Title: Ghost in the Machine
Author: hexicode aka illman
Fandom/pairing (if appropriate): Doctor Who, no pairing
Summary: Separated from each other and stranded on a frozen world, Martha and the Doctor are forced to forge dangerous alliances in the fight against an old enemy.
Rating: technically all ages, but maybe a bit too violent for the kiddies
Warnings: AU, some violence (but nothing too graphic)
Disclaimers: The characters and settings aren't mine. No profit is being made, this is for entertainment only
A/N: Many thanks to the lovely DianeM for beta-reading.
"Come on, Martha! It's no fun if you don't guess."
"Fine. What was it that you said again?"
"Something green."
Martha sighed, not bothering to open her eyes. "The walls?"
"No."
"The ceiling."
"No."
"The bars in front of the window?"
"Yes, got it in three guesses. Your turn."
"Doctor, not that I don't appreciate that you're feeling better, but some of us still need to sleep." Idly, Martha wondered if the Doctor was annoying her on purpose, or if cabin fever was just getting the better of both of them. The TARDIS might have looked not much larger than a storage closet from the outside, but its vast interior left more than enough room for its occupants to spend some time alone, if desired. Martha certainly enjoyed the Doctor's company, but being stuck in the same room, twenty-three hours a day, for the past five days, was pushing her limits.
"I had enough rest lately to last me at least another decade," the Doctor replied and she could hear him start pacing again. Martha sighed, turned herself to face the wall and pulled the thin pillow over her head.
A moment later, the barely muted sounds of the Doctor's footsteps were joined by a second, much heavier set, approaching quickly from the other side of the solid steel door.
The footsteps paused, and with a scratching noise, the thick metal plate covering the window in the door was pulled back. Throwing the pillow aside, Martha watched from her vantage point on the top bunk as the Doctor approached the door.
"So, what is on the menu for today?" The Doctor greeted the person on the other side of the cell door, presumably one of the prison guards, cheerfully.
"Back on your feet, eh? Didn't think you'd get back up after that shock," the guard replied, sounding quite impressed, apparently not bothered that the Doctor had tried to jump him while Martha had organized a distraction.
"Yeah, I'm like that. Not so easy to get rid of," the Doctor replied with a shrug as if the shock that had rendered him unconscious for two days had been nothing.
"Doubt that is going to help you much tomorrow. But it'd really be a shame."
"Why is that?"
"The jury came back with the verdict an hour ago. Never thought it would take them that long, though."
"May I enquire as to what the verdict says?" the Doctor asked, sounding just a bit annoyed by now.
"They want your head, what else?" The guard laughed as if the Doctor had told a particularly funny joke. "Almost forgot, here's your lunch." A tray was pushed through the opening, but the Doctor ignored it.
"It's all going to be broadcast, live and all, of course. Only wish my parents could have seen the day," the guard chattered on. "They are talking of making it a planetary holiday."
"You know what," the Doctor said, "I hereby fire my lawyer. Except, I didn't get one, did we, Martha? This is Cassia IV here, right?"
With a bang, the window flew closed.
"Huh, must have been something I said. He seemed so nice. Just goes to show that you never know…" the Doctor mused, as he inspected their lunch. He dipped a finger in one of the bowls and licked it. "Not bad, not bad at all. Best we've had all week I'd say."
"Doctor!"
"Yes?" He turned around
"What are we going to do?" Martha asked, climbing down from her bunk and trying hard to quell the panic in her voice.
"I thought that I'd have the soup, while you get the…"
"You know what I mean!"
"Well, you could try taking your top off."
"Because the seduction technique worked so well the last time. I don't think so. That shock nearly killed you."
"Yeah, I wonder why it didn't zap you, though," the Doctor said, regarding the bracelet around his left wrist thoughtfully. "I wasn't doing anything. Yet."
"Some sort of telepathic thingy?"
The Doctor gave her a long look before he answered.
"Nah, I don't think so. It's nothing."
"You're probably right." Martha forced a smile and reached for the other bowl on the tray.
