Disclaimer: My unbroken run of non-Doctor Who ownership continues unblemished.

42

Remember kids, always check to make sure that the star you're using as a fuel source isn't sentient...- TV Tropes

Chapter 1: 44:12

Martha had a very good reason to be pleased now. The Doctor had finally agreed to take her on properly, not just keep saying "one more trip." all the time. Perhaps he was happier to have her around than she'd thought. He was finally moving on from losing Rose.

As an added bonus, he'd said he could upgrade her phone, now that she'd be staying a bit longer. Since hers was a more advanced model than Rose's it was a simpler job. A few minutes installing software with the sonic screwdriver and she was set to go.

"Universal roaming." He said. "Never have to worry about signal again."

"No way!" She grinned. "This is too mad. Are you telling me I can phone anyone, anywhere in space and time on my mobile?"

"If you have the area code." He shrugged. "Frequent flyers' privilege. Go on, try it."

Before she got a chance, they were distracted by the TARDIS juddering.

"Distress signal." The Doctor read off the scanner. "Locking on. Might be a bit of..." With a jolt, they fell to the floor. "...turbulence. Sorry. Come on Martha, let's take a look."

The moment they opened the door, they were hit by what felt like a wall of heat. The Doctor stepped out into a massive metallic room. The floor vibrations told him it was a spaceship of some kind.

Martha had never been in a spaceship before, besides the TARDIS. She'd assumed the interiors would be sleek and clean, with buttons flashing on the wall. This one looked more like a submarine, with the uneven floors and the exposed bolts. Worse still, it looked like a submarine that was past its best. Everything was filthy and the paint on almost every surface was peeling off. And then there was the heat.

"Whuf. It's like a sauna in here!" She said.

The Doctor pointed to a collections of openings overhead, several of which were emitting steam. "Ventilation systems, working overtime to cool down the ship. You know what they say, if you can't stand the heat..." He spotted a bulkhead labelled Area 29. And led Martha through. It was cooler on the far side, but not much. More like the heat from a crowded room.

Seconds later, three people in overalls came running. "Hey you two!" Shouted the man who was leading.

"Get out of there!" Shouted the woman.

They did so, and the man slammed the bulkhead behind them, twisting the handle.

The woman stared them down. "What do you think you're doing on my ship?"

"Are you the police?" Said the man.

"We answered your distress call." Said The Doctor, pointing to a screen which read, Automated distress call transmitted.

"Why would you think we're police?" Said Martha.

"If this is a ship, why can't I hear any engines?" Said the Doctor.

"They went dead four minutes ago." Said the woman, deciding it wasn't the time to question them.

"Which is why, we should get to engineering." The second man insisted.

"Secure closure activated." Said the computer. A series of thumps echoed through the halls.

"The ship's gone mad." Said the second man.

A smaller woman, with Erina written on her sleeve, came hurrying through from section 28. "Who activated secure closure?" She shouted. "I almost got trapped in section 27! She spotted the newcomers for the first time. Who are you?"

"He's the Doctor. I'm Martha."

"Impact projection: Impact in 42 minutes and twenty seven seconds." Said the computer. Martha went to a viewport to have a better look.

"We're going to make it through this, I promise." Said the captain.

"Doctor." Martha called from the window.

"Impact with what?" He said.

"Doctor!" She shouted, and he came running.

Outside was a massive sphere, burning fiercely white in fusion reaction. They were about to crash into the sun.

"How many crewmembers?" He said to the captain.

"7." She replied.

"We transport cargo across the galaxy." The first man elaborated. "Everything's automated. We just keep the ship space worthy."

As he spoke, the Doctor ran up to the bulkhead he'd just come through and wrenched the door open. "Get all of them up here!"

"No!" They all shouted, but too late. He pulled the door open. A burst of flame shot out and knocked him down. Erina pulled her welder's mask on and closed it again.

She took a look at the readout next to it. "The temperature's going crazy in there. Up 3000 degrees!"

