Doctor Who:
Doctor Who:
In Death's Grip
By
Andrew Thompson
Prologue
Richard Hawke sat at his desk, heavily immersed in a finance report; the desk lamp sitting next to him cast a deep shadow over his face, making the wrinkles on the face of the ancient man even more pronounced than usual. His brow furrowed as he attempted to work out how his company was losing so much money… unless his accountant had lied to him, than the Richard Hawke Galactic Weapons Corporation is booming, however he discarded this thought almost as soon as it crossed his mind, he trusted Mr Blaine more than any other of his many, many thousands of staff.
As he attempted to fathom the problem, a knock came at the office door.
"Who's there?" yelled Hawke. No answer came. The old man dismissed the knock as his mind playing tricks on him in his old age, but the knock came again. Hawke sighed. He could not think of anybody that should still be in the building at this time of night.
"Enter." He replied to the knock, his finger hovering over a security button. The door at the far end to the office slid open smoothly with a slight hiss of hydraulics. Light spilled in from the corridor, silhouetting a tall figure with, what looked like a scythe in his hand, the figure resembled the old earth superstition of the Grim Reaper.
Hawke felt the colour drain from his face. He hit the security button over and over. The Reaper spoke to him;
"Do not attempt…. to call guards… button disabled," it spoke with a mechanical rasp; it sounded as though it struggled through each syllable. "You must be… terminated." The Reaper held up the scythe, just as Hawke managed to extract a small gun from his top draw, it would be stupid for the most valuable man in the universe not to have a firearm to hand, just in case. Hawke didn't know what made him fear the scythe, whether it was the superstitions or whether he just knew it couldn't be good.
"Don't try anything stupid now," said Hawke, failing to keep the fear from his voice. "I am not afraid to fire this." However the reaper did not lower the scythe.
"So be it" muttered Hawke, his finger tightened on the trigger at the same time the scythe glowed with deadly red energy, a single bolt of energy fired from the Reapers weapon and hit the old man in the chest, he fell like an old marionette with its strings severed, Hawke's shot went wide and left a deep scorch mark on the heavily polished wood panel wall. The Grim Reaper dissolved in to thin air, leaving nothing behind him but the mangled body of Richard Hawke and the foul stench of burnt human flesh.
Chapter One
The Doctor leapt around the control panel with his usual amount of vigour.
"So, the pools of gold on Celestus Twelve I think!" he yelled with out need, Donna was standing right next to him.
"Real gold?" she asked badly masking the excitement in her voice.
"Oh, yes!" the Doctor said with an uncanny resemblance to the Churchill nodding dog. The Doctors fingers whizzed back and forth over the TARDIS control panel, flicking switches and pulling levers. The familiar rasping noise of the TARDISes engines filled the large domed control room as the TARDIS prepared to dematerialise, suddenly sparks flew from the control panel, an alarm sounded somewhere from deep within the time machine, the usually honey coloured lights turned red, Donna knew something must be severely wrong.
"Doctor!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. The engines went into overdrive, rasping faster than she had ever seen them. She felt a hard blow against her head as the ship lurched violently. She fell unconscious to the metal floor.
When Donna woke, she saw nothing but darkness, she blinked a few times, as her eyes became accustomed to the dark, and she could make out the dark shadow of the central control panel. A groan came from beside her.
"Doctor?" she asked, gingerly getting up, her head felt like it was about to explode with pain. "Doctor is that you? Because if it is, that wasn't exactly your most optimus landing."
"Someone knows Latin." Croaked the Doctor. "Optimus Latin for best, I believe."
"Well I did listen occasionally in school, not all the time though." Donna mutteredtrying to bring humour into the situation. A sudden bright blue light dazzled her, she squinted and saw the Doctor hold a slender metal tube, the sonic screwdriver cast heavy shadows over the control room.
"Something pulled the TARDIS in, some sort of energy trace. Gimme a sec," the Doctor had opened a section of the TARDISes grated floor and was fumbling with different cables, this left Donna in the dark once again.
