Doctor Who: Amy, Captured Ch. 13

'You don't do that, Amy,' Mara's voice smoldered with an ashen, protective energy that put the fear into Amy. 'That's not what you do.'

The crop rose and fell, striking hard across Amy's cheek, her head turning with the blow, a sonorous yelp escaping her throat. Mara skipped lightly back, eyes so harsh, and struck a series of increasingly forceful blows as Amy shook and shrank away.

Sander picked himself up and circled the fray cautiously. That hair-trigger of Mara's? It had definitely been pulled; she had warned him that she might not be able to pull herself back when she started, but this was something else. She was defending him, he knew. It was sweet, in its own way, but also terrifying, and it needed to be stopped.

Mara could very easily go too far. What was it they had both said about an ending?

'Mara!' Sander shouted. 'Mara, stop!'

'Needs to learn her place!' Mara snarled back without stopping. Sander closed his eyes; well, he knew one thing that would stop her...

As she raised the crop again, his hand shot out, gripping it by the stem and tearing it from her unprepared hand. It landed in a corner as Sander spun Mara's struggling, maddened form around and pressed her against the wall with liquid grace. She growled wordlessly in his arms, eyes filled with murder as she reached out for Amy's terrified face.

He grabbed her wrists, kept her pinned against the wall, and leaned down to kiss her as forcefully as he could. His tongue slid into her mouth and she slowed, stopped, shuddered against him. Her eyes closed.

'Just stop,' He said softly, breaking the kiss. Mara was breathing hard, the fire dying in her eyes as the last cinders of rage faded. She looked up at him, not apologetically, just in awe.

'Wow,' She whimpered. 'That was hot. Do it again, all passionate and forceful... Damn, Sander, I didn't know you had it in you!' She grinned enticingly, wickedly, 'Maybe you could have it in me...'

'No, not right now...' Sander sighed, glancing sidelong at Amy, who had backed herself into a corner and was watching with a horrified expression. 'I think we've had enough of sex just for now. You need to go decompress, or something. That was fucked up, Mara.' He leaned in a little closer, 'Much as I appreciate it.'

'Oh, you thought I was doing that for you?'

'Shut up, Mara...' Sander grinned. 'Now go! Relax! Maybe even work, if you can stomach it...'

Mara giggled, kissed his cheek, 'Thanks, Sander.'

'I know, I'm a wonderful man,' He watched her dress with a fleeting sense of disappointment, even though he had suggested it. The door slid closed behind her, and his gaze shifted exclusively to Amy, 'Are you okay?'

'Just take me back to my cell,' She answered shortly, with a single word running through her head: Escape.

She was sure that she was trembling, though she could barely feel much of anything at the moment. A bleak, terrible fear had enveloped her; a true terror that she was never going to leave this place, that she'd spend the rest of her life as the plaything of these two strange people. Sander would stop anything too terrible from happening to her- apparently he cared about her that much- but this wasn't any kind of life.

The resolve to escape was still throbbing in her chest, but the fear made it immediate. She had to try something, something soon or she would go mad. Take charge of her fate, wrest control of herself back from these...

'C'mon, Amy,' Sander said, snapping her out of her reverie with as much joviality as he could. He pulled his shirt back on, 'Clothes.'

Wait. It couldn't possibly be that simple, could it? It couldn't possibly be that simple!

The thought was planted, and it had taken root. The idea was so, so obvious. So painfully, head-explodingly simple! Of course she hadn't seen it before, it was staring her right in the face!

Trying desperately to stop her hands from shaking, Amy retrieved her clothes and began dressing. There would probably be only one chance at this; one chance and nowhere to run anyway. But there had to be some way of calling for help in this place. Some way of contacting the Doctor. If she could only find out where they had stored the possessions she'd had on her when she had first been teleported here... If she could only find her phone.

The Command Collar... There was a way to beat it.

But she was going to look ridiculous.

Sander keyed open the door and gestured for her to go first. She had attacked him once; he didn't want her behind him. Well, that would work perfectly fine...

Amy's heart pounded harder than ever before in her chest, so hard she thought it might actually stop. She took a deep breath, stepped through the doorway; she was out of Sander's reach, Mara was nowhere to be seen. Perfect.

