Youth is Wasted on the Young (26/27)
"Where is she?" the Doctor demanded, inside the Tardis.
"Still at the transfer station. She says there's wounded," Dutch said, clutching his phone.
"Right!" the Doctor said, setting coordinates. "Hang on!"
The Tardis dematerialized with a roar and a rumbling of the interior.
-----
They returned to the Tardis, soot-smeared and grim, coughing. Smoke leaked into the doors behind them.
Rory carried Janet, her concerned father walking beside them. Amy turned to shut the doors and the Doctor bounded up to the console. He hauled the scanner around and started typing.
"Rory," the Doctor said, his voice rough, he coughed into his shoulder. "Take Janet to the sickbay and finish healing that leg. Dutch, go with him and tend to that burn. Tildaith is taking the last chopper with the survivors back to the farm for reinforcements. He'll catch us up."
The Doctor fine tuned the map on his monitor, he tapped a cluster of dots that appeared. "Hah!" he said, satisfied. "Got you." He input some coordinates, and dematerialized.
-----
The Tardis materialized in an alley. The war was already under way.
Janet made to run to the creche to protect her daughter. Dutch caught her. He saw how the defenders were trying to hold off the Wirrn with their bare hands.
"Follow me. Trust me, honey!" He grabbed her hand and smashed open the back window of a shop. The sheriff reached in, unlocked the door, and dragged her inside.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory ran for the street.
Feyanorans were climbing up to the rooftops to get closer to their attackers, wielding everything from shotguns, to fire axes, to garden rakes.
Amy saw Mr. Wilkerson, the artist, wielding a chainsaw in each hand, laying about him with all the determination of the grim reaper.
People were hanging off fire escapes, throwing bricks from the street, and even grabbing darting Wirrn by the legs and pulling them down, piling on them by sheer numbers. Braining them with whatever heavy object came to hand.
Amy saw the childlike Feyanorans running and jumping from one building rooftop to the next, taking the kind of daredevil chances with their young bodies that heavier grown-ups would never dare.
The Wirrn were taking their toll too. She saw one Wirrn crushed between two speeding cars while another Wirrn plucked a Feyanoran off the street and dropped her into the tangle of fire escapes from a great height. But not before the woman cut it badly with a bit of broken glass she'd snatched from the street.
Everywhere were screams, and sirens, and the deep angry drone of Wirrn wings.
The majority of the Wirrn focused on the creche building. A blocklike brick structure that looked like it could survive earthquakes. The advertising billboard on top of the building was the first thing to go. It toppled down into the street and crashed onto two cars.
Amy couldn't believe the savagery. Not just from the Wirrn, but from the Feyanorans. They bared their teeth and screamed like savages, gripping with hands and teeth, fighting with boards and stones, if they had nothing else.
Every shattered creche window was suddenly filled with a wall of Feyanorans determined to keep the Wirrn out.
The Air Force arrived with a volley of missiles, avoiding the creche, shattering the buildings on either side. The Feyanorans didn't flinch but welcomed the pile of rubble as more ammunition to hurl at the Wirrn. Rory joined a human chain that was passing bits of rubble up a fire escape hand-to-hand for the people at the top to throw down on the Wirrn trying to break into the creche roof.
Amy and the Doctor ran past the chain up to the roof.
Amy saw Janet and Dutch emerge from the shop and blaze their way across the street with shotgun blasts, bringing down Wirrn who were attempting to force their way into the creche.
They were both covered in bandoliers and ammunition from the gunshop.
They reach the shattered windows, and the defenders absorbed them inside.
Shots started being fired from that window, and Amy realized Dutch had passed out the weapons and ammo he and Janet had strapped around themselves before their run.
When Amy and the Doctor reached the roof, Amy saw the choppers had drawn off some of the Wirrn who were now engaged in aerial combat with the helicopters -- machine guns rattled as the choppers tried to cut down the swift darting wasps. But the Wirrn were used to fighting human aircraft now. They flew up from below and grabbed the undercarriage, crawling up and pulling the soldiers out of the open cabs before crawling in after the pilots.
More than one chopper went down, the dying pilot struggling to avoid the creche, while the Wirrn tried to aim for it.