"The TARDIS seems to have put it self in emergency mode, shutting of all power to the ship, if I can just tweak the thermal regulators and…" energy hummed through the TARDIS the comforting honey coloured lights glowed around the room once more, the control panels glowed a healthy green and heat returned, making the great domed room seem like a warm summers day. The Doctor climbed clumsily back into the control room. He ran immediately over to the monitor and tapped hurriedly at the keyboard.
"'Ere Doctor, do you have some sort of miracle alien painkiller anywhere?" asked Donna, here hand clasping her head.
"Sure," he mumbled "Second draw from the left, just take one, otherwise you'll turn into a moose like creature." she didn't know whether he was joking or not, she walked over to the old chest of drawers the Doctor indicated; she pulled open the draw and saw a box of pulsating green pills.
"Are they the green things?" she said, disgusted
"They sure are!" the Doctor answered with slight amusement in his voice. Of all the things Donna had seen, she was still disgusted by a tiny pulsating pill.
"EURICKA!" bellowed the Doctor; making Donna drop the small pulsating pod she was holding. She cursed under her breath as she bent down to look for it.
"I've found out why we crashed," He said happily. "We were pulled in; someone out there is running a huge amount of metaphasic technology, the TARDIS is over fifty percent metaphasic technology, so when the two activate, we just snapped together." The Doctor finished, slightly out of breath. Donna righted herself, forced down the pod she had recovered, "well a bit less smoothly than just snapped together, but you get what I mean."
"No pools of gold then?" she asked, slightly disappointed.
"No, but I wonder what's out there?" the Doctor said, his voice flooded with anticipation. He ran across the control room, grabbed his long overcoat along the way.
"C'mon then!" he yelled. He grabbed the tarnished handle of the time machine door. Donna joined him. The Doctor pulled at the door, he stepped out into the unknown. Donna took a deep breath, even after all of her adventures with the Doctor, she still felt wave after wave of anticipation flooded every part of her, a new world, a new sun, a new sky, she stepped through the door, opened her eyes and found herself in an old store room.
"Well, a lot less impressive then usual." Said Donna, her strength coming back after taking the Doctors super painkiller. She looked around her and saw piles of rusty crates; each box had a large hawk stamped lopsidedly on to the side, along with what must be an alien language. The Doctor was already running the sonic screwdriver over the door, it buzzed with a smooth blue light.
"Hmmm… it appears to be an airtight seal, possibly on an air lock, either way we're stuck in here, the doors deadlocked, the screwdriver can't override." The Doctor sighed "Well we may as well take a sneaky peek in these boxes." He moved the screwdriver over the seal on the nearest box, with a soft clunk, the box lid slid off. The Doctor fiddled with the screwdriver, its light suddenly brightened, the box was full of futuristic, space guns. Donna gasped; she had never seen so many guns in one place.
"Who could have so many guns? Space terrorists." She though aloud.
"No." answered the Doctor "I recognise the logo, it's the Richard Hawke Galactic Weaponry Manufacturers, the largest makers of guns and weapons in the universe." Suddenly the door slid reluctantly open…
Chapter Two
Bill Fisher was walking along one of the many catwalks of the factory floor. He looked up through the huge glass bio dome out in to the chasm of space. He had been a pilot for Hawke industries for over eight years, but he still felt the pang of excitement just before each launch. He reached a heavy door; Bill pulled out a small card and waved it in front of a black panel on the wall. The door buzzed open, the hiss of the hydraulic system. He stepped through into the pilots lounge, the word lounge used loosely, it was more of a shoe box room with rusty lockers hanging from the wall, a patched old sofa sitting in the middle of the room, a TV with bad reception in the corner and a broken pinball machine in the corner. A large arch led of the room to the disembarkation gates. He walked straight on through. Bill walked up to a small computer unit set into the wall. The pilot waved his I.D. card over another black panel on the device, it hummed into life, a faint green glow came on behind the machine. A piece of paper slid out of a slot. Bill read it;
'BILL FISHER-- SHIP 247561-- GATE 5-- LAUNCH AUTHORISED.' Bill tore the piece of paper and stuffed it in to his pocket. He walked down the narrow corridor to gate five and to his awaiting ship; the journey to gate five took him about ten minutes. He tapped at a tiny number pad on the wall of the ship; the airlock gave a bleep and admitted him. The pilot settled in the control chair, he slid his I.D. card in to a small slot on the control panel, the screens and buttons glowed dimly with various colours. His finger ran over the controls, running the pre-flight check. A small alarm sound came from one of the monitors, this particular monitor watched the ships weight to ensure it wasn't too heavy, but this couldn't be right, the screen was telling him that they had gained more weight since the engineers checked it twenty minutes ago. He got up, pulled a small gun out of his pocket, he turned and opened the bulkhead separating him from the rear compartment. The neon lights flickered in to life. He was amazed at what he saw.
