-"
"That's not the Ood," Zach states. "Something's talking through them."
"Only the darkness remains." The demonic voice taunts them.
Having reached the limit of his patience, Zach decides to confront the voice.
"This is Captain Zachary Cross Flane of Sanctuary Base Six, representing the Torchwood archive." Both Katy and Rose pause at this and exchange surprised glances with each other. This was the second time they had heard of Torchwood since they and the Doctor had first encountered Queen Victoria back in 1879; and the estate they had been chased around in by a werewolf. "You will identify yourself!"
"You know my name."
"What do you want?" Zach demanded.
"You will die here. All of you. This planet is your grave." The voice promises, sinisterly.
"It's him. It's him. It's him." Toby panics from where he was sitting by himself at a nearby table.
~*~*~
Capsule
The Doctor steps up to get an explanation of his own from the Beast, mostly to satisfy his own curiosity about this entity.
"If you are the Beast, then answer me this. Which one, hmm? 'Cos the universe has been busy since you've been gone. There are more religions than there are planets in the sky. The Archiphets, Orkology, Christianity, Pash Pash, New Judaism, San Klah, Church of the Tin Vagabond. Which devil are you?" He requests in a hard, no-nonsense tone.
"All of them."
"What, then you're the truth behind the myth?" the Doctor scoffs in disbelief.
The voice chuckles darkly.
"This one knows me as I know him. The killer of his own kind."
On the surface, Katy's eyes widen in alarm, having read about the Time War in the book the Tardis had loaned her and from her own 'Time Lady' memories exactly what this Beast was talking about, and silently begged for it to stop talking.
While Rose just looks confused about what the Beast means. The Doctor immediately went from curiosity and a relaxed banter to a cold and assertive persona.
"How did you end up on this rock?" He was all business.
"The Disciples of the Light rose up against me and chained me in the pit for all eternity." The voice responded, darkly.
"When was this?" The Doctor asked.
"Before time."
"What does that mean?" The Doctor frowned in confusion.
"Before time."
"What does before time mean?" The Doctor elaborated, impatiently.
"Before light and time and space and matter. Before the cataclysm. Before this universe was created." The voice explained, and the Doctor's eyes widened, stunned by this information.
"But that's impossible. No life could have existed back then." He argued.
"Is that your religion?" The voice challenged him, and the Doctor's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"It's a belief." The Doctor acknowledged, firmly.
~*~*~
Drilling area
The Voice of the Beast let out a mocking snort.
"You know nothing," It sneered. "The Captain, so scared of command..." Zach looked away out of shame. "The soldier, haunted by the eyes of his wife..." Jefferson paled, avoiding eye contact with anyone who looked at him. "The scientist, still running from Daddy..." Ida swallowed hard and got teary eyed. "The little boy who lied..." Danny looked embarrassed. "The virgin..." Toby frowned and looked defensive. "And the lost girl, so far away from home; the valiant child who will die in battle so very soon-"
"Alright, you've made your point." Katy interrupted.
She was so very angry and had immediately pulled her sister into her arms protectively when Rose paled badly and started shaking in fear. They might have been on the outs, but the love and sense of family they shared between them was still strong.
The voice chuckled evilly, unfazed by Katy's fury.
"Ah, and the enigma. We can't forget you now, can we? The one with a mysterious past and an even more mysterious future." The voice paused for a moment, as though ruminating on his train of thought before it spoke again, while Katy stiffened; realising that this entity was dangerously close to revealing her true nature. "Hmm, it seems I was mistaken Doctor, wasn't I?"
"Doctor, what does that mean?" Rose questioned, looking suspiciously at Katy who avoided eye contact with her sister and was glaring at the floor.
"Rose, don't listen." The Doctor reassured her; but privately he was panicking too. Now Rose was going to be even more suspicious of them.
"What does it mean?" Rose was stubbornly insistent.
"You will die, and I will live."
The voice concluded before the image of the Ood is replaced by an image of a roaring horned beast. Rose steps away from Katy, frowning at her, earning a slightly hurt look from her sister.
