AZRAELIUS MAJOR – 3549
"Whatever you do, don't blink!" yelled Clara at the group of villagers running down the forest path towards the safety of the fortress. She slowed down to help a mother carrying two small children. Nervously scanning the area, Clara couldn't help but feel the thick trees around them hid the hunters rather than the prey.
A young girl running ahead of the group slipped down the side of the path into a patch of trees. When she looked up, she saw a Weeping Angel reaching out to her. She screamed as the Angel's head exploded into dust revealing the Doctor holding a large club.
"I'm the Doctor, come with me" said the Doctor as he reached for her hand. The girl looked up at the gray-haired man and was almost as afraid of him as she was of the angel statues. His fierce expression was something you'd expect from a hardened warrior, not a doctor.
"You killed it!" cried the girl.
"You can't kill stone," said the Doctor gruffly as he pulled her up. "Now run!"
She saw her family near the fortress gate and raced ahead of the Doctor to reach them.
The Doctor didn't see Clara with the group at the gate. He looked back down the forest path.
"Clara" he called out. He looked back at the fortress and saw the gate beginning to close. He could just make it in time if he ran. The Doctor hesitated. Was she safe inside? He glanced back at the forest again. There was movement in the trees…slow and deliberate. The Angels were getting closer. The Doctor turned again to the family at the gate. They were anxiously waiting for someone but he knew that it wasn't him.
A scream rang out from down the path. It was Clara. Without thinking, the Doctor ran head on into the forest.
"Doctor!" Clara shouted. She was cornered against a rock wall that was too high for her to climb holding the small boy. She stared at the three approaching Angels, her eyes watering from not blinking.
The Doctor ran up between two of the Angels. "Hey, look at me!" He closed his eyes and ducked hoping that at least two Angels would stare each other into place. It worked.
"This way!" He called out to Clara.
"Doctor -behind you!" she warned. The Doctor moved away from the new Angels just in time. He was now stuck against the rock wall with Clara. More Angels appeared moving towards them with every blink of their eyes.
"What's your plan, Doctor?" asked Clara. "Now's a good time to show me how brilliant you can be."
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He aimed it at the Angels but nothing happened. No pulsing sound, no light. He shook it a few times to try to get it to work. He aimed it again, again nothing.
Someone blinked and the Angels moved a step closer.
"Oi! Up here!" called out a male voice from above them. They were torn between looking at who was calling them and trying not to turn away from the approaching Angels. "Grab the rope" the voice yelled.
The end of a rope landed at their feet.
"Clara – the rope! Climb up" ordered the Doctor as he took the child from her arms.
Clara climbed up the rocks which is no easy feat in a skirt. Whoever was on the other end of the rope pulled her up fast. She was almost at the top when strong arms reached down grabbed her. Quickly, Clara was pulled over the edge and into a pair of big blue eyes.
He looked as startled as she. "You! You're so young!" he whispered before he could stop himself. Clara was shocked. She didn't recognize this dark-haired man who she guessed was in his late 20s but felt an instant connection.
Before she could say anything, he pulled away from her and reached back down the rock wall to help pull up the child. Clara took the little boy, freeing up the man to help the Doctor. Seconds later, the Doctor flew over the wall.
As soon as the Doctor was safe, the man used a knife to cut the rope. Clara covered the child's eyes as the three of them watched an Angel, which had climbed after them, fall and disintegrate into a pile of broken rocks.
Clara stared at the man in awe. He was wearing a dark blue pea coat and dark pants. Beneath his blue eyes he wore a wicked smile. She couldn't help feeling like she should know him. "Thank you. You saved us," she said, still breathless.
The Doctor never liked being ignored and now Clara was ignoring him. She was paying attention this new man. Her new hero. The Doctor immediately decided he didn't like him. There was something familiar about him but something wasn't right. This man's presence made the Doctor uncomfortable.
"Don't thank me yet," the man said to Clara with wink, "We still have to get past a few more Angels before we're in the clear."
"Who are you?" demanded the Doctor.
"Spoilers" the young man said still smiling as he grabbed the child out of Clara's arms and began to head down the path.
Clara followed but was pulled back by the Doctor: "He's not one of the colonists."
The man stopped and turned to see that they were not following. Did they not understand the urgency of the situation? "We have to go!"
