Every nerve on edge, Compassion swung herself round a corner and charged into a short corridor that ended in a red doorway marked LAUNCH BAY.  She ran up to the door and tried it, but it wouldn't budge.  A formidable-looking entry coder was mounted in the adjacent wall.  She stared at it but the alarms were so loud they were stopping her thinking clearly.  She hit some digits randomly, but nothing seemed to register.  A single red light display screen winked mockingly at her.

Compassion was wondering what the light signified when amazingly, the door clicked open.  A woman in a blue tunic marked ENGINEERING emerged and gasped at the sight of her.

'You're staring,' Compassion said, and punched the woman hard in the face, back through the doorway.


The Doctor shook his head, alone in the blue corridor.  'Clumsy,' he told himself.  He so wanted Compassion to change, to start caring, to appreciate the privilege of travelling the universe as he did...  And yet she worried him.  Not in the way Fitz worried him - whatever the problem, he knew he could help Fitz out.  But Compassion seemed such a closed, self-centred person, riding his coat-tails like fare-dodgers ride a bus to get where they want to go on their own terms.

His demonstration useless now he was awaiting recapture alone, the Doctor sat down and rehearsed what he could say to appease his captors.

When the guards appeared round the corner seconds later he hadn't got very far.  It didn't matter; they shot him the moment they saw him.

Compassion dragged the unconscious engineer by her feet along a concrete corridor.  The droning of the klaxons faded as the corridor gave on to a vast hangar the size of a football pitch.  Small spaceships, four or five streamlined, tubular affairs, were lined up in a row facing a wall of massive metal plates that clearly were designed to open up to allow the shuttles a shot at the sky.

One of the ships was damaged, a barrier of coloured tape stretched all round it.  In its shadow, Compassion began to undress the woman, the slightest noise she made echoing accusingly back at her.  The engineering tunic was way too small for her, but it was a relief to feel clothed again.

She was midway through scrabbling into the skinny woman's trousers when a guard emerged from the ship, practically bumping into her.

The unconscious woman at Compassion's feet had no weapon, nor anything that could be used as one.  To buy time, Compassion dived behind the next ship.

'You scared the crap out of me!' the guard hissed.

Compassion frowned as she struggled to pull up the trousers.

'You must be the girl from Haltiel,' the guard continued, and Compassion could hear the smile in his voice.  'Not much of an invader, are you?'

He knew of her and the Doctor, but was joking about it.  This was no guard: he had to be an impostor.  Like her, he was somewhere he shouldn't be.

Perhaps he could be useful to her.

'What are you doing here?' Compassion asked, cautiously.

'Waiting till that engineer had finished checking the pipes back there.' He gestured to a far wall.  'Thanks for bringing her back again.  Very helpful.'

Compassion stepped away from the cover of the craft.  'Do you have a way of getting out of here?'