Then the hysterical chatter began:
"What the hell was that?" Danny demanded, freaking out.
"I had that thing inside my head!" Toby yelled.
"Doctor, what did it mean?" Rose demanded an answer from the Doctor, while Katy removed herself from the group, hugging herself for comfort.
"What do we do? Jefferson?" Danny asked the man in question, who was yet to say anything, still stunned himself by what he had just heard. He cleared his throat.
"Captain? What's the situation on strategy nine?" Jefferson asked, over the raising voices of his hysterical colleagues and Rose.
"Zach, what do we do?" Danny added.
"The planet, the orbit, the black hole. Everything's true." Toby babbled tearfully.
"Captain, report!" Jefferson yelled into his wrist-comm.
"We've lost pictures, Mister Jefferson." Zach retorted to Jefferson.
Katy shut her eyes, wishing that everyone would shut up, as they were starting to give her a headache with their incessant questions. As she usually did when she was thinking or feeling overwhelmed, Katy reached up and started fiddling with her locket.
"Doctor, how did it know all of that?" Rose persisted with her question to the Doctor, not taking the hint that if he hadn't responded the first time, he wasn't likely to.
"Did anyone get an analysis?" Ida jumped into the conversation.
"Stop..." the Doctor called out, trying to calm the situation so he could explain everything to them.
"What did it mean?" Rose asked again.
"Everyone just stop!" The Doctor tried again, but he was ignored.
"What do we do?" Danny wondered.
"Report!" Jefferson requested.
Then he and the others cringed in on themselves when the Doctor sends feedback through the comms to shut everyone up. Suddenly, there was blissful silence.
"You want voices in the dark, then listen to mine." The Doctor requested calmly. "That thing is playing on very basic fears. Darkness, childhood nightmares, all that stuff."
"But that's how the devil works!" Danny stated.
"Or a good psychologist." The Doctor pointed out.
"Yeah, but how did it know about my father?" Ida asked worriedly. The Doctor let out a long-suffering sigh; he really was getting too old for all this shit.
"Okay, but what makes his version of the truth any better than mine, hmm? 'Cos I'll tell you what I can see. Humans." The Doctor revealed, proudly. "Brilliant humans. Humans who travel all the way across space, flying in a tiny little rocket. Right into the orbit of a Black hole, just for the sake of discovery. That's amazing! Do you hear me? Amazing, all of you. The Captain, his Officer, his elders, his juniors, his friends. All with one advantage: the Beast is alone. We are not. If we can use that to fight against him-"
~*~*~
Capsule
The cable holding up the capsule suddenly sheers and falls into the shaft. Everyone turns and looks at the shaft with horror; it was the only way that the Doctor and Ida could get out of there safely.
"The cable's snapped!" Ida shouts.
"Get out!" the Doctor yells as he and Ida get out of the capsule and throw themselves to the ground as the steel cable arrives and crashes to the ground beside the now useless capsule.
~*~*~
Drilling area
The Tyler sisters run for the microphone, grabbing for it, but Rose gets it first; snatching it out from Katy's grasp as she shouts down it desperately.
"Doctor, we lost the cable! Doctor, are you all right? Doctor!"
"Comms are down," Zach revealed.
"Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?" Rose was getting increasingly panicky.
"I've still got life signs, but we've lost the capsule!" Zach was frantically trying to put the comms back online. Katy was trying to calm down Rose, who was resisting her in her worry.
"Say something! Are you there?!"
"There's no way out. They're stuck down there." Zach realised and sat down heavily in his chair, defeated.
~*~*~
Point Zero
The capsule is wrecked.
No other rescue is possible, and the Doctor was in full panic mode.
"How much air have we got?" He asked Ida, who checks the gage. The results were not promising.
"Sixty minutes. Fifty-five."
~*~*~
Drilling Area
The crew were preparing to abandon the base ... without the Doctor or Ida. Neither Katy nor Rose could accept this, and they made their feelings about this decision known.
"You can't just give up!" Katy thundered.
"We've got to bring them back," Rose agreed.
But none of the remaining crew were budging.
