"Repeat: Alec Elms, head search party leader, deceased. Murdered. Ripped apart in front of our eyes."
The voice crackled out of a rusty radio on a desk in the centre of the room. President Randolph sat behind the table with his head in his hands. The other council members in the room, one young and one old, watched him nervously.
"Did you hear that?" said the voice on the radio. "We all saw it. Thirty or forty of them, maybe more! They swarmed him, and they ate his flesh, and we all saw it. So don't you dare send us another telegram about these things not being real. Don't you dare call them noth - "
"Turn it off," said Randolph suddenly.
The youngest council member jumped to attention and unhooked the radio from the hastily constructed generator which fed it just enough power to broadcast.
"Well, that's it then," said Randolph. "God help them all, because we sure as hell can't."
The older man, Thames, approached the desk. "Mr President," he said. "We've know that for days now. I don't know why you continue to torture yourself by listening to their broadcasts."
Thames was a long time council member. Unlike his younger colleague, he had worked for decades in the old Serenity House, former home of the council before it was demolished and its marble walls sold away.
"There has to be something we're not seeing," said the younger man. His name was Oli. He had entered politics not long before their own sun turned on them and, given the many losses the government suffered in the following days and months, had found himself quickly promoted to a senior council member. "Maybe we should try thinking about it from a different angle? There might be a solution we've been missing."
Thames patronisingly cleared his throat.
"With all do respect, Oli," he said. "The President has thought about this from every 'angle' possible."
"Indeed," said President Randolph bitterly. He stood up from his chair and walked around the room. "I've been thinking about this in my sleep. If we could just find some way to neutralise the - "
"Mr President," Thames interrupted again. "We have been over this and over this, and we have reached the same conclusion each time. These poor souls are a victim of circumstance. They are doomed, and nothing we do will help."
"Well," said a voice that none of the three men recognised. "Not with that attitude, no."
The Doctor gave Randolph, Thames and Oli a friendly wave as they quickly turned around to face him. Next to him, Ryan simply smiled politely, closing the door quietly behind him.
"Who the devil are you?" said Randolph in outrage. "And what are you doing here?"
"I'm the Doctor, this is Ryan, and we're here to turn those frowns upside down!"
"How did you get in here?" said Oli, eyeing the Doctor and Ryan and trying to work out if they were dangerous or not. "This is the Council building, and this is the President's office!"
"No offence," said Ryan. "But its not exactly Fort Knox. Unless Fort Knox was built out of plywood." He knocked lightly on the hollow wooden wall for effect.
"Anyway," said the Doctor, bounding over to the President's chair and sitting himself down in it. "It doesn't matter how we're here, all that matters is that we are here. Word on the street is, you've got a sticky situation, and we've come to help!"
"Hang on one minute!" said Randolph, gearing up for a Presidential rant.
"To help?" said Thames abruptly. "You say you've come to help?"
"Yes," said the Doctor brightly. "We heard about your situation, and came at once."
"Oh! Are you from the Shadow Proclamation?"
At Thames' words, Randolph gave him a quick and, Ryan thought, rather alarmed glance. The Doctor paused briefly, before smiling even brighter in response.
"Yes!" he exclaimed, delightedly. "That's exactly who we are!" He jumped to his feet and pulled out his psychic paper, which he presented to each of the three council members for inspection. "Look: Official Representatives of the Shadow Proclamation, Nerva Beacon Division."
"W-Well!" said the President, turning a bit flustered. "We must apologise for our outburst. Please, please, make yourselves comfortable."
"Thank you," said the Doctor, sitting back down. "But really, if you could just explain to us what the situation is, we'll get right to the saving."
"Well," said Randolph, stopping to look to Thames, who gave a reassuring nod. "First let me say, we're so relived you could come. We thought - I mean, we've been having trouble with our communication devices anyway - but we know the Shadow Proclamation is very busy at the moment, assisting the Quatral System in their defence against the Daleks, so the reason we didn't send a distress signal is because we really didn't think we'd get an answer. And we need to save all the power we can. You understand, of course?"
Ryan watched the Doctor stare strangely at the President for a second, then smile politely. "Of course. But as I said, if you could explain exactly what's happening, or even just point us in the right direction to the compound. Time is of the essence, as I'm sure you know better than us."
"Yes, of course," said Thames. "Give us a moment, and we'll find you a map."
He looked at the President carefully, and then they both left the room, with Oli following behind looking slightly out of the loop. The Doctor gazed at the door long after they'd passed through it.
