Torchwood
Martha is sat alone at her desk when she hears it, the familiar whining thrum of the TARDIS, her engines grinding and wheezing as she approaches. A wind picks up from nowhere, rifling through the stacks of files piled high on the edge of Martha's desk.
"Jack!" she cries, looking up to catch his eye through the glass partition separating their offices.
"I hear it," he says, both of them scrambling out of their chairs. They grin excitedly at each other, clasping hands as they emerge onto the central platform.
Neither one of them has seen or heard from the Doctor in nearly ten months, the last word, relayed by Wilf, that he'd showed up out of the blue last October to restore Donna's memories, then promptly disappeared with her again.
"First I'll give him a hug, then I'll give him a slap for disappearing for so long without a word," Martha says, only half-jokingly.
Jack's expression turns thoughtful, his head tilted slightly to one side, "Does she sound strange to you?" he asks.
Martha's grin falters as she listens, a note of discord underlying the otherwise familiar tone. "Now that you mention it," she says at the exact moment the TARDIS blinks into existence several feet above their heads, almost as if she's been expelled against her will from the time vortex.
"Incoming!" Jack shouts, pulling Martha to the ground as the TARDIS spins out of control above their heads, crashing into the tiled wall above the couch and bouncing off like a giant pinball in a shower of hot sparks.
Martha yelps, and she and Jack flatten themselves against the ground when the TARDIS spins back towards them. She barely clears their prone bodies before crashing into the steel railing above the medical bay.
She skids along it with a bone jarring scrape that sets Martha's teeth on edge, then reels backward for just a moment before finally coming to a shuddering halt on the very edge of the landing.
Jack and Martha lay panting for a moment, leftover adrenaline coursing through their veins. They stare at the battered blue box, the closed front door marred by three deep slashes discolouring the blue stained wood.
"What…" Jack mutters, his eyes straying to Martha's face.
She shakes her head, staring at the still closed doors with growing concern.
"You'd better…" she mutters.
"Yeah…" Jack says, rising to his feet. He reaches into his pocket for the plain Yale lock key hanging from the silver chain that he's never without.
The doors fly open just as he reaches the threshold, a highly distraught Donna stood in the smoke-filled doorway propping up a pale, trembling Doctor. Donna's face is caked with dried blood from some unseen wound at her hairline and she's covered in grime.
"Jack!" she cries, cradling the Doctor's clammy face in her mitten covered hand. They're both wearing bright orange snow suits, though the Doctor's anorak is missing. His thick cable knit pullover and bibbed overalls are covered in the same sooty grey grime as Donna's. "Help me!"
"What is it?" Martha cries, grabbing her medical kit as she rushes forward to help Jack ease the Doctor's trembling body to the floor.
"M...Martha," the Doctor gasps, his eyes screwed shut as he writhes fitfully on the floor. His breath explodes in short ragged bursts, "c...can't…" he groans.
"It's all my fault," Donna cries, tears running down her grubby face. She tears off her mittens, her trembling fingers reaching out to him. "I made him go."
"Made him go where?" Martha demands, eyeing the dozens of subcutaneous bruises standing out over his face and body. "Donna, what's happened to him?!"
Donna licks her lips, swallowing convulsively. She looks ill, as if she's about to be sick. It might be the head wound Martha thinks, but she also notices that Donna's put on weight. It's apparent in her face and in her hips and in the heavy coat that's stretched snugly across her midsection. Martha's eyes widen slightly. If she didn't know better, she'd swear Donna was…
"There was a distress signal," Donna says, recapturing Martha's attention. Tiny beads of sweat stand out all over her face. "It was barely functioning. The Doctor said it had been transmitting for decades. It was probably too late to help whoever had sent it."
"But you stopped anyway, yeah?" Martha says and Donna nods.
"I convinced him. I knew he'd regret it if we didn't," Donna says, here voice catching with unshed tears, "but I was wrong."
The Doctor groans, his breathing growing more laboured. Martha tears her eyes away from Donna to see his eyelids slide shut, his back arching in pain. "Run… running out… of… time," he gasps, barely able to force the words out. His eyes are shot through with broken blood vessels. Involuntary tears slowly seep from them, trickling down his face into his hair. "Can't… can't… regenerate."
"What's he mean?" Jack demands, his voice rising sharply.
The tears are tinged pink with blood. As Martha watches the Doctor's skin begins to change. The bruises discolouring it seem to meld together like oil on the surface of a puddle as it grows darker and less pliable, almost like the exoskeleton of an insect.
"What the hell…" she breathes.
"Oh God," Donna gasps horrified, her pale face turning ashen as she desperately grips Martha's arm. "It's started, he's changing," she babbles anxiously, "You have to stop it Martha!" she cries, "please, you have to stop it before it's too late!"