She broke into a run.

There it was, the first syllables of the word "command" dragging themselves from Sander's mouth. Amy smirked, a triumphant laugh bubbling up from within. Finally! Finally!

Her hands flew up, clapping themselves over her ears; she couldn't obey what she couldn't hear. Occam's razor had come through at last!

She laughed out loud, adding an extra barrier of noise between herself and the order, hoping against hope and waiting for the terrible moment when her feet would stop working.

But it never came.

She was running, and it never came!

She whooped a cry of victory, bouncing around the corner and out of Sander's sight. For a moment, he stood dumbfounded, head titled to one side. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

'Oh, that shouldn't have worked...' He sighed in a put-upon way. He started running; even with a mechanical leg he was still faster than Amy was, he had longer legs- just- and he knew his way around his base far better than she did. Of course there was no escape, but he didn't exactly want her running around free in her current state of mind. She could break something.

'No escape, Pond!' He yelled, following the sound of her footfalls. 'Not here! Not from me!'

He skidded around the corner, fast enough to see the last tailing strands of her hair flow around the next one. He sped up; there were too many delicate instruments in this place...

Amy continued running, hands held tightly over her ears; she wasn't about to risk accidentally hearing a follow-up order and getting caught again. She didn't know how much time she had as it was; she could see surveillance cameras lining the walls, and she had no idea where she was going anyway. She ducked around another corner. It was important to stay out of sight.

The room she found herself in was dimly lit and sparse; just a computer console overlooking a plate glass window that looked in on an even darker room. It was a start; she had overheard Sander and Mara talking about the networks here. Everything was connected to everything else, just as a matter of convenience. If she could find a map in the system, or some line of communication to the outside world. Hell, she'd even settle for a system lockdown to trap Sander somewhere else and stop him from accessing the system.

Of course, she didn't know the first thing about 34^th century computers, but the thing about fear is that it erases such small, paltry concerns as logic. She hit a likely looking button that was labeled like a power switch just as Sander poked his head into the room. Something beyond the observation glass moved.

'Amy!' Sander yelled, genuine concern in his voice. 'You didn't touch anything, did- oh...'

He trailed off as a series of lights switched themselves on beyond the glass. Amy looked up, backed away, as the thing in the room lurched to life, the crackle of electricity blasting through every artificial limb.

The robot unfolded in a single, jerking movement, tiny points of light sweeping up and down its heavy steel limbs as two optical apertures burst to illuminated life on its head. They swept the room, alighting first on Amy, then Sander. Both figures froze on the spot.

'Oh, fuck,' Sander breathed, taking deep, measured breaths and preparing himself for what came next. He dashed forward, grabbing Amy's hand and pulling her as hard as he could, jerking her from the room in the same moment as the plate glass shattered under the weight of a single megaton hand. She just had time to notice that the machine was bristling with weapons.

'Run, run, run!' Sander screamed, pushing Amy down the corridor. 'Now is the time to fucking book it, girl!'

She complied, not feeling like sticking around to see why, 'What was that thing?' She yelled breathlessly as they flew down the corridor. Rhythmic, heavy clangs on the floor behind them indicated that they were being followed.

'It's a Heavy Metal, Amy!' Sander yelled back. 'One big motherfucker of a combat Mech! I designed it, back when Hackett Industries was still my thing!'

'Why is it here?'

'My ace in the hole! For if the Doctor ever actually found us!' Sander gave her a pained look. 'Usually we'd just drop those things behind enemy lines and let them go to town, but I was in the middle of programming a Friend-or-Foe recognition system for that one, y'know, so it wouldn't kill the three of us!'

'And you never got around to finishing it, right?' Amy said flatly.

'Got it in one! I got distracted, what with all the fleeing we had to do!' He sped up, looking over his shoulder to see the robot burst out into the corridor. He grabbed Amy's hand again, guiding the two of them to turn the nearest corner. 'Keep out of its line of sight!'

'So, what? It's just going to find us and blast us to hell now?'

Sander grinned manically, 'Oh, it doesn't need to hit us to kill us; it has enough firepower so that even if it misses it'll tear a hole in the walls and suck us all out into space. That's what the extra programs were for; making sure it'd only hit the Doctor, not anything else!'

