They walked on to the ship's holding cells escorted by the Hriekel in a heavy silence. It wasn't long before the Doctor finally said to Rose: "'A universal stapler gun'?!" though and they both burst into giggles.
"Well I had to think of something!" Rose replied and they fell back into silence again as they approached a corridor with four solid metal doors lining the right side of it. A big, muscular Hriekel with red markings on the shoulder pads and neck of his armour stood in the entrance of it, waiting for them. The General who he'd had the pleasure of meeting before, the Doctor assumed, as he had no helmet this time. His skin was aged and slightly greener than Ristoff's, more of a pallid dark turquoise, and his features more square and arrogant. A scar ran down from the inner corner of his left eyebrow, down the side of his nose to his jaw.
"End of the line." The Doctor murmured to the others as their escort came to a halt in front of the General.
Ristoff strode up to him. "The Doctor and his cohorts, General Akashi." He announced and bowed, but only ever so slightly. Jack scoffed at 'cohorts'.
"Thank you, Sergeant." The General replied evenly and scowled, not missing the slight. "And as a reward you can guard the prisoners you spared so well." He ordered and Ristoff paled. He had no choice but to obey however so to Rose's dismay he abruptly marched away to a place where he could suitably guard the corridor.
The General then turned to the Doctor and proudly raised himself to his full height. "You weren't so hard to capture as I expected Doctor, isn't it general knowledge/common sense to move once you've sent out a signal that can be tracked?" He asked and chuckled to himself as he gestured to the soldiers to take them into a holding cell. "Even on a ship with no way off, I thought there'd be a little show. A little escape plan, like you did on Gallifrey? No?" He cajoled and tutted to himself. The Doctor didn't respond as they walked past him and into the opened cell but he looked at him darkly, which just amused him even more
"Is this what you're going to do with us then?" The Doctor asked angrily as they were shepherded into the cell. "Lock us up and just sit around deciding what to do with us while you commit genocide on Earth?"
"Actually, no." The General mused as he blocked the doorway and held the door in preparation to shut it. "We're going to flee out of the 200 million mile radius - and thank you for telling us that dear-" He added to Maria. "While you sit here and watch me commit genocide on/destroy Earth. There's a window in your cell that should make a nice view-" He paused and stuck his head into their cell, looking around at the blank, square walls for a non-existent window. "Oh wait there isn't. Oh well, when the Architect begins to suck in all the walls of this wreck it should be enough of a view for you." He laughed and pulled away, slamming the door in the Doctor's face.
"You're insane!" The Doctor/Jack said to him as he pressed his face right up to the small rectangular glass window in the door.
"You don't have to do this General, we can still talk this over like civilised people/the civilised people we are." The Doctor warned.
General Akashi just smiled. "Goodbye Doctor, we won't meet again." He said and strode away with the rest of his soldiers, ordering two to remain behind and guard the corridor's exit.
"Now what?" Jack/Clara asked impatiently.
"We get out." The Doctor answered innocently and started sonicing the door, but it wasn't enough for Jack.
"Ok then, we get out. But then what? Do we have a plan?" He stressed and the Doctor nodded.
"Then we get back to the box, get it in the TARDIS and chuck it into some...big black hole somewhere." The Doctor replied and knelt down on one knee to reach the mechanical hinges.
"And Ristoff? What about him?" Jack added.
"...I'm getting to that bit." The Doctor stalled and Jack promptly went over to Clara as he realised the inevitability of what was going to happen.
"Ever used one of these?" He asked as he pulled out his smaller handgun from his belt.
The Doctor focused on the door and tried to ignore the fact that Jack was showing his innocent friend how to use a gun behind him.
"Rose?" He called.
"Mm?" She replied from behind him.
"Come here a minute." He said and pointed to a square blue security panel next to the door when she crouched down next to him. "If you can just press on that..." He said and she complied, though it kept giving an "Access Denied" error and he started sonicing it. "You said you had a son." He said to her quietly when he was satisfied Jack and Clara had no reason to listen in.
