"Open fire!" Jefferson called, pointing his gun at the approaching Ood. He and the guard started shooting at them.

"We're stabilising" Zach announced. He closed the overhead shutters in the control room. "We've got orbit"

Once the Ood were down, Rose and Tate rushed back over to the com. Rose picked it up and spoke into it, hoping that they could hear her. "Doctor? Nova? Can you two hear me? Doctor, Nova, Ida, are you there?"

Tate gave Rose a worried look when they didn't respond. "Rose, do you think they're okay?"

Door 25 began to open. Jefferson and the guard pointed their guns at it, thinking more Ood were coming through. It was just Danny. "It's me! But they're coming" He warned. "It's the Ood. They've gone mad"

"How many of them?" Jefferson asked.

"All of them! All fifty!"

"Danny, out of the way" Jefferson moved closer to the door, his gun ready to shoot. "Out of the way!" He pushed Danny out of the way.

"But they're armed!" Danny tried explaining to Jefferson. He ignored the warnings and proceeded to open the door. "It's the interface device. I don't know how, but they're using it as a weapon"

Jefferson opened the door and there was a line of Ood waiting on the other side. The Ood in front stepped forward, and touched it's globe to the guard's forehead. She screamed out as the Ood electrocuted her. She fell to the ground, and Jefferson began to fire at the Ood.

Zach attempted to make an exit out of the control room. Unfortuneatly, as soon as he stepped out into the corridor, he saw a line of Ood coming towards him. He quickly reentered the control room. "Lockdown" He said, typing in a code on the keypad next to him. "Seal door 1" He walked back over to the main console.

Jefferson's voice broke through Zach's wrist-com. "Seal door 24. Seal door 23"

"Jefferson, what's happening there?"

"I've got very little ammunition, sir. How about you?"

Zach walked over to a panel on the wall and opened it up. It revealed a bolt gun inside it. "All I've got is a bolt gun" He took the gun and examined it. "With er, all of one bolt. I could take out a grand total of one Ood. Fat lot of good that is"

"Given the emergency I recommend strategy nine"

"Strategy Nine. Agreed. Right, we need to get everyone together. Rose? Tate? What about Ida, The Doctor, and the Nightingale? Any word?"

"We can't get a reply" Tate responded in a shaky tone.

"Tate's right" Rose cried. "Just nothing. We keep trying, but it's--"

"No, sorry," The Doctor's voice broke through. "We're fine. Still here"

"You could've said, you stupid---"

That last bit was cut off when feedback played. "Whoa. Careful! Anyway, it's the three of us. Me, Supernova and Ida. Nova, say hello!"

"Hello!" Nova chirped up. "Like The Doctor said, we're fine. But the seal opened up. It's gone. All we've got left is this chasm"

"How deep is it?" Zach asked.

"Can't tell. It looks like it goes down forever"

"The pit is open" Rose said. "That's what the voice said"

"But there's nothing. I mean," Zach spoke up. "There's nothing coming out?"

"No, no. No sign of the Beast" The Doctor said.

"It said Satan" Tate corrected.

"That's right" Rose agreed. "It did"

"Come on, you two. Keep it together" The Doctor told the two companions.

"Is there no such thing? Doctor. Nightingale"

"Please, tell us that there is no such thing" Tate pleaded.

"Ida," Zach piped up. "I recommend that you withdraw.  Immediately"

"But, we've come all this way" Ida protested.

"Okay, that was an order. Withdraw. When that thing opened, the whole planet's shifted. One more inch and we fall into the black hole. So this thing stops right now"

"But it's not much better up there with the Ood"

"I'm initiating strategy nine, so I need the two of you back up top immediately, no ar--" Zach was cut off when Ida disconnected the coms.

Ida looked at The Doctor and Nova. "What do you two think?"

"I think they've an order" The Doctor answered.

"Yeah, but what do you think?" 

Nova stepped closer to the seal and looked down it. "It said, I am the temptation" She repeated the Beast's words.

"Well, if there's something in there, why is it still hiding?"

"Maybe we opened the prison but not the cell" The Doctor suggested.

"We should go down" Ida professed. "I'd go. What about you two?"

