Over the Rainbow
Chapter One

Authors introduction
Right, this is a collection of ideas I've been playing about with for a while. I've wanted to play with this specific version of the Doctor for a while and while a short with this persona meeting Buffy might be interesting I think I'm going to need a little more elbow room.
This version… well I want to see if you guess which one it is, is a fascinating one to me for obvious reasons and I want to do them justice. This specific sand box seemed to be the best place to do it.

Disclaimer
I own none of the characters here and make no profit from their use.

Chapter One

The Doctor poked his head out of the TARDIS and looked around. 'Huh?' he frowned and stepped out. He didn't recognise where they were. Hardly surprising after the temporal turbulence they'd encountered. He had thought he'd counteracted and compensated for it, but obviously the TARDIS controls had been as cooperative and accurate as usual.

'Doctor, where are we?' Peri asked from inside.

'Not where we're supposed to be and certainly not where the systems say we are.' He answered, pulling an old tracking device from out of his technicolour coat. It also gave him conflicting information. 'We can't be!' he protested before sighing.

'Doctor!' Peri pleaded coming out. She was wearing one of her usual bright, tight tops and shorts. Quite what possessed her to run around half dressed like that The Doctor couldn't begin to fathom, then again human fashion choices were often lost on him. According to Peri his coat was a fashion disaster. Ridiculous. 'You said we were going to Blackpool.' His human friend protested.

'Indeed I did Peri, but it seems the Time Lords had other ideas!' He shouted to the ceiling, no doubt that their unscheduled detour was the work of his so called superiors. 'As if I couldn't steer the TARDIS without their interference!'

'Oh no, not again!' she whined. 'Why do they always do this to us?'

'To me Peri. My fellow Time Lords would barely notice you. I may be accused of arrogance on occasion, but believe me they make me look like a very soul of courtesy!'

'I'll believe that when I see it.' Peri disagreed under her breath.

'True enough, but they haven't even bothered to tell me what I'm doing here!' He called out again. Not expecting an answer, but it was worth a try.

Peri seemed to only be half listening, fascinated instead by one of the crates the TARDIS had landed next to. 'Maybe they don't know.'

'They know Peri, of course they know. They delight in deviousness. Dropping us into a life and death situation and watching us struggle with the repercussions is entertainment for them!' He pointed out before looking at what had caught her attention and finally turing his mind to the problem at hand.

They were in a storage bay of some sort. A set of large doors on the far side of the cavernous room. Neatly stacked boxes and containers were scattered throughout in discreet piles. Labeled in variety of unfamiliar alien languages he still quickly translated without really noticing.

Bouncing on the balls of his feet The Doctor tested the gravity. Artificial. Very good, but still artificially generated. Same with the air. Recycled countless times, re-oxygenated and filtered to be breathed again. Reaching out with his senses The Doctor could hear the faint background hum of power generators, but not the rumble of thrusters, or feel the pull of any relative movement.

Looking around again he saw a side door. Much smaller than the others and in the correct proportions for a person. Next to it there were a number of small alcoves, filled with devices. 'Ah!' he pocketed his tracker and headed over to them.

'What have you found Doctor?' Peri asked.

Pulling one of the devices out disconnected it from the recharge port and automatically activated the small screen at the top. The Doctor had never encountered this specific technology before, something he mentally filed away for later, but it was fairly simple. 'I think it's a manifest.' He told her, experimenting with the controls. 'We're in a cargo hold Peri, on a space station unless I miss my guess.'

'A space station?'

'Yes, exactly.' He grinned. 'A trading outpost, way station between destinations, perhaps even a military centre. Think of it like a vast interstellar crossroads.' He was beginning to understand the technology. It was incredibly simple, even child like. Admittedly the device was not designed for much other than data retrieval, limited data at that, but it should have had some sort of networking capability.

Finally he was able to access a diagram of the hold they were in. A few careful commands and the tiny screen gave him the locations of all the cargo holds on the station. Incidentally also giving him a more complete picture. He was right, it was a space station. A large outer ring which is where they were at the moment, along with most of the cargo facilities and docking ports. Six pylons rose and dropped across the station like a set of talons grasping the middle, three above and three below. These had the docking facilities for larger craft. The inner ring looked to be habitation, guest quarters for visitors as well as crew facilities.

The centre of this pinwheel design was the main hub. Power generation, command, communications as well as sensors and what looked like a central market place spread across several levels.

That looked like a good place to start. 'Come along Peri, we best be going.'

Quark looked out at the mostly empty promenade. Many of the stalls stood empty these days, and while he disliked the competition he had to admit the place felt dead. A few other traders would help bring more people to the station, bringing more trade and in the end more people through his door.