"Strange. This planet didn't seem very big when we saw it from the outside, did it?"
"How do you mean?" asked Ryan.
"Well, it must be a very big map if they need three council members to fetch it."
Ryan gave him a cautious glance. "What are you thinking?
"Lots of things," said the Doctor. "That REM are excellent. That I've never been to Disneyland. That you've been with me for around three days now and I haven't seen you brush your teeth. But mostly, that something about the President and his colleagues is distinctly fishy."
The Doctor looked down at the desk front of him, riffling through the piles of paper that sat on it, and searching through the drawers. Ryan followed suit, walking around the room and looking for anything suspicious.
"So then," he asked the Doctor. "Shadow Proclamation?"
"A sort of intergalactic police force," the Doctor answered from under the desk. "If your planet gets broken in to, they're the outer space equivalent of phoning 999."
Ryan laughed. "You know I don't know whether to believe half the things you say."
The Doctor's head popped up over the desk and he gave a great grin. "Good philosophy. I lie lots."
"What about the Daleks?"
The grin fell away. "Long story. Scary story. I'll tell you about it some time, or you'll find out first hand more likely. We're due a run-in."
Before Ryan could press any further, the Doctor jumped to his feet and gazed at him.
"Ryan your house is on fire."
"…What?"
"Your house, it's on fire. Your Mother and Father are trapped inside, they're going to die." Seeing Ryan's face light up in alarm, the Doctor quickly added, "I'm speaking hypothetically of course."
Ryan's mouth hung open in disbelief. The Doctor moved swiftly on.
"Anyway, the house down the street is also on fire. Err, again: hypothetically." Ryan glared at him. "Only the house down the street caught fire ten minutes before yours did, the Fire Brigade are already there. You can see them from outside your house, you can see they're busy trying to put the other fire out. Tell me, would that stop you from calling them for help?"
"No, of course not," said Ryan crossly. "My house is on fire too."
"Exactly," said the Doctor, turning again to the door the council members left through. "So why didn't they at least try and call the Shadow Proclamation."
"You don't think they're as desperate as they seem?"
"On the contrary," replied the Doctor mysteriously. "I think they're trying to appear less desperate."
He seemed to suddenly change his focus, as the Doctor often did at the drop of a hat, and grabbed the radio sitting on the President's desk. Flipping the switch, he was rewarded only with audio static, no matter how he tuned it.
"Something tells me they don't have the Top 40 around these parts," Ryan told him.
The Doctor shot him an unamused glance, before producing his sonic screwdriver and turning it towards the radio. It buzzed and whirred, but still the radio was only giving out static.
The door opened again and the President and his council members entered once more.
"Right," said the President, carrying a dusty roll of paper under his arm. "Be aware that our landscapehas been undergoing certain changes over the last few months, so this map may not be as accurate as it once… what are you doing?"
"Just scanning," said the Doctor, still focused on sonicing the radio. "Seeing if anyone else out there is in need."
Thames immediately crossed the room and turned the radio off. The Doctor looked up at him in puzzlement. Both Thames and Randolph now looked more uneasy than ever.
"Is there a problem?" asked the Doctor..
"No, no," said Thames. "It's just… well, as you said, time is of the essence. Mr President?"
President Randolph quickly unrolled the map and spread it out on the desk.
"Here," he said, pointing to the top corner of the map. "The colony is based in an old mining hub. But the ground all around it is unsafe." He gestured to the area around the compound. "Huge pieces of land have collapsed inwards, making it impossible for us to mount a rescue operation of our own, given our limited resources. You have a ship, I presume?"
"Of course. Big, impressive, galaxy-class space ship."
"Ha!" said Ryan in response. Though when he found the three council members staring at him, he cleared his throat awkwardly. "I mean, yeah, big, impressive ship. Not a tiny blue box or anything."
"They'll have a barbed wire fence around the entry hatch," said the President, getting back on-topic. "Their only source of protection."
"No worries," said the Doctor. "We'll float right over it."
"How many are you, exactly?" asked the President. "How many men has the Shadow Proclamation sent."
"Just the two of us, for now," the Doctor replied, getting to his feet and straightening his tweed jacket. "Backup's at the ready if we need it. But why would we, eh? We'll just shoot over there, load up the peeps, and fly right back. Easy-peasy, right?"
Thames and Randolph very blatantly didn't reply, and Oli simply looked at his down at his feet.