"What do you mean changing?" Jack demands. "Changing how?" The Doctor shudders, the dark irises of his eyes expanding into glinting blackness.
"We need to get him down to the medical bay," Martha says, her eyes straying to Jack's face.
"N… no," the Doctor gasps, his trembling fingers scrabbling at Jack's sleeve as Jack prepares to lift him over his shoulder, "cry… cryo…"
"What, cryofreeze?" Jack asks, his brow knitting in concern at the sight of the Doctor's blackened fingertips poking out from the tips of his cutoff gloves.
"But that didn't work," Donna desperately reminds him, "back on the planet. It didn't work."
The Doctor nods rapidly, wine coloured tears seeping from his eyes. "N… no," he says, "buy… some time… s… slow… down the… process… p… please… Mar...Martha..."
"We can feed the readings from the cold storage chambers directly to the medical bay," Martha agrees with a terse nod. "I should be able to find out what's going on from there."
There's a sickening sort of wet popping sound and the Doctor suddenly screams, his body convulsing as his bones begin to shift and crack, literally reshaping themselves under his skin. His arms and legs begin to stretch, slowly elongating before their horrified eyes. His fingers expand like knitting needles, growing in length, his fingernails blackened and sharp looking and dripping viscous fluid.
"Christ!" Jack cries.
"Do it, Jack, go!" Martha shrieks, steadying Donna as she doubles over suddenly, gagging dryly over the platform railing. "Get him down there now!"
Jack grabs the screaming Time Lord and slings him over his shoulder, running like the clappers for the stairs at the far end of the platform.
"Stay here," Martha tells Donna, taking off after Jack. She isn't surprised when Donna ignores her and follows a few moments later.
They both pelt down the stairs after Jack, emerging into a narrow hallway lined with tiny cells on either side. The alien occupants inside stare at them from behind thick plexiglass walls as they fly past.
Another staircase and they fly down that one as well, emerging into a wider corridor with brick walls and a high cathedral ceiling. The track lighting overhead gives way to hanging ceiling lamps inside the huge round cold storage chamber at the end of the hall. Dozens of small metal doors are built into the walls, stacked one on top of the other.
"I can't," Donna suddenly gasps, balking at the entryway to the morgue-like chamber. "I can't go in there." She turns away, panting heavily, her back pressed to the wall beside the arching entryway.
Martha stays with her, watching Jack from beneath the arch as he pulls out a chamber drawer and quickly deposits the Doctor's writhing body into it, his wheezing screams beginning to change pitch, becoming lower and more guttural.
Jack hits a sequence of buttons on the side of the chamber, sliding the drawer back into the wall, but just before it closes, the Doctor grabs him by the front of his shirt and pulls him down towards him. He gasps something into Jack's ear before dissolving once more into incoherent screams, his back arching amid a flurry of wet sounding pops.
Jack grimaces, his hands shaking slightly as he slams the drawer shut, panting against it until the Doctor's screams abruptly cut off a moment later. Donna slides down the wall, sitting heavily on the floor, her long legs splayed out before her. One hand covers her mouth as sloppy tears run down her cheeks.
Martha stands there a moment longer to watch Jack slowly straighten his shirt, before she goes to her.
"Is there anything I can get for you," Martha asks, kneeling beside her. She gives Donna's shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. "A glass of water? ...Saltines?"
Donna looks up sharply at that. "I'm fine," she murmurs.
Martha nods. "Seriously though," she says, not unkindly, "you should try to eat something. It'll help with the morning sickness."
Donna sniffs and swallows, saying nothing. Sluggish tears roll down her face as she slowly heaves a long shuddering sigh. "I could use a tissue," she says at last, "the Doctor he…," she falters for a moment, her breath catching in a sudden sob, "he carries them in his pockets in those little plastic packages," she says, nearly smiling through her tears. "Seems like I start blubbering at the drop of a hat these days," she shrugs, "hormones I guess."
Martha smiles, gently rubbing Donna's arm. Donna swipes the tears from her eyes as if embarrassed by them. "It's not morning sickness," she says, pulling herself together with some effort, "it's the smell in here, which I suppose is morning sickness technically so forget what I just said."
"You're pregnant?" Jack asks sharply, emerging from the cold storage chamber just in time to catch the tail end of the conversation, his eyes tracking the length of Donna's body before coming to rest on her widening midsection.
"If I had to guess, I'd say about six-months, yeah?" Martha asks.
"Twenty-one weeks," Donna confirms, her eyes dropping to the floor. "We didn't... We weren't..." she stammers, swallowing the last of her tears, "I mean, it wasn't planned or anything. It just sort of… happened."
"Who didn't plan what?" Jack demands, looking as if his eyeballs are about to pop out of his head. "Who's the father?"
"Who d'ya think Jack?" Martha snaps at him.