Back during the Cardassian occupation it had been hard to make a living but he'd done it. The Cardassians were nothing if not decadent, gambling at Quark's tables while drinking alcohol he'd overcharged them for. When the Federation came it was mixed blessing. For one they insisted on all these rules. What they called a fair price for services and limits on gambling.

Still, fleecing them had been easy and if it wasn't for a certain Changeling Constable he'd have made more than enough.

Now though, now he was seriously contemplating leaving. A month earlier his once simple dream of a quiet, obscene, profit looked possible. Then the Dominion came, with their Jem'Hadar. They kicked the Federation out and were slowly making preparations to take over the whole quadrant. The Dominion had no time for decadence. The Jem'Hadar were genetically bred super soldiers and cared for nothing but war and serving their Founders. The Vorta barely ate, had no interest in drinking or gambling and were a race of clones. That left the Changeling Founders. If any of them were like the Station's Constable then Quark was staring bankruptcy in the face.

The only saving grace was the return of the Cardassians. Who drank, ate and made use of his Holosuites like never before.

So, financially at least, it was better to stay here. For now.

As he was weighing the pros and cons, looking for some solution that would bring him a profit one of the side doors opened and a pair of humans stepped out. One was female; short, with dark hair and curious expression on her face. The other was a man in the most garish overcoat Quark had ever seen, bright yellow trousers to match his hair and an arrogance even the Grand Nagus would have trouble pulling off.

Quark could only watch in amazement. Humans. since the new occupation began he'd only seen one other on the station. The male saw him and the two of them came closer. Quark glanced over his shoulder, none of his staff or patrons had seen them yet but as soon as they did…

'Hello! I'm known as the Doctor and this is my friend Peri.' The human male said, attempting to be friendly. 'We just arrived and I was wondering…'

'What are you, how did you get onboard?' Quark hissed in amazement.

This had the two of them looking at each other. 'Well we just sort of popped in.' The girl said. 'Why, is something wrong?'

'Get out of here! Before…' Quark didn't get a chance to finish. Behind him a Cardassian barked for attention before stopping mid demand.

'Humans? Intruders!' They snapped running out the door, fumbling for a phaser in it's holster. The officer had been enjoying himself, which meant if he ever did draw that weapon he'd be far too drunk to shoot straight.

Luckily the humans realised their mistake and backed away. Only it was too late. Others had spotted them, including the pair of Jem'Hadar just down by Odo's office. They were not drunk and most definitely in the shoot first and ask questions later mindset.

Quark, not wanting to be shot himself started shouting:- 'Intruders! Humans! Humans!' As he ducked away from the bar. Not a fraction too soon as the air was suddenly full of weapons fire.

The two humans reacted a lot quicker than Quark would have given them credit. Ducking and running away from certain death. They ran down the corridor, followed by the Dominion officers shooting at them.

Major Kira was at her station in Ops, finalising the transfer of Bajoran officers back home. Soon it would just be her and a handful of Odo's deputies left amongst the Cardassians.

History was repeating itself and there was nothing she could do about it. For fifty years the Cardassians had occupied Bajor. They'd enslaved her people and all but strip mined the planet. The resistance had, after a long and painful struggle, finally broke their hold on them and for a brief few years they'd been free.

Sure her people had relied on the Federation and that rankled her. Kira didn't like wanting to rely on anyone, but in a Galaxy like this one surrounded by super powers the Federation were as good a choice as any. Then the Dominion came. The Cardassians, led by Gul Dukat, the worst his people had to offer, joined the cruel dictatorship and the Federation were no match.

She'd been kept up to date, with the peaceful Federation out manoeuvred and outmatched in this war they'd been losing every major conflict. Scoring a few hit and run raids here and there, but being unable to capitalise on them. Kira could tell if the Federation and their Starfleet didn't come up with something more effective soon this war would be over almost as quickly as it began. The Klingons were in no shape to put up much of a fight after their recent conflicts and the only other player on the board, the Romulans, were happy to sit back and watch.

Kira felt helpless, there was nothing she could do and if she somehow did fight back Bajor as a whole would pay the price.

She was shaken for her musing when her console beeped with an alert. Weapons discharge on the Promenade. For a heartbeat she froze before jumping into action. Automatically she isolated the sensor readings and confirmed them. At the same time she brought up an internal visual scan. The screen behind her flickered to life to show what had happened not ten seconds earlier.

A pair of very strangely dressed humans were standing by Quarks only for a Cardassian to start shooting at them. A pair of Jem'Hadar guards followed suit and the humans ran. Kira could hardly believe it.

She didn't want to, but having no choice in the matter, she activated the intruder alarm. Declaring a red alert.

