We've got a few secrets left, and we're gonna use them. But just know that the end is coming.

[cityship]

There are three major things happening. One of them is that the crew is sweeping through the ship, scanning whoever they find, and shipping the restrained Controllers back to the MedBay with some crew members.

Another is Paco--or his Yeerk, at least--is leading Scorpius, who appears to have betrayed the crew, towards the machine, hidden away in an alcove in the city, attached to one of the fleshy walls near one of Stacy's nerve clusters. It took them quite a while to find it.

The Yeerks do so love collaborators.

The last thing happening is the Doctor, Master, and Bumblebee, with the last one carrying an unconscious West, are hunting for that same machine and closing in.

With all these thing happening at once, the shit is, as they say, about to hit the fan.

Comments

[kindofscary.livejournal.com]

"Doctor, these things hide in their enemies' brains. I know a thing or two about that." It chitters, though it's hard to say which side of the argument it falls on, "It's not lying."

He places his free hand against the wall, "Hard to say how thick it is. My screwdriver could cut through it, possibly. What about you?" He looks at Bee, "What kind of ordnance are you carrying?"

[cityship]

What wall? Touching it for a moment makes it give way. Apparently it's just a hard-light hologram.

[fluffinasuit.livejournal.com]

The Doctor blinks at the now-gone wall, then puts his glasses on to scrutinize what's behind it. Interesting. "See? You don't need brute force for everything."

[stingslikeali.livejournal.com]

"Huh. Hologram. Guess we can go on." Bee says, flipping out his stingers and walking through.

[kindofscary.livejournal.com]

The Master is already beyond the veil. Even the Yeerk currently in his possession has stopped chittering.

"Oh, @"?*!"

[fluffinasuit.livejournal.com]

The Doctor brings up the rear, gaping around.

"Language," he tells the Master absently, not really paying attention.

[cityship]

It's like a huuuge area has been carved out of the wall, something that's always been there, but hidden by the holographic wall for who knows how long. There are open tunnels all around it. One of them leads down to the Yeerk Pool.

A giant machine, almost the size of a one-story building, and composed of criss-crossed metal walkways and beams, wires and cords, is tapped into the wall, hooked up to a massive exposed thing that looks almost like a giant nerve.

Up a bit on the second level of it, is a control panel, full of blinking lights and screens, but there are a few panels all over it.

It's emitting a noise that sounds almost like it's slowly charging.

[stingslikeali.livejournal.com]

"...okaay, there is no slagging way that can be any good."

[kindofscary.livejournal.com]

The Master flashes Bumblebee a grin before clambering up the thing to the control booth, "I know. Brilliant, isn't it?"

He scans over the various dials and meters, screwdriver hanging limply from his fingers. His other hand does the opposite, and the Yeerk squeaks.

"Doctor, you might want to take a look at this."

[fluffinasuit.livejournal.com]

"Coming!" The Doctor scrambled quickly after the Master.

Popping up beside him, the Time Lord takes in the various readings and frowns, absently twiddling with his own screwdriver. His other hand reaches for the Master's shoulder as his frown deepens.

"Oh. No."

[stingslikeali.livejournal.com]

"That an Oh No as in "Oh no, it's fine. let's just leave it alone" or is it a Oh no as in "Oh no, we've got to deactivate this thing as soon as physically possible" ?"

[kindofscary.livejournal.com]

"Well, he said it, so it must be the latter," the Master liked to think himself a technological whiz kid, but this? This was-- kind of scary.

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"Actually," said a voice from behind and above them. "It's more of a 'oh fuck, we are so boned'."

Where the hell had the husky Latino kid come from and how had he gotten that high up the wall with no one seeing him?

Paco waved his Dracon beam at them cheerfully. "Come on, say it. I want to hear 'we are so boned' in a British accent."

[stingslikeali.livejournal.com]

"And I want to hear 'Ow, slaggit, I'm in a ton of pain' in whatver the hell your accent is. Guess who's in more of a position to hear what he wants? Here's a hint: I've already survived a blast from one of those dinky guns."

[fluffinasuit.livejournal.com]

The Doctor whirls around when he heard the voice. "Oh, Sweet Mother of Chaos," he whines quietly, possibly to the Master, stepping back until his back is against the console, "we really do not have the time for villainous exposition right now."

[kindofscary.livejournal.com]

And the Master... hasn't really been listening. Or has he? Who knows, but he's currently tapping at the particular dial that rises every second with his screwdriver, "This one. I don't like this one."

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

"Noted!" Paco chirped, grinning toothily at Bumblebee. "I'll just have to remember to aim carefully. Francisco's played a lot of video games, he's not bad at hitting moving targets."

He couldn't exactly shoot them where they were, though. Not without risking the machine. But Sub-Visser 7 had a plan for dealing with that. He pulled a remote control out of his plantsuit and pressed one of the buttons.

A large section of one of the walls began to slide up, to the sound of hissing almost-cheers and the scrabbling of hundreds of little pointed feet.

"In case you were wondering, these are Taxxons," Paco explained. "Stacy thoughtfully had some onboard for some reason. Very handy, but they make horrible hosts. See, they're always hungry. Always. It's a madness. The entire species submitted willingly to the Yeerk Empire to try to escape it." He gestured down where long red tongues were licking out from under the rising walls. "These poor fellows have been living in captivity for who knows how long, breeding and eating each other and breeding and eating...ugh."

Taxxons began pouring into the room like a flood. Giant centipedes, as big around as a manhole cover and ten feet long. They scuttled forward on dozens of needle-legs, racing toward the three crew members and the unconscious Controller. Paco was too high up for them to reach. The others, though...

[stingslikeali.livejournal.com]

Bee fired into the group of Taxxons. "Uh, Doc? You might want to start on deactivating whatever the hell that thing is. I'm not sure how long I can hold these things off."