After a few abortive attempts at conversation on Martha's part, they lapsed into silence while outside, the sun was slowly, but relentlessly, sinking. Without the benefit of artificial light in their cell, they were all too soon enveloped in darkness. The Doctor mumbled something about getting some rest before their big day and settled on his bunk, crossing his arms behind his head and closing his eyes. Martha was confident that he wasn't sleeping, but it was clear that he wasn't interested in making conversation. She wondered what was going on in his mind, but just by staring at him in the dark, she wasn't going to find out. Martha climbed onto her bunk, certain that she wouldn't be able to sleep anyways, with the prospect of their execution hanging over them. Much to her surprise, she still slipped into sleep, as the fatigue and exhaustion caught up with her.
She woke with a start when the door was unlocked. For a blissful second, she wondered what was going on, but the next moment, she remembered that their execution was imminent and that the guard was most likely going to take them to wherever they were supposed to die.
The Doctor was already on his feet.
"Had a good night?" he cheerfully asked the guard.
"Didn't get much sleep with all the preparation for the big day, but I can't complain. Now, if you'd follow me." Martha and the Doctor did as he'd asked and followed the guard down the corridor.
"You know it's thanks to you that I'll get to meet the President. You wouldn't think he'd ever come out here to this rock, but he wants to oversee your execution personally."
"I'm sure we should feel honoured." Martha couldn't help making the comment.
"She is right. The home world hasn't taken an interest in what goes on here in decades, not until you've shown up….Not that I think that killing you is the answer. It's not like that will change anything. It wasn't always like that."
"Then how did you come to adopt the death penalty, here on Cassia. The last time I was here, you were a perfectly peaceful and civilised people. That can't have been so long ago. But it's always like that. Get rid of one dictator, another steps up to the plate. Democracy never seems to last."
"You really don't know, do you?" The guard turned to face them.
"No, we honestly don't. But if it is like I suspect, then Martha here has nothing to do with all of this. It's me you really want, not her."
"That's not for me to decide." The guard shrugged, turning his back to them again. The lack of any security measures was tempting, but after their earlier escape attempt had led them to discover the purpose of the thin, but solid, metal armbands that had been fitted around their left wrists. The sudden and unexpected shock had rendered the Doctor unconscious for almost two days, during which Martha had feared he would never wake up and she would end up all alone in jail on an alien planet without even knowing what crime she had supposedly committed.
"Here we are." The guard stopped in front of another grey steel door, just like the hundreds of others they'd passed on the way. The guard knocked on the door.
The door swung open, seemingly moved remotely. The guard stepped back, letting Martha and the Doctor enter first.
The office was almost as barren as their prison cell. The undecorated green concrete walls seamlessly blended into the floor. A large desk dominated the room. Behind it sat a man in what was clearly some sort of military uniform and from the amount of metal pinned to his chest, Martha estimated that he was pretty high up the foodchain. A second man, dressed in what looked very much like a business suit, but with a fur-studded cape slung over his shoulders, sat on a small couch to the left, right next to where the TARDIS stood in the corner. The man with the cloak got up when they entered.
"Doctor, I must say it is an honour to finally meet you."
"Well, I might be honoured, too, if I knew you."
"Of course, you don't know me, seeing that I'm a mere product of your actions, in a manner of speaking. Without you, none of us would be here. Cassia would still be a prosperous, fertile planet, not the frozen wasteland we live in now. So, you see, it really is an honour to finally meet you and to be the man who brings you to justice."
"Before we get to the whole bringing to justice and killing part, do I get a last request?" the Doctor asked, still sounding awfully cheerful, like the whole thing was just a game. This was the Doctor all right; only he could make running for your life seem like fun. Half of the time, Martha even believed him. But this time they weren't going to be able to laugh and joke about it all afterwards. This time, they were really going to die.
"I don't know why you should, Doctor."
"Anyways, since you are so well informed about my supposed crimes, you should know that Martha has nothing to do with any of this. She wasn't even with me when I came to Cassia. You surely know that."
"We do, and it is unfortunate. We are not in the habit of murdering innocent people. Your companion is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. But be assured, that she will die quickly. Unlike you, you will die over and over, painfully."