While she tried to follow the intruders Dukat came down from the Prefect's office. He smiled at her in a way he obviously thought was charming, but only refused her more. He'd made no secret that he found her attractive and his frequent approaches made her want to carve his smug face off. 'Why Major, what possessed you to declare a station wide emergency?' he asked before seeing what she had. 'How…? Dukat to all security teams; Intruders on the Promenade!' The Cardassian barked, rushing to the console opposite Kira's.

'Should I activate force fields?' Kira asked before he could think to do so himself.

'Yes!' Dukat barked but then caught his mistake. 'No, that would keep us from reaching them. Lock down the station, shields up and divert every ship. Don't give them anywhere to run to!'

Keeping her face expressionless Kira inwardly seethed. She had hoped to use the security forcefields to keep Dominion Forces locked away and give the humans a chance to get away, but Dukat either guessed her plan or just thought his was better.

'Odo to Kira; what is happening?'

Kira glanced at Dukat before tapping her comms badge. 'Kira to Odo. We have intruders. Two humans. Jem'Hadar and Cardassian forces are in pursuit.'

'I'm seeing weapons fire on the Promenade. I don't like weapons on the station.' He reminded her.

'I understand Constable.' Kira reassured him before checking the footage again. 'I'm patching you in on what I'm seeing. It looks like the intruders are unarmed.'

Kira watched as one of the intruders, a man in an impossibly miss-matched coat pushed his friend out of the way and moved to a door panel. 'Isolate that control! Lock him out!' Dukat ordered.

Kira tried. If she was honest she wasn't that enthusiastic about it, but it wouldn't have mattered. The heavy door rolled open before she could do anything. 'Major.' Dukat snapped.

'He accessed some sort of emergency override.' She explained, looking at the door controls. That wasn't exactly true. He hadn't accessed so much as quickly written a bypass command directly into the door controls. Overriding the central computer entirely.

'No matter, we have them. Seal that section.' Dukat ordered. Reluctantly Kira obeyed, locking every door in and out of the section. 'I want to hear what they are saying.'

Again Kira obeyed, hating herself for it and not seeing any other option.

'Doctor, it's locked!' the woman shouted. 'Who were those people?'

The man moved to the control panel and opened it up, much like the last one. 'I told you I don't know. I don't think I've ever seen the species before, not that I'd want to again.' He said, echoing how Kira felt most days. 'No good. They've got some kind of remote override.'

'Can you get it open?'

'It's impossible!' he told her before pulling control rods out of their housing.

'How impossible?' she asked, causing Kira to frown. It was a strange question to ask.

The man she called Doctor rearranged the rods before using a lose one to bridge two systems manually. Scrambling the interface codes and overloading the door motivators. With a charge arching between several other points the lock failed and the door flew open. 'That impossible. Come on Peri, it won't take them long to blast their way in here!'

Kira tried to open the other door only to find every access to that section of the station damaged. 'He's damaged the whole system. Security are going to have to find another way around.'

Dukat did not look happy and it took all of Kira's self control not to laugh.

Peri was used to this sort of thing by now. If there was one thing you could be sure of it was that if The Doctor promised you a quiet holiday you'd be shot at, kidnapped and possibly killed before the end of the day. Sometimes she wondered why she put up with him.

Especially this latest version of him. She remembered the older version, the one with the Scotsman, Jamie. He seemed like such a nice old man. Not the bad tempered grouch she was stuck with!

The Doctor looked down at the little computer he'd borrowed earlier. It was showing him a map of the station they were on. He held up his hand, 'Wait! This way!' he said urgently and lead them down another massive corridor that looked the same as every other.

Her sense of direction wasn't perfect but Peri knew one thing. 'Doctor, are you sure this is the right way?'

'No Peri, in fact I am certain this is most certainly the left way.' He told her, stopping to study his map again. 'Our gracious hosts will be expecting us to take the most direct route. We must flummox them!'

'Shouldn't be too hard. You flummox yourself often enough!' She told him as she panted for breath. 'Why were they shooting at us Doctor, they don't even know who we are?"

'Maybe it's just how they say hello around here. A volley of gunfire and brisk chase to get the blood flowing and the hearts pumping. Does wonders for your health.'

'Really Doctor, how can you joke at a time like this?' Peri objected.

The Doctor stopped playing with the thing he'd found and turned to face her. After a moment he grinned and started running again. Peri struggling to keep up. Eventually, after taking blind turn after blind turn, they found another huge cargo room. Just like the one they'd landed in, only it wasn't.

That there was no TARDIS was a clue. That and all the different boxes looked nothing like the ones she'd seen before. 'Doctor, what are we doing here?'

The Doctor, however, dashed to a computer console off to the side. 'Ahhh! Just what I need, a matter energy transporter! Perfect, I knew there had to be one here.'

