Hi readers. So this is my first fanfiction story... I've written a lot of my my own stories before, so don't be afraid to criticize, so long as it's intelligent. I won't respond to comments that short, useless and insulting like "It's stupid" or anything like that. Also, I've only seen Doctor Who up until the end of Season 2 of the new series (except for a few other episodes) so don't get mad if I don't know things beyond that (that being said, any glaring errors should be pointed out...) Anyways, this fanfic is inspired by mainly by the episodes "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit" in Season 2, but it should be understandable without seeing them.
Finally, I apologize in advance for how short this chapter is. I intend for it to just act as an opening to the rest of the story, and to introduce the idea of the plot. Hopefully later ones should be longer.
Event Horizon (n): "The point of no return" in a black hole, beyond which the force of gravity makes escape impossible (summarized from Wikipedia)
Chapter 1: An Unlucky Popsicle
At the dawn of the fortieth century, mankind was already commanding presence in space. And yet, as is their nature, humans kept exploring, pushing past the edges of galaxies to see what they could find around the next corner. In the most audacious efforts, brave men and women allowed themselves to be put into cryostasis so that they could survive journeys that were centuries long. One of those men was Stuart Sinclair, a young colonist who felt that he had nothing to lose by risking the journey. No family or friends at home, nor much of a home to speak of, anyways. He had lived in a town built around a chemical manufacturing plant. By some sheer stroke of luck, he had managed to be offworld when a malfunction at the plant blew the whole district into space dust.
Loneliness was not something that Stuart was accustomed to. He had never been less than a communicator away from friends or family. But now all he could think about was that he alone, horribly alone in a cruel universe that didn't skip a beat for a poor man like him. So he decided to be an explorer, signed on the dotted line in hopes of a better future. He went through basic training, stuff about scrounging out an existence on a foreign planet and how to fix faulty spacecraft systems. They also encouraged forming relationships, so that some community could be formed on their destination planet. It didn't take long for Stuart to fall for a young woman his age named Iris Shea, and they had hoped to have a family on their new planet.
On launch day, Stuart, Iris, and ten thousand other people settled down into cryopods and watched as reality faded out. The starship Orion then blasted into the great unknown, headed for another galaxy, and its inhabitants' fate.
The first seventy-five years of the ship's travels were uneventful,its computer detecting no critical problems. It was all occurring according to plan, but then Orion encountered an unexpected supernova that, although far away, shifted its course ever so slightly. The ship's computer simply changed its path by a few light years, and thought nothing of it. How was it supposed to know about what lay ahead in the void?
It took another sixty years before the computer realized the error of its ways. By then, though, it was too late, and Orion was headed straight towards K37 Gem 5, a massive black hole that already had the starship in its grasp. As the ship's computer frantically tried to lead the ship's passengers to safety, the black hole's gravity managed to send a utility cart through the cables on Stuart's crypod, pulling him out of stasis.
He thawed slowly, and awoke to the sight of the black hole pulling Orion inalongside whole star systems. Nothing was immune to its immense gravity, except for one impossible planet, visible out of the corner of the window. Stuart stared at the planet with longing, and made a silent prayer that he and Iris could be safe on its surface, whatever the cost. Little did he know, someone was listening...