The progress across the lake had been a long, very wet one. In reality, Holly thought, it’d would have been better for them to have stripped out of their clothes and swam across, but there was no where to put their clothes and keep them dry, and she certainly wasn’t going to hike through rough, mountainous terrain in her birthday suit.
Whilst in the water they had spotted a number of Cyber shuttles flying backwards and forwards, but so far they had not paid them any attention. Holly hoped that they were that intent on getting to the Mondassian camp that they were now considered small fry.
They reached the rocky beach and got out of the water.
“We need to build a fire,” said Fletcher, looking around the rocky beach for scraps of wood.
“It’s daylight,” said Holly. “We don’t need a fire.”
“But it’s cold and we’re soaking wet and need to dry our clothes,” said Fletcher.
“Get looking folks,” said Angie.
After a few minutes they had gathered together some old, dry wood and got a fire going. Fletcher didn’t have any issues stripping to his boxers and hanging his clothes over a stick to dry, but the rest of them were a little more conscious of the fact, so smaller fires had been started up further back towards the cliff, secluded behind some large boulders.
Lilly sat with Holly around the fire as they dried their clothes.
“Well, this is a first,” said Holly, looking slightly embarrassed.
“What?” said Lilly.
“Stripping nearly naked with almost-strangers.”
Lilly flashed her a grin. “Nonsense,” said Lilly. “We know each other.”
“I don’t know anything about you though, Lilly.”
She sighed. “What do you wanna know?”
“Who are you, perhaps? Where you come from? Your relationship to the Doctor?”
“You keep going on about this. Why does it matter?”
“It’s called getting to know someone.”
“But you’re going home after we got off this planet,” said Lilly, bluntly. “You don’t need to get to know me.”
Holly wasn’t sure how they were going to get off the planet with the TARDIS being gone. “I’d still like to get to know you. See what makes you tick.” Lilly didn’t answer. Holly sighed. “I tell you what, I’ll tell you something about myself.”
“Joy,” said Lilly.
“A couple of years I met this guy at the library called Peter. He was handsome and kind and sweet. Then one day I caught him in the history section of the library frantically searching through the book of deaths from 1754. I asked him what he was up to and he said he needed to get back there.”
Lilly frowned. “Back where?”
“Exactly. He said he needed to get back to 1754 to be back with Annabelle. When I questioned him about it he said that he had been making frequent trips back to 1754 and had met this girl called Annabelle and had fallen in love.”
“He was a time traveller?” Lilly’s interest was piqued.
“I don’t know. He had a break down and then a group of men in suits came and took him away. I never heard from him again and this guy, Roger Stark, told me it was best I kept quiet about it.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. I didn’t really put much more thought into it until I met you and the Doctor.” She smiled at the curiosity in Lilly’s eyes. “Now, you tell me something about yourself.”
Lilly frowned and looked away. She took a deep breath. “My name’s not really Lilly.”
“What?” said Holly.
“Come on ladies, we need to move,” came Fletcher’s voice from back towards the lake.
“What’s your name?” said Holly.
“Coming captain!” shouted Lilly, putting her almost-dry clothes back on and clearly wanting to avoid the question.
“Lilly, please…,” said Holly as Lilly pulled her ripped jeans on and marched away.
“Get your clothes on Dangerfield,” said Lilly with a laugh.
Holly finished getting dressed and sighed. She had managed to scratch only the surface with Lilly, but she was becoming more and more determined to stay and find out more.
The Doctor was worried about Verax. Worried because he was going to try and convert Brax into one of his own. He wondered what he could do to stop it happening, but in reality he was powerless. He was a small man about to get stuck between two different factions of Cybermen. He was sure none of them would get out of this alive.
Verax was making preparations with another Mondassian, when there came the sound of explosions in the distance.
The Doctor ran out of the dome and looked towards the mountains. In the sky were a number of Telosian shuttles and they were firing energy blasts into the mountain range. He wondered who they were firing at. He felt guilty for thinking this, but he almost hoped it was the Mondassians and not his friends. And then it dawned on him. They were collapsing the routes out of the camp. They were blocking them in.
