The Doctor was sure that the TARDIS had finally reached an understanding with him. So far it had taken him to Spaceship UK, New, New York, and a handful of other places he hadn't intended on visiting. Each trip had been productive, solving a married of problems and even saving a few lives. All in all, he shouldn't be complaining.
He wasn't going to argue with the fact that his sexy, time-traveling, Police Call Box, had taken him to the places he was needed. Today they were going to make a trip to Leadworth. This was where Amy, his new companion lived. The TARDIS however, was beginning to fill with smoke. Red lights were blinking in an angry, fast paced rate, and alarms made the whole thing sound like it was going to explode. Not a tolerable situation for stroke victims.
"Doctor, precisely how much trouble are we in?"
Amelia Pond, Scottish born with extraordinarily sharp red hair, was finally beginning to show signs of worry. Her brown eyes were staring at him like she too believed the TARDIS was about to do something unpleasant at any moment.
"Amy, if we were actually in trouble, don't you think I'd tell you?"
"No," she came up the stairs to see what he was fiddling with. She pointed at the console. "Isn't that supposed to be attached there?"
"Of course, but it isn't, and someone has to do something about it. Would you like to give it a go?"
"Carry on then, see if you can't hurry it up though, I've kind of been looking forward to seeing Rory. It's been months, and you keep saying that we're going home, but we keep ending up elsewhere."
Rory Williams was Amy's boyfriend, possibly even her fiancé. At least that's what the Doctor thought from what she told him. He'd met the boy once, the small nurse didn't have much going for him, he was a bit mousy. Not talented or intelligent. The Doctor didn't know what Amy saw in him.
"DOCTOR!"
"I don't know!" He responded through the din of the alarms that seemed to continue getting louder. "I don't have a choice…let me try…this."
Closing his eyes to block out his inevitable doom, he pushed the super-secret, absolute last resort, fail-safe landing button.
The room went completely dark. The alarms ceased, he couldn't even hear himself breathing. Wait a moment, he was holding his breath. He slowly exhaled and opened his eyes. Amy was nowhere to be found. He called out her name and she came stumbling over to him, taking a firm grip of his left hand. He squeezed it tightly, not waning her to grow more alarmed than she already was.
"Come now, the TARDIS just needs to rest a spell."
With more years in his past than he'd like to remember, his keen knowledge of the TARDIS, he was very familiar with, yet did not claim to know every part of it. He carefully led her over to the doors. Hoping that they weren't stuck dead in space, he quickly flew open the double doors as if ripping off a band aid and walked confidently into the bright room. A surprised, yet firm male voice met his ears.
"Put your hands in the air and turn around slowly."
Luke Skywalker thought he'd been through enough for one day. Twenty-four standard hours ago he was complaining to his Uncle Owen, upset that he'd have to help out with yet another season of harvesting on the moisture farm. The two droids that had rolled into his life, C-3PO and R2-D2 were still with him even though he was light-years away from home. His Uncle Owen and Aunt Buru were dead; killed by storm troopers.
He met Ben Kenobi, the old man promised to teach him the ways of the force. They saw a message on the R2 unit from the princess of Alderaan, in it she asked for his help. On their way they were captured by a tractor beam that took them into a spaceship as large as a moon.
Ben had just left to go deactivate the tractor beam and had told Luke to stay behind. Han Solo, captain of the Millennium Falcon along with his first mate, Chewbacca waited for his return in a control room. Chewie was a wookiee, massive in size and mass. He'd met them only hours earlier in a Mos Eisly space port.
As things were getting awkward and boring again, R2-D2 tweedled something that the shiny golden translator droid C-3PO interpreted for them.
"I don't quite understand what the rust bucket is telling us. He keeps saying 'I found her. I found her. She's here.'"
"Who?" Questioned Han Solo, frowning at the droid. "Why is he even looking?"
The small astromech droid turned its domed head towards Luke and whistled loudly.
"R2-D2 says that Princess Leia is aboard, sir. Perhaps this is the same as Senator Organa, the one who was in the message R2 stumbled upon."
The beautiful, young female human from yesterday's mysterious hologram. She had asked a General Kenobi to help her. The same Kenobi that had just gone to de-activate the tractor beam.
"What's the princess doing here?" Luke asked.
"Who cares?" Han retorted, leaning back in the command chair and folding his arms behind his head.
"R2, can you tell us where she is?"
3PO listened as R2 beeped and whistled some more.
"The princess is on level five, detention block AA-23. According to the data on the computer, she is scheduled to be executed."
"Oh, no! We can't let that happen!"
"Luke," Han was exasperated. "Do you mind shutting down the droids; I'm trying to take a nap here."
"No, we've got to help her!"
"And why would we do…that?"
Han seemed to lose whatever thought was on his mind, and Luke did too. Both humans stared at a place in the command center that had been empty seconds earlier. A whirring and whopping sound faded in and out, and before them, impossibly, an object materialized out of thin air. It was a giant blue box. Luke studied the strange letters scrolled at the top, but couldn't read them.