"My spaceship's in there!" He shouted.

"In the vent chamber?" Said a crewmember.

"...It's a lifeboat."

"It's lava."

The Doctor pondered. The TARDIS heat shields would outlast a rust bucket like this, but he couldn't get to it until the vents were under control. "We fix the engines and steer this ship away then. Engineering's this way, isn't it?"

40:27

"Blimey." Said the Doctor, as he got a look at the engine room. "Do you always leave things in such a mess?"

The engine now resembled something that had been through a car crusher. Bits of metal and components lay around it.

"Someone's wrecked it." Said the engineer.

"And pretty efficiently too." Said the Doctor. "Someone knew what they were doing."

"Where's Korwin?" Said the Captain, who was known as McDonnell. "Has anyone heard from him or Ashton?"

The rest of the crew shook their heads.

Martha picked over the wreckage, as the Doctor looked at the scanner by the engine. "You mean someone did this on purpose?"

But McDonnell was more concerned with another problem. She went over to the intercom. "Korwin, Ashton. Report please. He should be here, where is he?"

The Doctor, meanwhile, had found some information on the screen. "We're in the Toraiji System! Lovely. You're a long way from home Martha. Half the universe away."

"Yeah, feels it." She nodded.

"And you're still using energy scoops for fusion?" He rounded on McDonnell. "Hasn't that been outlawed?" Energy scoops were a method of igniting a fusion reaction by flying close to a star and capturing part of the reaction from there. Someone had apparently wrecked the engine mid way through their pass. Now there was no power to escape the gravitational pull.

She shared an awkward look with her chief engineer. "We're due an upgrade next docking. Scannell, engine report."

Scannell found another console and pressed some buttons. Almost everything he pressed beeped in a way that seemed to indicate error. "Non responsive." He said. He went to look at the main controls. "They've burnt out. Someone's sabotaged them too. I can't get back online."

Martha was starting to wish she'd just stayed at home when the Doctor had dropped her off. She knew she was pushing her luck with each trip she went on.

"Come on, there must be auxiliary engines." Said the Doctor. "Every craft's got auxiliaries."

"We don't have access from here. The auxiliary controls are in the front of the ship." Said McDonnell.

"Yeah, with twenty nine password sealed doors between us and them." Scannell added. "You'll never get there in time."

"Can't you override the doors?" said Martha.

"No. Sealed closure means what it says. They're all dead-lock sealed."

"So a sonic screwdriver's no use." Said the Doctor.

"Nothing's any use. We've got no engines, no time, and no chance." Scannell sighed.

"Oh, listen to you. Defeated before you've even started. Where's your Dunkirk spirit? Who's got the door passwords?" Said the Doctor.

"They're randomly generated. Reckon I know most of them. Sorry. Riley Vashti."

"Then what're you waiting for, Riley Vashti? Get on it."

"Well, it's a two person job. One, a technish for the questions, and the other to carry this. He grabbed a huge rucksack off a shelf, along with a big clunky clamp. "The oldest and cheapest security system around, eh, Captain?"

"Reliable and simple, just like you, eh, Riley?" She smiled.

"Try and be helpful, get abuse. Nice."

"I'll help you. Make myself useful." Said Martha.

"It's remotely controlled by the computer panel. That's why it needs two." Riley led her away.

"Oi. Be careful." The Doctor called after her.

"You too." She grinned.

A voice came over the intercom. "McDonnell, it's Ashton. Are you there?"

McDonnell hurried over and hit the button. "McDonnell here. Is Korwin there? Is he Ok?"

"I think you should come up to the med centre." Ashton replied.

34:30

In the med centre, a bald man and a woman in scrubs were trying desperately to restrain a man thrashing in agony on the table.

"Korwin. It's Abi." She said. "I just need a look in your eyes." She was shouting.

"Help me! It's burning me!" He roared.

"How long's he been like this?" Said the Doctor.

"I don't know." Said Abi. "Ashton's just brought him in."