“That was a little too close for comfort,” said Fletcher as they saw more energy blasts rain down from one of the nearest shuttles.
“This is madness!” said Holly. “I can’t remember signing up for the Suicide Squad!”
“Maybe we should head back,” said Natalie.
There was another explosion and large chunks of the mountain splintered and landed not far from where they were standing.
“Get back,” said Chartell, shielding them all with her long arms.
“We can use the guns to blast a path through,” said Angie.
Fletcher, Angie and Natalie aimed their blasters and began firing at the debris, blowing it into smaller chunks.
“Let’s move, folks!” said Fletcher, leading the way.
Another blast hit and there came a great, heavy cracking sound. The group looked up and cried in terror as a huge piece of the mountain began sliding down towards them.
“Back!” shouted Lilly as they scrambled to get away.
The chunk of mountainside landed with a thunderous crash, causing a great cloud of rock dust to explode around them.
“Everyone alright?” said Fletcher as the dust began to clear.
“Fantastic!” said Lilly, coughing and spluttering.
“Shit!” said Angie, her face pale.
The rest of them looked to where she was staring. Lying on the floor, his mid-section crushed beneath the fallen mountain side was Roy, blood trickling from his mouth as he gasped for air.
“Roy!” said Fletcher as he through his blaster down and ran to his fallen officer.
“Captain. Too late for me, sir,” said Roy wearily.
“This can’t be happening,” said Natalie, her hand to her face.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” said Fletcher. “We should have stayed back at the beach. Waited this out.”
“Don’t worry about it, sir,” said Roy. “At least I get to see Rick again.” He managed a smile.
“Take it easy, my friend,” said Fletcher, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Get them home, captain,” said Roy. “Get them all home.”
And with that Roy Hobbin was gone, his green eyes still and staring up at Fletcher.
Fletcher brought his hand down over his eyes and closed them and then closed his own, his hand pinching the top of his nose. He had lost two crew members and an entire ship and they were still no closer to getting out of this mess.
“What do we do, sir?” said Natalie as more explosions rained down nearby.
Fletcher remained still and unmoving.
“Sir, what do we do?” said Natalie again.
Fletcher turned to face his two remaining officers. “This was a mistake,” he said. “We can’t possibly survive this.”
“Then what do we do?” said Holly. “We need to find the Doctor and Brax.”
“Not forgetting my father,” said Chartell.
“No,” said Fletcher. “We can’t. We just can’t. I am not going to lose you two,” he said, looking at Natalie and Angie. “We need to go back to the beach.”
“And then what?!” said Lilly. “We’re not abandoning the Doctor!”
“The Doctor isn’t my concern.”
“But Brax is!” said Holly.
Fletcher shook his head. “We have to assume that they’re all dead. We haven’t seen or heard anything from them since they left yesterday. We need to go back to the beach, go through the jungle and commandeer one of those Telosian ships. It’ll get us home.”
“Do you even know the first thing about flying one?” said Lilly.
“No,” said Fletcher, “but Chartell can help us learn.”
“I am not going back,” said Chartell.
Fletcher looked up at Chartell. “Please. I am begging you. I need to get my crew off this planet.”
“I need to find my father.”
“We’ll look for him,” said Lilly.
Holly looked at Lilly. “So we’re going on, yeah?”
“We have to,” said Lilly. “I’m not leaving the Doctor. Chartell, you go back with these three and we’ll try and find your father, the Doctor and Brax. If you get that ship operational then try and fly it over the camp to look for us.”
“My one concern is getting the crew off-”
“Sir,” said Angie, walking up to him and lowering her voice. “Brax is still part of the crew. Dead or alive, we need to get him back to.”
Fletcher hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Okay. But we’re only doing one fly-by over the camp. After that we head back out into space and home.”
The Doctor watched as Seeth began inserting tubes and hooking up Brax to a chest unit. Small, spider-like devices had been placed on Brax’s burnt flesh and were busy trying to heal it. Brax opened his eyes and looked across to the Doctor.
“How are you feeling?” said the Doctor, looking down at him.