Chapter Three
The Doctor and Donna looked at the middle aged, balding man that had just walked through the door. For about five minutes they just stared, what ever any of them had expected, this wasn't it. The middle aged man had a gun clenched in his hand. The Doctor thought quickly. He held up a small leather wallet containing the psychic paper.
"Err… cargo inspector; look I have an official badge of office as you can clearly see." Said the Doctor in a rushed voice, waving the psychic paper under the mans nose.
"Oh… ok," the man looked relieved as he lowered the gun back to his pocket. "I didn't want to shoot you."
"I'm glad of that." Said the Doctor. Donna was still full of shock after having had a gun pointed at her. "So… were you headed?" asked the Doctor.
"Hawke-15, one of the distribution centres." Replied the man.
"Excellent. Mind if we come along for the ride?" the Doctor asked, although it sounded like he had already made his mind up.
"I, suppose so."
After about an hour into the trip the three of them where laughing and joking, Bill was thrilled that he had company for the trip; normally he just had the whirring of the engines to keep him company. They had begun telling funny stories, Donnas shrill; dolphin like laugh rang out over the bridge as a loud buzz sounded.
"Vessel 247561… this is ground command…. sensors detect two extra life signs… please explain… over." The voice sounded gruff, as though the speaker was a heavy smoker, Bill pushed a large green button and spoke into the microphone.
"We have an official cargo inspector… over" he said, clearly. A reply came almost instantly;
"Please… verify."
"Just put your I.D. up to that black panel there…" said bill helpfully. The Doctor knew the psychic paper wouldn't work, he pulled out the sonic screwdriver, he adjusted the settings and waved it in front of the panel. Bill stared.
"Thank you…. vessel 247561… you are clear to land." The intercom fell silent.
"Why did you do that? Why didn't you use your I.D. card?" demanded Bill.
"We didn't want to tell you this Bill but, we're not cargo inspectors…" the Doctor began, but Donna cut across him,
"We're the police." She said. The Doctor gave her the kind of look that says 'What?', however the Doctor soon cottoned on.
"Yeah… we believe Richard Hawke is committing fraud." The Doctor said quickly in an attempt to cover their backs.
"That would be hard," said Bill, "Richard Hawke is dead, they found him in his office on Hawke-15, shot in the chest, gun in his hand." he concluded with grim finality on his face. The Doctor looked at Donna. "Police are swarming the place; I thought you would have known." Bill added to the Doctor.
"Must have missed the memo," said the Doctor "Bill I need you to keep everything that we've said to yourself, you know, confidential and all that. Oh, and can you make sure my big blue box is kept somewhere safe?" Bill answered with a simple nod of his head. The Doctor and Donna got up from their seats and out through the hatch at the back of the ship.
They had arrived in some sort of loading bay; a group of workers was already unloading the cargo from the back of Bill's ship. A large forklift type vehicle carried the TARDIS from the back of the ship.
"OI! Go careful with that!" yelled the Doctor.
"Doctor, probably a stupid question, but couldn't we just have flown the TARDIS out of here?" asked Donna
"No," answered the Doctor bluntly, "As long as someone is running this metaphasic tech, then the TARDIS cant leave, and any way, the richest man in the universe has just been killed, don't tell me you don't want to investigate Ms. Noble!" Donna just looked at him.
"It's Agatha Christie all over again, isn't it?" she asked.
