Chapter Two:

'Strax!' The Doctor spun around on his heels, the shot missing him by mere centimetres. His companion was seriously lagging behind him, the flares seeming to creep closer and closer towards him. Groaning, the Doctor doubled back, closing the distance between them.

'Come on!' he urged, pushing Strax forward a little. 'Shake a leg!'

'Sontarans are not made for running!' Strax hissed, lumbering along the dirt. 'We are made for fighting!'

'Well, when you can punch out a beam of light, let me know!' The Doctor looked up. The ship was still a fair distance away, and they weren't getting anywhere quickly. 'We're not going to make it,' he said with a heavy sigh.

'Nonsense! Only one of us incapacitated.'

'Alright, you're not going to make it, I was just being nice.'

'Doctor, you must leave me if you're to have any chance of survival.'

'Strax, shut up.'

'But if you leave now – '

'I said shut up! I'm not leaving you.'

Suddenly, they were both blinded by a bright burst light. Grimacing and covering his eyes, the Doctor squatted down.

The light died away. Slowly, the Doctor opened his eyes again. A wall stood around them, shimmering and wavering like the surface of a bubble. As each flare blasted against it, the light dissipated, causing a ripple to appear for a brief second.

'It appears to be a sort of forcefield…' said Strax, examining the spectacle. He reached out a hand, and watched the wall ripple as he touched it.

Already, the Doctor had his sonic out. He ran it around the base of the wall, in the circle it etched into the ground, and them aimed the device upwards. 'It's coming from the ship,' he said at last, facing towards it. 'Look.' Under the light of the sonic, the wall of the forcefield glowed bright green; the tube stretched back to the ship, ending at a small port in the side of it. 'Probably a tractor beam of some sort.'

'Which means someone is in there!' said Strax triumphantly.

'Could be autopilot, looking for Sontaran lifeforms in the area.' The Doctor folded his arms. 'Doesn't mean a thing.'

'Greetings!' boomed a voice down the forcefield. It was the pugnacious, snarling tones of a Sontaran. 'What is your name and rank?'

'Erm… The Doctor, and Strax.'

The voice waited a second. 'You are not a Sontaran, Doctor.'

'Nope, you've got me there. He is, though.'

'Very well. I shall bring you aboard now.' With a crackle, the voice shut off.

'He's going to transport us over,' announced the Doctor. No sooner had he said that did the forcefield begin to shrink around them. When it was practically skintight, it sucked them along, like a straw. Strax yelped in fear, but the Doctor whooped with childish joy, the landscape rushing past around them.

They reached the ship in a matter of seconds. Thankfully, the forcefield slowed before reaching the bulkhead, saving them from being crushed into jam. A section of the ship was flattened just in front of the door, allowing people to walk on it, presumably.

'How's that for a Christmas present?' asked the Doctor, grinning from ear to ear. Strax didn't answer. He was too busy at the other side of the platform, swaying and trying to hold back the motion sickness.

'Sontarans…' he said, through gulps of breath, 'aren't meant for flying, either, it would seem.'

Rummaging around in his pocket, the Doctor found a small pill, green and flecked with yellow. 'Try this,' he said, handing it to Strax. 'Should keep the worst of it away.'

Strax took the pill, thanked him, and swallowed. It seemed to do the trick; he stood up straight.

'You are no warrior,' sneered a voice beside them. The Doctor and Strax turned, to see a figure stood before them. It was the same face as Strax, but knotted scars and burns twisted the face almost unrecognisably. One of the fingers on his right hand was little more than a stump, and the left eye was burnt. 'A true warrior would not cower and whimper at such an event.'

'This is Strax,' said the Doctor, cutting him off, 'and I'm the Doctor.' He offered a hand. The figure looked at it for a second, then ignored it.

'Field Marshal Tork, of the Forty-Seventh Sontaran Battle Legion.'

A smug smile started to grow on Strax's face. 'Yeah, yeah, fine,' muttered the Doctor, 'you were right.'

Tork looked between the two, confused. The Doctor explained:

'We had a sort of bet going. He was saying there was a Forty-Seventh Sontaran Legion, I said there wasn't, whole big thing.'

'Then you were very unwise to do so. What is your rank, Sontaran?'

'Butler.'

'Butler? In what force?'

'Paternoster Investigations, London.'

'A Sontaran butler. The idea…'

'And I'm the Doctor. I know what you're probably thinking, but – '

'Yes.' Tork cut him off. 'You said.' He turned his attention back to Strax. 'What was your crime, for such a punishment?'