"Yeah, we did." Rose smiled sadly. "He was six when we, well, when we died. Still my mum and dad will've looked after him well. And his Uncle Tony, who's only four years older than him." She laughed and pulled a scrunched-up repulsed/repelled face at the oddness of it, trying not to let herself cry. "He was a lot like him you know, the other Doctor, always the top of his class. When it suited him. Some days he'd just snap at the teachers and come running home at twelve o' clock with straight As and a big grin on his face, waiting for his dad to whisk him away on another adventure." She said, trying to distract herself, and the Doctor smiled to himself.
"What was his name?" He asked gently.
"Well that'd be giving it away wouldn't it, I'm not dead yet." She elbowed him with a grin then cleared her throat awkwardly as she realised the implications of what she just said.
He paused and kept glancing back at her while blaring the sonic at the door randomly as he tried to decide whether to say something or not.
"What?" She asked and laughed self-consciously.
"Rose, were you happy?" He finally asked and she fell serious.
She was silent as she chewed over it for an appropriate amount of time. "Yes," She answered truthfully. "I loved him, our son, everyone. But he wasn't you. The real you." She said and the Doctor just looked at her mournfully/deeply/sadly then continued trying to unlock the door.
"You said you'd take me to see The Beatles once, but you never did." Rose said absent-mindedly.
"Really?" The Doctor asked in confusion. "Oh, sorry about that..."
She then cleared her throat again and focused on the area of the door he was sonicing. Then she looked back at him.
"Doctor..." She said and he looked at her as he noticed her staring.
"What?" He asked but turned back to the door.
"The door, it's deadlocked. They all are." She stated clearly in case he wasn't paying attention and he immediately switched off his sonic.
"I know." He grinned back at her and leapt up to face Jack and Clara, leaving her to smile as she realised he'd pretended to work on the door just to talk to her.
"Deadlocked." The Doctor announced and Jack and Clara turned back to him with a groan. "You certainly overhauled those security systems well Rose, I'll give you that." He said to her and she shrugged apologetically as she stood up. Then the lights began to flicker out.
"That'll be the box absorbing the ship's power." She said as they all looked up at the cell's two flickering lights.
"How long until it starts absorbing the ship altogether?" The Doctor asked.
"I don't know, but I'm surprised it's taking this long." Rose replied nervously.
"We've still got this though." Jack smiled and opened the cover of his vortex manipulator wristband.
"The doors can be opened from the outside." Rose put in helpfully but flinched as Jack suddenly growled.
"It hasn't recharged yet." He revealed.
"How long?" The Doctor asked.
"About ten minutes?" Jack estimated.
"We won't have enough time to get there." The Doctor said gravely and Jack suddenly kicked the thick metal door.
"Damn, we're trapped!" He yelled and they shuddered as the bang echoed all around the small cell.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" A nervous, male voice called from behind the right wall.
Rose's face lit up. "Sam? Is that you?" She shouted back.
"Yeah... Who's this?" He replied uncertainly.
"Never mind that, we'll get you out soon!" She shouted and turned back to the others.
"We've got to get ourselves out first." Jack said glumly.
"Right, well what happens when the power runs out? The locks'll open right?" Clara asked in an orderly fashion.
"No, they'll just stay in place and won't move at all." Rose replied flatly and they all sagged.
"Hang on," Clara said. "I thought you were saying you'd overridden all of the security systems?" Se asked and they all looked at her.
"Oh yeah, I did." Rose realised and dived over to the security panel next to the door with a grin. After a few rapid swipes on the touch-screen and entering in three passwords, it beeped off and the door swung open.
They all looked at eachother knowingly and popped their heads out of the doorway simultaneously to look down the corridor, one above the other, Clara at the bottom and Jack at the top.
"There's still two guards down there." Jack noted and he looked down at the Doctor expectantly.
