"Geez," Nina groaned as she realised she was on her knees on the ground. She could hear the Doctor right beside her and Jack not too far away. She really hated teleporting without a capsule.

"Oh, that thing is rough," Martha complained, holding her head. Nina stood up and pulled Martha up on her feet.

"I've had worse nights," Jack grunted, craking his back as he stood up. "Welcome to the Valiant."

"It's dawn?" Martha asked as she looked out of a window of the small engine room they found themselves in. "Hold on, I thought this was a ship. Where's the sea?"

"Where it always has been," Nina answered, not even caring anymore. She was exhausted, and stupid questions made her bitchy.

"A ship for the twenty-first century," Jack explained, smirking at Nina's comment. "Protecting the skies of planet Earth." Nina finally got to look out of the window.

"Ooh, I've been in one of these before," she recalled. "Long time ago." She had indeed been on a ship like these before. The SHIELD helicarrier. It felt like a lifetime ago.

---

The four of them ran through rooms of maintenance and engines, trying to find how to get out of there, or at least somewhere safe where they could see what was going on. Nina suddenly stopped, and so did the Doctor, Martha almost running into the two.

"Can you hear that?" The Doctor asked her, a small smile growing on his face. Nina nodded, a grin appearing on hers.

"Doctor, my family's in this place somewhere," Martha trying to get their attention.

"Brilliant," Nina laughed, ignoring Martha's comment. "This way," she said and turned right into a corridor, everyone else following suit.

Soon enough, they found what they were looking for. As a double door opened, the group could finally see the TARDIS at the end of a hall.

"Oh, at last!" the Doctor exclaimed. Martha laughed as they ran towards the ship.

"What's it doing on the Valiant?" Jack wondered.

The group entered the TARDIS excitedly, only to abruptly stop their cheering as they realised that their TARDIS wasn't exactly the TARDIS anymore.

"What the hell's he done?" Jack frowned at the sight. All of the TARDIS's alarm lights were baring red, the usual murmur gone, replaced by a sound Nina could almost recognize. She didn't like.

"Don't touch it," she decided to warn him.

"I won't."

"What did he do, though," Martha also wondered. "Sounds like it's... sick," she pointed out.

"It can't be," the Doctor exclaimed. "No, no, no, no, no!" He said desperately running around where the console used to be, now a big crate surrounding the centre of the room.

"Doctor, what is it?" Nina approached the used-to-be-console and sighed in desperation, running her hands through her hair.

"He's cannibalised the TARDIS," The Doctor breathed out in disbelief and indignation.

"Is this what I think it is?" Jack asked the two Time Lords. Nina nodded.

"It's a paradox machine," Nina confirmed.

They found a small gauge on the metal mesh around the console, and The Doctor crouched in front of it.

"As soon as this touched the red," he pointed to the needle dangerously nearing the red zone. "It'll activate. At this speed it'll trigger at - " he reached to grab Jack's wrist and look at his watch, but Nina didn't need a watch.

"Two minutes past eight," she told them.

"Two minutes past eight," the Doctor agreed, not even surprised. Jack, however, frowned in shock at Nina's abilities.

"Excuse me?" he exclaimed. "What just happened, now?" Nina frowned at him for a second before actually realising what he meant.

"Oh, it's just a thing," she waved him off.

"A thing? Can you do that thing?" he asked the Doctor, who scoffed, smirking lightly.

"No, I cannot do the thing."

"You're officially my new favourite person," Jack told her. Nina wanted to say something but was left speechless, her blushing cheeks going unnoticed thanks to the red lights in the TARDIS.

"Isn't first contact at eight?" Martha asked, bringing the group back to their original subject.

"And two minutes past..." Jack trailed off, mentioning to the console.

"What's it for? What does a paradox machine do?" Martha asked the two Time Lords.

"More important, can we stop it?" Jack asked.

"Not until we know what it's doing," Nina told the two, crouching down next to the Doctor in an attempt to get a better look at the gauge, maybe try to understand what it's for.

"Touch the wrong bit, blow up the entire solar system," The Doctor agreed, running his hand down his face.

"Then we've got to get to the Master," Martha said, crouching next to them, watching the two think.

"Yeah, how are we going to stop him?" Jack wondered.

"Oh, I've got a way," the Doctor said as if it were unimportant, earning a glare from Martha and Jack. Nina was too concentrated thinking, watching the wires connect, following the energy flowing through the controls, trying at least to understand how the Master's machine worked. "Sorry, didn't I mention?" The Doctor asked, a grin forming on his face.