"'Course it is, although it's unlikely that there'll be giant wasps behind it this time." The Doctor grinned at these words. By now they had made their way across the loading bay. They reached a heavy bulkhead door, the screwdriver made short work of it, it slid open with a grinding of gears, once open, a tremendous sound overwhelmed the Doctors ears. It seemed the media of the entire universe had descended upon the facility. Donna looked up, she saw they where under a large glass dome, she looked at the unending chasm and the infinite wonder of space, as she stared she seemed to forget where she was, until the Doctor nudged her, bringing her back to reality. A thin holographic line separated the crowd of reporters from the police and an elevator shaft that no doubt lead to Hawke's office. The Doctor and Donna forced their way to the front of the crowd; they found a hysterical police officer attempting to silence the crowd.
"Allow me." said the Doctor, he fiddled with the controls on the sonic screwdriver, he lifted it over his head and activated it, the little blue light buzzed, an ultra-sonic screech filled the room. The crowd of journalists screamed, the Doctor took his finger of the button, the crowd fell silent.
"Let the poor man speak!" yelled the Doctor, the police officer muttered his thanks,
"Alright, then," said the police man looking flustered, "We have no new leads on this case, you will now be asked to leave the building, any of you remaining will be arrested." the officer turned to the Doctor,
"Thank you, for your help in shutting them up, but I'm afraid you'll have to leave too." he said, looking up at the Doctor.
"Oh, well there's gratitude for you, I'm the Doctor by the way and this is Donna Noble." he answered, indicating himself and Donna.
"Wait, a Doctor? Of medicine?" the officer asked, "You do not know how hard it is to find a doctor nowadays… your self and Mrs. Noble should come this way immediately."
"What? No we're not married." the Doctor and Donna both blurted at the same time.
After a short elevator ride they arrived in a small office,
"You know if I was the richest man in the universe I would have a bigger office." said Donna, looking around the room. At one end of the room a large, ornate wooden desk had been turned into a makeshift evidence table.
"This isn't his main office, this is just an out-post office, if you will, his main one will be a lot bigger." said the officer who had revealed himself to be a Galactic Marshall called Herman Blake. Herman's radio buzzed into life;
"Sir we have just apprehended several of the journalists." said a voice with a heavy American accent.
"I had better go and deal with this." said Herman, with these words he leapt into the elevator and shrank out of sight.
The Doctor pulled out the trusty screwdriver, and once more fiddled with the controls. He walked over to a large scorch mark on the wall and began running it over with the screwdriver, its buzz was the only thing that broke the silence. Donna had just noticed the body lying in the middle of the floor.
"Eeeww!" she screeched, "Doctor the body's still here!"
"Yeah, that's the law in these parts; the body has to stay undisturbed for at least a week. To stop it smelling they keep it in a sort of stasis prevents it from decaying." the Doctor finished his scrutiny of the wall, he moved over to the evidence table. He saw what he needed, he pulled some surgical gloves out of his pocket and shoved them onto his hands, and he didn't want to get his finger prints al over the gun.
"I'm gonna wait outside." said Donna, she looked slightly nauseated. The Doctor grunted his acknowledgement and began running the sonic screwdriver over the barrel of the gun. Donna stepped out into the corridor. The Doctor, however, was now running the screwdriver over the wound on Hawke, his brow furrowed.
Chapter Four
It was about fifteen minutes before the Doctor joined Donna in the corridor.
"C'mon," he said, "We need to see our friend Herman." Within half an hour the Doctor, Donna, Herman and a man called Mr. Blaine, Hawke's accountant and executor of his estate were sitting in a fancy board room, several floors below the main Atrium. The Doctor had sprinted back to the TARDIS to translate some scanner readings he took from Hawke's office. He had hastily set up a projector and now stood at the front of the board room.
"Okay," he began "So we think Mr. Hawke committed suicide, that's where all the evidence points, unless you have a sonic screwdriver," he indicated the screwdriver to Herman and Blaine. "I took four sensor readings in the office, one of the scorch mark, one of the body, one of the weapon and one of the air…" Blaine cut across him,
"Sorry, but what does this have to do with anything?" Blaine demanded of the Doctor.
"Absolutely everything if you'd care to listen." the Doctor answered. "Now, the weapons signatures, of the scorch mark and the gun match, but the signature on the wound doesn't, this suggests Mr. Hawke was attacked, attempted to defend himself, however, the assailant or assailants were to fast for him and he ended up shot…" again Blaine stopped the Doctor in his tracks,
"That's impossible, no one was in the building, check the security records!" again the Doctor calmly answered.