The Doctor ran his sonic over the man. "Don't get too close."

"But he's my husband!" Said the Captain.

"And he's just sabotaged the ship." Said Ashton.

"What!"

"He went mad. Activated the secure lock. then set the pulse to melt the controls."

"No! He would never do that!"

"I saw it happen."

As they tried to hold Korwin down, the Doctor tried to get his attention. "Korwin, Korwin. Could you just look at me a second?"

"I can't!" He screamed.

"Course you can!" The Doctor said cheerily.

"Don't make me look at you! Please!"

"Ok. Ok." He took a hypo gun from a table. "Sedative?" He said to Abi, who nodded. "Good." And he injected it into the neck. Korwin promptly went limp.

"What's wrong with him?" Said McDonnell.

The Doctor looked at his sonic. "Rising body temperature. Unusual energy readings." He noticed the device behind him. "Stasis chamber. I do love a good stasis chamber. Keep him sedated in there. Regulate the body temperature. And, just for fun, run a bio scan and tissue profile on a metabolic detail."

"Already doing it." Said Abi.

"Good. Has anyone else displayed these symptoms?"

"Not so far."

"Well that's one good thing."

"Will someone please tell me what's wrong with him?" Said McDonnell.

"Some sort of infection." The Doctor shrugged. "We'll know a bit more when the test results come in. Anyway. Engine room. Alonn-sy." Ashton went, but McDonnell seemed reluctant to leave Korwin. "Hey, look at those engines. Come on. Go."

Reluctantly, she followed the others out.

32:50

Riley typed away at a keypad. "Hurry up will you?" Said Martha.

The system beeped reassuringly. "Right, fix the clamp on." He said.

The clamp had a round slot on one side, spotting a round tab in the centre of the door, Martha shoved them together. "What are you typing?"

"The codes are a set of random question set by the crew. Nine tours back, we got drunk, thought 'em up. Reckoned if we ever got boarded, we're the only ones who know all the answers."

"So you just have to key in the right answer then?"

"But we only get one try per door. Get it wrong, the whole system freezes."

"Better not get it wrong then." Martha could see several flaws in that system, but reminded herself that it had been put together whilst drunk.

"Okay. Date of SS Pentallian's first flight. That's all right." He keyed in some figures. "Go!"

Martha shoved the door and it came open.

"28 more to go!" Riley grinned.

32:12

The Doctor was looking at the readouts from the ship. The solar shields were at 22%, but they should hold for the time being. They'd been designed to sustain the ship until it crossed the sun's gravity threshold. After that, there had seemed little point keeping the ship intact, since the engines wouldn't be powerful enough to escape. The counter or the threshold showed rougly how long it would last. And it was counting ever down.

Turning his attention to their other problem briefly, he hit the intercom for the med bay. "Abi, how's Korwin doing?"

"He's under heavy sedation." She replied. "I'm still trying to make sense of these bio readings."

He pressed another button. "Martha, how're you doing?"

"Section 29 and door 28."

"Yeah, you've got to move faster."

"We're doing our best."

Riley keyed in some more figures. "Give the next number in the sequence 313, 331, 367. What?"

"You said the crew knew all the answers!" Said Martha.

"The crew's changed since we set the questions."

"You are joking!"

"379." Said the Doctor.

"What?"

"It's a sequence of happy primes. 379."

"Happy what?"

"Just enter it!"

"Are you sure?" Said Riley. "We only get one chance."

"Any number that reduces to one when you take the sum of the square of its digits. And you continue iterating until it yields one is a happy number Any number that doesn't, isn't. A happy prime is a number that is both happy and prime. Now type it in! I don't know, talk about dumbing down! Don't they teach recreational mathematics anymore?" The Doctor sighed.

Riley keyed in 379. To his surprise it worked. "Let's keep moving."

"And Martha." Said the Doctor. "Be careful. There may be something else on board the ship."

"Any time you wanna unnerve me, feel free." She groaned.