"They're ten miles down. We haven't got another ten miles of cable." Jefferson explained, causing Katy to shake her head at their idiocy.
"So, when you planned this whole expedition; it never occurred to any of you to have backups with everything: back up weapons, back up tools, back up cable?" Katy stated, bitterly.
She knew she was being rude, but she couldn't help it. The man that she loved was trapped down in a massive pit, with a limited air supply, with no other alternative way out. She doubted anyone else would be just as civil if they had been caught in a situation like this either.
Something started banging at the door, making everyone jump and cast nervous glances at it.
"Captain? Situation report." Jefferson requested.
"It's the Ood. They're cutting through the door bolts. They're breaking in," Zach confirmed.
"Yeah, it's the same here on door 25." Jefferson stated.
"How long's it going to take?" Rose asked, worriedly.
"Well, it's only a basic frame, it should take ten minutes." Jefferson predicted, and heads jerk towards the door when another bolt is cut from it. "Eight," Jefferson corrected himself.
"I've got a security frame. It might last a bit longer, but that doesn't help you." Zach stated, somewhat apologetically.
Both Katy and Rose exchanged looks with each other before nodding. It was time for some good old-fashioned teamwork to help get them out of their current predicament.
"Right. So we need to stop them, or get out, or both." Rose summed it up.
"I'll take both, yeah?" Danny agreed. "But how?"
"You heard the Doctor," Katy reminded him. "Why do you think that thing cut him off? 'Cos he was making sense. He was telling you to think your way out of this." When nobody seemed to cotton on to what the sisters were saying, Katy attempted to jog their memories. "Come on! For starters, we need some lights. There's got to be some power somewhere."
"There's nothing I can do," Zach pointed out, sounding helpless. "Some Captain, stuck in here, pressing buttons."
"Exactly!" Katy exclaimed.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Zach questioned.
"That's what the Doctor meant. Press the right buttons." Rose explained. There was silence for a moment as Zach sorted through the resources he had available to him in the Control Room.
"Well, they've gutted the generators. But the rocket's got an independent supply. If I could reroute that... Mister Jefferson? Open the bypass conduits. Override the safety!" Zach instructed.
"Opening bypass conduits, sir." Jefferson confirmed. Zach then started flicking switches and pushing buttons.
"Channeling rocket feed in three, two, one. Power!" The lights suddenly come on, much to the sister's relief.
"Yes!" Katy cheered in relief.
"There we go." Rose grinned happily.
"Let there be light!" Danny grinned, also relieved. But then Rose frowned as something else occurred to her.
"What about that 'strategy nine' thing?" She asked, curiously.
But Jefferson shook his head.
"Not enough power. It needs a hundred percent," He explained, looking frustrated. Katy nodded, quickly wracking her brains to figure out another solution.
Or: 'What would the Doctor do?'
"Okay then, plan B. We need to find another way out. Zach, Mister Jefferson, you start working on that." Katy instructed, falling into what she termed as 'the Doctor mode'. Rose turns towards Toby, looking at him hopefully.
"Toby, what about you?" She asked, and he looked at the blonde despairingly.
"What about me? I'm not a soldier, I can't do anything."
"No, you're the archaeologist. What do you know about the pit?" Rose stubbornly continued pressing him for the answers she knew he knew.
"Well, nothing. We can't even translate the language." Toby explained, causing Rose and Katy to sag in disappointment.
"Right..." Rose muttered.
"No, hold on. Maybe..." Toby trailed off, but it looked like he had a momentary brainwave and was on to something.
"What is it?" Katy questioned, looking encouraged. Toby gradually brightened, realising something good and in their favour.
"Since that thing was inside my head, it's like the letters made more sense." He explained, and immediately the hopeful and relieved expression on Katy's face dropped.
Being able to suddenly translate a dead language after having a so-called Devil roaming around in there, was definitely not a good thing. If anything, it meant that Toby was even more of a danger than originally believed. Jefferson's instincts were spot on. However, it seemed that Rose failed to catch on herself, which worried Katy.