Martha frowned. She wasn't sure what the man was talking about. Surely, even the Doctor could only die once. The alternative simply didn't make sense. But before she could ponder the mystery further, her attention returned to the events playing out in front of her. The Doctor was silent, but the man who'd been on the couch when they'd come in was now whispering something to the man in uniform.
"What fate do you propose for your companion? Assuming we choose to grant your request," the man in uniform addressed the Doctor.
"She deserves to return to her home planet. I can programme my ship so that it will take her home without me."
"Why not?" the man asked, a sly smile suddenly on his face. "Go ahead. We were hoping to make use of your ship, but I doubt even our best scientists could make sense of it, no matter how long they were to study it. He slipped a hand into his pocket and revealed their two keys to the TARDIS that had been taken from them when they'd been imprisoned. Martha was still staring in shock when the Doctor was already across the room, unlocking the door to the TARDIS.
"Aren't you coming, Martha?" Martha blinked, but nothing changed. She was still in the warden's office and the Doctor was still standing in the opened TARDIS door. She hurried over to the Doctor, but before she reached him, her hopes were dashed.
"One more thing, Doctor. Just in case you were thinking of using your ship to escape, you should know that the band around your wrist will deliver a fatal shock in…" He checked his watch. "In about eight minutes. It will go off sooner, should you try to remove it or tamper with it."
"I'll try to remember that," the Doctor simply said, then turned to her. "Come on, Martha. You heard the man, time is running out. Back in a minute!"
Martha rapidly crossed the remainder of the room and slipped into the comforting vastness of the TARDIS. The Doctor pulled the door closed behind them and hurried over to the console and started working furiously.
"You can't seriously be thinking about going back out there."
"Of course not!" The Doctor didn't look up. Instead he slammed down his fist on the console several times, muttering something under his breath. "No, no. You can't do that to me. Not now!" He dove underneath the console, and proceeded to remove part of the grille covering the floor. Rummaging around in the bowels of the TARDIS, he started to remove bits and pieces of machinery. Finally, the column mounting from the center of the console started to move accompanied by the usual grinding and wheezing that indicated that they were dematerializing. But it only lasted for a moment before the lights started to flicker and the column started to bob up and down at a frantic pace.
"Doctor, Doctor, you need to...!?" Martha yelled over the ever-increasing noise, but she couldn't seem to make herself heard. The TARDIS was beginning to shake underneath her feet.
"They must have been messing with the TARDIS!" the Doctor yelled over the noise
"I never would have guessed!" Martha snapped. "I don't mean to rush you, but you have about two minutes left."
The Doctor looked at her, obviously not able to hear her properly over the catastrophic noise. Martha raised her left arm, pointing to her wrist, hoping to make the Doctor understand even if the noise prevented him from hearing her.
The Doctor nodded. He was saying something, but Martha couldn't understand him. She saw him fiddle with what looked like the sonic screwdriver, but had to be a spare one since it had been confiscated by the prison officers. He only worked for a second or two when he was suddenly engulfed in a brilliant green light, so bright that Martha had to close her eyes. The light faded as quickly as it had come. Martha was able to open her eyes again. The Doctor was stretched out on the floor of his ship. Martha hurried over to him, calling his name. But the Doctor didn't move. Martha tried to feel for a pulse, but with the TARDIS shaking this badly, she couldn't be sure. She thought she'd felt a lone beat, but when she tried to find it again, it was gone.
The shaking was growing worse by the second. Martha was trying to get to her feet to try and have a look at the displays, already knowing that she wouldn't be able to manipulate the TARDIS on her own. Half of the time, the Doctor couldn't even seem to make her work the way he wanted to. No sooner than she'd gotten to her feet, when the TARDIS rocked violently, throwing her off her feet and into the railing. The impact itself wasn't painful, but suddenly she couldn't breathe anymore. She was facedown on the floor, unable to move or breathe. Martha realized that she was dying when her vision started to grey.