"Will do."

Riley brought up the next question. "Oh, this is a nightmare. Classical music: Who had the most pre-download number 1s. Elvis Presley or the Bee-atles? How the hec are we supposed to know that?"

"I can't believe my life depends on some stupid pub quiz." Said Martha.

30:50

The Doctor looked over the frazzled clump of wiring. It was clearly beyond repair. "We'll need to bypass this somehow." He looked round at the crew. "Resources, what have we got. Think!"

"Doctor." Martha's voice came on the intercom. "Who had the most number 1s. Elvis or the Beatles? That's pre-downloads."

"Elvis. No! The Beatles. No! What about that remix? Oh... I don't know. I'm a bit busy."

"I'll ask someone else then." Said Martha.

"Right." Said the Doctor. "Where was I? Here comes the sun. No!" He shook that train of thought off. "Recourses, what have we got? Ooh! The power's still going. That means the generator's still working. If we can harness that..." He paused, so as to get the crew thinking.

"We can use the generator to jumpstart the ship!" Said McDonald.

"Exactly." He grinned. "At the very least it may buy us some time."

"That's brilliant."

"See... Glimmer of hope."

"If it works." Muttered Scannell.

"Trust me." Said McDonald. "You're gonna make it work."

29:46

Martha listened to the phone ringing. To her amazement, her mum's voice said "Hello."

"Mum! Wow. Um..." Martha bit back her excitement.

"Where are you?" Francine groaned. "Don't you check your messages. I have been calling all night!"

"Actually a bit busy, I need you to do something for me."

"No, you need to listen to me!" She snapped. "We need to talk about thins Doctor."

"Mum please, not now. I need you to look something up on the internet."

"Do it yourself, you've got a computer."

"Oh just do it will you!" She shouted, then hastily added. "Please?"

Francine sighed. "And when did you get so rude. Ever since you met that man..."

"I need to know who had more number 1s." Martha cut her off before she could continue. "Elvis, or The Beatles."

"Hold on the mouse is unplugged... Ok sorted. What is this, a pub quiz?"

"Yes." Said Martha, hoping the hiss from the cooling vents, the metallic echoes from the walls and the lack of pub atmosphere couldn't be heard over the phone.

"Using your phone's cheating."

"Have you found it yet?"

"The signal's a bit low. Give me a minute."

28:50

The Doctor was looking over the engine, trying to think how best to connect the generator up without stripping the cylinders bare, when Abi's voice came over the intercom.

"Doctor, these readings are starting to scare me."

"What do you mean?"

"Korwin's body's changing. His whole biological make up, it's impossible."

28:38

As Abi spoke, she glanced at a steel pan on a shelf and saw Korwin rising from the slab. He turned to face her with his eyes shut.

"This is med centre." She said. "Urgent assistance required. Urgent!" Whatever was happening to him, it couldn't be good. And she knew from experience that she wasn't strong enough to stop mentally unhinged patients.

28:24

The Doctor ran for the room, shouting to the others to stay and keep working on the engine. McDonald and Scannel ignored him and ran for the med centre themselves.

"I only take orders from one person round here, Doctor." He explained.

"Oh, is he always this cheery?" The Doctor sighed.

28:02

"Abi, they're on their way." Said Erina's voice.

Abi backed into the corner, with Korwin between her and the door. She did the only thing she could and talked to him. "Korwin. What's the matter? What's happening to you?"

"BURN WITH ME." He said in a deep, rumbling voice, not his own, which echoed through the ship. "BURN WITH ME."

27:55

"Elvis." Said Francine.

"What?" Said Martha, who'd been intently listening to the voice demanding she burn with it. "Elvis, are you sure?"

Riley went to key it in.

27:50

"BURN WITH ME." He growled again.

"Korwin, you're sick." Abi pleaded.

He opened his eyes. For a second, they just looked like white lanterns, then Abi got a feeling as though someone had focused every heater in the system at her. It only took a second more and she felt nothing.