Coauthored by Lady Blackmore and Ithilien Archer. The lovely cover art was created by Ithilien Archer, after Lady Blackmore discovered that both Star Trek and Doctor Who have a fondness for pulling ships into black holes. Hey, why not combine the two? The captains certainly won't mind.
This is not meant to be taken seriously. At all.
Summary: The Enterprise has a habit of falling into black holes. The TARDIS has a habit of pulling such ships out of them.
Pairings: Ten/Rose (if you squint really hard), Kirk/Spock (if you squint really hard and tilt your head sideways), Jack/everyone (come on. It's Jack.)
Disclaimer: As much as we wish we owned Doctor Who and Star Trek, we don't. We just like to screw with the world of sci-fi a bit too much.
"Ready to warp in three . . . two . . . er, one point five . . . one point two . . . one . . ." Sulu glanced around the bridge. He gulped when he realized every single crew member was focused on him, all with rather exasperated expressions. At least, he thought Spock looked exasperated. You could never be sure.
"Zero point five, um, zero point three . . . uh, Captain? The gravitational pull is interfering with the warp drive," he finished meekly. The man in question seemed aware of this. As did everyone else.
Captain James T. Kirk flopped onto his chair, exhaling loudly. "Well, it was worth a shot. Uhura, any response on the distress signal?"
She checked the monitors one more time. "None, sir. We're too far away from any populated systems."
Kirk ran a hand through his hair. "Right. Of course. Scotty!" he barked into his intercom. "Can you jettison the warp core again?"
The speakers crackled with static as the ship's engineer replied. "What, why? We just got a new one!"
"Just do it, Scotty!"
"You're not gutting my baby again, ye ken? It took me months to find a bloomin' replacement, and I only did it because she nearly fell into a black hole-"
"Scotty-"
"And the likelihood of that happenin' again is close to none, so there's no way I'm going to-"
"Scotty!" Kirk shouted. The intercom fell quiet. "The truth is, er, well…" he looked to Spock for support. The first officer simply raised his eyebrows and motioned for him to continue. "We are stuck in a black hole. Again."
Silence.
"The ship turned right at the last outpost, instead of turning left towards Nibiru. Our navigator thought it would be a great shortcut, so our pilot listened to him and flew us into a black hole."
Everyone stared at Chekov. He and Sulu stared at the console in shame.
"I'll just… go do it, then," Scotty said after a few moments. The bridge could hear sniffling in the background as he prepared to expel the warp core. Spock's face twitched, and Kirk took it to mean he would be rolling his eyes at the moment, but of course, being a Vulcan, he wasn't. So Kirk took the liberty of rolling his own eyes on Spock's behalf.
The crew was surprisingly calm, for such a terrible predicament. He supposed it was partially due to the fact that they had survived a black hole before. However, he did not fail to notice that this particular singularity was much bigger than the one that swallowed the Romulan ship. In fact, looking at the monitors placed at the back of the ship (he jokingly referred to them as the rear-view mirrors), a gaping void of nothing was all he could see. He fervently hoped that the same trick would work twice, because he was running out of ideas.
A gentle wave of turbulence hit the ship, causing any person standing to stumble slightly. The speed at which the Enterprise was moving towards the void faltered, and then increased.
"Shite." Scotty's voice came on again. Kirk groaned.
"Hurry up, Scotty! We don't have time to be sentimental! The ship just increased speed!"
"I've already done it, Captain! That was it!" Chekov and Sulu turned to look out of the view screen, which was facing away from the black hole. Sure enough, the barely visible wave of energy was far ahead of them, humming through space. There was nothing now between the ship and certain death.
Kirk had never been so scared in his life. There was no way out of this one; no last minute work of genius that would make this adventure just another close call in the voyages of the starship Enterprise. This was it: his no-win scenario. They were truly, undoubtedly going to die. Or end up in an alternate universe. He wasn't sure which one he preferred, to be honest.
His crew understood the gravity of the situation (quite literally) now. They were still calm, but their faces gave away the sheer terror they felt. Even Spock looked concerned. And they were all looking at him. Of course. He would be the Captain to go down with the ship. Just like his father. Kirk breathed deeply and silently asked his first officer if he should make the announcement. Spock offered him a small smile. "I think that would be wise, Jim."