Jack's eyebrows shoot up, his eyes falling on Donna's flushed face. She shrugs slightly in embarrassment. "No!" he says breaking into a sudden incredulous grin. He glances over his shoulder into the cold storage chamber. "That dog!"
Martha and Donna exchange an eye-rolling glance.
"I knew all that lofty speak about Time Lords evolving beyond such things was just a load of gas," Jack continues gleefully, "I wish I could've seen the look on his face when he finally had to admit that he's just as carnal as the rest of us."
"Later Jack," Martha absently scolds him. "We need to get back up to the medical bay. Did you set the feed?" she asks.
Jack nods. "The Cryo-chamber's readings are accessible through the main monitor in the medical bay as ordered," he says.
"Good," Martha says, her eyes returning to Donna's face, "that head needs seeing to," she says, indicating the wound creasing Donna's scalp with a tilt of her chin.
"I'm all right," Donna says softly, undoing the zip on her anorak and wearily running her finger along the inside collar of her thick pullover, her belly round and padding the heavy fabric of her overalls.
"Let me be the judge of that," Martha says gently.
Donna just looks at her. "Shutting him up in that drawer," she says, her voice cracking raggedly, "it won't help. He'll still change."
Martha glances up at Jack, his expression grim, "The Doctor seemed to think it would buy us enough time to reverse whatever's happening to him," she says, trying to sound encouraging.
"Can you?" Donna asks, her eyes flickering anxiously between Jack and Martha's faces, "can you reverse it?"
"I can't really say, Donna," Martha says truthfully, squeezing Donna's hand, "not until we get back to the medical bay and I can get some idea of what we're up against."
Donna swallows, her eyes filling with tears.
"I'll know more after I've run some tests," Martha continues, "but in the mean time, knowing what happened might shed some light on his condition."
"I'm not really sure I even know where to start," Donna says, angrily swiping the tears from her eyes with her fingertips.
"Start at the beginning," Jack says with an encouraging smile. He helps Donna to her feet and hands her the handkerchief from his breast pocket.
Donna returns the smile somewhat wanly, dabbing at the corner of her eye. Her other hand absently rubs her belly as she slowly nods. She sniffs and takes a deep breath, as if steeling herself.
"Right well, like I said," she begins solemnly, "there was a distress signal."
Twelve hours earlier
The Doctor emerges from the TARDIS inside an underground base of some kind. It's dark and eerily quiet, save for the relentless hurricane winds howling furiously some miles above on the planet's surface. There's no atmosphere to speak of. He briefly adjusts the settings on the sonic and finds the air is composed mostly of Nitrogen gas with traces of Methane and Carbon Monoxide thrown in for good measure. He'll be able to hold out for a while thanks to respiratory bypass, but there's no way any human could survive here for more than a few minutes.
It's frigidly cold. Even inside his heavy snowsuit, he's visibly trembling. He brushes the inside collar of his anorak with his fingers, already stiff with cold despite his thick wool cutoff gloves. He activates the environmental field built into the suit. A low whine fills his ears as the field expands to cover his body, then settles into a barely noticeable background hum. The Doctor relaxes slightly as relative warmth suffuses his body.
He fumbles inside his coat pocket for a moment and produces a compact torch to cut through the gloom. The base is no more than a series of roughly hewn tunnels intermingling with the natural caverns that already exist beneath the ice planet's surface.
He scans the arched ceiling with the torch to find neat rows of tract lighting nestled amongst the sawed off stalactites, dark and murky with disuse. Heavy mining equipment sits neglected in hollowed out alcoves carved into the walls, glittering in the torch beam beneath a thick layer of ice crystals. Whatever happened here, it seems as if the base has been abandoned for some time.
A frigid wind springs up from nowhere, straining the suit's environmental systems to the max and cutting through the Doctor like a knife. The deserted tunnels howl eerily with an echoing banshee like roar. A breach somewhere in the perimeter of the base he guesses, allowing a bit of the perpetual blizzard raging on the surface to find its way underground.
Dense white ice crystals crunch beneath his feet as he cautiously moves further along the murky tunnel. The torch beam strays across a burnt out mosaic of computer consoles obscured beneath a glinting layer of permafrost just up ahead.
"Ah-ha," the Doctor murmurs, nimbly tossing the sonic in his other hand as he approaches it.
"Did you find something?" A voice calls, as the TARDIS doors swing open with a familiar creak a short distance down the tunnel.
"Donna, don't come out here," he warns, turning slightly to shout over his shoulder, "it's dangerous!"
"Oh, right, dangerous," she says with a frown. At least he thinks she's frowning, he can't really make out her face in the gloom. "Good thing you reminded me, or I might have forgotten the other nine thousand times you mentioned it."
The Doctor smiles slightly, rolling his eyes as he bends to remove an access panel at the base of the sprawling mainframe in front of him.