The Doctor woke to silence, darkness and pain. For a moment, he didn't realize that his eyes were already open, but when he blinked, he realized that it was simply totally dark, wherever he was. Even thinking of moving hurt, so he turned to his sense of hearing. He managed to make out the beating of his own hearts, and the faint sound of inhaling when he drew breath. After a few seconds, his hearing sharpening in the absence of other sensory input, he was able to pick up the sound of another heart beat, singular, the heart rate and accompanying breathing rhythm indicating an unconscious humanoid. Martha? Ignoring the pain, the Doctor pushed himself up and got to his feet, only to have his knees buckle under him and land face first on the floor. More careful this time, he extended a hand and examined the floor around him. The grille underneath him was familiar, the spacing exactly like that of the TARDIS. So, he was in his TARDIS - that was a good start. He couldn't remember anything about how he'd gotten into his present predicament, but his probing fingers found a familiar, cylindrical object – the sonic screwdriver. Except, he'd lost the sonic screwdriver, somehow, he seemed to recall. But he'd always wanted to build a spare, so he wasn't about to question his lucky find, especially when he was able to switch on the sonic screwdriver, creating a small, but working torch. In the blue light of the sonic screwdriver, he was able to confirm that he was indeed inside the TARDIS. It was only then that he noticed that it was cold, very cold. His body adjusted easily to temperature changes, so he'd not noticed immediately, but now he was aware that the temperature had to be hovering barely above zero. Martha had to be freezing. Martha?! The Doctor looked around the darkened console room. Martha was slumped on the ground near the railing. The Doctor hurried over to her.
"Martha?" The Doctor changed the setting on the sonic screwdriver and ran its beam over Martha's body. He didn't like what he saw – a broken arm, a concussion, but much more seriously, a spinal fracture and quite advanced hypothermia. He needed to get her warmed up soon, but he couldn't move her until he'd done something about the fracture. Normally it wouldn't be a problem with the medical technology available to him in the TARDIS, but without power, it would take some ingenuity to rig up something that would work.
Once the Doctor was confident that the small room was warming up nicely and that the fire was burning well on its own, he sat down in an armchair next to the couch where Martha was resting. He hadn't been able to heal the fracture outright. The sonic screwdriver wasn't made for work this delicate and the equipment in the medical bay had no power. He had been able to inject her with a solid dose of nanogenes that should enhance her innate healing abilities well beyond normal human capacity. As far as he could tell, she was healing well, but it would take at least two more days until she was up to walking around again. They didn't have that much time. He needed to find help because they weren't getting off this planet without it. With only the sonic screwdriver to help him, he'd only been able to determine that the TARDIS wasn't so much drained of energy, as it had shut down, for some reason unknown to the Doctor and he was unable to bring her back on-line. He wasn't sure what sort of help he was looking for, but at the moment, food and a warm place to stay seemed like a good start.
The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and immediately realized that he should have put on a different coat, one that was more suited to the temperature. The TARDIS had landed in what looked like an alley. There were high buildings on both sides, but they looked abandoned, some of the windows were broken and there was no light behind them. A second later, he realized why. The air was heavily polluted. It was nothing he could taste, nothing most humanoids would have been able to detect, but it was there and it was wrong. Wrong, as in not belonging in this place. It didn't even belong in this universe, not in any universe obeying the same natural laws as the one he was familiar with. Its structure was completely alien, even to him. Puzzled, the Doctor continued his exploration.
The alley led out into a larger street from which more streets branched off to both sides. Everything was deserted, the buildings abandoned for what had to be decades. There was no sign of any other living being. This was getting him nowhere. He looked around, spying a fire escape leading up one of the buildings a bit further down the street. He went to take a closer look. The installation looked rusty, but solid enough to hold his weight.
The Doctor climbed up the fire escape until he reached the roof of the building. It stood higher than most surrounding structures, allowing him a good view of the area. Everything looked familiar somehow, not just in a general way, like many of the planets and times he had visited bore some general resemblance to each other, but he was certain he had seen the same expanse of buildings before, sometime, someplace. What he definitely hadn't seen before was the huge doomed structure that dominated the view. It was only one or two kilometres away, but more importantly – it looked like someone was home. Smoke was rising from several large chimneys. Good news, the Doctor decided, not least because whatever substance was polluting the air wasn't agreeing too well with his biochemistry. He could feel his lungs starting to burn and his throat felt just a little bit constricted. It wouldn't be a good idea to stay out here any longer than he absolutely had to.
TBC