'Oh, how honorable!'

'I never said that! One plays with the hand he was dealt, Amy. But you activated my trump card before it was time to play it, and now we all get to die together! Whee!' Sander laughed sarcastically. 'We have to stay out of sensor range; if it can target us, we're dead on the first shot, understand? Keep running!'

'Great!'

'Hey, maybe it'll teach you not to mess around with stuff you know nothing about! Mara!' Sander exclaimed as the blonde woman stepped out of a room ahead of them. The robot rounded the corner behind them, mechanical eyes searching the corridor ahead. Sander knew this model of Mech well; it took a few seconds for it to distinguish a living object from an inanimate one at this distance.

'What the fuck's that thing doing up and about?' Mara deadpanned. Sander pushed her back the way she had come, listening for the dreaded "target acquired" tone from the Heavy Metal. He pushed Amy in after Mara before ducking himself into the room opposite. He crouched in the doorframe, and motioned for silence.

'Amy activated it!' He whispered across the hall between them. 'One shot and we're fucked.'

'Well shit,' Mara spat. 'Nice going, Red!'

'Shut up! I have a plan, of course!' Sander motioned appealingly.

'Oh, like your "let's kill the Doctor with a robot" plan?' Mara said flatly.

'We don't have long!' Sander hissed, as the heavy footfalls drew ever closer. 'Mara, run. Take Amy and run. Get to the shuttle, take off and wait for me to call you back.'

'That plan is an idiot. What are you going to do, die at that thing?' Mara smirked despite the gravity of the situation.

'No. I know how these things work, I think I can fool it,' Sander pulled a small handheld display from his pocket. 'If I disable the limiters on my Mech parts I'll get that little extra push of agility I need to fool those targeting sensors... I can get in close enough to shut it down, or get past it to the control room to cut the power to it.'

'There's a 2056-bit encryption key on that system, Sander! You don't have the keycard with you! What are you going to do with that?'

Sander grinned, wriggled his eyebrows, 'I don't think you realize just how good I am at this stuff, Mara. But you've got to run now, before it sees you,' His gaze went soft. 'I'm not going to see the two of you die because I fucked up.'

'No,' Mara shook her head. 'I'm not leaving you, not when we've just started to-'

'I know how you feel, Mara! Just think! If you and Amy are here, the chances of us all getting killed are three times higher! If it's just me...' Sander looked away. 'That's one death. And you survive.'

Mara was silent for a moment as the robot stood as a sentinel at one end of the hall. When she spoke again, her voice was strong and unbending, 'I am not leaving you here, Sander Hackett.'

'You will fucking run!' Sander roared. 'I am still your employer, Mara Syfte, and I order you to get the fuck off of my asteroid!'

The robot beeped, turned to the noise. Mara kept Sander's gaze for several seconds as their death slowly approached the source of the sound, her eyes welling with tears. She stood and grabbed Amy's hand.

'Fuck it all...' She hissed. 'I swear to god, Hackett; you die here, and I will fucking kill you!'

She dashed out into the hall, dragging her captive behind her. They threw themselves out of the Heavy Metal's line of sight mere moments before its targeting software caught them. Sander breathed a deep sigh of relief and resignation.

'Oh man...' He said to himself. 'I made her cry...'

He hated that. He stood, feeling the limiters in his leg deactivate with a buzz as new power surged through the artificial limb. All that power came at a cost; he'd probably tear the interior tissue with prolonged use. This was a zero-sum game for him.

His newly empowered leg seemed to bounce with every step as he stalked out into the robot's view, staying still just long enough to become the new target for its optics.

Now then... It took four seconds for a Heavy Metal unit with an uninterrupted line of sight to target and prime for a kill... One... two... three...

Sander jumped to one side and began to run towards the giant machine as its armor plating shifted into attack position. If he could just keep out of its reticule long enough to close the distance between them...

He shifted position every three seconds to avoid being splattered all over deep space, reveling in the new agility his unrestrained leg was giving him. He flexed the fingers of his right hand experimentally, feeling the pure strength. Even his eye seemed to be seeing at a higher resolution than before. He whooped, determined to enjoy his own personal superhero moment; especially considering that it may well be the last moment he ever had.