The Doctor twisted his head up to look back at him and sighed as he realised what he was waiting for. "Fine, but nothing fatal!" He warned as Jack eagerly went out of the cell.
Jack patted his large gun and winked at the Doctor. "Stun gun." He said and strode down the corridor with purpose.
"Hey! Did you two miss your ride?" Jack called to the Hriekel and began a strange dance of firing and dodging with them as he tried to get closer.
"Clara!" The Doctor hissed as she suddenly dashed out of the cell and began scrambling down the corridor towards Jack unseen, bent over and hugging the wall to avoid the stray energy bolts flying around. Before the Doctor could follow her however Rose also snuck out but went the other way, up the corridor instead of down it.
"Where are you going?!" The Doctor asked.
"I have to get Sam out!" Rose replied patronisingly and pointed with emphasis to the cell door next to their open one.
The Doctor spluttered as he looked between Clara and Rose, but ultimately decided the former was in the most danger. "Don't take too long with it!" He said desperately to Rose as he started rushing down the corridor after her. Rose just rolled her eyes as she swiftly put the override passwords into the panel next to Sam's cell door and it swung open.
"Sam!" She called as she saw him sitting on the metal bench at the back of the cell with his head in his hands. He slowly looked up at her and frowned. "Come on we need to get out of here, we haven't got much time-" She said and looked back as she noticed he still wasn't leaving his cell.
"Maria?" He asked and she gave him a small reassuring smile. "Is this it then? Did he change you?" He asked and she shook her head.
"No, this is just the body of one of my past lives." She said flippantly and looked back down the corridor to check if the others were ok. They were and the Doctor was heading back up to her. In that moment a dozen different emotions racked through Sam's mind but he buried them as deep as he could as she turned back to him and smiled through them.
He let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. "That explains a lot then," he said and she looked at him questioningly. "I thought you were a bit hot for an alien, and blonde." He joked and Rose laughed.
"You're just asking for a smack you are!" She grinned in disbelief and he nodded appreciatively as he stared pointedly at her curvy figure. "Men! That's all you think about! Just like Mickey." She said exasperatedly and walked out of the cell. As her back was turned to him as he followed her it was all he could do to not let the pain that was tearing him up inside show.
"The Captain's dead." Rose informed him as he came out. "Hriekel activated the box, but the Doctor's got a way to get it out of the range of anything it can harm." Rose said and the Doctor nodded from behind her.
"Ok, what about you?" Sam asked and Rose blinked, she hadn't even thought about that.
"Well, stopping the end of the human race first, which means getting to the box." She said brightly and they started to go down the corridor with the Doctor.
"Hang on," the Doctor said and suddenly stopped them. "'The box?' They call it 'Hareek Glorfesson Lamatre' in their language and you just call it 'the box'?" He asked and Rose and Sam looked at eachother perplexedly, then nodded back at him assuredly/slowly.
"God, you're too human/I love humans." The Doctor beamed at her and started running back down the corridor. "Come on, on with the running!" He called and Rose eagerly bounded after him, leaving Sam to follow.
"Finally decided to join us?" Jack asked as they reached him and tapped the unconscious Hriekel on the floor behind him with his foot. "Thanks for your help with these guys." He teased sarcastically but Rose frowned.
"I thought you said there were two of them?" She asked and he looked at her in confusion.
"There are-" He said as he turned around but he was too late to stop the Hriekel soldier that had crept up behind him and was aiming his gun at his heart.
"You have committed a criminal offense against the Restoration Effort and the Carsan himself, and I will be the one-" The soldier began to announce to the frozen escapees but was abruptly cut off by Clara performing a high kick to the back of his neck, and he collapsed to the floor at Jack's feet.
"That's Great Carsan by the way." She said and Rose broke into a grin as they all stared at her in shock. "I took some karate lessons when I was a kid." She explained and shrugged it off like it was no big deal.
"Some?" Jack repeated and grinned at her. She smiled back smugly and led the way out of the corridor and into the left passageway leading from it.
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