Kinza [War Doctor/Ailla]

[Ailla]

Many Time Lords were xenophobic, it was a common characteristic of their race. That innate sense that the Gallifreyans were superior to every other race in the cosmos, and should be treated accordingly. Ailla had never numbered herself among them. Living on Earth disguised as a human for several years, then travelling across the stars with Koschei in his TARDIS had widened her horizons and shown her that one of the main beauties of the universe was the splendid variety of the creatures that populated it.

However, watching Sarracenia undulate over the blasted ground of Sarn, she couldn't help feeling a frisson of distaste. Somehow, the movement looked wrong. A smooth, serpentine motion that the humanoid body of the thrall had never been intended to make. It forcibly reminded Ailla all over again that, with a Warpsmith of Phaidon, what you saw was never what you got.

Nevertheless, so far, she had detected no duplicity inside Sarracenia. Just a driving desire to escape from this planet and everything the Daleks had made of it. It was a motive that Ailla could find no fault with, especially if it kept the Warpsmith on their side. However, her concern was more what would happen if their mission endangered Sarracenia's own well-being. At that point, she had no doubt that the other woman would betray them at the drop of a hat. Ailla knew that her own job was to ensure that things never got that far.

As quickly as she could, she followed Sarracenia down into the dip. She could smell the acrid stink of the drain before she even reached it. The Warpsmith was crouched beside the lowest point, digging in the loose, damp gravel. She motioned for the two Time Lords to join her. But even as Ailla hunted around for a suitable piece of shale to use as a shovel, she could sense the memories slipping through Sarracenia's mind, burdened with a brutal emotional resonance. Darkness, despair, hunger, exhaustion, fear... the hopelessness and oppression of a terrible imprisonment.

Ailla couldn't be sure whether the emotions all belonged to Sarracenia herself, or whether they were mingled with the memories of her thrall. But for the first time, she felt a softening in her hearts towards their strange guide, for all that she must have been through... and for what they were expecting her to face all over again.

War made monsters of them all, the young Time Lady thought ruefully, as she turned her attention to the digging.  And it seemed she would be no exception.

[Deleted]

The space was claustrophobic in a way that did not seem to be confined to just cramped space and it was rank with the stench of chemicals that he could not, or that he did not want to, readily identify. But over and into the small crevice he went, landing near the Warpsmith and Ailla with more agility than his bodily form would seem to indicate possible. He glanced around warily, narrowing his eyes at the ditch and what Sarracenia was digging up. The gravel was loose and unpacked and he figured it must have been how she'd managed to get out in the first place. Glancing at Ailla, he too grabbed a chunk of stone to assist in excavating the hole, working alongside the pair of them in uneasy silence.

[Vansell]

The drain became visible first as nothing more than a slightly damp, foul-smelling change in the gravel beneath their crude digging tools, and then as the cold, smooth edge of the large pipe, once their hole was deep enough that they could have sat in it and hidden quite effectively.

By the time the whole end of the pipe was uncovered, it was evident that the width of it would be no trouble for Ailla, a little tighter for the taller but very thin Sarracenia's thrall, and quite uncomfortable for the Renegade. It was feasible, though, and she knew that the pipe would widen out a little later on - she remembered it narrowing frighteningly around her when she had come back the other way. She was in two minds whether to tell the Time Lord that or not.

The only way to enter it seemed to be to lie on one's front, feet higher than head down the slope of the pit they had dug, and half-slide, half-pull forwards with fingertips that struggled to find purchase. Sarracenia went first, demonstrating the technique without a word. Just before the mouth of the pipe swallowed her head and drew her into the darkness, she turned her head a little to the side to instruct the two Gallifreyans.

"Whichever of you comes last, kick the gravel. Bury the opening."

[Ailla]

Ailla's memories of her traumatic regeneration back on Darkheart were blurred and more than a little scattered. Nevertheless, one of the clearest recollections she had of waking in the zipped-up body bag, was the unwelcome realisation of how small her new body was. Her sense of disappointment had only deepened when she had managed to climb out of the bag, and confirmed that she now stood at barely five feet tall. Compared to her earlier willowy form, it had been quite a shock.

Looking down at the narrow circumference of the pipe they had uncovered, however, she finally found it in her hearts to be glad of her diminutive stature. Navigating the narrow shaft would be no problem for her, provided she kept her head and didn't allow the enclosed, rancid space to play tricks on her mind. The other two would be a lot less fortunate.