Besides all that, he could feel the metal in him beginning to heat up, along with the prickling discomfort as the mechanisms rubbed against his flesh too fast to be healthy.

He ducked low under the robot's immense metal chest, kicking out with his left leg to provide a little extra thrust to slide through the arch between its legs and out the other side. He righted himself with a cheer and kept running.

'Oh, fuck yes!' He exclaimed shrilly. 'That was totally ninja!'

That action hero maneuver had bought him a few seconds as the robot turned clumsily in the too-small hallway. This thing was meant for open spaces, not interior combat. That was where Sander found his advantage.

But it wouldn't last long, given how smart a Heavy Metal was. Machine intellect was illegal in military model Mechs.

Not that Hackett Industries had cared...

*****************************

Mara slammed the airlock door open and shoved Amy inside. She stood motionless in the open doorway, staring silently at the captive woman, seemingly searching her eyes for something. From the vaguely unsatisfied look that resulted, it seemed that she had not found it.

Mara sighed, 'I'm not leaving him to die.' The airlock closed, the last view Amy got was of Mara's steely, resolved gaze. She could hear rapid tapping at a keyboard on the other side of the door, then footsteps quickly retreating. The control panel for the shuttle lit up, and the whole rig lurched forward without disengaging from the docking bay.

Amy leaned against the wall, a frown quickly developing. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. Mara had just set the shuttle to autopilot and left her there?

'Shit!' She swore vehemently, slamming a fist against the hull so hard that it hurt. Damn it, she had a right to escape!

But even after everything that had happened...

After the endless tortures, the long nights alone with her fear, being used over and over again... That man, that strange, impossible man out there...

He had saved her life. Twice, now! By his own logic, he had no reason to do so, and he had anyway. And this time, it was at great personal risk to himself...

They could have commanded her to walk out in front of the robot, as a distraction so that the two of them could escape to the shuttle. And the idea had occurred to both of them. That was the cold, hard truth of the matter, even if it did make Amy's insides shrink in horror. That was the action that an amoral, evil Sander or Mara would have taken. That was the choice of a monster.

But neither of them had done that. Sander had used himself as a shield, and Mara had gone after him. What possible reason...

Redemption...

It was a hard thing to aim for. She remembered the Dream Lord; remembered losing Rory in that alternate Leadworth. God knows, she understood loss. The dead, clawing emptiness that ripped apart the soul and left nothing but darkness behind. A sweeping tide of sorrow that consumed you from the inside.

And, yes... The wrath. The anger that boiled up through the mind. The beast that howled for revenge; that rallied against the heavens themselves for being so cruel. The monster that had gripped Sander so completely that he had given himself to it for thirteen years. That he had defied death itself to appease.

Yes, she had wanted exactly the same fate for the Dream Lord. And that was just the first time she had lost Rory, when she had been provided an exit from that nightmare. The second time...

Oh, the second time... That Silurian... She would have done so, so much worse.

And from what she had heard, even the Doctor had felt that evil urge welling up at the loss of Gallifrey.

Amy sighed to herself as her hands went to the airlock handle. If there was one thing she was absolutely sure of...

It was that stupid self-sacrifice was what travelling in the TARDIS was all about.

*********************

'Yeah, fuck you too!' Sander growled, the back of his mind still counting down, despite the mounting horror of the rest of him.

One... With his back to a wall, trapped at a dead end.

Two... With the Heavy Metal standing over him, guns poised and optical apertures focused exclusively on him.

Three... With his hand completely broken. With blood dripping from his fingernails. With his leg barely able to support his weight. With the sole of his foot venting heat, so, so hot...

Four... With the end coming. With the wandering thought of whether seeing Elsa again would be worth losing Mara.

'Sander!'

The robot turned at the new sound, targeting sensors whirring.

'No!' Sander shouted, throwing all of his weight against the bend in the Heavy Metal's knee, hoping to push it off balance, give Mara a fighting chance of getting out of here alive. The robot dropped slightly, but not enough.

'Hey!'

'Amy?!' Sander roared incredulously. She had come back? 'No, damn it!' He gritted his teeth and pushed. He had to throw it off, just as the count got to three...