“Like I got exploded on,” said Brax. “And it bloody hurts.”
“It will do,” said the Doctor sadly.
“What are they doing to me?”
“Trying to convert you into a Cyberman.”
“Jeez,” said Brax, “you don’t mince your words, do you?” Brax looked as a tube was placed through a hole in his chest. He winced in pain. “I thought their boss didn’t believe in conversion?”
“Normally he doesn’t, but he needs more Cybermen to fight against the others. He’s using the excuse of him helping you to explain it away.”
“I guess I should be grateful then.”
“I can try and stop them.”
“You can try,” said Brax. “I’d die, yeah?”
The Doctor nodded.
“Oh, balls. What a great choice I have. Become a Cyberman or die.”
Saragon entered the dome and marched over to the Doctor. “He is awake?”
“He is,” said Brax.
“Jaspar and his men have engaged the Telosians in the valley. It is not going well.”
The Doctor’s eyes closed. This was becoming a lost cause. He didn’t know where his friends were, Brax was lying here in an impossible situation and they were about to be overrun by Cybermen.
“Doctor,” said Brax. “They need me.”
“Brax…”
“No,” said Brax, shaking his head. “I’ve got no choice. If I die I can’t help, but if I become one of them I can at least fight to help us all, yeah?”
“But it’s just…wrong.”
“Hey, Samantha always wanted to marry the Man of Steel,” he laughed. “Now she might well do.”
The Doctor managed a weak smile, but he knew that Brax was scared as hell about this. He didn’t really want to do it, but he had no choice.
Holly and Lilly stumbled over more rubble and more broken bits of mountainside. Mercifully the bombing at stopped and the shuttles had descended. They could hear a fire fight in the distance and before long they realised that they were going to run into a ground battle.
“You alright, Dangerfield?” said Lilly, glancing back at Holly, who had scraped her exposed arms a number of times against the rocks.
“I’m still on my feet, if that’s what you’re asking?” said Holly. “You ought to be careful. People might start to think you have a heart.”
Lilly suddenly felt very hurt and turned to face Holly.
“What?” said Holly. “It was a joke.”
“I don’t have parents,” said Lilly blankly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You have parents, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Holly, realising that she really missed them right now.
“I don’t have parents.”
Holly felt incredibly guilty for what she had just said. “I’m sorry, Lilly. It was just a joke. A tasteless joke.”
“I do have a heart,” said Lilly. “I just choose not to let it rule my head.” She swallowed. Her eyes were slightly wet. “And I don’t wanna see you die.”
“I’m not gonna die,” said Holly. She really couldn’t work her out. She couldn’t tell if Lilly disliked her, or whether it was all just a show. Right now wasn’t the best time to go into a deep conversation about feelings though.
“I don’t always mean what I say. When I am nasty, I don’t always mean it.”
“Okay,” said Holly. “I understand.”
“I can’t lose the Doctor,” said Lilly, her head shaking frantically. “I can’t lose him.”
“We’ll get there and he’ll be fine.”
“He is everything to me. Everything. Do you see?”
“Yes, yes,” said Holly. Lilly was really fighting back the tears now. “Come here.”
Lilly collapsed into Holly’s arms and buried her head on her shoulders.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” said Holly, absolutely flabbergasted at the change in Lilly. She wasn’t sure how she could help Lilly though this breakdown. She didn’t know enough about her.
Almost as suddenly as Lilly had broken down, she regained composure, pushing Holly gently away from her, her face turning back to a frown. “That’s enough hugging, Dangerfield,” she said.
“Woah, okay,” said Holly, holding her hands up. “You okay?”
“Of course I’m okay.” She nodded to Holly and then turned her back to her. “We need to get moving before we both get killed, or worse - you get injured and I have to carry you.”
“I’m not that heavy,” said Holly as she began following Lilly again. Holly smiled to herself a little though. Strangely she could handle cold-Lilly, rather than emotional-Lilly.
Before they could say anything more a huge pile of rocks exploded in front of them knocking them both back. When the dust cleared two Telosians stood before them, aiming there weapons.
“Wait!” said Holly.
