A\N An idea that came to me during my science lesson. We were learning about fossils. This is my first Doctor Who story, so it's probably not going to be great, but I hope you enjoy it. This is set in early series 3. Please review me- I'd really like to know what you think!
Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who and am very jealous of the people who do
Martha Jones was fed up of being responsible, reliable and constantly thinking of others. How blissful it was not to be fielding yet another argument between her mother, father and Annalise. Of course she missed her family; she just didn't miss the constant crisis. In a family as large as hers, there was always something going wrong.
Lately she'd just had enough. She wanted to do something for herself. Needed some time just for her. Just for a little while. She'd go home eventually. Probably. But for now...
For now, she had climbed aboard a wooden spaceship that was bigger on the inside. Martha was almost certain that it would break soon. It just had too. It was made of wood, which can splinter and snap. It was also bigger on the inside. One day, Martha thought, the inside will explode out of the outside. It couldn't just be, because Martha liked logic and there was no logic in the inside sitting comfortably in the outside. Actually, Martha couldn't like logic that much because there was no logic in whizzing through time and space with a gorgeous stranger whose only name was "the Doctor"
The Doctor's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. It had that sort of effect on people. When the Doctor talked, people listened.
"Do you like dinosaurs, Martha Jones? Me, I love dinosaurs! They're just so huge and scaly and cute. I would keep one as a pet if I could stop it chewing the TARDIS to pieces. And then I would just need to say "Are you going to destroy that planet? Maybe you should meet my pet dinosaur first!" Wouldn't that just be brilliant?"
He often ran on like this. Martha found it hard to keep up with his thought processes, he spoke so damn fast. One statement stuck in her mind.
"Cute? Did you miss the part where they showed you their claws and sharp teeth?"
"Well, there was that great fierce one who nearly had my arm off. But luckily, dinosaurs don't like the noise of sonic screwdrivers and it seemed sufficiently sorry afterwards. I'm sure it didn't mean it. So, dinosaurs? Yes, no?"
"I actually get a say?"
"Yes. Today I'm feeling very generous,"
She looked at his brown eyes shining at her with enthusiasm and couldn't stop her heart beat speeding up. How could she say no to this?
"Yes. I want to see what the fuss is about and why we have museums dedicated to the things,"
"Allons-y! To see the dinosaurs!"
The Doctor began slamming, wrenching and adjusting controls on the TARDIS. The machine groaned in protest. Martha hastily found herself something to hold onto, to stop herself being hurled across the room. She knew from experience that it hurt. After said experience, she'd asked the Doctor if the thing had stabilizers. He told her it wouldn't be half as much fun if they didn't have that "Oh help, I'm going to die in an earthquake" feeling. And he wasn't just saying that because he had forgotten where they were and how to use them-of course he knew that. And Martha had said where, and he had said there was no point in telling her because she would have no idea how to use them.
Martha often wondered if the Doctor was alien or insane. He had a sort of "mad scientist" approach to things. She then wondered whether she was going insane. She smiled. If this was insanity, she liked it. She liked it a lot.
"What are you smiling at?" asked the Doctor.
"I'm in a spaceship! With an alien!" Martha sang.
The Doctor looked amused.
The TARDIS juddered to a halt. Martha looked at the doors. Out there was a whole new world to explore! It was strange to think that she'd normally be at work right now, if she were in the real world.
"After you," grinned the Doctor.
Martha marched towards the doors. This was her favourite part of the experience. You never quite knew what lay in wait beyond those wooden doors. Martha was about to open the door when she suddenly stopped.
"I won't get eaten will I?" Martha had a sudden mental image of her gravestone. "Here lies Martha Jones, reduced to a pile of bones, eaten by a dinosaur, why did she exit the door."
"No! Well, probably not. Hopefully,"
Martha decided to be optimistic.
She cautiously opened the doors and stepped out. Wherever she looked there were swirls of colour. Everywhere was swamped with lush, green vegetation. Amongst the assorted tropical green leaves were bright, exotic blooming flowers Martha had no name for. She noted the temperature was warm even though she was shaded by huge trees. Everything was so bright and vivid; Martha felt she'd stepped into a dream.
"Look!" breathed the Doctor from behind her. He pointed to a nearby bush. Martha couldn't see anything at first...but then there was movement. She stared hard and could make out the outline of a lizard like creature the exact shade of green of the surrounding plants. Martha guessed it was camouflage for protection. It looked like it was about as tall as her waist. It had spotted them and was watching them cautiously. It seemed confused- should it run or were they harmless?
The Doctor slowly crouched down, holding some leaves he'd gotten from somewhere. They looked more unusual than the bush the dinosaur was currently chewing.
"Here, boy," the Doctor called, as though he were coaxing his pet dog. "Yummy leaves!"