Kirk switched on the intercom and stood up. "Attention, please. This is Captain Kirk speaking.
"As most of you are aware, the USS Enterprise is currently being sucked into a black hole." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Uhura wince at his blunt statement. "And I am sorry to inform you that there is nothing we can do to prevent it." He was broadcasting to the entire ship, but he looked each crewmember in the eye as he spoke.
"We may not come out on the other side. I need you all to be ready for that. But I also need you to be prepared for anything we might encounter if we do make it. Sulu," he said, switching off the broadcast, "stop fighting it. Turn the ship a full 180 degrees on my command." He hastily turned the intercom on again. "Every crewmember should be securely strapped in in one minute. Starting now. If we survive, I want full reports of the ship's condition as well as external readings as soon as it's safe to move around. Good luck, everyone."
He sat back down in the chair, putting his own straps on and instructing his immediate crew to do the same. The ship strained underneath them as it futilely tried to escape the pull.
"Captain," Spock said evenly, although his natural calm could not fully mask his worry. "The likelihood of surviving this is .00002 percent. Even if we clear the gravitational field on the other side we may not—"
"As much as I appreciate the support, Spock, let's deal with the black hole first, then we'll focus on the rest, okay?" He didn't mean to sound so irritated, but he wasn't having the best day. Spock had enough grace not to look offended. Or maybe he was. You could never be sure.
"Ready when you are, Captain," Sulu called from the controls. Kirk nodded in affirmation.
"Turning around in five . . . four . . ."
"Just do it, Sulu!"
"Right, sorry."
With a shuddering groan, the Enterprise moved to the left. The Starfleet officers yelled in surprise as the ship was violently yanked around, rearing and bucking like a galleon in the sea. Kirk was glad he made everyone buckle up as an unfortunate tribble hit the view screen with a sickening splat.
They could see it now. The black hole loomed before them, deadly and terrifying, waiting to swallow them up. The ship slowly gained equilibrium, but it continued to move forward. The crew made no sound; all Kirk could hear was the agonized groans of his beloved ship as it crawled towards its doom.
Closer. Spock and Sulu were staring ahead in morbid fascination, while Chekov concentrated on his navigation equipment. Uhura's eyes were tightly shut and Sergeant James next to her clutched his rosary beads tightly.
Closer. The silence was deafening. Nothing could be seen on the monitors anymore, they were so close. They were actually going through a black hole.
And then suddenly, they weren't.
The ship gave a deafening groan and began to turn to the right. Kirk jerked his head towards Sulu, but the pilot wasn't touching any of the controls.
"Sir, the gravitational pull is reversing!" Chekov exclaimed, his accent thick. Kirk took a couple of seconds to work his way around the 'w's' of the sentence before understanding.
"But that's impossible!" He strained to see out of the window, to see the black hole dead ahead, but the glimmer of starlight to the far right only confirmed it. They were turning around. They were pulling away.
"I can confirm it, Captain. We are moving away from the black hole as we speak." There was no doubt about it this time; the Vulcan couldn't hide his surprise. The rest of the crew was in disbelief.
It made no sense. The ship seemed to be moving on its own accord—Sulu was still staring wide-eyed at the controls, Chekov was working furiously to figure out their position, and Engineering didn't even have a warp core to work with. No one had answered their distress calls, and the black hole certainly wasn't cooperating, so how were they flying out of it?
"Captain? I think you should see this." It was Chekov. The ship was in its former position, facing away from the black hole, moving steadily towards the safety of the stars. But, wait. Something else was in front of the ship. Something small. It looked like… no, it couldn't be…
"It—it looks like a box," Chekov said, peering into space. Good, he hadn't imagined it. There was, most definitely, a blue box spinning slowly in front of the Enterprise. Odd didn't even begin to describe it. The box was moving with the ship, spinning away from the black hole as the Enterprise followed it obediently, like a dog on a leash.
Hang on.
"We're not doing anything to fly the ship," he confirmed out loud, looking over his team. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say we're being towed."