The Doctor leaned over the roof buttress and saw that the choppers hadn't drawn off all the Wirrn. There was still a group on the creche rooftop. The Feyanorans were pelting them with everything they could throw, their weapons had run out of ammunition, but the Wirrn had managed to rip off one of the ventilation covers on the creche roof. As they watched, one of the Wirrn started wriggling down into the hole.
The Doctor yanked out his sonic screwdriver and twisted something on it savagely. "Everyone down!" he yelled, his voice magnified more than a human could project. He threw the screwdriver over the wall to the creche roof and yanked Amy down behind the parapet, covering her ears with his hands.
A hard shock wave slammed into the building, like a sonic boom, the air ripped at her hair, and loose masonry crumbled from the top of the parapet.
The Doctor stood up and looked over. Stunned Wirrn were falling out of the sky. The Wirrn on the rooftop were all stunned, lying blown in a circle around the slagged screwdriver. The Wirrn half down the ventilation shaft lay still, legs splayed -- half in -- half out of the hole.
A chopper, which had floundered in the shock of the sonic wave, got control of itself and landed on the rooftop while the airspace was clear of defending Wirrn.
Child-sized militiamen poured out, clad in combat armor and helmets, armed with machine guns, they indiscriminately shot all the helpless Wirrn on the rooftop. They dragged the invading Wirrn out of its hole and shot its head into a mass of pulp.
Amy looked up at the Doctor, worried how the show of savagery would affect him. He was grim, his lips were pressed tight, his face turned to stone.
A trickle of blood oozed out of one ear.
-----
“How did they even know this was a creche?" Amy asked in the aftermath of the battle, standing on the roof.
"Wirrn aren't without technical knowledge," the Doctor said. "And they make hives for keeping their developing embryos. Besides, the Big Baby sign probably tipped them off."
He pointed at the huge, toppled billboard with its picture of a baby and rows of incubators that had been on top of the building.
"They were in the mood for a bit of wanton destruction and got lucky," he said.
Amy looked around at the wreckage. "Define lucky."
-----
The remaining airborne Wirrn fled. Everyone cheered as the choppers and surviving ATVs gave chase. The Doctor grinned and waved when he saw a pink, disk-shaped craft join the chase. It rolled a greeting in response.
"Hah! Schwillic..." Amy's comment was cut off as the Doctor yelled, "Amy! Look out!" He tackled her aside, and Amy shrieked as a giant green streak flashed by and knocked the Doctor over the parapet.
"Doctor!" Amy screamed and reached for him as he fell in the clutches of a huge Wirrn she recognized only too well. The Wirrn flew down the side of the building, it started to swoop up and away with its struggling Time Lord burden.
Amy panicked, terrified of where the Wirrn would take him. "Rory!" she screamed and pointed.
Rory looked up from his rubble pile at the base of the building and saw the problem. He hefted a brick, took aim and threw. The brick hit the Wirrn in the head, spinning it, the Doctor whirled out of its grasp and crashed into the fire escape on the side of the building. The metal railing rammed into his ribs, knocking the breath out of him. He scrabbled for a handhold, feet kicking air. He slipped. His hearts beat wildly at memories of falling, of being shattered on the ground...
He was grabbed by a plethora of small Feyanoran hands.
The small locals wrestled him onto the stairs. "Thank you," he gasped, breathing in great gulps. Grateful for the feel of the hard metal stairs jabbing into his back. He could hear Amy's greater weight clanging down the stairs toward him. Rory yelled out, "Doctor!" as he charged up. The Doctor struggled to his feet. He righted his choking bow tie and reclipped one of his suspenders.
Amy and Rory met him in the middle but the Doctor fought off their concerned hands and floundered his way down the stairs.
Methuselah had landed in the street, saved only by crashing into the windshield of a car, rather than onto the unyielding concrete below.
The giant insect stood up and shook itself, raining off shards of glass.
The Doctor shook off Amy and Rory's concerned hands, and straightened his jacket. He stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered over to the giant insect.
"There's no need for all this, you know," the Doctor said as he came within earshot. He walked calmly up to the Wirrn and stopped just beyond arm's reach.