"We're not going anywhere with you until you tell us your name," said the Doctor coldly.
"We don't have time for this," the man responded as his eyes turn a stormy grey. "There's a back gate to the fortress just down this path. We have to get there before the Angels figure that out and they will soon unless we move now."
"Why not use your teleporter?" asked the Doctor pointing to the vortex manipulator on the man's right wrist.
"Because right now it's not working any better than your sonic screwdriver," he answered.
"Doctor! Over there!" Clara spotted an Angel coming through the trees.
Both men responded with the same thought. "Run!"
A few minutes later the Doctor, Clara and the man, still holding the child, ran towards the back of the fortress. A voice called out, "They're coming! Open the gate!"
The gate opened just wide enough for the four of them to squeeze through.
They collapsed on the floor of the entry trying to catch their breath as the colonists closed their gate with seconds to spare. The Angels now stood in the gardens as if they were purposely put there….waiting.
"Mama!" cried the little boy when he saw his mother running towards him.
The mother sobbed, "My baby!" as she pulled him into her arms rocking him back and forth.
Clara was relieved at sight of the happy reunion. She looked over at the Doctor but he wasn't paying any attention to the sentimental display. He was staring down at the stranger. Clara's new hero.
"What kind of idiot walks into a den of Weeping Angels with a defective teleport?" asked the Doctor.
The young man laughed, catching Clara's eye, "The same kind of idiot that walks around with a defect sonic screwdriver, I guess."
At that moment, a group of four guards wearing khaki uniforms approached them. "Colonist Abraham wishes to speak with the three of you in his office now," ordered one of the guards.
The Doctor, Clara and the young man reluctantly followed him, surrounded by the other guards.
The fortress was a mix of new and old. While in some ways it looked like a medieval fortress, it was no doubt a product of 36th century Earth. What appeared to be stone walls moved with the wave of the guard's hand. The skylights were displays of the outside sky without compromising the security necessary to keep the Angels out.
They entered Colonist Abraham's chamber. It is the largest room they had seen so far in the fortress with high windows overlooking the surrounding forest. In the center of the room was a large wooden round table.
"Welcome Doctor!" greeted an old man wearing a more ornate uniform than his guards. He led them to the table indicating for them to sit. "I see you brought your companions as well. Good! That's very good."
The Doctor and the young man exchanged suspicious looks but don't say anything. They all sit except for the Doctor who simply stands, leaning his arms on top of the chair back as his eyes scan the room for potential threats.
"My name is Colonist Abraham and I've been leader of this Earth colony since we settled here in the Maalik system more than 50 years ago. I'm so glad our messenger was able to reach you. We desperately need your help."
"I'd say...is this a new attack by the Weeping Angels or did you purposely build your colony in their backyard," probed the Doctor as he glances out the windows.
"We were told this planet was uninhabited by any life forms when we settled here!" said Abraham. "Everything was fine for the first few decades. Every once in a while we'd lose a colonist in the forest, but, we had no idea until recently that the Angels were here."
Clara interrupted, "So they just suddenly appeared?"
"Of course not," said the Doctor. "They've been here for centuries, haven't they?"
Colonist Abraham cleared his throat, hesitant to speak his next few words.
"We didn't realize the Angels were here until last year when an archeology dig uncovered a cave. At first we thought it was a treasure trove of statues from a lost civilization. Over the next few weeks the number of reports of disappearances increased at an alarming rate. People would disappear as if into thin air. Among the disappeared was our Chief Archeologist – Colonist Sarah. Two months ago, at another archeology site, our scientists found a skeleton and a written message on the wall - both dating back more than 200 years. The message was from Colonist Sarah."
"What did it say?" asked the young man finally speaking up.
"It's better for me to show you." Abraham pressed a button in his console and a visual display of a cave wall appeared above the center of the table. On the cave wall is carved:
"Angel of Death born in time rift with powers beyond death. Must seal time rift!"
"Have you considered leaving the colony and blowing up the planet to seal the time rift?" asked the man.
"Blowing up a planet does not always seal a time rift," said the Doctor with distain.
"It will if you use the Tardis to drain any lingering power so that the rift can't open again," he said surprising both the Doctor and Clara. "Or we can go back to Earth and borrow Torchwood's Rift Manipulator."
