Title: Intellivore
Author: Gillian Taylor
Rating: R
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose, Jack
Summary: Sometimes, evil never truly dies.
Spoilers: This is an AU story that branches off sometime after Jack joins the TARDIS crew. Bad Wolf and PotW never happened.
Disclaimer: Don't own them. I just like playing with them.

Author's Notes: Well, before we get into the insanity that follows, this story was originally based in the Star Wars universe. After I got sucked into the wonderful world of Doctor Who I thought that this story could use a re-write to star our favorite TARDIS explorers. There are plenty of similarities to the original Intellivore, but over the course of writing this it has developed a life of its own. I would like to thank my wonderful beta nnwest for all her help and encouragement.

"Intellivore"
by Gillian Taylor

Prologue: What Came Before...

It had been there for a long time. So long, in fact, that it had seemed like it had been eons since it had last seen a warm body in its metallic tomb. But all of that would change.

With the hunger growing deep within its form, it sent out the repeating distress signal.

The Talween had returned.

Two Millennia Ago
Daan Explorer Ship Talween

Jistera Celaani, sometime Captain, sometime Counselor, and sometime Friend to her crew of eight was tired. It had been months since she had seen anyone outside of her cruiser crew and she ached to see a new face. But, between the Core Worlds of the Daan Empire and the newly explored 'Outer Reaches' and at the achingly slow pace of hyperspeed, there was little chance of meeting anyone this far out. She rubbed the bridge of her nose absently as she examined the thin layer of dust that coated the bridge instruments. It was the cause for much bemoaning on Deen's part. The man was convinced that any speck of dust on 'his' ship was a personal insult to his honor.

She laughed at the thought of his face when he saw the Bridge. He would probably end up with an ulcer...

BEEP

Jistera jerked out of her thoughts with the suddenness of a laser bolt. Behind her, Deen Ula and Fitz 'Buddy' Hitcets hurried onto the cramped Bridge.

"What is it?" Deen asked, taking his position at the small engineering console.

"A transmission," Fitz responded, looking at his master situation monitor, "Unlike any I have ever seen before." Coming from Fitz, or Buddy as he liked to be called, that was saying a lot. He could boast of being to every world in the Daan Empire even given his youthful appearance.

"Is it understandable?" Jistera asked.

"It seems to be some sort of mayday..."

"Drop us out of hyperspace, I want to check it out."

"But Jistera, what if it's hostile," Deen asked, a small shudder evident in his voice. He had heard the ghost stories revolving around this particular section of space and had no wish to have something happen to him here, on this ship, this far from home.

"We'll take it as we get there. I just want to see if we can help..." she explained.

With a sigh, Deen nodded, knowing that once she made up her mind there was no going back. The Talween slowed out of hyperspace to emerge thirty klicks from the bow of the strangest looking vessel that Jistera had ever seen. It was oblong and covered with a green tinged material that she had never seen before. But it was ultimately alien. There were curves that should have been corners had she designed the vessel and mounds where she would have put nothing at all.

"What the hell is that?" Fitz whispered in a mixture of awe and a primal fear of anything different.

"Open a channel to it. We could help it..."

Fitz looked at Deen and Jistera, indecision etched across the planes and angles of his face. He turned the knob to open the channel.
Daan Cruiser Prostera
One Year Later

"Incoming transmission," Justin Celaani reported to the Captain of the Prostera. He could only hope that this mission would reveal what happened to his beloved sister...

The voice was scratchy, fear permeating its tone to the point where it raised the small hairs at the napes of the bridge crew's necks.

"Talween...Deen...Jistera...They're dead. All of them. It killed them. Oh God...what...please, get out of here! Don't stay here! Go! Oh GOD!" The voice rose into a bone-chilling scream before the transmission was suddenly cut off.

The crew of the Prostera looked at each other in shared fear and uneasiness. They knew that something horrible had happened to the Talween...just as they knew that no one on that ship would ever come home...