Back in the lab, the Doctor and Davros were working as best they could, given the circumstances. “…So, Davros,” said the Doctor, “how did you get to this time in the first place? Because there’s no way a time corridor could extend that far and Dalek Time Ships don’t exactly recognize non-Dalek DNA.”
“Early Dalek Time Ships do,” replied Davros. “Especially ones modeled after a TARDIS.”
“You stole one of the Daleks’ knock-off TARDIS’s?” scoffed the Doctor.
“It serves its purpose!” snapped Davros.
“So what’s it called? A DARDIS?” chuckled the Doctor. Davros said nothing, just went on with his work. “…I was joking!”
“That’s what the rest of time and space calls it!” snapped Davros. The door then opened. “Dr. Hemlock, we would prefer-!” His complaint was cut off as he felt fingers wrapping around his throat, cutting off his air! The Doctor knew what that meant! She whirled around with the device she built and pressed the button. Vader suddenly stumbled and clutched his chest as if his breathing apparatus was malfunctioning…which it was, thanks to the Doctor’s gadget.
“LORD VADER!” yelped Dr. Hemlock. The Doctor grabbed Davros as he coughed while resuming his breathing, then ran out of the lab. Vader regained control and ignited his lightsaber.
“The Doctor and her friends are not to leave this facility alive!” he ordered the Stormtroopers.
With their usual accuracy, all Stormtroopers fired on the Doctor and Davros as they ran to Amy and Lurra Rus’ cell. The Doctor peeked through the window and saw Amy waving her hand at someone (Lurra Rus, the Doctor correctly guessed) to stop what they were doing. The Doctor checked the door and it opened. “Much as I applaud you and Miss Rus waiting for the Stormtroopers to be somewhere else,” she said, “and much as I applaud Lurra Rus’ engineering a way out for you two, we’re pressed for time! Out, you two!” Amy and Lurra Rus followed the Doctor. “Davros, there had better be a place we can hole up in here!”
“This way!” called Davros. He led everyone to a disused lab and locked the door. The Doctor immediately started looking for something to use as Amy and Lurra Rus started blockading the door.
“Who are you gonna help?” Amy asked Davros.
“I’d like to know the Doctor’s plan for the immediate future,” replied Davros, “given Vader’s own abilities!”
“Well, I’m sure I’ll find something,” mused the Doctor.
“…Then I’ll help with the blockade,” remarked Davros.
“So that’s Davros, Doctor?” asked Amy.
“…Erm, yes,” replied the Doctor. “How on Earth did you know?”
“Vader made a comment when he killed someone who failed him about dealing with you and the last of the Kaleds, and I remembered what you told us about the Daleks the first time me and William met them.”
“An excellent deduction, Miss…” said Davros.
“Rose. Amy Rose. And this is Lurra-.”
“Yes, thank you,” said Davros as he worked on the door lock. “Miss Rus and I are well acquainted.”
“He’s the one that supplied Dr. Hemlock my M-Count reading,” explained Lurra Rus. The door lock buzzed.
“I’ve changed the lock code,” reported Davros. “That should add to the time the barricade can give us. Unless the Doctor uses her device to make it just a little more lethal.”
“I can’t,” replied the Doctor.
“Too afraid to, Doctor?” asked Davros.
“Vader will die in 4 ABY,” explained the Doctor. “Same as the Emperor.”
“BBY, ABY, what ARE those supposed to mean?!” asked Lurra Rus.
“Before the Battle of Yavin and After the Battle of Yavin,” replied the Doctor. “A major victory for the Rebel Alliance that will happen in 18 years’ time.”
“…A victory?” asked Lurra Rus.
“Doctor, should we tell her that?” gulped Amy. “I mean, we don’t know-!”
“Well, I’ve seen it before,” interrupted the Doctor. “That look in her eyes, a desire for a new beginning. …Lurra Rus, when we get out of this, do you want to come with us?”
“Is this how you usually claim your companions, Doctor?” asked Davros. “You make them an offer to join?”
“It works most of the time,” replied the Doctor. “Of course, they CAN say no.”
“…Doctor, Amy and I HAVE discussed this,” said Lurra Rus. “And if you can find me a good home along the way, then I shall join you. But first things first.”
“Yes, an escape route is essential here,” agreed the Doctor. “And getting Davros away from all this genetic engineering malarkey.”
“And how, pray tell, do you intend to get me into your TARDIS?” scoffed Davros.