But it was too late. They fired at both woman, pulses hitting them clear in their chests and the two of screamed before collapsing to the ground, still and motionless.
Whilst in the water they had spotted a number of Cyber shuttles flying backwards and forwards, but so far they had not paid them any attention. Holly hoped that they were that intent on getting to the Mondassian camp that they were now considered small fry.
They reached the rocky beach and got out of the water.
“We need to build a fire,” said Fletcher, looking around the rocky beach for scraps of wood.
“It’s daylight,” said Holly. “We don’t need a fire.”
“But it’s cold and we’re soaking wet and need to dry our clothes,” said Fletcher.
“Get looking folks,” said Angie.
After a few minutes they had gathered together some old, dry wood and got a fire going. Fletcher didn’t have any issues stripping to his boxers and hanging his clothes over a stick to dry, but the rest of them were a little more conscious of the fact, so smaller fires had been started up further back towards the cliff, secluded behind some large boulders.
Lilly sat with Holly around the fire as they dried their clothes.
“Well, this is a first,” said Holly, looking slightly embarrassed.
“What?” said Lilly.
“Stripping nearly naked with almost-strangers.”
Lilly flashed her a grin. “Nonsense,” said Lilly. “We know each other.”
“I don’t know anything about you though, Lilly.”
She sighed. “What do you wanna know?”
“Who are you, perhaps? Where you come from? Your relationship to the Doctor?”
“You keep going on about this. Why does it matter?”
“It’s called getting to know someone.”
“But you’re going home after we got off this planet,” said Lilly, bluntly. “You don’t need to get to know me.”
Holly wasn’t sure how they were going to get off the planet with the TARDIS being gone. “I’d still like to get to know you. See what makes you tick.” Lilly didn’t answer. Holly sighed. “I tell you what, I’ll tell you something about myself.”
“Joy,” said Lilly.
“A couple of years I met this guy at the library called Peter. He was handsome and kind and sweet. Then one day I caught him in the history section of the library frantically searching through the book of deaths from 1754. I asked him what he was up to and he said he needed to get back there.”
Lilly frowned. “Back where?”
“Exactly. He said he needed to get back to 1754 to be back with Annabelle. When I questioned him about it he said that he had been making frequent trips back to 1754 and had met this girl called Annabelle and had fallen in love.”
“He was a time traveller?” Lilly’s interest was piqued.
“I don’t know. He had a break down and then a group of men in suits came and took him away. I never heard from him again and this guy, Roger Stark, told me it was best I kept quiet about it.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. I didn’t really put much more thought into it until I met you and the Doctor.” She smiled at the curiosity in Lilly’s eyes. “Now, you tell me something about yourself.”
Lilly frowned and looked away. She took a deep breath. “My name’s not really Lilly.”
“What?” said Holly.
“Come on ladies, we need to move,” came Fletcher’s voice from back towards the lake.
“What’s your name?” said Holly.
“Coming captain!” shouted Lilly, putting her almost-dry clothes back on and clearly wanting to avoid the question.
“Lilly, please…,” said Holly as Lilly pulled her ripped jeans on and marched away.
“Get your clothes on Dangerfield,” said Lilly with a laugh.
Holly finished getting dressed and sighed. She had managed to scratch only the surface with Lilly, but she was becoming more and more determined to stay and find out more.
The Doctor was worried about Verax. Worried because he was going to try and convert Brax into one of his own. He wondered what he could do to stop it happening, but in reality he was powerless. He was a small man about to get stuck between two different factions of Cybermen. He was sure none of them would get out of this alive.
Verax was making preparations with another Mondassian, when there came the sound of explosions in the distance.
The Doctor ran out of the dome and looked towards the mountains. In the sky were a number of Telosian shuttles and they were firing energy blasts into the mountain range. He wondered who they were firing at. He felt guilty for thinking this, but he almost hoped it was the Mondassians and not his friends. And then it dawned on him. They were collapsing the routes out of the camp. They were blocking them in.
“That was a little too close for comfort,” said Fletcher as they saw more energy blasts rain down from one of the nearest shuttles.