Sarracenia went first, demonstrating the best way of entry, wriggling like a worm, or maybe a snake. Ailla exchanged a glance with her father, and then readied herself to go next, prompted by her mistrust of the Warpsmith. It was always an empath's job within a CIA mission team to monitor the weakest link. By staying close to Sarracenia, within touching distance of her feet, Ailla hoped she would be able to preempt any betrayal.

Just before the mouth of the pipe swallowed her head and drew her into the darkness, [the Warpsmith] turned her head a little to the side to instruct the two Gallifreyans.

"Whichever of you comes last, kick the gravel. Bury the opening.”

“I'll follow after her,” Ailla said in a low voice to the Renegade, once the other woman had disappeared into the dark, foul-smelling pipe. “Try to keep tabs on what she's up to.”

[Deleted]

Sarracenia
"Whichever of you comes last, kick the gravel. Bury the opening.”

Ailla:
“I'll follow after her,” Ailla said in a low voice to the Renegade, once the other woman had disappeared into the dark, foul-smelling pipe. “Try to keep tabs on what she's up to.”

He sighed and then gave a grudging nod of assent. She knew what she was about, he figured but it was hardly an ideal situation. For all he knew, the trap lay just on the other side. He watched as Ailla fit herself through the narrow space and then followed, elbows and knees pushing against the sides of the pipeway. Like a swimmer in thick water, he gave several strong kicks behind him, dislodging the thin soil and burying their pathway behind them. Stuck between like that, it was not hard to imagine being buried alive. His hands reached out ahead of him to pull himself through when they came to the edge of the pipe, ready for whatever may lie in wait for them.

[Vansell]

((Totes tagging from SHANGHAI, y'all! : D ))


It was hard to say whether the return journey was worse or better, easier or harder, than leaving had been. This time, Sarracenia knew that there was an end that they were heading for - but in what sense of the word?

By the time the pipe widened, as Sarracenia had been expecting, it already felt as though they had been crawling for countless hours. The muscles of Sarracenia's thrall were aching, and trembling with fatigue, but she kept going. She knew they weren't even halfway there yet.

There seemed to be more reason not to tell the Time Lords how much further they had to go, than to tell them. Would it only discourage them, if they knew the end wasn't just around the corner? Would their whispers if she tried to speak to them travel along the pipes and alert the Daleks?

And deep beneath the ration and reason, something twisted in her heart. The thought of the two Time Lords having to suffer through this journey as much as she had done - and as much as they were making her do again.

From time to time, smaller pipes branched off their own - and even more rarely, but increasingly frequently the further they drew on, sounds echoed down the tributaries. Clanking of machinery. A siren of a changing guard shift. Once, what might even have been an indistinct metallic voice, if their imaginations and fears weren't playing tricks on them in the darkness.

[Ailla]

It was claustrophobic inside the pipe, almost airless, and pitch black. The curved walls of the narrow shaft were coated in some sort of unidentified slime, well over an inch thick, and the smell was indescribable. Ailla tried not to think about what she might be crawling through. Self discipline was the key, she told herself, forcing herself onward, despite the protests of her aching body. The mission was everything. And at least the slime made it somewhat easier to slide along the pipe.

Weirdly, an unpleasant sense of déjà vu prodded at the back of her mind. The feeling of the slime on her skin, the never-ending crawl through the darkness, the person up front that she didn't quite trust... it was like she'd done it all before, but she couldn't remember where or when.

She had to keep monitoring Sarracenia, that was her task – her essential part of this mission. But she also found herself using her empathic field to reach back to her father. She would never have admitted it to him in a thousand years, but his solid presence behind her gave her courage. Instead of dwelling on her harrowing surroundings, she found herself wondering instead how things might have been different back on Darkheart, if she'd known the truth about their relationship then. Perhaps things could have been different. Perhaps Koschei might have lived. Perhaps she would not have spent centuries trapped in a cryo-pod.

It was pointless playing the 'what-if' game, she knew, but it was better than listening to the eerie sounds filtering down the pipes and dreading what was waiting for them, as they inched painfully along their journey.