“Oh, believe it or not, I have options on that front,” chuckled the Doctor. “Some of them, ideally, don’t involve you in the TARDIS. AHA!”
“Doctor?” asked Amy.
“Davros, did you outfit your DARDIS with a chameleon circuit?” asked the Doctor.
“I never learned how to,” replied Davros. “I just piled junk around it. Not my most ingenious of disguises.”
“Sometimes simple works. And that’s why you chose this laboratory, isn’t it?”
“…Very clever, Doctor.”
“…DARDIS?” asked Amy.
“Dalek TARDIS knock-off,” explained the Doctor.
“Is it-?” quizzed Amy.
“Bigger on the inside, yes,” confirmed the Doctor. “Davros, where is it?” Davros was about to make a snide remark, then a blade of red light pierced through the door.
“HE’S GETTING THROUGH!” warned Lurra Rus.
“Over here!” called Davros. He pulled away junk to reveal a cylindrical ship with four facades and no visible doors. Davros pushed one façade like a door and it created not only a wall, but a tunnel inside the ship. “Inside, now!” barked Davros. Everyone leapt into the DARDIS just as Vader’s lightsaber was cutting through the door. The DARDIS door shut behind them.
Inside the DARDIS, Amy and Lurra Rus goggled for different reasons. For Lurra Rus, it was because geometry as she knew it was torn apart on the molecular level. For Amy, it was something else entirely. “I don’t believe it!” said Lurra Rus. “It’s…bigger on the inside!”
“It’s also a heap of junk!” complained Amy. “No way could this thing fly!”
“Like I said, knock-off of the TARDIS,” said the Doctor. “Now, I think we can utilize something on this ship. Aha! Here we are!” She pointed out a machine. “I’m surprised you stole this model, Davros!”
“The Daleks were trying to kill me!” replied Davros. “I was pressed for time!”
“Doctor, isn’t that a duplication machine?” asked Amy, remembering her last encounter with the Daleks.
“Exactly!” confirmed the Doctor. “And I think we can buy more time to get out of here with it!”
“…You intend to duplicate us?” realized Amy.
“Doctor, Vader can see through any copy!” hissed Davros.
“I’m aware of that,” retorted the Doctor, “but if you have any better ideas, I’d like to hear them!” Davros said nothing, he just scowled. “…Thought not. Now, Amy, you first. I’ll operate the machinery. Davros, you take over when I’m done.”
“Very well, but I fail to see how they would help.”
“Doctor, what’s going on?” asked Lurra Rus.
“She’s making robot clones of us,” explained Amy. “The Daleks usually make duplicates for disrupting a planet’s government. Just keep them away from cold places if there’s a chink in their protective skin.”
“What?” asked Lurra Rus, pondering what Amy meant by that. Amy just stepped into the machine and the Doctor worked her magic.
“…Doctor, you’ve disconnected the duplicate’s mind from the-!” interjected Davros.
“I’m not having her duplicate destabilize the Empire, not yet,” said the Doctor. The process was completed and Amy and her duplicate stepped out.
“That was a bit tingly,” remarked Amy.
“Do you remember the original process that made me?” asked her duplicate.
“I was knocked out, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Oh well. Lurra, it’s your turn.”
“Right…” Lurra Rus looked a little uncertain.
“It’s only a tingle,” assured Amy. Lurra Rus then entered the chamber. The Doctor fired up the machine and duplicated Lurra Rus. Lurra and her duplicate then stepped out.
“Amy was right,” said Lurra Rus. “It WAS tingly.”
“I think I’m the first Twi’Lek duplicate,” remarked her duplicate.
“Right, Davros, you next,” directed the Doctor.
“With a duplicate under YOUR control? I believe humans would say fat-!” Amy shoved Davros into the machine, then the Doctor began. The process was completed soon after and Davros and his duplicate stepped out. “You could have shoved a little less harder!” snapped Davros as he held his nose.
“Flesh, so frail,” chuckled his duplicate.
“Right, my turn,” said the Doctor. She stepped into the machine and Davros began the process. After a bit, the Doctor and her duplicate stepped out. “Tingly IS the word for it,” remarked the Doctor.
“Well, you DID have to adjust things,” remarked her duplicate.
“I trust you remember the plan?” Davros asked his duplicate.
“Oh, please,” his duplicate scoffed. “Just get on with it!”
“Right,” called the Doctor’s duplicate. “All of us unable to simulate warm skin, with me!”
“Doctor, I hope you know what you’re doing,” said Lurra Rus.