The Race For Time

SUMMARY:
{ 15k years in the future, Sarah and the Doctor support a team of Earth colonists in one of the big races of the universe. But while fighting an ever evolving case of sabotage, Sarah suddenly gets involved deeper than she wanted to and the Doctor has to foil the almost perfect plan an old enemy of his has ever put together. }

What you have to expect: A fully fledged Adventure story with a heavy focus on the two main characters, twice the Sarah, some timey-wimey stuff and oh, right, there's the Roger Delgado Master in there somewhere (from the end of Episode 3 on).
I wished the BBC would have produced more adventures with Four and Sarah, and because they have not, here is my non-official contribution.

Please note that the story was originally separated into six Episodes (although Episode 6 is more of an Epilogue only), but further divided into chapters due to the format on this website.


==== ==== EPISODE 1 ==== ====

Marbarett, one of the largest cities on the planet of Skania in the belt of Abraxas, some fifteen thousands years in the future. Probably. You know, it was a 'slight overshoot' of the Doctor that got them there. Having started off as an Earth colony but developed far from its origins ever since, Marbarett was quite an unusual place. The city consisted of many narrow passages and corridors winding down a mountain with a slowly decreasing slope in the same fashion one could imagine streams of water running into a valley. Overshadowing these passages were thousands of small houses with hexagonal or octagonal layouts, usually one, but sometimes two stories high. Their walls were made of an alabaster-like stone that had a glossy shimmer to it, almost as if the last rain shower had never happened more than a few minutes ago. But the prettiest thing about the city were the flat roofs which adorned the little houses. Being made from a semi-transparent, coloured, glass-like material, they allowed the light of the planet's two suns to project the different colours of different roofs onto the streets. The more the roofs hung over the houses and the narrower the road they stood in, the more the colours blended into each other on the pavement. Walking through the streets felt a lot like walking down an avenue with trees left and right, where only patches of light would touched your skin, but it was many times more of a spectacle thanks to the varying colours.

Of course, for the Skanish – as the people of the planet were called – this was all everyday business and if they wanted to see something more impressive, they had to visit one of the local sights. One of these was the Intercontinental Gallery of Skanish Arts that sat near the heart of the city in a building which occupied only slightly more ground than the rest, but consisted of at least four floors, underground ones not counted. Contained within was an exhibition of the most popular paintings and sculptures – as regarded by the inhabitants of this planet – and what they liked was similar in style to Earth's expressionism, although lots of their works would have easily made a Jackson Pollock look poor.

Leading up to the gallery – or from it, depending on your point of view – was a very wide staircase that bent down onto a square in a flat arch. Amongst the many and different looking people walking up and down was a dark-haired, slender Earth woman wearing 70's flared trousers and a white blouse. She was stumbling down the rapidly decreasing stairs rather than she was walking, trying hard to catch up with her personal tour guide of the universe. Who, as usual, was three steps ahead and striding along with great confidence. The Doctor, and his best companion, Sarah Jane.

"Say, Doctor…!" Although she tried to make her voice sound casually, she had to raise it a bit to be heard across the people and the distance between them. "That sculpture back in the gallery. The big, tangled, ball of wool, tree thing, or whatever it was..." Thankfully the Doctor seemed to have heard her and slowed down, which allowed her get close enough to talk at her regular volume. "Do you have any idea what that was supposed to be?", Sarah finally asked the question that was on her mind. If only she had the words to describe the sculpture she was talking of, but she really had never seen anything this strange. And having travelled with the Doctor for a while, that was quite a statement.

"Hm? What was what supposed to be?"

Sarah took the first chance to get back to his side when he stopped for a short moment and looked over his shoulder to find out where she was. A bit scatter-brained, as usual, he checked the wrong shoulder first, missing Sarah, but finally caught sight of her after turning around again.

Just in time for him to see the young woman mimicking twisted tree branches with her arms. No way she could make it look like the sculpture, but she didn't feel like trying herself at another description. "You know, the..." Instead of using a word she merely used a whistling sound.

