"Hang on, it's loading…no, wait, it died. No it didn't, it's still working. Ah-ha!" The Doctor frowned in puzzlement. "Wait a moment…what's 'Action Shot?'" He frowned, but it was a slightly perplexed frown. "How many settings does this thing have?"
Kathryn sighed and got down off the rock she was sitting on. She took the digital camera from the Doctor. Pressing a few buttons, she set it to 'Outdoor + Portrait' and took a picture of the couple who owned the camera.
Handing it back to them, she blinked at the Doctor, more than a little amused. "How can someone as old and technically minded as you not know how to work a digital camera?"
"There are too many buttons!" the Doctor protested. "In a few hundred years, they set themselves automatically, and it's not old enough to be of any interest. Now, the ones where you use magnesium powder…those are easy to work."
Kathryn smiled. "You can be so entertaining sometimes."
She turned back up the trail. "Come on; I'll race you to the top."
Kathryn looked at the Doctor's make-shift tranquilizer dart with worry. "Has this ever worked? I mean, with a dinosaur this size."
"Never failed me before," the Doctor told her with confidence. She nodded, loaded it into her hand gun, rolled out from behind the box and took the shot. The ten-foot velociraptor looked down at the dart in its chest, gave a sound that was a cross between a whirr and a chirp, and pulled out the dart. It hissed loudly at Kathryn, taking a firm step forward.
"Doctor!" Kathryn yelled, glancing at him as she backed up. "You said it never failed!"
"I never tried it before!"
"Thanks for the heads up!"
There was a tremendous crash and Kathryn jumped as the dinosaur's head landed at her feet. It took a moment before she realized that the velociraptor was asleep.
The Doctor stood up and came next to her. He grinned. "Told you it would work."
The Doctor faced the man in the lab coat. If the Doctor had been any less of a genius, he'd never have thought Dr. Worthington was the one behind the decline of the colony. Dr. Worthington calmly loaded his small gun, speaking in a steady, warm tone.
"I've studied human minds all my life, Doctor, and I've discovered something very important in all that time."
"Probably nothing I haven't heard before," the Doctor answered, his eyes never leaving the man's face. Dr. Worthington continued as though he'd never been interrupted.
"People can be divided into three groups. Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened." He raised his gun, aiming it at the Doctor.
"Congratulations on being the captain of the third group."
Dr. Worthington frowned, not understanding. The Doctor nodded to somewhere behind him.
Dr. Worthington turned around to see who the Doctor was looking at. He collapsed as a fist collided with his jaw.
The Doctor walked over, picking up the gun with disgust and flinging it off to the side. He looked up at the person who had hit Dr. Worthington.
"Is your hand alright?"
"Yeah," Kathryn said, shaking her hand. "Guy's head is harder than yours, but I'll live."
The Good Father Alonzo cried out as the impressively massive, impossibly intricate, incredibly old, and inconceivably expensive stain glass window shattered. At his side the Doctor watched silently with him as a dark shape streaked across the floor to the bell tower stairs, hotly pursued by Kathryn, who was wielding a thick fence post.
Father Alonzo looked absolutely horrified. The Doctor leaned over towards him. "She's an American," he told the Father, a shrug in his voice.
Father Alonzo closed his mouth, swallowing hard. "Oh," he said simply, unable to make any other sound.
"Duck and cover!"
Kathryn and the Doctor threw themselves to the ground as the Computer Hub exploded behind them, sending pieces of twisted metal flying. Before the smoke had quite cleared, they were standing and back in the room. They looked around.
"Kathryn, I'm not sure how, but I'm pretty sure that that was entirely your fault."
Kathryn nodded. "Yeah, it probably was." She coughed, waving her hand to try and clear the smoke. "Worked though."
"I'll give you that."
Kathryn and the Doctor pelted down the hallway, running from the angry aliens pursuing them.
"Doctor," Kathryn questioned, "do you even know where we're going?"
"Not a clue," he answered, turning a sharp left. "But we're taking the short cut."
"Thanks," Kathryn told him sarcastically. "That makes me feel so much better."
"Don't worry, I've got a plan."
They turned another corner, coming across a room full of shipping crates. The sounds of the attackers grew swiftly louder behind them.
"Get in," the Doctor ordered, lifting the lid to one of the crates. Having no other option, Kathryn did as told. The Doctor crawled in after her.
"This is your plan?" she asked incredulously.
"It's in development," the Doctor hissed back.
"Do you really trust that man?"
Kathryn looked at the middle-aged gentleman with her. She didn't blame his skepticism. After all, he'd been through a lot for a medieval man, and with the Doctor being his usual self no matter when they were, it was little wonder the man hadn't run off long ago.
"He's come through most of the time," Kathryn reassured him as she hot-wired the machine in front of her. "He'll come through again. Just pull the lever."
"What's going to happen?" he asked, worried. Kathryn stood and looked at him solemnly.
"Have you ever been stabbed in the heart with a hot poker?"
"No…"
"Had staples put in your eye at high velocity?"
"No…"
"Had your innards torn out by a wild animal?"
The man looked genuinely worried now. "No…"
"Been slowly crushed between two large magnets?"
"No."
Kathryn's face split in a grin. "Good! Neither have I. Pull the lever."
The TARDIS door flew open as Kathryn and the Doctor dashed inside. They whirled around and slammed it behind themselves, leaning against it. The Doctor looked down at Kathryn.
"I thought you said you could fence!" he said incredulously.
"So did you!" she shot back.
"They're pandas!"
Something hit the door with a solid thud. A large black paw shot inside, scoring the inside of the door as the beast it was attached to it growled loudly. Kathryn used her elbow to deal the paw a sharp blow. It vanished as the panda howled in pain.
Hurriedly locking the door, Kathryn and the Doctor ran for the console.
"How did we get beaten by a pack of bears?" Kathryn asked as TARDIS rocked from side to side from the force of angry pandas.
"Well for one," the Doctor answered her, "they didn't fight fair. The sniper koalas were a bit much."
"I didn't even think they could handle crossbows."
"Fairly well, actually, considering there's an arrow lodged in your boot."
Kathryn's eyes widened and she looked down at her left heel. True to his word, there was indeed a large arrow stuck in Kathryn's shoe.
"I liked these!" Kathryn exclaimed as the TARDIS vanished yet again into the vortex.
Kathryn looked at the star charts spread out on the table in the observatory. The Doctor was letting her choose the next place to go, but only if she could figure out how to get there through space rather than time. She also had to know the travel time at different speeds, what would be required for the journey, what they would need to know when they got there, the best time to go, and hundred other details.
She scratched a few more notes down the legal pad at her elbow, then jumped slightly when the Doctor spoke at her side.
"Figured it out yet?"
"Nearly." Kathryn pointed over a nearby table with her pencil. "I've got the history report over there for you to read."
"And what did you decide?"
She wrinkled her nose impudently. "You'll have to read it. What was my grade on the language paper?"
"The usual."
"Yes!" Kathryn did a quick fist pump. The Doctor shook his head.
"You could do those in your sleep and you still ask."
"Habit," she instantly responded. "Kids at my school used to steal my work. Severely irritating. Although," she mused, "once I caught on, I started writing bad and/or wrong papers, and turned in the good stuff the day it was due. The thefts went down after that." Kathryn grinned up at him. "But on the other hand, these subjects are so much more fun."
The Doctor smiled back down at her and picked up the paper on the way out. Kathryn watched him leaving, studying him closely, and then flipped a page before hurriedly scratching some new figures down.
*Constructive criticism welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*