“Yes!” the Doctor exclaimed as he looked around the room we had dropped into.
He had sealed the trap door, it was barred on every door from the outside, and no guards were keeping watch on the inside, so we were safe. For the moment, at least.
Red and orange lights flashed from different machines around the room, and grinding noises echoed off the walls. Wires and chords littered the floor. A few sparked when I accidentally stepped on them.
“Are we in some sort of… engine, machine, generator room?” I asked.
He looked at me with his head cocked to one side, a small smile forming on his lips. “I like you, Lisa Anderson. And yes, you’re right.”
“So, what are we going to do in here?”
He drew his glasses from his suit pocket. “You know, just… look around. Find a way to stop them.”
“Do you always do this?” I asked.
“Do what?” He had his glasses on, inspecting a piece of Rutan equipment.
“Save the world...?”
The Doctor paused, stood up, and looked at me intently. “I do my best.”
I nodded, and turned to look at what looked to be a battery type-thing. It was wired into the big generator that was humming loudly in the center of the room.
“Lisa,” the Doctor said urgently.
I turned around. “Yes?”
“We’re looking for something that could hold a large amount of electricity, and if we don’t find it soon, the Rutans will use it to conquer the Earth for every volt of electrical energy it has.”
“Doctor.” I glanced at the battery.
“The thing would be about this big…” He indicated with his hands. “And this tall.”
“Doctor,” I said again.
“It would probably be hooked up to something huge,” he continued, “with wires coming out of the top like a plate of spaghetti. Hm, haven’t had spaghetti in a while. Should go back to Italy some time. Met Mussolini once. He said I was a—’’
“Doctor!” I pointed to the battery. “I found it.”
“Brilliant!” he said, beaming.
He jumped over a pile of metal boxes and crouched down next to small cube.
“Is it a battery of some kind?” I asked.
“Exactly. And…” He aimed his sonic screwdriver, his grin sliding of his face. “Oh. They weren’t joking when they said they didn’t have much. I’m surprised they’re even staying in orbit. They've already got most of the ship out of power to save the energy.”
“So what do you we do?”
“We unplug it.”
Silence hung in the engine room.
“Would it kill them…?” I whispered.
He sighed grimly. “Yes. If there was a way I could save them, I would, but they were going to die anyway. UNIT and Torchwood would have found a much more brutal way of stopping them, and I don’t want that.”
Suddenly the door burst open and the Rutan captain, flanked by two others from the control room, came in and before I could react, zapped the Doctor with a bioelectric shock wave.
He hit the floor, inches from the battery, and lay still.
“Oh God,” I said, and knelt down beside him. “Doctor- Doctor wake up!”
“Ignorant human,” the Rutan commander said. “You will witness the termination of your home planet.”
I looked down at the Doctor’s face, willing him to open his eyes and save the day. Instead, his lips moved, forming words that I couldn’t make out.
“Come, human!” ordered the vicious alien.
Thinking quickly, I threw myself over the Doctor’s body, pretending to cry. My head landed inches away from his mouth, and I could hear what he was saying.
“Unplug it,” he whispered. “Don’t make it obvious.”
Still acting, I stood and backed away from the Rutans, closer and closer to the battery.
“No, please!” I wailed and pretended to trip on one of the wires, landing myself exactly where I wanted to be.
“Get up!” The Rutans drew nearer, blue electricity jumping from their glowing green bodies. “Get up now, human!”
“Sorry,” I said, dropping the act. “I don’t take orders from aliens.” And with that, I yanked a handful of wires from the battery.
The Doctor jumped up, grabbed the battery, and looked threateningly at the raging Rutans. “I warned you and you chose to ignore me. You brought this on yourself. And I was wondering…” he twirled one of the cables in his fingers. “How long until you run out of energy? The ship’s already out. You can’t have got that much time left.”
“Doctor!” The head Rutan screamed.
“I’m sorry.”
Then, all at once, the green jellyfishes seemed to burn out, then fell to the floor with an odd squelching sound.
The Doctor seemed to be somewhere else as we headed back to the TARDIS. He had a look on his face, like he was thinking deeply about something.
“The Doctor and Lisa…” he muttered, not knowing I was listening. “Hm. Has a ring to it.”
Oh my god this just keeps getting more and more awesome!!! :D
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