"Well, get to work. Anything you can translate, just anything!" She instructed before turning to Danny, who was idling nearby; listening to their strategizing. "As for you, Danny-boy. You're in charge of the Ood. Anyway of stopping them?" Rose questioned him, now enthusiastic because they were going to get out of here in one piece.
"Well, I don't know." Danny replied, flustered.
"Then find out," Katy jumped in; brushing aside her insecurities to focus on their escape plan. "The sooner we get control of the Base, the sooner we can get the Doctor and Ida out." She stated. "Let's go, go, go!"
~*~*~
Point Zero
Stranded, the Doctor and Ida decided to make the most out of their unfortunate situation. They gathered up the heavy cable. Ida scrutinises it and the open chasm, eagerly.
"Well, we've got all this cable, we might as well use it." Ida stated, optimistically. "The drum's disconnected, but we could adapt it and feed it through."
"And then what?" The Doctor frowned, not completely understanding Ida's plan.
"Abseil into the pit," Ida indicated to the chasm, and the Doctor walked over and looked down into it.
"Abseil. Right." He replied, doubtfully.
As though sensing his insecurities about abseiling down into a seemingly bottomless pit, Ida attempted to appeal to him.
"Well, we're running out of air with no way back. It's the only thing we can do. Even if it's the last thing we ever achieve." Ida pointed out.
But the Doctor shook his head firmly, still determined to get back up to where Katy and Rose were.
Especially Katy.
"I'll get back. Katy and Rose are up there."
"Well, maybe the key to that is finding out what's in the pit," Ida persisted. The Doctor shrugged, knowing he technically had nothing left to lose at least attempting to see what was down there.
"Well, it's half a good plan."
"What's the other half?" Ida questioned.
He looks at her, firmly and sternly.
"I go down, not you."
~*~*~
Drilling area
After Katy and Rose's morale boost to reassure them that not everything was hopeless and they could still get out of this alive, Jefferson immediately took charge of the escape plan and started giving out orders to everyone.
"Open junctions five, six, seven. Reroute filters sixteen to twenty-four. Go!"
"There's all sorts of viruses that could stop the Ood," Danny explained. "Trouble is, we haven't got them on board." He begins typing and searching for other alternatives as Rose scoffs unhelpfully.
"Well, that's handy, listing all the things we haven't got. We haven't got a swimming pool either, or a Tesco's." Katy rolls her eyes at Rose's whining when the computer suddenly makes a positive beep and flashes the word 'affirmative' across the screen.
Danny was shocked.
"Oh, my God. It says yes. I can do it!" He said, and both sisters crowd around the monitor, curiously.
"How? What can you do?" Katy asked.
"Well, hypothetically, if you flip the monitor, broadcast a flare, it can disrupt the telepathy. Brainstorm!" Danny explains.
"What happens to the Ood?" Rose asks.
"It'll tank them. Spark out." Danny replies, excitedly. Both sisters grin.
"There we are, then. Do it!" Rose encourages him, but Danny hesitates.
"No, I'd have to transmit from the central monitor. We need to go to Ood Habitation."
"Okay, minor setback." Katy acknowledged. He looks panicked, thinking that they're back to square one, but both Katy and Rose reassure him. "But that's what we'll have to do, then." Katy tells him, with an optimistic smile on her face.
"Mister Jefferson, sir. Any way out?" Rose asks him.
He nodded.
"Just about. There's a network of maintenance tunnels running underneath the base. We should be able to gain access from here."
"Ventilation shafts?" Rose confirmed, and Jefferson smirked.
"Yeah, I appreciate the reference, but there's no ventilation. No air, in fact, at all. They were designed for machines, not life forms." He explained.
"But I can manipulate the oxygen field from here. Create discrete pockets of atmosphere. If I control it manually, I can follow you through the network." Zach piped up from the Control Room.
"Right, so we go down, and you make the air follow us by hand," Katy clarified.
"You wanted me pressing buttons."
"Yeah, I asked for it." Katy confirmed. "Okay, we need to get to Ood Habitation. Let's work out a safe route."