"By a box," Uhura said skeptically.
"Yep."
"It does seem highly illogical," Spock began, "but according to my readings, the object in front of us has created its own center of gravity that is stronger than the black hole, concentrating specifically on this ship. We are, effectively, being towed towards safety."
So, they faced certain death and hopeless despair only to be saved by a wooden box. This was turning out to be an interesting day.
Once they were completely out of the black hole's influence, the box stopped moving. The Enterprise shuddered to a halt, and Kirk quickly instructed Sulu to take back the controls. "Keep it still for the moment. I want to see what it will do. Uhura, try hailing them."
Kirk didn't really know who "them" might be, and neither did Uhura, but she followed the order.
He jumped up from his seat, motioning Spock to do the same. They stood in front of the view screen as Uhura attempted to make contact.
"This is Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise. Thank you for your, uh, assistance in pulling us out of the black hole. Now…"
Suddenly the view screen flared to life as a man with wild brown air and borderline manic eyes appeared. "Oh, brilliant! I've always wanted to meet you, Captain Kirk!" His accent was distinctively British. "I never got around to it though…there's this one time I got ambushed by a tribe of geckoes, but that was closest I got to San Francisco in the 23rd century. Lovely city, San Fransisco. Never mind I got shot and regenerated in the hospital morgue—that was slightly disturbing—" he continued to babble in that highly optimistic tone, but Kirk had been momentarily stunned into inaction by the man's particularly expressive eyebrows.
"Excuse me?" Kirk finally said. "Who are you?" But before the man could answer, another voice filled the Bridge.
"Doctor, leave them some room to breathe, will ya?" A rather pretty blonde shoved the man aside, so that they were both in view.
"Sorry, was I being rude?"
"Don't mind him," the blonde smiled, "My name is Rose Tyler, and this is the Doctor."
"Doctor who?" McCoy butted in. Kirk stared.
"Bones! When the hell did you get up here?"
Before McCoy could reply, the man known as "the Doctor" spoke up again. "Just the Doctor…and you're welcome by the way. Do you mind if we take a tour of your ship? It's quite lovely on the outside, though I'm sure it's not exactly bigger on the inside."
"I'm not so sure, Doc," yet another voice piped up from the Doctor's ship…uh, box…thing. "If the captain is anything to go by, the TARDIS isn't the only thing that's sexy." The third member of the ship (TARDIS?!) came into view. He had a classically handsome face that could appeal to races and genders across the galaxies (the drool on Lieutenant Seela's tentacles was proof enough). He winked at the screen. Kirk didn't know how to react. Flirting was usually his expertise. He generally didn't end up on the receiving end.
"Hi. I'm Captain Jack Harkness."
"Stop flirting!"
"I'm not even in the same room!"
"It still counts."
Rose rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the Enterprise crew. "I think we're gonna go now. Nice meetin' ya. Er, Mr. Spock?" She blushed and suddenly sounded shy.
"Yes, Miss Tyler?"
"I, uh, really like your… ears. They're pointy. Yeah." She blushed even deeper as Spock quirked his eyebrow at her. She hastily moved to turn off the view screen. In the background the crew sniggered at their first officer's expense.
Kirk was officially confused. He was used to strange situations and even stranger people (and aliens), but the Doctor and his companions in a blue box…who knew their names?! Okay. Just…okay. When he turned to look at his crew, they shrugged their shoulders at him, and he shrugged back. Spock simply raised an eyebrow at the whole thing, and at least that was something familiar in this whole mess. He looked out into space, expecting to see the strange ship float away. Or disintegrate. Or something. But it was nowhere in sight.
"Chekov, what happened to the box?"
The young navigator furrowed his eyebrows as he registered the blue box's disappearance. "I'm not sure, Captain."
"We should find out as much as we can about it, and it's pilot. The second man said he was a captain, didn't he? Is it his ship?"
"Captain?"
He ignored Chekov and started to pace. "Or is it the Doctor's ship? They were kind of vague about that, weren't they?"
"Captain."
"And how did they know who Spock was? I'll be the first to admit, we're pretty well known, but what are the chances?"