"There's another complication," interrupted Colonist Abraham.
The man and the Doctor, still rattled from the man's last comment, stopped bickering to look at the leader of the colony.
"We thought of leaving but when we began making plans we notice that we no longer had enough people to operate the spaceship," said Abraham. "What's most perplexing is that our history books state that the ship, which was built for 5,000 passengers, was overflowing with colonists but we only have a few hundred here now. There's no record of any other colonists nor any record of disease or accidents."
"A few hundred?" asked the young man.
"The Weeping Angels can send people back in time. They feed off the time energy of the lives that would have been lived by their victims," explained the Doctor.
"Would that explain the ghost villages?" Abraham begged.
"Ghost Villages?" asked Clara. "You mean like Casper ghosts?"
"We have whole villages where buildings stand empty. We have no idea who built them. They are exactly like our villages but there's no sign, or even any record, that these buildings were ever inhabited," explained Abraham. "My people are afraid and I can't explain it to them."
The Doctor, Clara and the young man walked down the deserted main street of a "Ghost Village."
The fortress guards accompanied them through the forest but would not enter the village. They remained standing guard outside the village borders. Apparently it was more frightening to them than Weeping Angels wandering through the forest.
The Doctor stopped in front of the village well. He played with the pulley system for a few seconds before pulling up a bucket of water. He first sniffed the water then tasted it much to Clara's dismay.
Clara peaked inside the empty storefronts. "It's as if they finished the buildings but never moved in. What do you think could have happened here?"
Both the Doctor and the man, who was now sitting on the side of the well, responded at the same time - "Angel attack."
"Since when does Torchwood investigate alien activity off earth?" asked the Doctor.
"I'm not Torchwood," stated the man in a matter-of-fact way.
The Doctor exploded with fury and pushed the man into the well.
He landed with a splash. The well wasn't deep but the slides are too smooth to attempt to climb up without help. "What the bloody hell are you doing?" he shouted.
Clara ran up to the well and saw the man floating in the water below. Furious, she screamed at the Doctor: "I can't believe you just did that! Help him!"
Doctor looked down at the man treading water below.
"What is your name?"
"Like I said before…spoilers."
"I'm afraid that's not good enough for me. Who do you work for and why are you here?"
"Okay, okay… I'm J-J-Jack…"
"Jack Harkness? Have you been visiting those make-over droids on the Game Station again? I thought there was something strange about you."
"No, my name is Jack Oswald."
The Doctor looked up at Clara whose eyes had grown two sizes. He looked down at Jack, who was desperately trying to grip the wall, and asked "Any relation?"
"It's complicated"
Clara tried to ask "what does that…?" but was cut off by the Doctor. "Who do you work for?
"I'm with UNIT. We're tracking the Weeping Angels. They've developed new powers and we're looking for the source of origin so we can stop them." Jack lost his grip on the wall causing him to slip under the water. He came up a few seconds later coughing.
"This water is warm. The time rift must be heating it up like a hot spring."
The Doctor paused as if to decide whether or not Jack is telling the truth. He was knocked out of his thoughts by Clara who pushed him away from the well and sent the bucket and rope down to Jack.
A few minutes later, back above ground, a very wet Jack was wringing water out of his jacket. The Doctor stood nearby, arms crossed, still evaluating whether or not to trust him. As Jack went through his jacket he pulled out various pieces of alien technology to dry out: a compact laser gun, a wallet with psychic paper, some aspirin, hair gel, a candy bar, and a small tube that almost looked like a sonic screwdriver.
The Doctor finally asked Jack: "Why were you surprised when Abraham said there were only a few hundred colonists?"
"Because when I got here a few days ago there were well over a thousand people here," he replied.
"You said the Angels had new powers like in the message. What kind of powers are we talking about?
"The old Angels could either kill you on the spot or zap you back in time, now they've found a way to harvest even more power by controlling individual timelines. They can take years off your life, rebooting you so that they have even more time energy to pull from. They can even reverse your timeline to the point where a person no longer exists. We call it a pre-embryonic power surge."
"Then it's as if you never lived," said Clara, still looking around them to make sure no Weeping Angels were trying to sneak up on them.
"That's right," Jack confirmed as he shook water out of his vortex manipulator. The motion results in the manipulator beginning to glow.