'A transmat?' Peri asked, realising that was what he had been looking for.

The Doctor was fiddling with the controls again. It looked like a screen which reacted to touch. Changing as he tapped away at it. 'Not quite. Somewhat more complicated actually and if miss-used infinitely more dangerous. Whoever designed this contraption has unlocked the ability to convert matter into pure energy, transmit that energy and then turn it back into matter again.'

'Thats good right? I means it can take us anywhere.'

'Yes Peri, but if I'm not careful it could go drastically wrong. Reconstituting us the wrong way around or even not reconstituting us at all. Do you have any idea how much raw energy is in the humanoid body? If we don't materialise exactly the right way we could become an explosion. Destroying… Everything!'

'Do we have to use it?' Peri asked. She didn't like Transmats at the best of times and this thing sounded a lot worse.

'Yes, I'm afraid we do. They were able to follow us with internal sensors, that's why they didn't bother to keep up the pursuit. By now they've almost certainly sealed this section off with force screens and whatever else they can think of.'

Peri looked to the door they came in through. She could easily imagine a force field, or something else, in the way. 'Doctor what can we do?'

'I've blocked their internal sensors, but I don't know how long for. There's an awful lot of redundancies in the system and it's a mess. Like it's been bodged together from a handful of different cultures. None of which were half as clever as they thought they were.'

Peri didn't like this one bit, and there was an urgency to the Doctor that didn't sit right with her. 'Whats the rush?'

'Nothing. Well if you don't count that if our hosts get any bright ideas they can just open those doors and we'll be blown out into the cold vacuum of space. Or they'll find a way around what I'm doing and turn the power off. Or…'

'Okay, Okay. Sorry I asked.'

'I think I've got it!' He grinned. 'Quickly Peri, we haven't a moment to lose.'

Dukat ordered a strike team of Cardassian soldiers and Jem'Hadar to the cargo bay the intruders had retreated to. As soon as the forcefield was dropped they rushed the room. Professionally covering each other while quickly scanning the room for the two intruders.

Odo followed behind with a pair of his Deputies. They were there for little more than show. The occupation forces had control of the station, he and his two guards weren't even armed. Even if they had been his Deputies were no match for the Jem'Hadar.

One of the Cardassians checked the cargo transporter. 'Teleport co-ordinates have been wiped. They could have gone anywhere.'

'Not with the shields up.' Odo disagreed. 'They could only have gone elsewhere on the station.' He tapped his commbadge. 'Odo to Major Kira, we've confirmed that the intruders have teleported somewhere else on the station. Can you scan the station for them?'

'Not at the moment.' Kira told him. 'He scrambled the internal sensors somehow. Could take an hour, maybe more before I can get a team to repair the damage.'

Dukat's voice quickly interrupted. 'Major Kira will expedite repairs immediately. I am ordering forces to guard vital systems immediately. Make no mistake we will find these intruders and execute them. Within an hour.' He cut off the transmission.

Odo was helpless as the Cardassians and Jem'Hadar left. Obviously heading for more vital locations than a half abandoned cargo bay. Odo was about to dismiss his Deputies when he looked around again. As a Changeling he was known for his powers of observation. Something was out of place.

He could see how some containers had been recently moved. Items taken out and hastily stacked elsewhere. Odo waited until he was sure the others had left. 'Alright, you better come out now.' He ordered, standing next to the emptied containers. 'Don't worry. You'll be perfectly safe.'

After a guilty moment the first container opened. 'Trapped by my own cleverness again I see.' The man admitted. 'Ah, well. It was worth a try.'

Odo looked at them carefully. He didn't recognise them or their outlandish uniform. 'How did you get on this station?'

'Oh you know. Somehow.' He shrugged. 'Come on out Peri. The jig, as they say, is up.' The girl came out of the other container. She looked afraid, not that Odo could blame her, but the man did not. He actually looked very relaxed. Surprisingly so for someone caught so readily.

'Are they going to shoot us Doctor?' the girl asked looking at the two hulking Bajoran Deputies.

'Far from it Peri. I think our friend here is exactly the sort of person we need to get us out of this mess. That is if we can throw ourselves upon your mercy.'

Odo took a moment. This man was obviously dangerously intelligent, but that didn't deserve a summary execution. If he was the one to arrest him that would mean both the intruders would be Odo's responsibility and he would be able to protect them. 'Under my authority as a duly appointed constable, sworn to uphold the laws of the Bajoran Government, I hereby arrest both of you. On charges from trespassing, illegal access to station computers and disrupting station operations.'

'Excellent! Now maybe we can get to the bottom of why exactly we are here in the first place! Come along Peri, we have a great deal to do.'

End Chapter One