"You said I'd be safe as long as I stayed inside the forcefield." she reminds him.
"See that you do," he says, slipping his glasses on and squinting into the mass of frozen circuitry beneath the console, "or you'll be flopping about on the ground like a fish out of water."
"You sound funny," she says, a note of concern slipping into her voice.
"There's very little oxygen out here," he says absently, frowning at the mass of frosted over wireless interfaces and computer components inside the dead mainframe. He changes a setting on the sonic and sets to work on the freezer burned system. "I'm trying to reestablish the environmental systems now."
"It can't be good for you either, breathing the air out there," she says.
"I'm not," he says simply, flexing the frigid tips of his fingers to get the blood circulating.
He comes across the distress beacon that led them here, flashing an erratic intermittent signal into the depths of space. According to the time stamp on the central processor, it's been transmitting for just over thirty years.
The Doctor stares at it for a moment, his brow creasing into a troubled frown. It seems unlikely that whoever activated the beacon could have survived for very long under these conditions. He kills the signal with a terse flick of his finger and moves on.
"That's odd," he says, squinting at the system readings scrolling across the flickering monitors after he reestablishes power to the console.
"What is?" Donna asks.
"It looks as if the oxygen converters were deliberately taken offline," he murmurs, mostly to himself.
"Maybe they were performing maintenance on them, or something," Donna says.
"Maybe," he murmurs, a vague uneasiness growing in the pit of his stomach. He shrugs it off. "Oh well," he says, reinitialising the converters with a quick turn of a dial.
The environmental systems sputter back to life with a cough and settle into a quiet droning hum as the converters finally return to the task they were designed for, changing the inhospitable air into something breathable.
As oxygen begins to mingle with the other gases in the atmosphere, the tract lights carved into the ceiling flicker on one by one, illuminating the cavern in an anaemic fluorescent glow. The Doctor wrinkles his nose at them, returning to the console and the data scrolling across the jittery monitors.
The extreme cold has taken its toll on the long dormant systems. He estimates only a few hours of life left in the neglected condensers before they fail for good. Even now they're running at half capacity, converting atmospheric gases into oxygen at a rate of about 18% parts per million, resulting in breathable, but extremely thin air. Sour, too, he thinks, grimacing distastefully, as he takes in a few tentative breaths.
He really doesn't want Donna or the baby breathing this soup in, but he also knows that no force in the universe will keep her from doing exactly as she pleases once she's made her mind up to do it. He smiles slightly at the thought, that passionate nature being one of the things he loves most about her after all.
Still, good sense dictates that he return to the TARDIS and leave this place without so much as a backward glance. Unfortunately, good sense has never been his strong suit; and Donna would never forgive him if they just took off without at least attempting to find survivors, no matter how unlikely their presence.
He sighs and throws her a thoughtful glance over his shoulder as she stands in the open doorway of the TARDIS, protected from the extreme cold inside her environmentally enhanced snow suit. Her expanding belly round and swollen and beginning to strain against the bibbed overalls beneath it.
"I'm coming out there," she says flatly, her eyes narrowing slightly at the doubtful look on his face.
"Yeah, all right," he says, bowing to the inevitable, "but just let me do one thing first."
The last time he wore this snow suit he was the second man on a "one man" walking expedition to the arctic circle. It's a bit roomier now, the bibbed overalls hanging somewhat loosely over his thick wool jumper, but he seems to recall keeping the pockets well stocked with useful survival gear.
He's fairly certain he's got a portable oxygen regulator on him somewhere. Of course he used to have two, but Sir Walter Herbert made off with it when he wasn't looking. Cheeky bloke that Wally, the first man to walk undisputed to the North Pole indeed, but only because the Doctor had carried him on his back for the entire last kilometre.
He finds what he's looking for, a device that looks like a thin leather choker attached to an oblong multifaceted blue gem.
"Put this on," he says, stepping over the TARDIS threshold and handing it to Donna.
"Not exactly my style," she says, pulling a face, but taking the necklace from him anyway. "Now what?" she asks, after fastening it by the clasp at the back of her neck.
The Doctor brushes the gem with his cool fingertips and a tingling field of energy leaps out of it, expanding to cover Donna's nose and mouth in a form fitting invisible shield. She gasps in surprise at the unexpected sensation, staggering and nearly losing her footing before the Doctor steps in and steadies her with a strong arm around her shoulder.
"Give a girl some warning!" she cries tartly, swatting him on the arm.
"Sorry," he grins. He'd kiss her if it weren't for the virtual mask covering her face. His grin turns suddenly cheeky and he abruptly dips her in his arms before returning her to her feet.
"Do that again and I may just throw up on your shoes," she says, smiling slightly as she readjusts her rumpled anorak.
