"Destroy him! Destroy the Doctor!"
"Leader-"
"Not. Now!"
"Leader, there is a hostile particulate in the ventilation system. Someone has injected gold into the ducts!"
"Seal off the ducts to the Command Center and alert all units!" The Cyber-Leader declared. The doors to the lift opened suddenly and out came a series of laser blasts which struck the three closest of the Cybermen. A figured darted out, making their way to the Doctor, removing the restraints. "Stop the intruder! Stop them now!" The two Cybermen who were still standing lumbered forward, only to both be blown away by the intruder.
Slumping the Doctor's arm over a shoulder, the intruder became visible to the Cyber-Leader.
"Commander Katoss! Halt! Halt! You will be destroyed!" The Leader cried out.
"Want to bet?" Katoss asked through gritted teeth, putting the Doctor into the lift and then snatching up a Cyber-gun, blasting one of the Cybermen who had tried in agony to crawl after them. With a final blast that sent sparks flying from a console upon impact, Katoss quickly pressed a button on the lift control panel. The doors closed and the lift began to descend. With no soldiers currently to command, the Leader quickly moved over to one of the remaining control panels to see that the vents had indeed closed, but the scanners were no longer showing gold in the ventilation ducts.
"Are you alright?"
"I... I think so."
"Good. On your feet. I'm going to need the help." Katoss said. He held up the two guns he had on hand, one of the Protector laser rifles and a Cyber-gun. "One or the other, pick one."
"How'd you pull that off?" The Doctor asked.
"Little trick I learned running a medical transport through Sontaran war fields," Katoss said, "trick the sensors with a false signature. Instead of a Rutan ambush, programmed in gold in the vents. Only would have worked for a split second, but that was all I needed to get you out."
"And why did you get me out?" The Doctor asked. "Weren't you going on about wanting to kill me?"
"You have a bit of a reputation before the War happened, Doctor." Katoss said. "You've fought the Cybermen before, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend... for now, anyway. Call it a stay of execution if you like. For now, we need to find Administrator Nyssa and figure out a way to save the rest of the station."
"I see..." The Doctor said, managing to stand. "She'll be on Level -2."
"What's on Level -2?"
"A Restoration Lattice."
Nyssa quietly continued her work, tending to the instruments that were keeping this supposedly theoretical marvel of engineering and bio-engineering in a stasis field, at least for the time being. Despite the skill needed in the latter to create it, Nyssa found she could not fully comprehend what it was she was examining, but the data seemed to not fully add up. Were it not for the stasis field, the decay rate would have been increasing rapidly, meaning that all the energy would violently rush out with disastrous results for anything in the immediate blast radius.
Jarac seemed to be somewhat more familiar, as he'd said having coaxed Trixaza down this line of research. She had thought that he was perhaps attempting to stall for time as he thought of a route of escape, but he instead seemed to genuinely be diligently working with the instruments for some purpose.
"Why have you done this, Jarac?" Nyssa finally asked him as they worked. "Why would you join with the Cybermen?"
"The Brotherhood of Logicians was founded because of humanity's need to be more like the Cybermen." Jarac said. "That applies to other races, too. Not just humans."
"But you've seen the Cybermen," Nyssa said, "they are totally evil."
"Evil? How can you say that?" Jarac asked. "They aren't a force of evil, but of logic. Think of all the aid they can be to the universe. With the Cybermen above all other forms of life, there will be no disease, no crime, no war, no-"
"No hope, no joy, no sorrow, and no other feelings either." Nyssa cut the man off right then and there. "They would make a universe that is healthy in body, but cold in the spirit."
"Immortality, perfection, logic." Jarac said.
"Those are admirable goals to strive for, but a life at the cost of the things that make life worth living is no life at all."
"Nyssa, be reasonable!"
"I have seen what the Cybermen would do to all other forms of life, Jarac." Nyssa said. "And I have seen... all the things they've taken in the pursuit of that goal." She reached down, adjusting a bracelet on her right wrist just so as she spoke. "I think... no, I know that it is horrific."
"You'll come around once you see what they will do with the Restoration Lattice." Jarac said.
"I know what they'll do with it! Have you not been listening to a word I've said?" Nyssa gave and exasperated sigh.
"Cease this conversation!" One of the Cybermen on duty approached them once more, reaching out to lay a hand on Nyssa's shoulder. She sprang into action, quickly removing the bracelet from her wrist and scraping it with all the strength she had against the Cyberman's chest unit. The automaton grabbed at her shoulders, but too late as the voice of the being within wheezing and gasping as its filtration system was compromised by... gold.
