Out There ✿ The Doctor [1]

6- World War Three (pt. 2)

"Listen to this." Mickey said before holding his phone to the TV, allowing Green's voice to ring through the cabinet room.

"...Our inspectors have searched the sky above our heads and they have found massive weapons of destruction capable of being deployed within forty five seconds."

"What?" The Doctor questioned.

"Our technicians can baffle the alien probes, but not for long. We are facing extinction, unless we strike first. The United Kingdom stands directly beneath the belly of the mother ship. I beg of the United Nations, pass an emergency resolution. Give us the access codes. A nuclear strike at the heart of the beast is our only chance of survival because from this moment on it is my solemn duty to inform you planet Earth is at war."

"He's making it up. There's no weapons up there, there's no threat. He just invented it." The Doctor rants, pacing the room.

"Do you think they'll believe him?" Harriet asked.

"They did last time." Avery tells her.

"That's why the Slitheen went for spectacle." The Doctor explains, "They want the whole world panicking, because you lot, you get scared, you lash out."

"They release the defense code." Avery realizes.

"And the Slitheen go nuclear."

"But why?" Harriet questions.

The Doctor opens the metal shutters while answering and looking at the Slitheen before him, "You get the codes, release the missiles, but not into space because there's nothing there. You attack every other country on Earth. They retaliate, fight back. World War Three. Whole planet gets nuked."

"And we can sit through it safe in our spaceship waiting in the Thames." Margaret explains smuggly while surrounded by three uncompressed Slitheen, "Not crashed, just parked. Only two minutes away."

"But you'll destroy the planet, this beautiful place. What for?" Harriet questions.

"Profit." Avery says tightly, scowling at the thought.

The Doctor nods, "That's what the signal is beaming into space. An advert."

"The sale of the century." Margaret tells them, a wicked grin on her face, "We reduce the Earth to molten slag, then sell it piece by piece. Radioactive chucks, capable of powering every cut-price star liner and budget cargo ship. There's a recession out there, Doctor. People are buying cheap. This rock becomes raw fuel."

"At the cost of five billion lives." The Doctor responds.

"Bargain."

"I give you a choice. Leave this planet or I'll stop you."

Margaret and the other Slitheen giggle at the thought, "What? you? Trapped in your box?"

"Yes. Me." The Doctor closes the shutters on Margaret's laughing face, and she starts to worry.

***

The next morning, Avery is sitting at the table with the heel of her eyes closed and the heel of her palms digging into her forehead as her head pounds from lack of sleep. Her mother's voice rings through the conference room, "All right, Doctor. I'm not saying I trust you, but there must be something you can do."

"If we could ferment the port, we could make acetic acid." Harriet suggests as she begins to clean up the glasses and decanter.

"Mickey, any luck?" Rose asks.

"There's loads of emergency numbers. They're all on voicemail."

"Voicemail dooms us all." Harriet comments.