"Ah, that one.", his face lit up briefly as though he knew what she was referring to. Maybe he did, maybe he thought of something else. Maybe it did not really matter. "Not quite, no.", he replied after a second or so of pondering, "Although I thought it looked a bit like the central intelligence mainframe on Zerberus two..."

Leaving both of them to that thought for a bit, he continued walking down the stairs and onto the square, with Sarah now remaining at his side.

"They call it explorationism, you know. The idea is that one might find inspiration in the abstract figures. Find something no one's ever seen before..." The Doctor explained.

Sarah frowned a bit, not really sure whether she liked Skanish' art or not. "Well, they still got me racking my brain about it, that's for sure...", she commented eventually, but quietly, too.

As they kept walking they slowly made their way through the narrow corridors to where the TARDIS had landed. How the Doctor was able to find back to it, despite his usual lack of orientation, she did not know. The people passing them by in the streets were of all kinds of species, mostly humanoid, but still quite different in skin, stature, number of limbs or otherwise. Supposedly, the planets in the belt of Abraxas formed a federation, so that everyone was welcome to visit and trade. Honestly however, Sarah tried not to think about what would happen if she would get lost in one of these streets, stranded all by herself among all kinds of strange creatures. Of course, she would most likely be able to hang about for a while – knowing that this was a civilised community – but she really preferred to know the Doctor close if possible.

"Honestly, I think I prefer Earth's art.", the Doctor rambled on after a little while; Art still the subject of their conversation. "Humans have such a way to express ever something more to their reality when they attempt to capture it..."

Sarah smiled. It seemed such a typical thing for him to say, with humans being his favourite species in the universe and all. "You mean, like how the Mona Lisa's smile is supposed to have a certain magical quality?", she wondered aloud.

He stopped quite abruptly and turned to the young woman with a grin on his face. "Exactly! Like the Mona Lisa!", he praised her for the good example. "I dare even say it's one of the prettiest paintings in the universe!"

That was quite a statement to make, wasn't it? Sarah raised her eyebrows at him. "Is that so?", she asked, purely rhetorical and was still smiling back at him. "I never saw it in real, only ever in photographs...", she admitted.

The Doctor's face suddenly showed a disappointed expression. "That's an absolute pity, Sarah!", he exclaimed. "You must remind me to set the coordinates for Paris when we get back." Having said that, the tall man quickly turned around and continued to walk towards the out-of-place looking, blue box in the distance.

Secretly, Sarah would be glad enough to make it to any place on Earth next time. But then again, she had this terrible feeling that she was only imagining wanting to go home when really she was afraid to think of a time when she and the Doctor would part ways for good. No, she couldn't think of that. That would not happen, not any time soon!

"Here I go dragging you around the universe when you've barely seen the wonders of your own planet...", she heard the Doctor talk partly to himself, partly to her.

Although he had not technically asked for a response, Sarah still took the chance to comment on that fact.

"I am barely a quarter of a century old, after all..."

"So young, still...", he said, a sigh in his voice, and without as much as a short glance into her face.

Since he wasn't looking, Sarah shook her head, thinking about how he could act so resigned when discussing the matter of age. For a human in his early forties, having a mid-life crisis was not unusual, but although he looked like it, he was not human. Of course she had no idea just how old Time Lords could get and whether he was right to consider himself 'old' already. For all she could guess, he might live forever as long as he wasn't shot or worse. Was it that long memory of his that seemed to plague him? Were there things he would rather forget about? There was no way she could tell. No human had ever had the chance to collect as much experience as a 750 year old time traveller from a distant planet…

As they continued walking, the TARDIS got ever closer. One of the colourful roofs above shone a red light on the box, tinting it actually rather purple than blue. They were still quite a few yards away when Sarah noticed another sound above the usual chit-chat in the streets. It was a bit like a buzzing that came and went in an irregular rhythm. She had to listen to it several times on their way to the TARDIS until she recognized the pattern. Sarah caught the Doctor's sleeve between her index finger and her thumb to gain his attention. "Doctor?"

He stopped and turned around almost immediately.

"What's that noise? It sounds like...", she wondered, "Is there a motorway nearby?"