The alien glared at him through huge insectoid eyes. "There is every need. Your filthy electrical barrier destroyed our pupae! Even the young adults who were in molt succumbed to the electrical field in the air. Did you once stop to think what that kind of field would do to the developing young?!"
"I knew you were susceptible to electricity..." he admitted.
"So you used it on children?!" the Wirrn said.
"It was never intended to harm anyone..." the Doctor said softly.
"Doctor!" Amy yelled. "We haven't got time for this! Feel guilty later!"
The Doctor turned and nodded. "Quite right." He turned back around, directly into a faceful of gas. He blinked, and looked up at Methuselah with disappointment. The Wirrn's proboscis was smoking, he blew another wave of gas into the Doctor's face.
The Doctor just stared at him, eyes open, breathing it in. "That's not going to work on me you know," he said, infuriatingly.
"Apparently not," the Swarm Leader said.
The giant Wirrn lunged at the Doctor.
The Doctor ducked, dodged, twisted and was suddenly behind the Wirrn.
He gripped one of its wings, flipping it over in two fingers. A quick glance studied the black-veined, crystal-clear structure.
"What's with the wings?" he asked casually, as if the creature hadn't just attacked him.
Methuselah whirled around to confront him, whipping the wing out of his curious fingers. It folded its wings out of the Doctor's reach.
"Last time I met you lot you didn't have wings," the Doctor said.
"And where was that?" the Wirrn asked ominously.
"On a space station, long way from here," the Doctor flicked a hand negligently to indicate how far away.
The Wirrn's wings suddenly crinkled and furled, curling into compact wrinkled membranes that receded into slits high on the back of the thorax and sealed off.
"In space, we do not need our wings," the Wirrn said.
The Doctor nodded an admiration. "Very neat. I did wonder how you landed on planets without becoming very bruised."
"Your levity is not appreciated human," the Wirrn said.
"Ah, well, it so often isn't. And I'm not human," he corrected casually, sticking his hands in his pockets.
Dutch was sneaking up behind the Wirrn, Rory was sneaking up from a different angle, the Doctor tried to keep the insect distracted.
"It's a big universe," the Doctor said earnestly. "You don't have to compete for a place in it. You can go somewhere humans will never find you."
"Humans always find us. We have to make a stand somewhere," the Swarm Leader said.
"But not here," the Doctor pointed out. "Not where they were already here first."
"We were here first in Andromeda. This is our home. They are the invaders."
The Doctor couldn't argue with that.
"Please, for the sake of peace. I can take you away, find you a new home, new systems to migrate, where humans will never find you."
"It's too late for that," Methuselah said - his human taint showing. "Now it's kill or be killed."
Methuselah pulled out Rory's gun and pressed it between the Doctor's eyebrows.
The Doctor sighed. “This is why I hate guns," the Doctor muttered to himself. There was a gunshot. The Doctor flinched. And Methuselah fell slowly to the side, half his head blown away.
Behind him, Dutch holstered his gun. "Your choice."
The Doctor stared down at the magnificent creature at his feet, then looked at the blonde 12 year old boy. "That wasn't necessary."
Dutch's child's face settled into the lines of the 56 year old warrior he was, father, grandfather, and sworn protector of the peace.
"They invaded our world, kidnapped and killed our people, and threatened our children. What would you have me do?"
The Doctor looked down sadly the body at his feet - then around at the carnage. Buildings, people, and Wirrn all destroyed.
"Why doesn't anybody ever just listen?" he said softly, "Why can't we all just get along?"
-----
Tildaith landed with his troops, squads of black-kevlar clad soldiers scoured the streets, mopping up the last of the Wirrn. Captain Morris stalked through the wreckage, her white-blond hair coming loose under her helmet. Any Wirrn that so much as twitched was shot.
The Doctor was standing, shoulders slumped. He was frowning, but didn't interfere. Tildaith walked up beside him. "There's a reason the troops call her the 'Angel of Death,'" he said, nodding at the grim, white-haired girl. He slapped the Doctor on the back, not heartily, but in consolation. "You tried, Doctor. We all tried. Some things are not meant to be. Leave the cleaning up to us. Go with Dutch, go see what you've saved, not what was lost."