The dinosaur blinked his yellow eyes. His nose twitched. Martha held her breath as the creature inched forward to the Doctor's outstretched hand. He suddenly leaped forward and snatched the leaves with quick, sharp, jaws. It looked like he could give a nasty bite, despite appearing to be a herbivore.
Martha decided there was no way she was going to pass up the chance to feed a dinosaur. She copied the Doctor, and the little thing decided, "No, she's not going to eat me either", and took the leaves. He was close enough for Martha to touch and she couldn't resist. She reached out...
"Careful," warned the Doctor
...and patted him on his little scaly head. He made a sort of chirruping noise and wagged his long green tail like a dog. Martha smiled happily, wondering if she was making the whole thing up.
"Aww, he likes you Martha. I so just want to take him home with us, but look at those teeth! My poor TARDIS wouldn't stand a chance!"
"I thought dinosaurs were supposed to be huge great things the size of buses?" she hissed, not wanting to startle the creature.
"Actually, the smallest dinosaur was about the same size as a chicken. Fascinating really, there's never been such diversity in groups of similar species since the dinosaurs..." The Doctor began one of his long monologues. Martha found it amazing someone could talk as much as the Doctor did. At least she didn't have to keep thinking of stuff to say, she supposed.
Suddenly, a great roar filled the warm air. Martha's new friend fled into the forest without hesitation. There were thunderous footsteps pounding the ground, only a little way away.
"Get up the tree!" The Doctor yelled.
"You what?" Martha growled.
"Just get up the tree, Martha! I don't want you to be trampled to death!"
"Oh, thanks very much. I suppose now is a bad time to say that I could never climb anything in gym lessons,"
Martha did as he said though, and reluctantly started climbing the nearest tree with thick enough branches. After all, she didn't really want to be trampled to death. The Doctor climbed up behind her, ready to catch her if she fell. It was a nice feeling. Martha concentrated on that and not looking down.
Martha and the Doctor were a good way up the tree when two beasts thundered past. One was prey for the other. One had four legs and one had two. One of them galloped like a horse and the other had a giant mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. Martha could only pick out a few details because of the screen of leaves in front of her. It happened very quickly. Next thing Martha could make out was an animal scream. She shuddered.
"This place is very beautiful, but very cruel," The Doctor said from beneath her.
After climbing down from the tree, the two decided to poke around a bit more. Martha supposed it was because they hadn't found enough trouble yet. The Doctor was like a walking disaster, and consequently she was always right in the middle of it too. She found it exciting and told herself to enjoy every moment, because she'd never get a trip like this again.
They trekked through green jungle until they came to a vast lake. By the water's edge were long necked creature that were twice as huge as Martha's poky flat. They had long tails too, but their heads seemed far too small for the rest of their bodies. The Doctor rambled on, in a way that only he could, about climate and landscape and other dinosaur era related topics. Martha tried to ask the questions that would make her look intelligent.
The temperature of the lake was pleasant- it was sunny, but there was shade from the forest that made it comfortable. The pleasantness would not last much longer...Martha could hear something...a distant rumble that couldn't have been thunder because there was not a cloud in the sky.
"Shh, Doctor. What's that?"
"What?"
"Listen!"
There was a definite noise now, like an aeroplane. But dinosaurs did not have aeroplanes. The noise got louder. The Doctor peered at the sky. Realisation dawned across his face.
"Martha, look," he said grimly, pointing at a black speck that grew larger by the second.
"Is that...?"
"Going to collide with the Earth? Oh, yes. Will it be bad? Hmm, we'll have to wait and see,"
"Shouldn't we run? It looks like it's coming straight for us!"
"Nah, it's going to land about a mile away from here. We're fine,"
"Shouldn't we try and stop it?"
"Stop it? How? It's going to crash in approximately seven minutes!"
"We should at least try,"
"Good point. Well made. We should probably run then! To have a chance of stopping that, I'm going to need the TARDIS,"
They ran back into the forest. Martha focused on the Doctor's trainer clad feet and not tripping over tree roots. They were almost there...and then they were there and Martha was panting on the floor and the Doctor was slamming controls, muttering alien words that sounded like swearing. The TARDIS let out an almighty moan, and the Doctor slammed his fist down on the console. Martha looked at him.
"I couldn't stop it," he muttered sorrowfully."According to the TARDIS, that was a Clexian spaceship. Crash landed about 2 miles from here,"
"Will there be any survivors?" Martha asked gently.
"There's only a small possibility...but there's still a possibility. Now, this TARDIS had better go where I want it to if we're going to help,"
The Doctor moved a few controls, and the machine started to make its familiar whooshing noise. Two minutes later, they were stepping out the doors again.