"What the Bantha is that?" Luke asked, becoming more startled as he looked over and saw a shocking look on Han's face.
"I don't know, but whatever comes out of there, I'm blasting."
He watched as Han checked his blaster and aimed it at the door. Luke quickly moved behind him, he had no weapons and wasn't keen on testing his storm trooper blaster if he could help it.
The blue box opened and out came two humans. The male was dressed most peculiarly, in a suit and bow tie, with hair that dropped over his face. The girl had red hair, pouty lips and long, attractive legs. Han shouted at them to turn around and keep their hands in the air, they did so, seeming curious about their surroundings.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor and this is Amy," The man made the introductions without fear of the blaster pointed at him. "I don't suppose this is London? Year two-thousand and nine?"
"What's a doctor?" Luke had never heard of such a thing before.
"Well, technically they're healers, distributers of medicine and surgeons. I'm not that kind of doctor. People just call me the Doctor. You can too if you like."
"Oh," Luke said noncommittally.
"I don't care who the hell you are," Shouted Han, blaster aimed at the man's chest. "How did that, that thing get aboard?"
"The TARDIS, you mean? Well, that's a bit of a long story-"
"Doctor!" The girl, Amy, was irritated.
"Long story short, it over-heated. I hope. Other than that, given a few hours, I think she'll be more than ready to take off again. Sorry, did I interrupt something?"
Luke followed his gaze back to the small droid, R2-D2 was emitting a whistle to get their attention.
"Hello, aren't you gorgeous thing?"
The Doctor slowly dropped his hands as he walked over to examine the droid.
"He says there's a princess you need to go save and…yes…what was that?" Luke felt odd watching their interaction. Did this man understand what the droid was saying? "My little friend here says that you're working on a plan to get off this space ship called the Death Star? Now that doesn't sound very pleasant. Exactly where are we and the date?"
Seeing as Han wasn't eager on giving out free information, Luke explained how they had been on their way to Alderaan when they stumbled upon the space station. Now they were trapped until Kenobi took down the deflector shields.
"Then we have more than enough time to save Princess…" He waited as the droid verified the name. C-3PO was standing off to the side, unneeded as the Doctor didn't need a translator. "Leia. Yes, Let's go then."
"Hold on, we're not going to the detention level. If the old fossil doesn't get us out of here, we're bound to end up there. Let's not help the Empire by walking into a trap."
"It's not a trap if they're not expecting you." Interjected the Doctor. "Sounds like this princess Leia holds a lot of value, I'd like to find out why."
"No way. You agree with me, right Chewie?"
The large wookiee gave a positive grunt that made Han scowl.
"Alright then, that's four votes for and one against. Now all we need is a plan."
Expecting a situation far worse than the one they'd stepped into, the Doctor was happy that Han Solo wasn't pointing a blaster at him anymore. The two droids were exquisite; he'd never seen anything as beautiful as these two, not even the cybermen were this unique.
Amy tugged at his coat and he turned to look at her annoyed expression.
"Doctor, where exactly are we?" Her voice came in a low, but urgent growl. "I've never seen anything like this Death Star and it certainly doesn't sound like a place we should stick around. We should go."
"My dear Amy, I believe there's a bit more room to learn about this galaxy we've wondered into. After all, it was on my birthday list, I wonder if the TARDIS knew that?"
"This galaxy? You don't mean to say this is different from all the other galaxies we've been too?"
"Yes, Amy, we've been hurtled into a galaxy far, far way. I can't wait to find out what the food tastes like!"
"It's dangerous, isn't it? You're always telling me that we can't interfere with set points in time."
"Yeah, well, I think this time we'll be fine."
Amy looked a tad worried about his sanity. There was no need for this.
"This princess, she sounds important, therefore I think we should help, and then I'd like to know how the TARDIS managed to send us here, and why."
He scratched the back of his head, his brain was too full of questions. A new galaxy, no, it was more likely an old one. How hadn't the TARDIS taken him there before? Well, he'd find out soon enough. In this case, soon meant right now. He spun around, full of excitement and adventure again.
"Sorry, didn't get your names. Again, I'm the Doctor, and this is Amy Pond. This is our TARDIS, time and relative dimension in space. Don't ask, doubt you'd understand."
"Well, um, I'm Luke Skywalker." He stepped forward and took Amy's hand, not breaking eye contact with her. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Captain Han Solo and this is my first mate Chewbacca."
"Great, now who has a plan?" The Doctor looked at each of them and was surprised when the tanned, blond kid spoke up.
"We already have these storm trooper uniforms," he indicated the black and white armor he and Han were wearing. "If we take off the ones of the guys we blasted, you could be in disguise as well."
"Dead man's uniforms?" Amy asked, looking repulsed, the Doctor was proud that she felt that way as he did too.
"It's the fastest way, and it doesn't sound like we have much time. We'll pretend that Chewie is our prisoner and try to check him into the detention level."
"Yeah," Han mumbled, turning to his friend to settle hi down. "I guess you could've come up with something worse."