The Doctor looked over to Dutch who was standing by the shattered creche doorway, watching him. With a nod at the dark-haired colonel, the Doctor turned and followed the sheriff.
Amy and Rory followed quietly behind.
-----
They found Janet deep inside the underground creche wards. There were rank upon rank of high-tech oval artificial creches locked into cradles all around them. The machines, with silvery domed tops, and complex controls dotted all around their surface, looked more like bombs than anything a baby would come out of.
But ragged doctors and nurses were scattered all along the long aisle, terrified families were hovering over their designated creches. As the doctors and nurses went up and down the tiers carefully checking all the readings. Amy looked away when one of the doctors shook his head sadly at a nearby couple. The boy and girl started crying, turning to each other and clinging in despair.
They found Janet sitting on the floor at the far end of the aisle, a corner of the ceiling had come down, striking a dent into the vulnerable oval creche at that end on the left. The silvery top of the machine was popped up, the inside was slimy, and fluid dribbled out onto the floor. Janet sat on the cement floor, oblivious.
She was holding a baby, tiny, wrinkled, with a delicate whirl of black curls plastered to her head from the birth caul.
She was red, she was screaming, and she was alive!
Janet wrapped herself around the wet, bawling scrap of humanity and cried.
-----
Dutch knelt down beside his daughter and granddaughter and gathered them into his brawny arms.
"Come on," the Doctor whispered to Amy and Rory. "There's one last thing we can do."
-----
The Tardis materialized on a wet, soot-blackened plain.
"Stay here," the Doctor said firmly, with a downward motion of his hand that brooked no denial. He left them standing within the threshold of the Tardis.
An army of Wirrn covered the plain. Thousands upon thousands of them. The fields of wheat were gone, burned, leaving only rain-soggy ash. The hive had already half-collapsed behind them.
The Doctor splashed through the sooty puddles and calmly confronted the army of Wirrn.
He looked at the large Wirrn closest to him. "You weren't the only hive, were you?" the Doctor said, as if he wasn't surprised.
"No," replied Gandhi. "We numbered in the thousands when we entered this world. Most established hives in the uninhabited lands, using the native herbivores as hosts. Our numbers are fewer now, and none of the offspring survived."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. "I never intended the barrier to harm anyone."
"You are not to blame. Every hive was affected.
"The Swarm Leader was an aberration, born in war and destroyed by war,” the large, patient Wirrn said. “Had we not heeded him, more of us would have survived. He will become an object lesson, an abomination.
"We wish only to leave this place of death. We only wish to continue our migration, to find clean worlds far from the humans, where we may breed in peace."
"Let me help," the Doctor said. "I can at least transport the wounded who won't survive space."
"There's no need," Gandhi said. "Those who could not change, died."
The Doctor nodded. "Then go in peace. Never come back here. The humans are warned now, they'll be watching. And if that communications satellite survived, use it to warn others of your race away from this planet."
Gandhi nodded his head and unfurled his wings. "There's nothing for us here."
Like a wave, the Wirrn took to the skies, spiraling up, out of the world. Betrayed, broken, and defeated. Only the strangers watched them go.
-----
The Doctor stayed, looking at the stars for a long time. He slouched back to the Tardis, looking worn.
Amy and Rory gave him a wary berth. The Doctor leaned against the Tardis railing, he rubbed his eyes wearily, and plucked out the contacts. He dropped them in his pocket and pulled out a large handkerchief, he snorted forcefully into it, then dug the filters out of his nose.
"Ugh!" Rory said. "I forgot you had those."
"I didn't," the Doctor said. He took in a big sniff through his nose, filling his lungs. "Ah, that's better!" He folded the kerchief up and stuffed it in his pocket. He ran his hands through his hair. "I need a swim. All that gas is going to start decaying soon." He pushed away from the railing and started up the stairs.
"Do you think they'll find another world?" Amy asked abruptly. "Some other breeding ground? Someplace safe from humans?" Amy asked. Despite herself, she'd liked that one Wirrn.
"Bound to," the Doctor said, he stopped and turned towards them. "There's worlds enough for everyone." He give her a very old smile. "While there's life there's hope."
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