His smile turns a bit sheepish at that. "Right, sorry," he says. She hasn't had a bout of morning sickness for a few weeks now, not since properly settling into her second trimester, but she's still extremely sensitive to strong odours and changes in equilibrium.
"What is this," she asks, tentatively brushing the force field covering her face, "an oxygen mask?"
He nods. "The air out there is just barely breathable," he says. "I'd feel better knowing you were wearing it."
"What about you?" Donna asks, "barely breathable doesn't sound too healthy for you either."
"I've only got the one mask," he says, his eyes momentarily flashing with annoyance, "it's fine though. I'll make do."
"No but, you've got two hearts," Donna says thoughtfully, "wouldn't that mean you'd need more oxygen, not less?"
"Actually, it means that my body is far more efficient at utilising it than yours is," he says simply, "I'll be fine, as long as we don't linger too long." He smiles slightly at the doubtful look on her face and kisses her on the forehead. "Don't worry Donna," he says, "I'm not interested in throwing my life away." He pulls her into a gentle embrace, one hand coming to rest on her growing belly, "I've got too much to live for now."
Donna returns the smile and snuggles against him, but there's something else in her eyes as well, a growing uneasiness that he's been noticing with more frequency lately. It's entirely possible that it has nothing at all to do with his complicating their already complicated relationship by unexpectedly knocking her up just a few months after reuniting with her, but somehow he doubts it.
He knows there's a conversation waiting there, but it'll have to wait a bit longer. He sighs a bit guiltily and brushes the inside collar of her anorak with his fingertips to activate the environmental systems inside her suit.
"Let's go, Mum," he says, taking her mitten-covered hand and leading them back out into the seemingly deserted base.
A swirling wind erupts out of nowhere, kicking up chunks of ice and pelting them with frozen shards that feel like bitter needles pricking their skin. Donna shivers, "Oh my God," she gasps, screwing her eyes shut against the bone jarring cold.
The Doctor immediately steps in front of her to shield her from the worst of the wind with his body. "Yeah," he agrees, "kind of makes the Ood Sphere feel like a day at the beach doesn't it."
"It's shattering," Donna gasps, "why would anyone in their right mind come out here? I mean, what were they thinking?"
"Oh well, you know humans," the Doctor says mildly, "indomitable spirit and all that."
"You're loving this aren't you," Donna says, the corners of her mouth quirking into an incredulous smile.
"Well, I wouldn't say loving exactly," the Doctor says thoughtfully, "but I do enjoy a good mystery. Admit it," he says, tilting her chin with his finger, "You do too."
Donna's smile broadens as she squints in the dim glow of the sputtering tract lighting above their heads, taking in the deep spiralling tunnels and long abandoned equipment. "What, were they mining diamonds, or something?" she asks.
"Or, something," the Doctor murmurs mostly to himself. "Come on," he says, taking Donna's hand and setting a brisk pace into the shadowy recesses of the seemingly deserted base.
Three tunnels loom ahead of them, the wind howling eerily along their roughly carved walls. The Doctor stops for a moment to consider their options. The right tunnel curves out at a slightly upward angle. The left turns sharply, then seems to break off into a series of smaller access tunnels. Some sort of natural ventilation system perhaps, designed to distribute the oxygen converted air more quickly throughout the base. The central tunnel is wider than the others and goes straight down.
"Door number two I think," he says, indicating the central tunnel with a nod of his head.
"Why that one?" Donna asks.
"Straight paths tend to lead directly to something," the Doctor says, "plus it's heading down. If you were designing some sort of common living space say, you'd want to conserve heat by carving it deep. It seems the most likely place to find survivors."
"Do you think we will," Donna asks, "find survivors?"
He shrugs. "Anything's possible," he lies, "humans are very resourceful after all."
Donna smiles slightly at that. "What's the year?" she asks, as they step over the chunks of broken ice that litter the entryway at the mouth of the tunnel, the Doctor's hand wrapped solidly in hers to make sure she doesn't lose her footing.
"It's 3089," he says absently. They must be nearing the source of the breach. Exposure to the elements has taken its toll on the fragile electrical systems powering the tunnel. He frowns up at the flickering tract lighting, the anaemic fluorescent glow growing darker and more intermittent further ahead. "We're nearing the end of the First Great and Bountiful Human Empire," he says.
Donna's nose wrinkles slightly at that. "How many Great and Bountiful Human Empires have there been?" she asks.
"Four," he says.
Donna shivers in the steadily increasing cold. "Why so many?" she asks.
"Walk on this side of me," the Doctor tells her, tightening his grip on her hand as she carefully picks her way around to his other side where he can shield her from the brunt of the knifelike wind with his body and the curving tunnel wall next to her.
He reaches into his pocket for the torch, illuminating the path ahead of them where the lighting has failed completely. "You know humans," he says mildly, "always blundering in before they've had a proper look round the place. There were quite a number of alien races that didn't take too kindly to having their space invaded by barbarians."