'For you, Adric.' Nyssa thought as she ducked down out of the grip of the Cyberman, taking up quickly the cyber-gun it had dropped and aiming and firing.
"Stop! Stop!" The other Cyberman moved forward, raising his own gun as his compatriot fell over. Nyssa was a bit faster on the draw, however, and fired off three shots that cut through the air between them and forced a scream out of the other Cyberman as it fell back against the floor and was still. It was then that Nyssa turned her attention to a stunned Jarac, training the gun on him.
"H-How did you?!"
"Trakenite gold." Nyssa said, grimacing that she'd had to damage one of the last reminders of her homeworld that she had. "Now, to tend to you."
"You're going to kill me?" Jarac asked.
"You aided the Cybermen in trying to take over this station and take an object that could be used as a weapon that could destroy entire star systems. I should," Nyssa said, "but I need you alive. You're going ot help me."
"Help you? Why?" Jarac asked.
"You said it yourself, you can operate Trixaza's equipment." Nyssa said.
"I was-" Jarac began, but was cut off by the ringing of the lift bell. Nyssa turned, making the mistake of taking her eyes off of Jarac, who immediately wrapped an arm around her throat and pulled her back, wrenching the cyber-gun from her hand and pressing it to her temple. "I've got her! I've got her! It's fine! Everything's fine!"
"Let me go!" Nyssa gasped out, struggling in vain.
"Quiet!" Jarac hissed. The doors opened to reveal not Cybermen as Jarac had clearly been expecting, but the Doctor and Commander Katoss, both wielding weapons of their own. "N-Now you both listen to me! Stop right there!"
"Let her go, Jarac." Katoss said, his gun raised.
"Lower your weapon and I'll-AHHH!" Jarac began to retort, but was sudden cut off as two laser blasts struck him at the legs and he cried out in pain. He dropped the gun and Nyssa managed to squirm free as Jarac collapsed to the ground, clearly in a great deal of pain. The Doctor had fired the pair of shots and he approached Jarac with the rifle, bringing the butt of it against the man's head in one hard strike. Jarac fell over onto the ground and was still.
"Doctor-"
"He's fine. Just unconscious." The Doctor said. The Time Lord's eyes looked down to the gun in his hands, Nyssa could see them tremble slightly before he tossed it away. His eyes closed for a moment and he breathed deeply. Nyssa walked up to him cautious, resting a hand on his shoulder.
"It's alright... it's alright, Doctor." Nyssa said.
"This is the thing the Cybermen are after?" Katoss had moved past the two, looking up at the giant orb, the energy crackling around and through the interlocking metal plates that made up its structure.
"It's supposed to be a tool to heal," The Doctor said, "and they'd use it to bring all other forms of life in the universe under their control."
"So how do we stop them?" Nyssa asked.
"We need to get them off this station." The Doctor said. "They were up in the Command Center, so who knows how far they've gotten in?"
"I... think I have a bit of an idea." Katoss said. He spoke from a nearby panel he had opened, accessing a control monitor. The Doctor and Nyssa came over, looking at the display. Katoss had accessed the sensors, and they were looking at a digital model of the framework of Lister Station. Life signs were disappearing on every level.
"They're killing everyone?!" Nyssa's eyes shot wide in horror.
"No... no, they're doing much worse than that." Katoss said, pressing a few buttons on the keypad and the life signs changed from a lively white to a silvery blue... save for Level -2, where they all stood. "They're converting everyone... every last one of them..."
"We need to get to the-" The Doctor started, already forming a plan.
"Doctor." The voice of the Cyber-Leader boomed through the PA speakers. "You are entrapped."
"Well, now I'm wishing I had actual gold..." Katoss muttered.
"You and your companions will surrender the Restoration Lattice." The Cyber-Leader continued on regardless. The Doctor's eyes narrowed as he gazed up toward the speaker. Finding a call button, he pressed it and spoke into the grill.
"Yeah, good luck with that." The Doctor said, slipping his finger off of the button and moving over to the wall by the now closed lift, quickly opening the paneling and taking out his sonic, getting to work on... something, Nyssa couldn't quite tell what. Within a few seconds, he had backed away. "Alright, we're good. Rigged something like it up on the Wheel."
"The what?" Nyssa asked.
"Can't miss it." The Doctor said. The colored lights lit up to show the lift was descending toward them. The three stood in tense silence, both Nyssa and Katoss holding the cyber-guns as they prepared for a fight, while the Doctor just stood stock still and with an eerie calm about him. The lift opened and a pair of Cybermen began to emerge from it.
