The walls of the engine room were a mishmash of car-sized patches of red-jelly sealant. The Doctor could see that at least six or seven pirate capsules had torn their way aboard the ship and then torn their way off again. Any of the mouthless men who'd been in the engine rooms when the pirate ships tore through the hull would have been quickly sucked out into space.

'Ah,' said the Doctor. 'I must be running late again.'

Desperate to find out what had happened to Martha, he grabbed the cut-off end of the cable, and quickly gathered it back up into the TARDIS. He'd repair the link later, when he knew Martha was OK. Locking the door of the TARDIS, he made for the transmat booth. With the ship realigned it should be working properly once again.

He keyed the controls and nothing happened. Annoyed, he checked over the transmat systems. The booth he was in seemed to be in good working order, but it couldn't reach the booth upstairs.

A chill ran through the Doctor.

He dashed down the alleyway between the huge machines, to the door that he'd only ever seen before blocked by scrambled egg. There was no egg now, and he ran out into the plush-carpeted passageway. The wood-panelled walls were patched with more car-sized holes where pirate capsules had punched through.

He ran left, left again and then right, and took the stairs three at a time. Halfway up the staircase to the ballroom, he saw the first dead body.

A blue Balumin man lay sprawled at the top of the stairs, a terrible, blank expression on his face. Further into the ballroom lay two more blackened bodies.

The Doctor made his way into the cocktail lounge, expecting to see more dead. But the cocktail lounge was empty, the whole bay window that looked out onto the Ogidi Galaxy now a great long patch of jelly sealant. Most of the Balumin would have died in space, the pirates had shot the rest.

Upstairs, the walls were likewise patched with red jelly sealant. The Doctor made his way along the crew's small quarters and through to the door to the bridge. There was no wall of scrambled egg blocking his way, and he stepped through quickly. The horseshoe of computers had been smashed apart. And in the gap lay the dead body of Captain Georgina Wet-Eleven of the Second Mid Dynasty.

There were a few other corpses around, but there was nothing to be done for them now. Instead, the Doctor moved quickly past them to examine the sparking remains of the computers, but they could tell him nothing. He had no idea how long it had been since the loop had come apart, nor where the pirate ship had got to now. He had lost Martha to them again. But, as he'd promised himself before, he would do whatever it took to find her.

He rummaged in the pockets of his suit jacket for a bit of paper and a pen, and almost cut himself on the dagger he'd confiscated from the unconscious Dashiel all that time ago. When they'd still been enemies and people couldn't die.

'Doctor?'

He spun round on the heel of his trainer. The egg-shaped, orange and tentacled Mrs Wingsworth stood in the doorway of the bridge. She no longer had any of her extravagant jewellery and her flimsy dress had been spattered with muck and blood.

'Hi,' said the Doctor.

'Whatever are you doing, dear?' she asked.

'Writing a note in case there were any survivors,' he said. He left the note on the wreck of the horseshoe of computers and hurried over to her. 'Are you all right?' he asked.

'Oh, we soldier on, dear,' she said. 'But you know there's nothing to drink downstairs.'

'Shocking,' he said. 'I'd complain.'

'I did!' said Mrs Wingsworth, laughing. 'Only there's no one here to take the slightest bit of notice!' The laugh died in her throat, but the Doctor could see her refusing to let him see how scared she'd been, how much she'd suffered.

'It's going to be all right,' he said. 'I promise you.'

Mrs Wingsworth reached out her tentacles to him. 'Martha!' she said, a tremor in her voice. 'She said I had to find you!'

'And you have,' said the Doctor kindly. 'It's going to be all right. I'm here now. You just have to tell me what I missed.'

Mrs Wingsworth, tears streaming down her egg-shaped orange body, did her best to explain.

'The pirates,' she said. 'They came. They killed everybody. And no one's coming back.'

THIRTEEN

'You know what?' said the Doctor, stood in the transmat booth. 'Neither do I.' He grinned. 'Ah well. Sure I'll think of something.' And with a pop he vanished.

Martha sighed. There was nothing to do but wait until he'd sorted everything out. She turned to join the party of humans and three badgers. And then she froze.

Projected on the wall, the spiky peach of the badger pirates' spaceship had begun to move. Tiny pirate capsules spewed from the back of the ship, each zipping round to attack the Brilliant head on. They fired their weapons, and another screen to the left blared warning signals about the Brilliant's shields.

Captain Georgina, Thomas and some of the other crew were racing to the horseshoe of computers. 'Get a channel open!' Captain Georgina shouted. 'Get a channel open!'

'Open, sir,' said Thomas quickly, busy at the controls.

'Archie!' said Captain Georgina. Time for you to do your stuff.'

'Oh, er, yeah,' said Archibald, hurrying to join the human crew. 'Uh, Captain Florence?' he said, and Martha could see how awkward and scared he was about just speaking to the air. 'This is, uh, Archie. There's food 'ere. Good food.'

Thomas fussed with the controls, getting only static in response. And then a voice was heard loud and clear. 'Archie?' said a vicious-sounding badger woman. 'You're in big trouble, y'swab!'

For a moment they stared at Archibald, who could only shrug. Then something smashed into the Brilliant and the impact knocked them all off their feet.

'Keep trying!' shouted Captain Georgina as she scrambled back to the controls. 'You've got to convince them!'

'Yeah,' said Archie. Dashiel and Jocelyn, holding hands, joined him at the horseshoe of computers and they all tried appealing to their former comrades.

Captain Georgina signalled the rest of the human crew. 'We're going to have boarders,' she told them. 'You'll take your positions and hold them from the engine rooms.'

'Sir,' said the brunette. 'The Doctor took our guns.' It was true: a mess of broken weapons lay littered on the floor, their innards used to build an almost working Teasmade.

'Hell,' said Captain Georgina. She shoved Archibald aside and took his place next to Thomas. 'This is Captain Georgina Wet-Eleven of the Starship Brilliant,' she told the attacking badgers. 'You are in violation of intergalactic transit codes six, fourteen and twenty. You will desist your attack at once, or we will blast you from the sky.'

There was a pause, and just for a moment Martha thought the defiance in the captain's tone might have made the pirates reconsider.

'Ha!' said the gruff female voice they'd heard before. 'Bring it on!'

Again they were thrown from their feet as something smashed into the ship. And again. 'They're 'ere!' said Jocelyn, from the ground beside Martha.

'S'OK,' said Dashiel. 'We'll tell 'em.' He led Jocelyn quickly out of the bridge, through the door which was no longer blocked by scrambled egg. They passed a flustered Mrs Wingsworth as they went.

'Get that passenger out of here!' shouted Captain Georgina. A couple of the human crew ran to bustle Mrs Wingsworth off the bridge, but Martha hurried over.

'She's with me,' she said. Again the ship buckled as something smashed into it. The human crew obviously decided that they had better things to do than worry about the passengers. Martha led Mrs Wingsworth out into the crew's quarters, away from all the panic.