On Floor 500, the Doctor was frantically ripping arm fulls of wires out of desks.
The others watched him, clearly not knowing exactly what he was trying to do.
"Dalek plan, big mistake. Because what have they left me with? Anyone? Anyone?" The Doctor asked, speaking quickly "Oh, come on, it's obvious. A great big transmitter, this station,"
Jack was staring at him, brow furrowed in concentration, trying to work out what he was on about.
"If I can change the signal, fold it back, sequence it, anyone?"
"You've gotta be kidding," Tiaalen muttered.
"Give the girl a medal!"
"A Delta Wave?"
"A Delta Wave!"
Rose looked over at Jack "What's a Delta Wave?"
"A wave of Van Cassadyne energy." Jack explained "It fries your brain. Stand in the way of a Delta Wave and your head gets barbequed,"
"And this place can transmit a massive wave. Wipe out the Daleks!" The Doctor proclaimed.
"Well, get started and do it then," Lynda said.
"Trouble is, wave this size, building this big, brain as clever as mine, should take about, oh, three days? How long till the Fleet arrive?"
"Twenty-two minutes,"
Tia ran her hand through her hair in frustration "I need to keep busy," she muttered as she headed over to a console and began working at the wiring.
Jack silently moved over, he knew better than to frustrate her further but he just needed to know. "So..."
Tiaalen knew what he wanted to talk about and sat up "We've now got a forcefield so they can't blast us out of the sky, but that doesn't stop the Daleks from physically invading," she glanced over at Jack giving him a look that said later. Tia wanted to have the conversation as much as he did, but it seemed fate had other plans to keep them from talking about it.
"Do they know about the Delta Wave?" Rose wondered.
"They'll have worked it out at the same time." Jack reasoned "So, they want to stop the Doctor. That means they've got to get to this level, five hundred. Now, I can concentrate the extrapolator around the top six levels, five hundred to four nine five. So they'll penetrate the station below that at level four nine four and fight their way up,"
"Who are they fighting?" Pavel asked.
"Us," Tiaalen spoke up.
"No, Tiaalen I need your help up here," The Doctor called out causing the Padawan to scowl in distaste.
"And what are we fighting with?" Pavel questioned.
"The guards had guns with plastic bullets. That's enough to blow a Dalek wide open," Jack explained.
"There's five of us," A woman pointed out.
"Rose, you can help Tiaalen and me. I need all these wires stripping bare,"
"Right, now there's four of us,"
"A simpleton can do that!" Tiaalen argued to the Doctor "You of all people know I'm better out there on a battlefield than in here playing science fair!"
"Tiaalen not now!" The Doctor exclaimed "Now do as I say and help Rose,"
"I'm not that little girl you found all those years ago, Doctor,"
"Tiaalen Lawbro, you do as I say right now. That's an order,"
Tia glared at the Doctor angrily and stomped off.
Jack walked over to Tiaalen "It's been fun, but I guess this is goodbye,"
Tia turned swiftly around to face the ex-Time Agent "Don't talk like that. The Doctor's going to do it." she nodded "You just watch him,"
Jack placed a hand on Tiaalen's cheek, brushing it gently with his thumb. "Wish I'd never met you, Tiaalen Lawbro." he teased "I was better off as a coward," he kissed Tia and left.
"He's going to be all right, isn't he?" Tiaalen asked.
The Doctor only looked down at the ground guiltily.
"Suppose." Rose voiced, breaking the silence in the room.
"What?" The Doctor asked.
"Nothing," Rose said with a shake of her head.
"You said suppose,"
"No, I was just thinking." Rose shrugged "I mean, obviously you can't, but you've got a time machine. Why can't you just go back to last week and warn them?"
Tia looked away in hurt, Rose's question reminding her of how she had asked the Doctor the same question to save her Master.
"As soon as the TARDIS lands in that second, I become part of events, stuck in the timeline," The Doctor explained.
"Yeah, thought it'd be something like that..." Rose sighed as she carried on working.
"There's another thing the TARDIS could do...it could take us away..."
Rose glanced briefly up at the Doctor with a small smile.
"We could leave. Let history take its course. We go to Marbella in 1989,"
"Not me," Tiaalen said with a shake of her head "I'm tired of running,"
The computer whirred in the background and the Doctor looked over at it, suddenly alert.
"The Delta Wave's started building." The Doctor announced "How long does it need?" he sat in one of the chairs and Rose peered over his shoulder. The Doctor pressed a few buttons, staring at the monitor...his face fell.
"How bad?" Tia voiced.
The Doctor looked up at the young Jedi "We can do it. If I use the TARDIS to cross my old timeline,"
***
"Hold that down and keep the position," The Doctor told Rose as he moved around the interior of the TARDIS.
"What's it do?" Rose asked.
"Cancels the buffers. If I'm clever and I'm more than clever, I'm brilliant, I might just save the world. Or rip it apart,"
"I'd go for the first one," Tiaalen suggested as she leaned against the railing with her arms crossed.
"Me too. Tiaalen, I need you to go to your room and grab a tool for me..."
"What kind of tool?"
"You'll know it when you see it,"
"Why can't you?"
"'Cause I've got to go and power up the Game Station...now go!"
Tia saw the look in the Doctor's eyes and wanted to remain where she was, stop him from whatever he was planning. Tiaalen glanced over at Rose, watching the human smile in victory as she held down a button that held no true purpose. She sighed and ran over to the Doctor and hugged him "May the force be with you, Doctor," Tia let go before Rose began to question what was going on and headed towards her room, despite understanding that it was nothing more than a ploy, there was still truth in the Doctor's words, she just needed to find out what.
***
Tiaalen touched her bedroom door, stopping as she considered if she truly was ready for whatever awaited inside her room.
With a final breath, the door hissed as it slid open, the sound reminding her of her adventures on the Republic Attack Cruiser as she explored the galaxy.
Tia felt her breath leave her body as she saw the object lying on her bed. Tiaalen sat on her bed as she ran the item through her fingers. "I can't believe it..." Tia held the kyber crystal up, watching as the lights in her bedroom caused it to glimmer.
It was a rare sight to find a kyber crystal, Tiaalen having heard the rumors that the Empire was harvesting each crystal for some unknown dark purpose, and yet here she sat holding one.
Looking to the side, Tia saw a holorecording, her gut churned as she was already certain of what message laid within. Begrudgingly, Tiaalen pressed the button and the Doctor's hologram appeared before her.
"This is Emergency Programme One. Tiaalen, now listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape. And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you to Rose's home. I'm sure you're already planning on taking the TARDIS for a spin. Typical. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Programme One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine...or you. So this is what you should do. Let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it. No one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on and the box will be buried. And if you want to remember me, then you can do two things. That's all, two things. Help Rose and have a good life. Do that for me, Tiaalen. Have a fantastic life, and may the force be with you,"