"Oh. Oh, in a second, but then again, that is so human. Where angels fear to tread. Even now, standing on the edge" The Doctor began to monologue. "It's that feeling you get, eh? Right at the back of your head. That impulse. That strange little impulse. That mad little voice saying, go on. Go on. Go on. Go over. Go on. Maybe it's relying on that. For once in my life, Officer Scott, I'm going to say retreat" He stepped back from the seal. "Oh, now I know I'm getting old"

"Yeah" Nova glanced down the chasm once more. "Retreat sounds good. Some things are worth taking a gamble on, but whatever is down there" She pointed down the hole. "It's just not worth it. Rose, Tate, we're coming back"

Rose and Tate both looked at each other with the same relieved smiles. "Best news I've heard all day" Rose said.

"Me too" Tate agreed. He turned to see Jefferson pointing his rifle at Toby, then grew concerned. "What are you doing?"

"He's infected" Jefferson accused. Toby cowered against the wall. "He brought that thing on board. You saw it"

"Are you going to start shooting your own people now?" Rose spoke up. "Is that what you're going to do? Is it?"

"If necessary"

"Well then, you'll have to shoot me if necessary"

Tate stepped beside Rose, taking her hand in his. He stood united with Rose, no matter what. "That goes for me as well" He informed. "So what's it going to be?" 

Rose lowered herself so that she was level with Toby. "Look at his face. Whatever it was, is gone. It passed into the Ood. You saw it happen. He's clean"

"Any sign of trouble, I'll shoot him" Jefferson warned. 

Jefferson walked away. Rose checked in on Toby. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah" Toby shook his head, feeling confused about everything. "I don't know"

"Can you remember anything?"

"Just, it was so angry. It was fury and rage and death. It was him. It was the devil"

"Come on" Rose pulled the terrified Toby into a hug.

______

The Doctor, Nova, and Ida returned to the capsule. "What's strategy nine?" The Doctor asked the question that was weighing on his mind.

"Open the airlocks. We'll be safe inside the lock down. The Ood will get thrown out into the vacuum" Ida explained.

"So we're going back to a slaughter?" That thought didn't sit well with The Doctor, and neither did it sit well with Nova.

"The devil's work" Ida turned her com back on. "Okay, we're in. Bring us up"

"Ascension in three, two, one" Jefferson counted. Then the power just had to go out.

"This is the darkness. This is my domain" the voice began speaking again. The monitors flickered with images of the Ood on them. "You little things that live in the light, clinging to your feeble suns which die in the..."

"That's not the Ood" Zach concluded. "Something's talking through them"

"Only the darkness remains"

"This is Captain Zachary Cross Flane of Sanctuary Base Six, representing the Torchwood archive. You will identify yourself"

"You know my name"

"What do you want?"

"You will die here. All of you. This planet is your grave"

"It's him" Toby muttered. "It's him. It's him"

"If you are the Beast, then answer me this. Which one, hmm?" The Doctor challenged. "Cos the universe has been busy since you've been gone. There's more religions than there are planets in the sky"

"He's right, you know" Nova backed him up. She then began to list off. "You've got The Archiphets, Orkology, Christianity, Pash Pash, New Judaism, San Klah, Church of the Tin Vagabond. Which devil are you?"

"All of them" the voice answered.

Nova scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Well, you can't be all of them"

"What, then you're the truth behind the myth?" The Doctor continued on.

"This one knows me as I know him. Both of you do. The killer of his own kind, and the one who abandoned her own people. Instead of fighting to protect them, she ran like a scared little child"

"How did you end up on this rock?"

"The Disciples of the Light rose up against me and chained me in the pit for all eternity"

"When was this?" Nova chimed in.

"Before time"

"What does that mean?" The Doctor asked.

"Before time"

"Okay, yeah, you said before time. We want to know what it means" Nova clarified, a slight twitch coming to her eye. Whatever this Beast was, it was starting to annoy her. "And you can't say before time!"

"Before light and time and space and matter. Before the cataclysm. Before this universe was created"

"That's impossible. No life could have existed back then" The Doctor explained.

"Is that your religion?"

"It's a belief"

"You know nothing. All of you, so small. The Captain, so scared of command. The soldier, haunted by the eyes of his wife. The scientist, still running from Daddy. The little boy who lied. The virgin.  And the lost girl, so far away from home. The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon. The brave boy will mourn her when she's gone. He wants to go with her, but he will be forced to leave her behind. He will suffer from a broken heart"