The Doctor's sonic screwdriver whirred as it was put to use. Lightning cracked across the door frame of the lift, the two Cybermen screaming out as they were electrocuted by it, collapsing to the floor in a heap.
"Alright. That'll keep them busy for a bit." The Doctor said, slipping the sonic back into his pocket. "Gives us a little time." He turned, heading back toward the equipment keeping the Lattice in its stasis field. "Try to figure out how to work this thing."
"You mean you don't know?" Katoss asked.
"Nope!" The Doctor said, grinning enthusiastically about it. "Whole thing is supposed to be theoretical. My people did stellar engineering like this, but I've never gotten to see a star and a black hole thrown smack together like this. Or maybe I have. I have a hard time keeping track. How'd Trizaxa even get the technology to do this?"
"He definitely didn't get it from the Station." Nyssa said.
"Questions for another time." Katoss interjected. "You said that the Time Lords did stellar engineering. Can you do anything with this?"
"We're gonna find out." The Doctor said, already hunched over the controls and hard at work giving a thorough examination of the equipment.
"Does he do this normally?" Katoss asked.
"I don't know, I haven't seen him in some time." Nyssa said. "Or maybe I haven't. Doctor? How long has it been for you?"
"Uh... let's see..." The Doctor said as he worked through the user interface. "You, Tegan... Time Lords with funny hats... the Mara... something like four, maybe five hundred years? Thereabouts."
"Five hundred years?"
"Give or take, yeah. Maybe a decade or three off. I lose track often enough." The Doctor said, finally getting through to the control system. "Ah, there we go. Huh... this is the thirty-sixth century. Where was Doctor Trizaxa getting this kind of tech?"
"And he just... does this?" Katoss asked.
"You know about him from the Warrant, surely?" Nyssa asked. "As I recall, you were attempting to execute him before."
"I know about him from the record, yes, but that only covers so much." Katoss said. "Even the name 'Doctor' is an alias."
"I like to cultivate an air of mystery." The Doctor commented cheekily, a smug smile on his face as he continued manipulating the controls, a positive-sounding beeping coming from it. "Give the man a medal! We have control of the Lattice!"
"Excellent! What do we do now?" Nyssa asked.
"I have no idea." The Doctor said.
"You can surrender the Lattice to us." The voice of the Cyber-Leader boomed over the PA system, thundering through the cargo bay. The three conscious people in the room turned as one of the screen suddenly became illuminated, the head of the Cyber-Leader clearly visible, as if he were gazing down upon them as small, insignificant things.
"Oh, really? You think I would?" The Doctor asked.
"We have control of Lister Station, Doctor. You will obey, or we will convert all biomass within to Cyberkind."
"And if I do give you the Lattice, what then?" The Doctor asked. "You lot, you'll use it on some unsuspecting star system out there, if not all of them. I can't let you do that."
"You must obey, Doctor. If you do not, then we shall take control of your TARDIS."
"Oh, please!" The Doctor scoffed. "You'd have to find it first and even if you could do that, you can't get into it."
"We have found the TARDIS, Doctor." The camera view pulled back, showing several Cybermen surrounding that familiar blue box that was still standing in Atrium 14. "You are correct, we cannot enter the TARDIS, but we can destroy the exterior dimensions."
"Doctor, can they do that?" Nyssa asked, looking at him worriedly. The Doctor stared, wide-eyed, tensed like a spring as he stared at the screen.
"Give us the Lattice, Doctor... or we will destroy the exterior of the TARDIS." The Cyber-Leader said.
"...you're bluffing." The Doctor said.
"We do not bluff!" The Cyber-Leader droned. "Destroy it! Destroy the TARDIS!" The Cybermen advanced on the TARDIS carrying a large, bulky cylinder with several jagged spikes jutting from the end pointed at the TARDIS. It was clearly not a weapon of Cyberman design.
"Where did you get that?" The Doctor asked.
"What is it?" No answer came for Nyssa, who looked to the Doctor for something, but saw only fear reflected in the Time Lord's eyes.
"Surrender the Lattice to us, Doctor!" The Cyber-Leader intoned.
"Wait a moment! Don't! Don't do that!"
"Activate the Oblivion Ram!" The Cybermen advanced, the ram pressed into the TARDIS as the form of the police boxes began to shake about, cracks appearing within the simulated wood. They splintered out like shattered glass until there was a bright flash of light and a deep rumble as the TARDIS exploded.
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