"You make it sound as if humans set out to conquer them," Donna says.
The Doctor shrugs. "Well, you're the one that compared the human race to a virus remember? Just look at what they did to the Ood."
"Oi watch it Spaceman," Donna says tartly, "I'm sure the Time Lords had plenty of skeletons rattling around their closets in their day, and anyway there are bound to be mistakes on both sides when you're first starting out."
The wind increases in intensity, screaming down the tunnel in a maelstrom of gritty snow and ice pellets. The Doctor turns his head slightly to avoid taking it full blast in the face.
"True enough I suppose," he says, briefly shutting his eyes against a particularly powerful gust, "but lessons were slow to be learned. The First Empire ended in a war between the humans and pretty much every other race in the surrounding five galaxies."
"So there's a war waging somewhere out there?" Donna asks, shielding her face against his shoulder as the wind wails past.
"Nothing but a few frontier skirmishes by now I'd imagine," the Doctor reassures her, "the Empire is more or less in its death throes. Human refugees scattered throughout the known universe."
"Is that what this place is?" Donna asks, "some sort of refugee camp?"
"Possibly," the Doctor says, squinting into the thickening darkness ahead of them, "wars consume resources. Ideally you'd want to settle somewhere that had enough natural resources to replace the ones you'd lost. I suppose it's possible they came here to mine some new kind of energy source."
"But you don't think they did," Donna says thoughtfully.
She's getting to know him far too well. "I think, I haven't seen any evidence of actual mining beyond the carving of these tunnels, no," he says, one side of his mouth quirking into a little half-smile, "and there's really nothing more to this planet than a frozen cocktail of poison gasses anyway."
"So why come to a planet so clearly inhospitable to humans if there's nothing worth coming for in the first place?" Donna asks.
"Well that's the question, isn't it," the Doctor murmurs, thoughtfully chewing his bottom lip when the torch beam falls on a partial cave-in obscuring the tunnel just up ahead.
"Stay here," he tells Donna. "Just for a second," he says when she starts to protest. "I'd prefer to know if the ceiling's about to come down on our heads before going any further."
"Would that stop you?" Donna asks, her mouth quirking into a wry smile.
He pulls a face and strides after the torch beam, Donna's soft chuckle following him into the darkness.
Boulder sized chunks of ice block part of the path, but a narrow passageway remains at one end beside the intact cavern wall. Wind and swirling ice pellets howl through the spaces between the broken ice boulders like tiny white daggers. The Doctor skims the torch beam all along the edges of the cave-in, trying to determine what caused it. He wedges the torch between his teeth and climbs onto a broken outcropping, squeezing through the opening into the narrow corridor winding through the wall of broken ice.
Sooty grey dust hangs suspended in the thin air, coating his clothing with a layer of grime. He pulls a face, spitting the torch into his open hand and smearing a bit of the dust onto his bare fingertips before tentatively licking a tiny amount onto his tongue.
"Carbon," he mutters, grimacing a bit as he spits the charred dust from his mouth.
"Is this why they called for help?" Donna asks, stood directly behind him at the mouth of the narrow passageway. "They were trapped in a cave-in?"
The Doctor rounds on her. "I thought I told you to stay put," he snaps anxiously.
"Just for a second, you said," she says, scowling back at him, "and when you didn't immediately turn round and start pelting back up the tunnel towards me, I figured it was safe."
The Doctor frowns slightly at that. Getting to know him far too well. "Fine," he mutters, "just stay close."
"Haven't got much choice, have I," Donna says, taking his hand and squeezing past the jutting crag of ice partially blocking the entry to the claustrophobic path.
"They weren't trapped," the Doctor says, illuminating a large metal door clearly visible at the far end of the tunnel with the torch beam, "clear path to the exit, see?"
"Well, maybe there's another cave-in behind it," Donna says with a shrug.
"I doubt it," the Doctor says, pulling a face, "I can't even find a clear reason for this one."
"How do you mean?" Donna asks, her brow knitting in confusion.
The Doctor bends slightly, the torch beam trained on a gap in the broken ice wall beside them. "What do you see?" he asks.
Donna tilts her head and squints into the dimness. Icy wind stirs up sooty whirlwinds of carbon dust that ruffle the fleece lining on the hood of her coat. "A great big hole," she says, flatly.
"Precisely," the Doctor says, "and look at all the debris laying on the ground on the outside of the rupture."
"So what," Donna says, shaking her head.
"So the wall didn't cave inDonna," the Doctor explains, "it blew out and the sudden instability made the rest of the tunnel cave in behind it, but not all the way. Thiswall held," he says, indicating the curving tunnel wall at their backs, "which means that structural integrity wasn't the issue. This collapse didn't just spontaneously happen. It had help."