"The missing crew, the ghost village…that explains it all" explains the Doctor. "Years ago we were fighting off a crack in the universe, a rift exposing the time vortex. Those who fell into the rift were forgotten. It was as if they were never born. Now the Angels have found a way to harness that power."
"But how did the Angels get into the Time Vortex?" Clara asked Jack.
Jack pointed to the Doctor: "Maybe you should ask him."
The Doctor started, "it's a long story…" but was interrupted by the sound of a baby's cry to their left.
The three turned to see a Weeping Angel standing above a baby, lying in a heap of khaki. Jack turned to see another Angel coming up behind them. The Doctor and Clara watched in horror as the Angel touches the baby again. "It's gone!" cried Clara.
"What's gone?" Jack then heard a baby cry but from their right. They were getting closer.
"Doctor!"
"We need to get to the time rift below the fortress so we can shut it down. Is that teleport working yet, Jack?"
Jack looked down his wrist. The teleporter was charged up. He told them to "hang on" as he keyed in a new destination. He grabbed ahold of them as the teleporter reaches its full charge.
The three disappeared before the Angels could make their way up the steps of the village well.
Deep inside the fortress, the three appeared in what looked like a basement under the kitchens. They made their way around boxes of stored grain, hanging pieces of smoked meats, and bins of some very odd looking vegetables.
Jack looked down at his vortex manipulator. The charge was drained.
"Is it broken?" asked Clara
"No, but it'll be at least another 10 minutes before it's charged again." Jack folded up the wrist band and stuck it in his back pocket.
The Doctor, carefully reviewing their surrounds, announced bitterly, "Let's hope we don't need good old Jack to rescue us again in the next few minutes."
"You're welcome," said Jack. He turned to Clara and gave her another wink.
"So what's the plan?" she asked as they made their way down a dark passage lit by faux torches. "We're under the fortress. If there's a time rift here, I'm guessing we've got some Angels to deal with as well. So what's the plan?"
The Doctor and Jack looked at her as if they've been betrayed by a non-believer. "We'll come up with something" said Jack as he pulled a faux torch out it's setting on the wall.
"When have I ever failed you?" proclaimed the Doctor as he rifled through a box pulling out a large spool of copper wiring.
"Oh please, cut the testosterone levels already. What's the plan?" demanded Clara.
"We need to see what we are working with first," said the Doctor. "I need to see the time rift. Is it big enough to send the remaining Angels back into it?"
"Why do we want to do that, if that's what created their new powers?"
"Because it's the only known way to kill an Angel. I don't know why this "Angel of Death" survived but there is no other way to destroy them other than creating a time paradox to poison their energy source."
"Actually…"
Both the Doctor and Clara turned to the young man who suspiciously seemed to know too much.
"Always have to have the last word, don't you?" exclaimed the Doctor as he quietly dug through another box.
"With new powers, comes a new vulnerabilities," Jack continued. "It takes a lot of energy to reverse someone's time line. The only way to save someone from a pre-embryonic power surge is by snatching the person, or rather the baby, away before the Angels can take their final charge. It's when they are at their weakest. If you can hit them with a powerful sonic charge when they are in this state, you can destroy the Angel, permanently. We call it the Perkin's maneuver."
"Perkins? I used to know a brilliant engineer by that name, remember Clara, the Orient Express?" The Doctor's happy reminiscing did not match Clara's memories of the event which took them up against a deadly mummy.
"Yeah, that would be him," mumbled Jack under his breath.
"Do you know Perkins?" Clara asked Jack.
"Listen!" The Doctors told them in a low voice.
They could hear the sound of distant drumming.
"What's that drumming sound?" asked Clara.
"Time Vortex" both men responded.
The three entered another underground chamber. This one was huge. It was lit by a bright light coming through a large crack on one of the walls. The sound of repeating drum beats was coming from the light.
They looked around. It was empty. Where were the angels?
"Don't move!" someone said from behind them. "Put your hands behind your heads and turn around slowly."
They did as they were told. They dropped the materials they had picked up along the way and slowly turned around. Before them stood Colonist Abraham with his guards. "Ah, Doctor. Your timing is impeccable, as always."
"What's going on Abraham? The truth" the Doctor demanded.
