Doctor Who

The Sixth Doctor: 120,000 Days to Live

Story One: The Dying Daylights

Part One

"But it's an alien gun! I don't know how to use an alien gun" exclaimed Flip, as she darted hand in hand with the mysterious Doctor, down a dark sewer-like tunnel on a far off alien world.

"Well I hope you won't have too!" the Doctor replied.

"So why have you given it to me again?" she asked. Flip didn't like having to ask the Doctor questions, she thought it might make her seem incapable of travelling the universe with him, but there were sometimes when his plans and actions just seemed completely illogical. "In case you do!" the Doctor said, the echoing of the tunnel made it seem like he'd raised his voice. An electrifying light suddenly threw the Doctor and Flip to the ground, they yelped as their hands splashed into the sloppy mud. "This is rank" Flip said, unable to look at the state of her hands in case she vomited. The light shook the whole tunnel, like an earthquake, before it disappeared and left in its wake four tall beings dressed head to toe in shiny steel. "The King's guards I presume?" the Doctor spat as he stood to his feet, helping Flip up in the process.

"You will surrender" shouted the beings in sync, raising their weapons.

"Not today I'm afraid" the Doctor replied. "Flip, the gun please." Flip passed the Doctor the gun.

"Lay down your weapons and surrender!"

The Doctor ignored the beings and pointed the gun below his feet. "Bye bye!" the Doctor laughed. He blasted the weapon at the ground and the tunnel shook before cracking apart and sending the Doctor and Flip crashing downwards.

The ceiling in the King's dining hall crumbled apart as the Doctor and Flip came hurtling through. They hit the ground with a thud. "Flip are you okay?" the Doctor rushed over to her.

"Yeah I'm fine, few bruises I think but what else is new" she said, springing to her feet. Neither of them noticed a gathering of the King and his friends staring at them in shock until one of the guests screamed and the party descended into chaos. "Ah hello everyone, don't mind us" Flip awkwardly said as she pushed the Doctor from the scene. "Doctor we need to run before he calls the guards!" The King suddenly rose from his chair and screamed for the guards. "See told you."

"Such a pity, I do like a masquerade ball" the Doctor said, slightly disappointed. "Anyway yes, you're right, run!"

The Doctor and Flip pushed on two huge doors that opened up to reveal a long and beautiful corridor adorned with portraits and trophies and at the end of which was the Doctor's magical machine, the TARDIS, they immediately ran down the marble corridor towards the box. When Flip peered behind her she could see the King's guards catching them up, they were firing up their weapons. "Duck!" she shouted. Her and the Doctor crouched down while still running, the blasts from the King's guards narrowly missed their heads, it hit the wall in front immediately burning a hole through it, just a preview of what would happen to them. As they were approaching the TARDIS the Doctor fumbled around in the pockets of his rainbow coat for the key and whipped it out. The guards began to fire up their weapons again and fired as the Doctor flung the door to the TARDIS open. He pushed Flip inside first as the blast hit the side panel of the TARDIS, causing no damage whatsoever, just as he'd expected. He slid into his TARDIS and slammed the door shut behind him.

Everytime Flip entered the TARDIS it felt like a dream. The walls were grey and covered in giant white circles with striped pillars placed in certain points of the control room and in the middle was a hexagonal station covered in hundreds levers and buttons and switches and screens, there were only about five or six of them that Flip knew how to confidently use. And in the centre of this station was a glass cylinder inside of which were lots of different sized cylinders, some with the hint of a red glow to them and as Flip knew, when the Doctor pulled the right levers and pushed the right buttons, the cylinder, known as the time rotor, would move up and down to the sound of ancient engines grinding together. The Doctor was stood at the console, his hands dancing across the buttons and then the sound come and the TARDIS took off into time and space. A worn out Doctor and Flip then exchanged the smile, the smile they exchanged every time they escaped a planet with just their lives in tact. And the smile Flip was always so nervous that one day, she wouldn't get to see.

But as the TARDIS drifted off into the vortex, it had no idea that it was being followed...