'Sorry, just making sure, the Doctor we're talking about here. "Oncoming Storm", "Time's Champion", "Vessel of the Final Darkness", "Ka Faraq Gatri." Any of these ringing any bells?'

'No.'

'My clone batch was defeated in battle,' Strax explained, 'and I was made to suffer to make amends.'

'Ah. I see. And your punishment was to serve others as a…' Tork wrinkled his nose. 'Butler.'

'I was a nurse. Then I died, and became a butler.'

The Doctor interjected: 'It's a long story, and we're being such bad guests, aren't we, Strax? Going on and on about ourselves… tell us about you, Field Marshall.'

Tork went to speak, when a siren rang. 'We must hurry,' he said, walking away down the corridor. 'Come!' his voice echoed from the walls, 'I shall explain as we go!'

'We have been fighting a battle with the creatures you encountered outside. We only know them simply as the Light. Little else is known about them.'

'Why are you fighting?'

'It is what we have always been doing, as long as we can recall.'

'How did you get here?'

'We don't know. As far back as our records will go – around ten thousand years – this ship has always been here, and has always been the base of operations.'

The Doctor brushed a hand over one of the panels. It was patched up with dozens of different metals and materials, like a patchwork coat. 'You've been doing some DIY work.'

'Repairs using local resources became necessary over time.' Tork's face darkened. 'The forces of the Light made sure of that.'

'So when they attack you,' asked the Doctor brightly, 'is that the Charging of the Light Brigade?' He waited for a reaction from either Sontaran. Neither said a word. Clearing his throat, the Doctor went on. 'Now here's the weird thing, you haven't heard of me.'

'You seem a rather egotistical being.'

'No, no, not that. Well, okay, maybe a bit that, but still, this would be… what, around the year 3000? So that's got to be a good couple Sontaran plans thwarted by me. Got to have heard of at least one. The Invasion of Gallifrey? Tiger Moth incident? Oh! Garundel!'

'You speak nonsense. There is only one Sontaran plan – to defeat the Light!' Proudly, Tork marched down the corridor.

'Doctor.' Strax urged his friend towards him. 'There seems to be a problem.'

'Yes, I've noticed it too,' agreed the Doctor. 'A Sontaran who doesn't know their own military history, that's like… like… see, it's so bizarre, there isn't even a simile to show just how bizarre it is.'

'But what does it mean?'

'If a Sontaran ship crash-landed here, they'd set up a distress beacon, wouldn't they? Get the reinforcements, especially if someone was attacking you. But they've been here for centuries, and they don't even seem to realise there's Sontarans outside of this planet.'

'So why come here?' asked Strax. 'And more importantly, why stay?'

'Yes. It doesn't make any sense.' The Doctor clucked his tongue. 'We'll be stuck here for a while anyway, those things outside will stop us reaching the TARDIS.'

'I have a theory, Doctor.'

'Oh? Go on.'

'Someone brought the Sontarans here for a reason.'

'What?'

'This Light, it is a formidable enemy. And the Sontarans are some of the finest fighters in the universe.'

'But there's Judoon and Ogrons who are much easier to control – you can just buy them off. Sontarans won't do anything unless it directly helps their war effort.'

'Which might explain why they avoided contact with the homeworld.'

'Yes, that's true. Either way, we're not going to get any answers by standing around like this.'

A sharp shriek of pain sounded down the corridor. The Doctor and Strax turned towards it, eyes wide. 'Tork?' called the Doctor. 'Tork!' The two of them ran down, following the sound of the cry.

They burst in a room the size of a warehouse. Half a dozen machines easily twenty feet tall each towered over them, struts and catwalks linking between them. Tork stood at one machine, massaging his hand.

'It's going into overload,' the Doctor said, checking the machine quickly. 'Where are all the engineers?'

'If the engine fails, the forcefields will shut down. The Light will get in!'

'Yep, yep, got it, loud and clear…' the Doctor said under his breath, heading for a ladder. He flew up it, clambering onto the strut.

'Doctor, that's the Neutrol tank!' shouted Tork. 'The liquid in there is over ten thousand degrees!'

The Doctor held onto a cable dangling from the ceiling. He bit through the rubber, reaching the wire. 'Just need to… reconnect the drives…'

Strax looked up as the tank started to rupture. Streams of bright blue liquid flowed out; a second later, it exploded, a dam bursting apart.

A/N: Please r+r, and see at same time tomorrow for part three!