“This is madness!” said Holly. “I can’t remember signing up for the Suicide Squad!”
“Maybe we should head back,” said Natalie.
There was another explosion and large chunks of the mountain splintered and landed not far from where they were standing.
“Get back,” said Chartell, shielding them all with her long arms.
“We can use the guns to blast a path through,” said Angie.
Fletcher, Angie and Natalie aimed their blasters and began firing at the debris, blowing it into smaller chunks.
“Let’s move, folks!” said Fletcher, leading the way.
Another blast hit and there came a great, heavy cracking sound. The group looked up and cried in terror as a huge piece of the mountain began sliding down towards them.
“Back!” shouted Lilly as they scrambled to get away.
The chunk of mountainside landed with a thunderous crash, causing a great cloud of rock dust to explode around them.
“Everyone alright?” said Fletcher as the dust began to clear.
“Fantastic!” said Lilly, coughing and spluttering.
“Shit!” said Angie, her face pale.
The rest of them looked to where she was staring. Lying on the floor, his mid-section crushed beneath the fallen mountain side was Roy, blood trickling from his mouth as he gasped for air.
“Roy!” said Fletcher as he through his blaster down and ran to his fallen officer.
“Captain. Too late for me, sir,” said Roy wearily.
“This can’t be happening,” said Natalie, her hand to her face.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” said Fletcher. “We should have stayed back at the beach. Waited this out.”
“Don’t worry about it, sir,” said Roy. “At least I get to see Rick again.” He managed a smile.
“Take it easy, my friend,” said Fletcher, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Get them home, captain,” said Roy. “Get them all home.”
And with that Roy Hobbin was gone, his green eyes still and staring up at Fletcher.
Fletcher brought his hand down over his eyes and closed them and then closed his own, his hand pinching the top of his nose. He had lost two crew members and an entire ship and they were still no closer to getting out of this mess.
“What do we do, sir?” said Natalie as more explosions rained down nearby.
Fletcher remained still and unmoving.
“Sir, what do we do?” said Natalie again.
Fletcher turned to face his two remaining officers. “This was a mistake,” he said. “We can’t possibly survive this.”
“Then what do we do?” said Holly. “We need to find the Doctor and Brax.”
“Not forgetting my father,” said Chartell.
“No,” said Fletcher. “We can’t. We just can’t. I am not going to lose you two,” he said, looking at Natalie and Angie. “We need to go back to the beach.”
“And then what?!” said Lilly. “We’re not abandoning the Doctor!”
“The Doctor isn’t my concern.”
“But Brax is!” said Holly.
Fletcher shook his head. “We have to assume that they’re all dead. We haven’t seen or heard anything from them since they left yesterday. We need to go back to the beach, go through the jungle and commandeer one of those Telosian ships. It’ll get us home.”
“Do you even know the first thing about flying one?” said Lilly.
“No,” said Fletcher, “but Chartell can help us learn.”
“I am not going back,” said Chartell.
Fletcher looked up at Chartell. “Please. I am begging you. I need to get my crew off this planet.”
“I need to find my father.”
“We’ll look for him,” said Lilly.
Holly looked at Lilly. “So we’re going on, yeah?”
“We have to,” said Lilly. “I’m not leaving the Doctor. Chartell, you go back with these three and we’ll try and find your father, the Doctor and Brax. If you get that ship operational then try and fly it over the camp to look for us.”
“My one concern is getting the crew off-”
“Sir,” said Angie, walking up to him and lowering her voice. “Brax is still part of the crew. Dead or alive, we need to get him back to.”
Fletcher hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Okay. But we’re only doing one fly-by over the camp. After that we head back out into space and home.”
The Doctor watched as Seeth began inserting tubes and hooking up Brax to a chest unit. Small, spider-like devices had been placed on Brax’s burnt flesh and were busy trying to heal it. Brax opened his eyes and looked across to the Doctor.
“How are you feeling?” said the Doctor, looking down at him.
“Like I got exploded on,” said Brax. “And it bloody hurts.”
“It will do,” said the Doctor sadly.
“What are they doing to me?”