"Wait, hang on a minute," Donna says. "Are you saying that they, that the people here intentionally caused this?"
"It's a possibility," the Doctor says, that vague feeling of uneasiness abruptly returning to claw at his stomach.
"But, why?" Donna asks. "Why would they intentionally try to trap themselves in a cave-in and then set a distress signal calling for help? It doesn't make sense."
"No," the Doctor agrees, "it doesn't."
He eyes the suddenly ominous looking door at the far end of the narrow passageway thoughtfully. "Come on," he says, taking Donna's hand as they continue to pick their way over the fragmented chunks of ice laying at their feet.
The control panel next to the door is frozen. The Doctor frowns at it, brushing away the permafrost coating with his gloves. "Hold this," he tells Donna, handing her the torch, then grabbing the sonic from his pocket.
Donna illuminates the panel while he pulses the sonic along its edges, popping the panel from its housing and exposing the wires inside. "A little more light," he says, slipping on his glasses.
Donna steps closer, her shoulder brushing his in the confined space. The Doctor smiles slightly as he works on bringing the ice covered mechanism back to life. How lovely she looks in the flickering light he thinks, her skin luminous despite the layer of grime coating it and her eyes shining like a stormy ocean.
"Eyes on your work, Spaceman," she says catching him looking, a playful smile tugging at her lips.
The Doctor's smile blossoms into a grin. "I was just calculating my chances," he murmurs thoughtfully, his attention returning to the mechanism in his hands.
"Chances?" Donna asks.
"Of getting lucky tonight," he says, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at her.
Donna rolls her eyes, though she doesn't try to hide the smile still tugging at her lips. "Honestly, you've got such a one track mind," she says.
"Not true," the Doctor says, wryly, "You of all people should know by now that I'm an extremely talented multitasker."
As if illustrating his point, the control panel flickers back to life in his hands.
"Show off," Donna mutters dryly.
He snaps the panel back into its housing flush against the tunnel wall. The worn number keys on the keypad are full of carbon dust and glow from within with a pale grimy light. He changes a setting on the sonic and points it at the panel, unlocking the door with a series of electronic beeps.
The door creaks and shudders, slowly sliding up into the ceiling on corroded steel tracks that are frozen and rusty from disuse. He glances at Donna, all traces of humour gone from her face as she stares into the darkness beyond the threshold. He frowns slightly, thinking he must be imagining the soft scrape of footsteps against the frozen earth when something roughly human-shaped suddenly lunges out of the darkness and crashes into him.
Donna shrieks, dropping the torch and flinching backwards. The Doctor blinks in the sudden darkness, going down under the unexpectedly rigid weight. Freeze dried flesh scrapes his face and he blindly pushes it away before scrambling to his feet again almost immediately.
"Well that was… unexpected," he grunts, scooping the torch up into his hand. Donna stands hyperventilating beside him, her hand pressed to her chest as she stares at the ice encrusted body laying rigidly at their feet.
"All right?" the Doctor asks her and she nods, her hand moving to her belly as she swallows convulsively. "Are you sure?" he asks, his brow furrowing slightly in concern.
Donna sighs, her breathing calming somewhat. "Premature labour from a fright only happens in the movies," she says, wrinkling her nose at him.
"Actually, it can be brought on by increased-" stress, he's about to say, but the look on her face makes him think better of it, "-never mind," he says instead.
The body laying at their feet is human and completely frozen, like a side of beef hanging in a meat locker. The Doctor frowns thoughtfully at it, kneeling down to get a closer look at the crystallised flesh.
"What? Was it...he, just propped up in the doorway like a scarecrow?" Donna asks, nervously licking her cracked lips.
"Seems like it," the Doctor murmurs. He tilts the frozen corpse's head to reveal a massive hole at its temple. Red stained ice crystals track a trail of frozen blood down its rigid face and chest.
"Is that…?" Donna hesitantly asks.
"Gun shot wound," the Doctor says simply, "self inflicted."
"How can you tell that?"
"By the angle mostly," he says, "also…" he lifts the corpse's cold dead arm to reveal an old fashioned pistol still curled in its frozen fingers.
Donna shudders. "Did they go mad, do you think?" she asks, her tone subdued.
The Doctor doesn't answer. He stands and takes her hand, Donna's fingers curling tightly around his inside her mitten. He gives her hand a reassuring squeeze, raising the torch to pierce the gloom beyond the doorway's threshold. Several pod-like containers stand just inside like permafrost covered monoliths.
"What are they?" Donna asks, as they step into the carved chamber.
"Stasis pods of some kind," the Doctor says, squinting at the murky control panel on the side of one of the devices. "They appear to be cobbled together from bits of leftover equipment. Quite ingenious really," he says with no small amount of admiration for the architect behind this particular bit of homespun innovation.