~*~*~
Point Zero
Ten miles of cable is wrapped around a drum, with one end tied around the Doctor's waist with some assistance from Ida, who backs away from him after securing the cable to him safely.
"That should hold it," She tells him. "How's it going?"
"Fine," the Doctor replies, a touch nervous now that it was him about to literally take the plunge into unknown territory. "Doesn't feel like such a good idea now." He admits as he steps up onto the rim of the trapdoor. "Hmm, there it is again. That itch. Go down, go down, go down, go down..."
"The urge to jump," Ida realises. "Do you know where it comes from, that sensation? Genetic heritage. Ever since we were primates in the trees. It's our body's way of testing us. Calculating whether or not we can reach the next branch." She theorises, but the Doctor shakes his head.
"No, that's not it. That's too kind," He disagrees. "It's not the urge to jump. It's deeper than that. It's the urge to fall!"
And he launches himself into the chasm, horrifying Ida.
"Doctor!" She throws the brake on the drum before leaning over to see the Doctor. "Are you okay?"
"Not bad, thanks," the Doctor reassured. "The wall of the pit seems to be the same as the cavern, just not much of it." He reports back. "There's a crust about twenty feet down and then nothing. Just the pit." The Doctor draws in a shaky breath, psyching himself up for the rest of the descent down. "Okay, then. Lower me down."
"Well, here we go then." Ida acknowledged, very reluctantly.
~*~*~
Drilling area
Back at the surface, the Ood have almost made their way through the door. But the others, including the sisters have managed to pull up a piece of the deck plating, revealing the maintenance tunnel Jefferson had mentioned earlier. Everyone, except for Danny, who was still working at the computer, were gathered around the hole in the floor.
"Danny!" Rose yells back at him, frantically gesturing for him to come over.
"Hold on! Just conforming." He retorts.
"Dan, we got to go now! Come on!" Jefferson insists, just as Danny finally finds what he was looking for.
"Yeah!" He yells triumphantly, before grabbing an orange computer chip from the machine and runs over to join the others. He holds up the computer chip for everyone to see. "Put that into the monitor and it's a bad time to be an Ood."
"As soon as we've dealt with this Ood crisis, we're coming back here. Do you understand? We're coming back to this room and we're going to get the Doctor and your friend out." Katy stated, and the others nodded in acknowledgement before Jefferson took over to direct traffic.
"Okay. Danny, you go first, then you Rose, then Katy, then Toby." He instructs. "I'll go last in defensive position. Now, come on, quick as you can!"
~*~*~
Maintenance tunnel
One by one, they quickly jump into the maintenance tunnel. It's a tight fit, and they have to crawl to get through. Rose sniffs and wrinkles her nose.
"God, it stinks. You alright?" She smirks, looking at Danny in front of her, playfully. He grimaces in annoyance.
"Yeah, I'm laughing. Which way do we go?" Danny calls out to Zach.
"Just go straight ahead. Keep going till I say so." Jefferson shuts the entrance behind them as the Ood finally break through door 25.
The group start crawling.
"Not your best angle, Danny." Rose teases Danny, who looks back and scowls at her.
"Oi, stop it." He chides her, and Katy swots her on Danny's behalf. Unknown to her, Toby has a nice view of Katy's bum and decides to join in on the banter.
"Oh, I don't know, it could be worse..." He mumbles appreciatively, and Katy freezes before glaring over her shoulder at Toby, whose lecherous grin fades at the look she is giving him.
"Knock it off, or the next thing to come out of your mouth will be your teeth." She warns Toby, who nods.
"Come on now, a little more decorum would be appreciated. Just focus on the task at hand!" Jefferson growls at the both of them.
"Straight on until you find junction seven point one," Zach instructs. The group continues crawling. "Keep breathing. I'm feeding you air. I've got you." The five of them eventually make it to their next point.
"We're at seven point one, sir." Danny tells Zach.
"Okay, I've got you. I'm just aerating the next section." However, it takes a bit longer than first thought to do this, and some of them start feeling a little claustrophobic.
Danny in particular.