"The truth is that we – the Angels and I – have come to a mutual understanding," explained Abraham. "They will leave my people alone as long as I deliver the last of the time lords to them. They need a time lord's regeneration energy to convert the remaining angels. Without it they will die the vortex but, if protected by it, they can be born again as Angels of Death."
The guards tied the three of them up and sat them down near the time rift, not too far from the materials they dropped.
"You have no idea of the forces you are dealing with," warned the Doctor.
"Such a pity I have to leave all three of you here but that's the life of a companion," Abraham shrugged as he walked out of the room with his guards.
Clara struggled to break out of her bonds. "You know Doctor, when I was a little girl, I loved the thought of Angels. I'm not going to thank you for ruining that for me."
"Jack," called out the Doctor. "Do you still have your teleporter?"
"Yes, but it still needs a few minutes to charge."
The Doctor wiggled until his sonic screw driver fell out of his pocket with a thump. "Clara, can you reach it?"
"It's supposed to be voice activated, remember?"
"Oh yes, sonic on. Run sub routine 42."
At once their bonds broke and they were free. Clara, being closest, picked up the screwdriver as the Doctor and Jack dove for the spool of copper wiring.
"Jack, help me make a net out of these wires. Clara, use the sonic to fuse the end points." They worked furiously shape a net.
After Clara fused the last cord into place she looked up to see an Angel scowling at them. "Doctor!" The net was spread out over the floor. It was too late, thought Clara, they couldn't pick it up in time to use it against the Angels who were already coming out of the rift.
"Clara – my sonic!" called out the Doctor. The Clara handed it to him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jack tie his vortex manipulator to the net.
As the three of them slowly walked backwards, away from the net, the angels continued their slow advance. A new Angel appeared. This one was bigger and emanated a brilliant power. The other angels made room for her to pass with each blink that slipped through the three prisoners' eyes.
"Now!" shouted the Doctor.
At that moment, the Vortex Manipulator sent out a power surge. The wire net glows as it dragged the Angels back into the time rift. As soon as they cleared the rift both the Doctor and Jack pulled out sonic devices and began the process of sealing it.
The drumming sound was replaced by the engines of the TARDIS appearing. The light on top of the TARDIS glowed as it absorbed the excess energy left behind by the rift.
Then it was done. The Angels were gone. The room was dark except for the light from the faux torches and the TARDIS.
"Are they gone for good, Doctor?" asked Clara still staring at the wall.
"I thought they were gone for good last time around," the Doctor replied. "We can only hope they stay gone this time."
"What should we do about Colonist Abraham?"
"I can help with that one. May I borrow your phone?" Jack asked the Doctor, who reluctantly nodded.
Jack walked up to the blue police box and opened the phone box. He dialed a long sequence of numbers before speaking into the phone. "Hi, it's me. All clear on Azraelius Major. It was Colonist Abraham working with the Angels the whole time. Send in the cleanup team 1 now."
Jack hung up the phone just as Clara and the Doctor walked up beside him.
"Need a ride home?" offered Clara.
"Thanks, but I've got my own ride," said Jack sheepishly.
"But your…."
"Clara, I think it's time to say goodbye to Jack," interrupted the Doctor.
"But I have so many questions I want to ask you… your name, how do you know who I am?"
"It's always about you isn't it, Clara?" The Doctor rolled his eyes then walks through the door of the TARDIS.
"We'll meet again, won't we?" Clara asked Jack. "And don't you dare respond by saying 'spoilers!'"
Jack chuckled. Then he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll be seeing you soon" he said before walking away once again wearing a wicked smile.
Clara put her hand to her cheek where he kissed her then walked in to the TARDIS closing the door behind her. The sound the TARDIS engines grew louder and louder, until the blue box itself disappeared.
UNIT HQ – London – 2056
People were scurrying about the UNIT Headquarters landing bays. Lights were flashing signaling incoming transport first, followed by the sound of the TARDIS engines. A battered, blue police box appeared in Landing Bay 14 and the engine sounds came to a stop.
Jack exited the TARDIS and immediately began checking the exterior for any residual time paradox damage.
As he inspected the box, he heard a voice from behind him. "You're late!"
He turned with a smile and said, "You know, mum, you should have warned me before you sent me on this mission."
"Sorry, dear…spoilers," said Clara who at 70 was still a striking woman even in her UNIT uniform.
TO BE CONTINUED…