[Deleted]

Time seemed to dilate as it did when you were doing something repetitive and unpleasant but he plotted a steady course onward. As he crawled along, his keen ears picked up the whispers of activity above and around them over the restless shuffling of Ailla and the Warpsmith. Distorted, barely audible, not even recognizable, the sounds nonetheless spoke volumes about the situation they were currently in - it was dangerous, precarious, but here they were, doing it anyway. That was what this war was like. What most wars were like. At least this time, he might be able to spare the Gyns'abu, maybe others that were here being held against their will for experiments. Perhaps. At least they would no longer be here and that was a start. But there was the resentful knowledge that the Time Lords wanted to use them in turn, to pollute the Dalek pathweb. He hoped he could find a way to spare them that as well. That was going to be somewhat more tricky but there was a chance the labs would hold material they could use without a whole, living being. For the moment, though he put those thoughts onto the backburner. Surely the way could not be much longer, he felt as if he'd crossed under half the construct already...

[Vansell]

Eventually, after what must have surely been the better part of a day, the pipe took an uphill turn, and the glacier-like oozing of the slime became a more fluid trickle. The pipe was wider here, but the incline now presented a new challenge.

Sarracenia set her toes into the join of the pipe, stretched up, and scrabbed with the tips of her fingers until she felt them curl around an edge, and with the last of the strength she could draw from her thrall's muscles, she hauled herself up, slid forwards and flopped out of the end of the pipe into a stagnant stream of muck.

The tunnel they found themselves in was typical of Dalek architecture - solid, blocky, utilitarian. Hewn from the volcanic rock, the ceiling was supported by steel, beams and braces. Down the middle of the polished-smooth stone floor, a channel had been cut for the waste to flow, with smaller channels branching off perpendicular at regular intervals, draining into pipes like the one from which they had emerged. Either side of the channel was space for a Dalek to pass. Not a guaranteed unused passage, then.

So, the two Time Lords were seeking experimental subject prisoners of the Daleks? Sarracenia knew all too well where they could be found, and when the two had emerged from the pipe, she would start to lead them in that direction, motioning once again for silence. If a Dalek approached, they would see the blue glow of its eyestalk reflecting off the damp, glistening walls before it turned the corner - and they would have no choice but to slip into the stream and life flat, submerged, until the danger of detection had passed.

[Ailla]

Misery.

She could find no other word to describe it. The further they went along the cramped and narrow pipe, the deeper they penetrated into the Dalek stronghold, the more Ailla could feel it. The very walls were steeped in it, tainted with it. To the rarefied senses of an empath, everything she touched seemed to ooze despair and wretchedness. She had been in some dark and grim places in her time, but never anything quite like this.

She had been raised a soldier, fit and capable and disciplined. But she had never fought in a battle. The wars the CIA had taught her to fight had always been like this one, covert and sly, hidden and secret. Changing things from the inside, so that your enemies never saw you coming. And yet, sensing the immense suffering of the prisoners held here, she suddenly felt a savage jealousy of the soldiers fighting these Daleks out in the field. She wished she could join them. She wished she could have the satisfaction of knowing she'd killed as many of these tin-pot monsters as she possibly could.

Perhaps, once this mission was complete – once she had earned her freedom from her cryo-confinement – she would be permitted to join her people in waging the war. The thought kept her going, as they inched through the muck and filth. With Koschei dead, she had nothing else left to live for. Dying heroically in a passionate fight for justice seemed a good end to make.

Following Sarracenia, she pulled herself up and over the sharp incline of the pipe, her well-drilled body responding automatically to her demands, even as her mind worked to strengthen her empathic defences, to shut out the clamour of pain and grief that was hammering at her brain.

Having slipped like an eel from the end of the pipe, she turned back, still lying on her belly, silently offering her father a small, very mucky hand, to help him with the ascent.

[Deleted]

The angle had changed and water ran in scads through his legs. His boots tried to grip the clammy pipe. Anyone ahead of him slipped and they could lose all progress. His mind began to numb over from the repetition alone. Sensing that the monotony and gloom were getting to him, he forced bits of songs through his mind, then mathematical calculations, how to cook the perfect cake, anything to keep him on his toes. Inevitably, they also pondered the fact that his own daughter was here and all the lies he had been fed. The predicament they were in that had brought them together. But it would all eventually turn back to the scrape of his fingernails in the mud. He had been in quite a few sewers and graveyards, too many. And the war turned your average field into them in the blink of an eyestalk. Finally, he heard a noise like a fish making a bid for freedom. Then a hand reached back for him and he took it, exiting the pipeway with a up-swelling of relief. Of course, that was the easy part. Or, an easy part. Now they were in the heart of the Dalek's underbelly, a veritable labyrinth of raw volcanic rock.