"Getting kind of cramped, sir. Can't you hurry up?" He urged, trying to stay calm.
"I'm working on half-power, here..." Zach retorts back, flatly.
Katy attempts to calm him down.
"Danny, just try not to focus on it. Try closing your eyes and taking in slow deep breaths." Danny attempts to do so. "That's it, nice and slow." Katy instructs in a soothing voice.
However, it doesn't appear to be working.
"I'm sorry, I just can't do it. Can you hurry it up!" Danny complains.
"Stop complaining!" Jefferson snaps.
"Mister Jefferson says stop complaining," Rose relays.
"I heard," Danny retorts.
"He heard," Rose reports back.
"I think we all heard him, guys..." Katy sighed, shaking her head in exasperation. "Can we just calm down now?"
"But the air's getting a bit thin." Toby whines, and Katy felt like facepalming. But unfortunately, couldn't because of the close confines of the tunnel they were all huddled in.
"Now he's complaining." Rose stated.
"I heard," Jefferson responded, sounding like his patience was fraying a bit. The air starts shifting in the tunnel, and Rose suddenly flinches when she sniffs again.
"Danny, is that you?" She questioned him, and the poor man flushes red in embarrassment.
"I'm not exactly happy!" He says defensively.
"I'm just moving the air," Zach tells them. "I've got to oxygenate the next section. Now, keep calm or it's going to feel worse." He advises them all.
A loud bang coming from behind Jefferson causes everyone to jump.
"What was that?" Danny panicked.
"Mister Jefferson, what was that?" Katy questioned the older man. Jefferson turns to investigate. There were sounds of something crawling closer and closer to their location.
"What's that noise?" Toby repeats Katy's question.
"Captain, what was that?" Jefferson asks Zach. In the Control Room, Zach analyses their current position and spots an opening in the nearby Habitation five. He cusses underneath his breath.
"The junction in Habitation Five's been opened. It must be the Ood." Zach reports back.
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me," Katy groans in irritation.
"They're in the tunnels!" Zach sounded frantic.
"Well, then open the gate!" Danny repeated his request.
"I've got to get the air in!" Zach insisted.
"Just open it, sir!" The sounds of the thudding and crawling came closer, and the adrenaline started to climb.
"Where are they? Are they close?" Rose asked, worriedly.
"I don't know. I can't tell. I can't see them," Zach explained. "The computer doesn't register Ood as proper life forms."
"And whose idea was that?" Rose exclaimed in disgust. Danny starts hammering on the closed gate.
"Open the gate!" And finally, the gate slides up, allowing them access to the other side.
They hurry through.
"Danny, turn left. Immediate left!" Zach orders, urgently.
"The Ood, sir. Can't you trap them? Cut off the air?" Jefferson asks as he clears the gate and hurries as fast as he can behind the others, while holding out his gun, ready to take down any Ood that may be coming up behind them to surprise them.
"Not without cutting off yours," Zach responded in the negative. Katy groaned, both out of tiredness and because she was getting sick of all the bickering.
"I wish the Doctor was here..." She muttered.
"Tell me about it," Rose echoed her sentiments.
"Danny, turn right. Go right and go fast, Dan! They're going to catch up." Zach warned them.
"I'll maintain defensive position," Jefferson finally decided to take a stand to allow the others the opportunity to get away faster.
"You can't stop!" Rose protests, and Jefferson throws the blonde a stern look.
"Miss Tyler, that's my job. You've got your task, now see to it!" He orders, and Toby immediately starts pushing both sisters down the tunnel.
"You heard what he said, now shift!" He said, as Jefferson braces himself on the sides of the tunnel and starts firing as a group of Ood suddenly come around the corner. The group, minus Jefferson, suddenly come up to the next gate.
"Eight point two. Open eight point two. Zach!" Danny shouts frantically. "Open eight point two!"
"I've got to aerate it!" Zach reminds him, impatiently.
"Open it now!"
"I'm trying!" Zach states, as Danny starts thumping on the gate. Katy reaches round Rose to grab the anxious man's arm.