"Mr. Blaine, if you would kindly shut up and let me speak for more than a minute, you'll here my theory on that matter." Blaine fell immediately silent at these words. "I think you'll find there is a residual teleportation signature in the air, meaning somebody teleported in." the Doctor finished, looked around the room at the stunned faces. Blaine was first to find his voice;
"He could have used a different setting on the gun…" Blaine trailed off under the look he was getting from the Doctor,
"If that were true the base codes would be the same and as you can clearly see from my scanner results, there not, also how would you explain the teleportation signal?" The Doctor replied, silencing Blaine in an instant.
"I agree with the Doctor," Herman spoke for the first time since entering the room, "Apart from one thing Doctor, the facility is shielded from exterior teleportation, how you explain that?"
"Isn't it obvious?" the Doctor gave everybody a strained look, to his surprise Donna spoke up,
"That means that this 'assailant' is teleporting from inside the building." She said in a matter of fact tone.
"Thank you! Top of the class, gold star, well done Ms. Noble!" yelled the Doctor.
"That makes sense." Said Herman, "I would like you to look at some more stuff if you could Doc', Hawke was reading a finance report before he was killed, well at least he was found holding it, I don't know if it's relevant or not."
"Sure. It would be a pleasure." replied the Doctor.
"This is complete and utter rubbish!" bellowed Mr. Blaine, making everyone jump, "You can all stay here and pretend to be Scooby-Doo all you like but I won't stand for it!" with these words he stormed out of the room.
The Doctor and Donna sat in the corner of the facilities bar, the Doctor had a large glass of what looked like chocolate milkshake in front of him and Donna had the closest thing she could find resembling root-beer. The Doctor was thumbing through the finance report that Herman had asked him to go through.
"There a huge gaps in the finances, Blaine isn't very good at his job, either that or the companies doing a lot worse than Hawke admitted." Said the Doctor, a sudden thought struck Donna,
"Do you reckon he's dipping his fingers in the money jar? Y'know what I mean? On the 'kerching'?"
"Oh, I don't think so, Donna," said the Doctor thoughtfully, "but having said that, I don't know him that well. Perhaps there's a hidden side to him that we don't know about…a hidden agenda."
"Food for thought," Donna murmured, "Speaking of food, I don't know about you but I'm starving. How about we find something to eat in this place?"
"Oh, you'll be lucky," came a familiar voice, "All the eateries will have shut up shop by now." Bill had walked in and taken the spare seat next to Donna at the table.
"Lets head back to the TARDIS…I've got some instant curry lying around somewhere." said the Doctor.
"Not that tripe again!" moaned Donna.
"Not tripe, curry." Mocked the Doctor.
"I'll be heading back to my quarters then, so I'll say g'night." Yawned Bill.
"Night, Bill." Said the Doctor and Donna in unison.
The Doctor and Donna walked down the old metal corridors, lit by a few strips of fluorescent lighting.
"You're lost aren't you?" said Donna giving the Doctor a side ways glance.
"No." the Doctor answered bluntly looking unsure.
"Why didn't you check to see where they put the TARDIS?" asked Donna, sounding rather miffed.
"Okay, I made a mistake, look we can't be much further…" the Doctor's words where interrupted by a blinding flash…
Chapter Six
Donna gasped. Before her stood a tall robed figure. The Grim Reaper. They stood for what had to be several minutes in a stony cold silence, Donna had a look of pure astonishment on her face, the Doctor looked as though he had just been slapped around the face with a wet fish. The silence was eventually broken by the Reaper.
"Doctor and Mrs Donna… you must be …. Terminated." It said in a gritty, almost mechanical rasp.
"Oh... we're not married…" said the Doctor and Donna.
"It is irrelevant… you must be terminated."
"Or not." Said the Doctor simply. He held the sonic screwdriver up to the Reaper's face, an ultra sonic screech issued from the screwdriver. Flames spewed from under the reapers hood, it crumpled on to the floor with a loud clunk. Donna still stood there looking quiet brainless.
"Quick, help me get him back to the TARDIS. Take the scythe." Said the Doctor, kicking the long scythe towards her. Donna began to recover her senses