The Doctor kept still for a couple of seconds and narrowed his eyes as he listened to the sound in the distance. "A motorway? No; Can't be!", he shrugged off her assumption. "The Skanish are using transmats for at least a century now, they don't need motorways..." Although he tried to teach her how things really were and showed the young woman a big, smart-aleck grin, his expression changed very soon.

"Ah!" Eyes widening with the sudden realization that had hit him, the Doctor ran away straight into the next passage that led downhill.

"Where are you going, Doctor?" When Sarah caught up to him, he stood looking out over the valley and pointed towards the end of the city. In the distance laid a huge, very complex racing circuit that led over greens, water and included big leaps through the air. From where they looked, Sarah could not even see the point from which the circuit started or the building complex where the vehicles could be kept. Naturally, she assumed that something like it had to exist.

The Doctor turned his gaze back at Sarah. "You were almost right.", he corrected himself.

"It's the annual intergalactic race of Abraxas!" His voice had that special ring to it that could make the simplest things sound incredibly fascinating.

"Is it exciting?", Sarah wanted to know.

"I've only ever been to a training session...", her friend revealed to her and shrugged. Or so he did at first, but then this excited look returned to his face. "Are you curious?"

"Yes, very much!" The young Earth woman nodded and then laughed when she saw the Doctor taking the lead once again and rushing off.

"Well, come on!"

It's the benefit of owning a time machine, she thought there for a moment. It didn't really matter much if they stayed longer on Skania, they could still be back without her friends or family ever noticing. Not that they were on a tight schedule back on Earth, but she liked to think that at home, everything was still waiting for her and that nothing – or not much – would have changed on her return.

Together, Sarah-Jane and the Doctor made their way through an increasing amount of people, going downhill to the building complex where the public could access the racing site. This complex set around an artificial bay in a half circle and the bits she could see of it became more clearly visible as they came closer to the foot of the mountain. From the distance, while they were still up high enough to overlook the circuit, Sarah could even spot a vehicle of some sorts chasing about the track sometimes. At some point, however, they got too low and the entirety of the track vanished behind the Colosseum-like public entrance, racing management and team boxes. There was a hustle and bustle going on in front of the building complex and although Sarah's attention was drawn away constantly by the people passing by, she somehow managed not to lose sight of the Doctor. He went and moved away from the main crowd that forced its way in and out of the building and stopped where it seemed a bit calmer, waiting until Sarah was close enough again to have a conversation at a pleasant volume.

"There's no way we can get tickets after race start, but lucky for us I left on good terms with the team of Gabbo Beta last time.", he casually told his companion. "Or maybe I am going to leave on good terms with them. Let's hope for the first."

Sarah looked around before she understood what he was getting at. There was a door reading 'staff only' nearby.

"Are we taking the back entrance?"

The Doctor didn't reply, just smiled back and produced the sonic screwdriver out of his coat sleeve like a magician. When he went away – to unlock the door, presumably – Sarah looked back at the crowd that stood gathered in front of the main entrance. She really did not fancy waiting in line and knowing the Doctor as well as she did, he most likely was more interested in the technological aspect of the spectacle anyway, and thus, the crew area. So the team boxes were the right place to start. But just as Sarah meant to turn around and follow in the Doctor's path she noticed something that forced her to stand still and stare. There was a movement in the crowd, a single person forcing their way out of the building, running away and pushing others aside to do so. Usually, that alone would not have been enough to hold her attention for long, but that person she saw was much too familiar to her to be true. It was a young woman. Short, with dark brown hair, wearing a blouse and flares just like the ones Sarah had picked this morning. There was no way she could be certain with all that distance and the crowd of people between them, but if her first guess was right then she had just seen herself running out of that building.

"Ah, Doctor…?" She had to pry her eyes away from the spot in the crowd where she thought she had seen herself, but as she looked around to ask the Doctor about it, he was gone. Of course he was, he had left earlier! "Doctor? Doctor!" Sarah called out, when she failed to spot him near the 'staff only' door. There was a rush of adrenaline in her veins when the thought occurred to her that she might just have lost him. She should have known better than to allow herself to get distracted like that. And now, what? Her eyes still kept searching the mass of people. 'Come on', she thought. 'How difficult could be to find a six foot four guy with a hat and a scarf?'