"Danny, stop! This is not helping the situation!" She tells him, sternly.
"Zach, get it open!" Toby started chiming in, and both Katy and Rose glare at him.
"You are not helping! Shut it!" Katy growls, earning a defiant glare back from Toby.
"Jefferson, I've got to open eight point two by closing eight point one. You've got to get past the junction. Now move! That's an order, now move!" Zach urges the older man. By this time Jefferson had had to resort his pistol, and he suddenly realises to his horror that he is completely out of ammunition. "I'm going to lose oxygen, Jefferson, I can't stop for your dramatics!" Jefferson immediately retreats and goes to follow the group.
The gate finally opens.
"That's it! Come on!" Danny shouts triumphantly and starts crawling through fast, followed by everyone else.
"Danny, turn left and head for nine point two. That's the last one." Zach tells him, sounding relieved ... but only for a few seconds when he realises that Jefferson was falling behind badly. "Jefferson, you've got to move faster. John, move!"
Both sisters pause and turn back out of worry for the older man.
"Mister Jefferson!" Rose calls out, but Toby immediately shoves them both forward.
"Keep going!"
"Stop shoving!" Katy bites back, and then they all hear the sound they had all been dreading: Gate 8.1 had closed right in front of Jefferson. "Oh, no, no, no!" Katy despaired.
A heavy silence descends when they all realised exactly what had happened.
Then:
"Regret to inform, sir. I was a bit slow. Not so fast, these days." A weary Jefferson reveals.
"I can't open eight point one, John. Not without losing air for the others," Zach reveals remorsefully.
"And quite right too, sir. I think I bought them a little time," Jefferson stated, resigned but brave, knowing exactly what he was in for, and not regretting it for one moment.
Further along the tunnel, the others are listening in on the conversation. Danny hangs his head in anguish, while both sisters well up with tears. The only one seemingly unaffected by this revelation was Toby, who had a blank expression on his face.
"There's nothing I can do, John." Zach tells the older man. "I'm sorry..." Jefferson lets out a chuckle.
"You've done enough, sir. Made a very good captain under the circumstances. May I ask, if you can't add oxygen to this section, can you speed up the process of its removal?" Jefferson requests, causing everyone to freeze and look at the way they came from with horror.
"I don't understand. What do you mean?" Zach questioned.
"Well, if I might choose the manner of my departure, sir, lack of air seems more natural than, well, let's say death by Ood. I'd appreciate it, sir!" Jefferson requests just as the Ood that had been pursuing them suddenly arrive.
Zach hangs his head, extremely reluctant to do what he needed to do next.
"Godspeed, Mister Jefferson." Zach says solemnly.
"Thank you, sir." Jefferson acknowledges, before Zach presses the necessary buttons. There was a hiss, and then Jefferson's blip disappears from the diagram in front of him.
Zach lets out a shaky breath before speaking once again.
"Report: Officer John Maynard Jefferson, PKD, deceased. With honours. 43 K two point one."
"God damn it!" Katy mutters angrily, thumping the floor of the tunnel with her fist, as Rose wraps an arm around her sister and tucks her face into her hair, trying to comfort her. Danny wipes away tears of his own, before speaking up.
"Zach, we're at the final junction, nine point two. And er, if my respects could be on record. He saved our lives." Danny noted, acknowledging their fallen friend.
"Noted." Zach agreed. "Opening nine point two." The gate opens, revealing an Ood who had been waiting on the other side for them.
"Oh, FUCK!" Katy shouted in horror when she sees the Ood and immediately scrambles backwards pulling Rose with her. Rose wasn't much better and doesn't resist her sister's attempts to save her.
"Lower nine point two! Hurry, Zach!" Rose shouts, frantically.
"Back! Back! Back!" Danny orders.
"We can't go back! The gang point's sealed off. We're stuck!" Toby stated.
Rose looks up when she sees light and spots a floor grating above her head. She immediately pushes it open as the Ood struggles with the gate to keep it open.
"Come on! Up!" She yells, scrambling out of it, and assisting Katy and Danny out too.
~*~*~
Stand by for part two!