“Trying to convert you into a Cyberman.”
“Jeez,” said Brax, “you don’t mince your words, do you?” Brax looked as a tube was placed through a hole in his chest. He winced in pain. “I thought their boss didn’t believe in conversion?”
“Normally he doesn’t, but he needs more Cybermen to fight against the others. He’s using the excuse of him helping you to explain it away.”
“I guess I should be grateful then.”
“I can try and stop them.”
“You can try,” said Brax. “I’d die, yeah?”
The Doctor nodded.
“Oh, balls. What a great choice I have. Become a Cyberman or die.”
Saragon entered the dome and marched over to the Doctor. “He is awake?”
“He is,” said Brax.
“Jaspar and his men have engaged the Telosians in the valley. It is not going well.”
The Doctor’s eyes closed. This was becoming a lost cause. He didn’t know where his friends were, Brax was lying here in an impossible situation and they were about to be overrun by Cybermen.
“Doctor,” said Brax. “They need me.”
“Brax…”
“No,” said Brax, shaking his head. “I’ve got no choice. If I die I can’t help, but if I become one of them I can at least fight to help us all, yeah?”
“But it’s just…wrong.”
“Hey, Samantha always wanted to marry the Man of Steel,” he laughed. “Now she might well do.”
The Doctor managed a weak smile, but he knew that Brax was scared as hell about this. He didn’t really want to do it, but he had no choice.
Holly and Lilly stumbled over more rubble and more broken bits of mountainside. Mercifully the bombing at stopped and the shuttles had descended. They could hear a fire fight in the distance and before long they realised that they were going to run into a ground battle.
“You alright, Dangerfield?” said Lilly, glancing back at Holly, who had scraped her exposed arms a number of times against the rocks.
“I’m still on my feet, if that’s what you’re asking?” said Holly. “You ought to be careful. People might start to think you have a heart.”
Lilly suddenly felt very hurt and turned to face Holly.
“What?” said Holly. “It was a joke.”
“I don’t have parents,” said Lilly blankly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You have parents, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Holly, realising that she really missed them right now.
“I don’t have parents.”
Holly felt incredibly guilty for what she had just said. “I’m sorry, Lilly. It was just a joke. A tasteless joke.”
“I do have a heart,” said Lilly. “I just choose not to let it rule my head.” She swallowed. Her eyes were slightly wet. “And I don’t wanna see you die.”
“I’m not gonna die,” said Holly. She really couldn’t work her out. She couldn’t tell if Lilly disliked her, or whether it was all just a show. Right now wasn’t the best time to go into a deep conversation about feelings though.
“I don’t always mean what I say. When I am nasty, I don’t always mean it.”
“Okay,” said Holly. “I understand.”
“I can’t lose the Doctor,” said Lilly, her head shaking frantically. “I can’t lose him.”
“We’ll get there and he’ll be fine.”
“He is everything to me. Everything. Do you see?”
“Yes, yes,” said Holly. Lilly was really fighting back the tears now. “Come here.”
Lilly collapsed into Holly’s arms and buried her head on her shoulders.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” said Holly, absolutely flabbergasted at the change in Lilly. She wasn’t sure how she could help Lilly though this breakdown. She didn’t know enough about her.
Almost as suddenly as Lilly had broken down, she regained composure, pushing Holly gently away from her, her face turning back to a frown. “That’s enough hugging, Dangerfield,” she said.
“Woah, okay,” said Holly, holding her hands up. “You okay?”
“Of course I’m okay.” She nodded to Holly and then turned her back to her. “We need to get moving before we both get killed, or worse - you get injured and I have to carry you.”
“I’m not that heavy,” said Holly as she began following Lilly again. Holly smiled to herself a little though. Strangely she could handle cold-Lilly, rather than emotional-Lilly.
Before they could say anything more a huge pile of rocks exploded in front of them knocking them both back. When the dust cleared two Telosians stood before them, aiming there weapons.
“Wait!” said Holly.
But it was too late. They fired at both woman, pulses hitting them clear in their chests and the two of screamed before collapsing to the ground, still and motionless.
To be concluded...
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