His pacing became frantic, to the point where Spock was (illogically) afraid that he was going to wear a path in the Enterprise's pristine white floor.
"Captain!"
"Wha-?!" The command crew didn't know whether to wince or laugh as their captain turned and smacked right into the side of the mysterious blue box that had somehow materialized on their bridge. Kirk turned, rubbing his smarting forehead, and made eye contact with Spock, who looked like he was suppressing the urge to laugh.
"Captain," the Vulcan said in that deadpan tone of his, "the TARDIS has appeared on our ship."
"Yeah, thanks. I can see that."
The crew's humorous expressions faded as the doors to the peculiar space ship (was it really a ship?) opened. A blonde head poked out, followed by the first half of a bright pink sweatshirt (and wasn't that nice? Finally a new color on the bridge! Better yet! It wasn't even a primary color!). The girl who had called herself Rose Tyler stood in front of the crew of the Enterprise, smiling widely. She glanced around the bridge with wide eyes, taking in the scene before her with fangirl-like enthusiasm.
"Wow," she breathed. "S'brighter than I expected in here." She turned towards the open door and called, "Took you long enough to find it!"
Why was she yelling into a four by four box?
The second man, the captain, squeezed out of the box next. "You know the Doctor, Rosie. He probably tried to take you here before, only to end up in 14th century Scotland."
Rose grinned. "He tried to take me to 1979 and ended up in Scotland in 1879. Saved Queen Victoria from a werewolf." She leaned into the box again. "And you still owe me ten quid!"
Were these people for real? Was he hallucinating again? (Wait, again? Kirk blamed his stupid allergies.)
The Doctor stepped out last, grumbling about coercion and it took you four tries! It doesn't count! He closed the door behind him. "For the record, I have never actually tried to find the Enterprise. Even though I wanted to. Can't have Rose getting too excited."
Rose, meanwhile, was staring at Spock with unveiled interest. She looked like she really wanted to say something, but was having trouble coming up with the nerve. Patented cheeky grin in place, Jack gave her a nudge and Kirk watched with amused interest as she seemed to steel her resolve before striding somewhat confidently toward his Vulcan first officer (who had raised an eyebrow as per usual). Jack sidled over to Kirk to watch the show.
"Why, Mr. Spock," Rose said, blushing nearly as pink as her sweatshirt, "I, er. . .well, s'a bit strange, 'cos where I'm from, you're quite well known, and I know that Vulcans are touch telepaths, right?"
Spock nodded. "That is correct, yes." Only Kirk knew that he was becoming increasingly perplexed by the height of his left eyebrow.
"Right, okay. So, when you hold hands, s'like making out, right?"
Spock's eyebrow was barely visible under his hairline. Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor's mouth was wide open. Rose seemed to understand that meant yes. She also seemed to understand that the stoic Vulcan was exceedingly uncomfortable, and she hesitated before speaking one more time.
"But—you and Captain Kirk held hands!"
Kirk's jaw was now on the floor with the Doctor's. Jack nudged him and winked.
McCoy, who had been watching events unfold quietly and confusedly with the rest of the crew, decided to intervene, seeing as the other Doctor, for some inexplicable reason, was frozen in place. "Okay, time for you three to leave before the pointy-eared bastard goes into heat or somethin'." That particular incident had just occurred, but their visitors didn't need to know. Doctor confidentiality and all that.
Jack grinned and turned to Kirk, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "The Vulcans call it Pon Farr, but I call it Thursday."
. . . Oh, two could play at this game. "Unfortunately for you, it's not Thursday, Captain," he flirted. McCoy groaned in the background.
"I have a time machine, Captain. Wanna come and see?" Jack winked at him.
"No, no, nonononono. Stop it. Stop it right now!" Between Rose, who was slowly backing Spock (who was glaring at the back of Jack's head- probably because he said…the P word) into a corner, and Jack, who was still leering at Kirk, the Doctor (with a capital D, but Bones looked pretty miffed too) was becoming frantic. "See? This is why I didn't want to find this ship. Way too many hormones. And cross-specieing. Is that a word? Never mind. Jack!" He yelled, grabbing the captain's collar and dragging him back to the box. "Inside. Now. We are leaving."