"Are they still working?" Donna asks, cautiously tapping one of the crusted pods, bits of ice falling away at her touch.
"No," the Doctor says, pulling open the nearest pod door with ease. Donna leans against him as he shines the torch beam into the seemingly empty interior.
"What is that?" she asks, the light revealing a small pile of some sort of frozen organic material at the bottom of the pod. "It looks like… like, beef jerky," she says swallowing distastefully.
The Doctor grimaces slightly at that, reluctant to let on just how on the nose she may be. He opts to say nothing instead, moving further into the gloomy chamber. For some reason, it's drawing power from a source separate from the rest of the base, or it would be if the power were working.
"Ah-ha!" he exclaims, when the torch beam strays across a second computer console even larger than the first. He drops to his knees, removing a frozen access panel at the base of the unit. Ice crunches underfoot as Donna comes up behind him, squinting thoughtfully over his shoulder.
Some deft rewiring and he manages to coax the frozen mainframe back to life. He reestablishes the power and the blackened tunnel chamber is suddenly glowing eerily with luminescent UV light. He replaces the panel and stands, staring thoughtfully at the low hanging fluorescent lamps illuminating ice encrusted lab tables with various bits of scientific equipment strewn upon them.
"I thought you said this was supposed to be a central living space," Donna murmurs, her fingers spreading protectively over her belly as she eyes a sputtering cold storage unit with the word "Biohazard" stamped in bold red letters across it. "Is it even safe for us to be in here?"
"The sonic has a proximity alarm built in," the Doctor reassures her from the console, his fingers flying over the keyboard, "it would have alerted us to any airborne toxins or radiation in the area."
"Right, so we're not about to melt into bubbling puddles of goo," Donna says a bit hysterically, "good to know." She swallows, watching him for a moment as he slips on his glasses to squint at the jittery view screen overhead. "Can you even make sense of any of that," she asks, "it just looks like gibberish to me."
"Some," he says, skimming through the corrupted database files faster than any human being could. "Nothing particularly useful so far, just personal logs. Funny how you lot are all so obsessed with recording every moment of your lives no matter how insignificant. Just look at your Facebook updates. Sat on the sofa. Sat on the sofa eating ice cream. Sat on the sofa eating ice cream, watching Glee. It's as if it's hardwired into your… ah!" he cries suddenly. "This looks promising," he says opening a folder labeled Project Kafka, his eyes moving rapidly over the lines of data flying across the console monitor.
"More interesting than us boring little humans," Donna says sarcastically.
"I never said you were boring," the Doctor says absently, most of his mind occupied with retrieving and restoring the contents of the degraded folder.
"No," Donna says tartly, "just my entire species. You're not exactly Graham Norton yourself you know. I seem to recall the main topic of conversation at the breakfast table this morning having something to do with spanners."
"Uh-oh," the Doctor whispers.
"What uh-oh?" Donna asks, her annoyance instantly forgotten in the face of his sudden apprehension. "Doctor? Uh-oh what?"
He swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. Donna's voice is drowned out by the pounding of his own hearts in his ears as he reads the restored contents of the folder and grows increasingly horrified by what he sees.
"Why come to a planet so clearly inhospitable to humans if there's nothing worth coming for in the first place?" he murmurs numbly, repeating Donna's earlier question as the pieces suddenly fall into place,"because you don't want anyone following and discovering what you're really up to."
"I don't…" Donna stammers.
"This isn't a refugee camp," he tells Donna, his tone somewhere between cold fury and outright panic, "it's a research base."
"What sort of-"
Then they both hear it, a loud chittering whine like a forest full of bush-crickets on a late summer's day. The Doctor blanches, his mind momentarily reeling as his eyes fall on Donna's suddenly pale face.
"What the hell was that?!" she cries.
"We have to go," he says brusquely, grabbing her hand.
"But, what about-"
"We have to go now," he snaps anxiously. "Right now!"
But it's already too late.
They turn to find a handful of inky black human sized insects blocking the exit, their long narrow bodies clinging to the sides of the doorway, hugging the rough hewn walls and ceiling as they slip into the room like a nest of giant cockroaches.
"Oh my God," Donna gasps breathlessly, fear robbing her of her voice.
The Doctor slowly pushes her behind him, placing his body between hers and the advancing horde. This is his fault. They'd gone dormant in the extreme cold until he'd reestablished the environmental systems and unwittingly revived them, exposing Donna and the baby to serious danger in the process.
"Did those things kill the research team?" Donna asks, her quavering voice barely above a whisper as they slowly back away.
The Doctor's arm curves around her back as he eyes the giant whining creatures skittering towards them, their hard black skins all but invisible in the murky darkness of the tunnels but glowing with an eerie blue bioluminescence inside the laboratory chamber.
"Those things are the research team," he murmurs back grimly.
TBC