He gave Ailla a nod of thanks and searched the darkness for signs of Daleks, squinting as he noted the walkways were wide enough for them. It would be too easy to want to rest here but that would be a critical mistake. Instead, he glanced at their guide for which direction to go while trying to think back to the intel he'd received. After so long being silent, he did not seem inclined to speak though he was considering asking...prodding Sarracenia if she didn't begin to move. However something caught his eye and he gave a quick gesture. A faint blue glow, just at the edge of his vision's reach.

[Vansell]

It was almost as though Sarracenia was reacting to the Time Lord just seeing the blue glow at the turn of the corridor, even before he raised a hand to gesture his warning.  She dropped flat, and slipped sideways into the waste channel, sinking below the surface without so much as a splash, and barely a ripple.

This time, her movements were more oddly reminiscent of a lurking crocodile.  One had to wonder how many different bodies the Warpsmith had inhabited before her current humanoid thrall.  Submerged and motionless, she held her breath and waited, while thoughts moved, clear and steady, through her mind one at a time - her mind never raced, as such, when she was in a tense situation.

Would the two Time Lords manage to hide in time?  If so, would they be able to remain concealed without giving any trace of their presence?  If they were caught, would the approaching Dalek think to probe the channel for any accomplices?

And how was she going to tell them what was coming next?

[Ailla]

Ailla saw the blue glow at the same moment her father gestured towards it. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but the urgency of his movement – and the fact that the Warp Smith was already vanishing into the concealment of the waste channel running beside them – soon convinced her that it was nothing good.

With all the preternatural grace of the trained CIA operative, she was only seconds behind Sarracenia, slipping down into the foul runnel, eyes shut and respiratory bypass system fully engaged, as the water closed over her head.

Even as she sank, she was assailed by a wave of utter hatred, a loathing of light and life so virulent that it was like a spreading poison, a thousand times more rancid than the sewer in which she had just immersed herself.

So this was a Dalek, she thought dimly, holding herself perfectly motionless, her mind cringing away from the aura of the creature patrolling above her.

Hatred incarnate, each individual unit joined together in a pathweb of death and destruction. A sickness, an evil, beyond understanding or description or redemption.

And from that moment on, still reeling from the infinite horror of the empathic sensation, lying face down in that rivulet of muck, she vowed to herself that she would do anything she could to destroy them.

Whatever it took.

[Deleted]

The trick was to exhale first, decrease the lungs buoyancy. Even though Time Lords had the advantage of their respiratory bypass system, there was no telling when the Dalek would pass or if there would be more when he finally needed to break the surface of the filthy sluice water he'd sunk his body down beneath. He waited, counting out the rels, timing how long it would take for the patrol to pass through the tunnel. He felt slime, grime, and worse. Gelatinous material he did not wish to identify. The water was little more than concentrated stink and decay. He could not subsist without air indefinitely though and as he felt the need grow, he drew himself towards the edge of the water and broke through it. His eyes nose and mouth...knowing the last thing he could see was the end of a Dalek gun-stick and the eerie glow of their eye. As it happened, the glow was still present yet he was not killed. He took a breath and another, as quietly as he could. The patrol had it's back to them...perhaps they would be lucky. This time.

[Vansell]

Sound was muffled by the liquid ooze, but Sarracenia could still tell where the approaching Dalek was - she could still just barely make out the low hum of its gliding motion. It rounded the corner, followed - to her horror - by another close behind.

"We cannot understand the experimental data." A harsh, grating metallic voice, moving closer down the passageway; Sarracenia knew those tones all too well.

"Enough data has been obtained. Why are there no results?"

"The subjects believe they are beyond the capacity of Dalek understanding."

"That is not possible! Dalek science is superior!"

"We await your orders, Patrol Leader. What is your solution?"

"We must subjugate them! SUBJUGATE!"

"SUBJUGATE!" the first Dalek seemed to agree contentedly, and the humming of their movement faded away around the corner at the other end of the passageway.

The lungs of Sarracenia's thrall were bursting, but still she held on, until she was absolutely certain that the pair weren't about to turn around and come back, before she finally allowed herself to rise up out of the murky stream and let out the stale air in a rush, still careful to keep absolute silence. Then, she turned towards where the two Time Lords had entered the stream.