Jack immediately started protesting, but the skinnier man was stronger than he looked. As they started wrestling their way to the TARDIS, McCoy, who realized there was somebody actually sane on the bridge for once, jumped in to help. Between the two doctors, Jack was unceremoniously thrown through the doors.
"By the way, I love the tight uniform! Though I think it'd be better if you took it off…you know, next time!" he managed to get out before the Doctor slammed the doors shut. The doctors turned to each other and silently congratulated themselves. Kirk felt strangely disappointed.
Now, however, the Doctor turned to Rose, who had backed Spock all the way to the other side of the ship, and was most likely interrogating the poor man on Vulcan mating habits, if the unhealthy green coloring his face had anything to say.
"Rose? We need to go," he said, stepping towards her hesitantly. She reluctantly turned away from the first officer.
"But it's so fascinatin'!" I never thought we'd actually meet a species that courts each other by touching!" Was it just Kirk, or was the Doctor blushing?
"Yes, it's fascinating, let's go. Have I taken you to Delthon yet? The species there communicates exclusively with their eyebrows. Well, when I say eyebrows, they don't actually have hair, per se, it's more like an organic substance composed of bits of dead skin attached to the forehead—"
"Doctor, you're rambling." Rose raised her own eyebrow in amusement. "Honestly, though, you're usually the one asking about this stuff. What's so weird about this?"
Kirk observed that Spock seemed to think that there was something very weird about this, thank you very much, but neither visitor was paying much attention to him now.
"Well, you know, it's not all that special to be…," the Doctor said.
"Telepathic? Vulcans are touch telepaths!" Rose exclaimed, "I think that's pretty cool."
"It's just that, well…"
"What?"
"Time lords are touch telepaths too!" the Doctor finally blurted, running a hand through his already wild hair. For a moment, the bridge was utterly silent, aside from the pings the various consoles gave off. Rose stared wide eyed at the Doctor, biting her lip.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"So," she started, carefully, all of her attention on the Doctor (much to Spock's relief), "you mean to say that all the times we've held hands…"
"Yes…"
Blushing anew, Rose grabbed the Doctor by the arm and towed him towards the TARDIS. "Alright, we can, uh, go now. Yeah! Let's go!"
Just before the door swung shut, however, she very deliberately grabbed his hand and pulled him into the ship.
The bridge was suddenly filled with a grinding noise as the odd blue box began to dematerialize in front of the crew (how did he not notice before? It could have saved him a bump to the head). The noise faded away, and the starship Enterprise was alone once more.
"Captain?" Uhura asked tentatively. "Should I inform Starfleet Command of what just happened?"
Kirk instinctively looked over to Spock, who, mercifully, seemed to be thinking the same thing he was. "No," he said firmly. "In fact, we will never speak of this again. Ever. We were saved by an anonymous passerby, that's it."
Uhura nearly protested, but Sulu leaned over and whispered something in her ear, and she snorted.
"Yes, sir," she complied, giggling slightly.
The whole crew waited, watching their captain to see what he wanted to do next. Kirk, aware that there was a lot of black mail on him (and Spock), gave them his patented "I can't hear you over the sound of my awesome" look before striding back to his chair.
"Alright, everyone. Back to business. Chekov, set a course for the nearest starbase. Sulu, do the best you can without the warp core. Uhura, record the TARDIS' frequency. Spock…"
"Captain." The Vulcan inclined his head, but Kirk could tell that something was bothering him.
"What is it, Commander?"
"If they should return, I trust that you would not take your uniform off for that…captain." The crew snickered at the way Spock said the last word, as if the thought of the man was a vile thing.
"Duly noted, Commander," Kirk smirked, blue eyes twinkling. He settled back into his seat, actually staying there for a few seconds before jumping up again. The crew watched, confused, as he stalked toward the viewscreen and bent to peel off something that was plastered to the plexiglass.
"Alright, own up," he said, holding up the fuzzy, slightly flat object for the command crew to see, "someone broke the no pets rule." There was silence as the crew glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes. "Who's tribble is this?!"