The first thing Martha saw was smoke. It was everywhere and it was not nice to breathe. A few metres away was the source of the smoke- a matt black sphere merged with a cuboid creating a strange, nameless shape. It appeared to be made out of a soft, chalky material, definitely not the usual chunk of metal.
"Hello? Listen, I know you're scared, but I'm the Doctor and I'm here to help. Is anyone there?"
A humanoid figure about six feet tall dropped from somewhere. It had long, thin limbs too small for its body and silver skin. It wore a simple tunic made of the same material as the spaceship.
"You!" it hissed. "You with your stupid spaceship who made us collide with this inferior little planet with its primitive life forms,"
"What? How did we make you crash here?"
"Stupid box knocked us off course, made us crash land. But no matter, the others have gone to make this planet pay for the deaths of my friends! And I shall join them,"
"Leave this planet alone. It was me who made you crash land, so punish me! But there's no need to punish me either really because I can help you! I can take you home! This is your only chance..."
"Oh, but I rather think, Doctor, destroying this planet will be punishing you, and that you deserve it. My friends are dead because of you! Goodbye!"
And with that, the angry alien shot away so fast Martha could hardly see it move. On the bright side, the smoke was clearing and Martha could see they were on a mountain. Down below, a herd of spiky dinosaurs were snacking on the plants that grew. But beside them, Martha saw a flash of silver. One of the beasts roared in pain and the rest followed suit.
"What's happening?" Martha gasped.
"The Clex are attacking. I'm sorry, Martha, but if the Clex can kill one creature they can quickly kill all others of the same species. No-one knows how they do it, not even me,"
"What are we going to do?"
"Well, let's see. What have we got? We've got the TARDIS, the best spaceship in the universe. And we've got the unguarded Clexian ship. The Clex ships are designed to sell goods from Clax, their home world so..."
The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver.
"Yep, most of the equipment is still intact. It's just been shaken up a little,"
A little while later, Martha was curled up, hands over ears to block the dying cries of dinosaurs. The Doctor was banging away at the Clexian spaceship and had been since about half an hour ago. Martha frowned. He was walloping it so hard the ground shook.
"Done it!" he yelled at her.
"What I've done is," he said, launching into an explanation "is to broadcast a signal for the dinosaurs. What the signal does is make them fight- instead of letting the Clex walk all over them. Cos this ship can use signals to change the way living creatures think. It wouldn't affect us because we're protected by the TARDIS. The Clex use it to convince people to buy their stuff,"
"Doctor, you've stopped working on the spaceship,"
"Yeah, isn't that what I just said? Haven't you been listening to me?"
"So why is the ground still shaking? And what's that noise?"
"Umm...I think this mountain may in fact be a live volcano that is about to erupt,"
Sure enough, plumes of smoke began to emerge from the top of the "mountain". And a fiery substance began to trickle down the sides of the volcano. Martha's first thought was to get out of there...fast!
"TARDIS!" she and the Doctor yelled at the same time.
As the TARDIS faded away, a stream of lava washed over where the Doctor and Martha had been standing just a few seconds ago. The Clexian ship dissolved, leaving no traces behind. The machine that broadcasted the Doctor's signal was gone. It was not built to withstand volcanic eruptions.
Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor was frantically jabbing various components on the console.
"Tracing the Clex!" he shouted excitedly. "Clexy, Clex, where are you? Got them! Right Martha, prepare your eyes for this!"
For the third time that day, Martha stepped out of the TARDIS doors. She blinked. In front of her was a desert, but that wasn't important. What was important was that there was a massive group of dinosaurs in the middle of it. They were snapping and growling at silver blurs. The dinosaurs which fell to the ground, killed by the Clex, were replaced by more who were fighting against the Clex. The battle raged- the Clex were strong and quick, but the dinosaurs outnumbered them, three to hundreds. There were big ones, little ones, slow ones, fast ones, and ones with sharp teeth, long tails, powerful claws, horns...every type of dinosaur you could ever imagine.
"They had their chance," the Doctor muttered sullenly. He held up his sonic screwdriver and activated it. The Clex froze in their tracks- unable to move. Martha turned away from them as she heard the metallic screeches and then the crunching of bone.
Later, she and the Doctor sat in the TARDIS together.
"The Clex killed most of the dinosaurs, Martha. The ones that killed them were the carnivores- killing is instinctive to them. But they're going to die too because the Clex have wiped out their food source. Most of the herbivores were killed- you saw them fall at the final battle. And death for one individual means death for all,"
"So the real reason the dinosaurs died out..."
"Yes, it was the Clex. But I had to stop them any way possible, because if they'd killed the ancestors of humans the consequences would have been unthinkable,"
"I can't believe the dinosaurs were murdered by aliens," Martha sighed.
"All good things come to an end," the Doctor told her with a hint of sadness. He was thinking of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, but most of all...Rose.