"Right then," said the Doctor, cutting through the uncomfortable silence. "We'll be off. Lots of saving to do."
He started to make his away around the President's table, but as he passed, he flipped the radio switch back on. This time, there was no static. Instead, a horrible, gargling, seething roar came crackling out of the radio. Thames, again, quickly shut it off.
Ryan and the Doctor gave them surprised looks.
"What the hell was that?" asked Ryan.
Thames smiled weakly, slapping the radio on its side. "Oh, this thing's on its last legs, I think. All it does is give us audio interference these days."
"That wasn't static!" said Ryan emphatically. "That was something screaming." He looked to the Doctor for help, but found him simply watching the President's and Randolph's reactions.
"No, really," said the President. "It was nothing."
"So I'm not going mental here, am I?" asked Ryan when they exited the council building and set off towards the TARDIS. "You heard that too, right?"
"Yes, I did," said the Doctor. "So did everyone in the room, no question."
"Something's not right here. With the council."
"True," said the Doctor. "But we can look into that later. Right now, those people are in danger, and they need our help."
They finally reached the TARDIS, right where they had left it, and entered inside. The Doctor quickly walked up the steps and over to the console, dragging the monitor around to face him. "Pass me the map?" Ryan handed him the map they'd be given, and the Doctor waved his sonic over it for a few seconds. The TARDIS gave off a low, toneless beeping, and the Doctor sighed sullenly. "No good. The terrain's too messed up, the old girl can't plot any co-ordinates. Right then, better open the doors.
Ryan frowned. "Why?"
"Because," said the Doctor, reaching deep into his jacket pocket and pulling out a large ball of string. "We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way."
It was ten or fifteen minutes later when - with his eyes stinging and watering from all of the smoke, and when the TARDIS jerked unexpectedly (again), and Ryan nearly fell to his death (again) - that something long forgotten came floating back to Ryan.
"…Doctor?" he asked in an unsteady voice, clinging to the map with one hand, to
the side of the TARDIS doorframe with the other.
"Yes?" came the reply, over the noise of the TARDIS engines going into overdrive.
"Remember when we first met? When you crashed he TARDIS into the field by my house, and it was all on-fire and smoky and stuff? And you said it was more of a trans-dimensional ship, and not one that was really supposed to fly?"
"…yes?"
"Well, I suppose my central point is, if that is indeed the case, why are we making it fly?"
A piece of the console exploded. The Doctor dived to the floor, but quickly got back to his feet when he realised that, as the TARDIS was leaning to its side while in-flight, he had started to slide along the glass floor, where he would have flew down the stairs, hit Ryan, and they both would have tumbled out of the doors, and fell some 2000 feet to the crumbling, desert-like surface of this planet they were flying over.
Back on his feet, he gave a tug on the piece of string tied around his hand, which he'd carefully ran around the console so that he could pull in a certain way and press all the controls and levers he needed, without the other five pilots this ship technically required.
"How are we looking?" he called to Ryan.
"You haven't answered my question!"
"Oh, shut up. How are we looking?"
Ryan let out a frustrated growl, and tried to straighten out the map against the force of the wind. "Right. I think that mountain we just nearly crashed into is this one on the map, which means we're going too far off to the right."
"We're what?" the Doctor shouted over the commotion.
"We're going too far off to the right!"
"Who wants Anton Chekov a fight?"
"Turn left!" Ryan yelled.
"Alright, alright, no need to shout."
Ryan muttered something under his breath.
"Oi!" said the Doctor. "Watch your language or I'll turn this TARDIS around, young man."
"Oh, that you heard!"
The Doctor's retort was cut off by another piece of the TARDIS console flying into the air with a spray of sparks.
"Ow!" cried the Doctor. He held the point on his cheek were a spark had burnt him, then patted the console lovingly. "Come on, now. There's no need for all this. Just a little big longer, hang on. How's it looking, Ryan?"
Again, Ryan switched gazes between the map and his view out of the TARDIS doors, trying to pin-point their location as best he could. However, it was at that moment that the TARDIS chose to jerk violently, and in shock Ryan lost his grasp on the map. It fluttered about in his face for a second, as if cruelly, then flew out of the ship and out of sight.
"Ryan?" the Doctor repeated.
"Errr…" Ryan replied, knowing he'd just lost their only hope at finding the compound and looking for the best way to put it. And while he was deliberating, he saw it. "There! Doctor, I think I see it. Look, barbed wire fence, and there's all craters and holes in the ground next to it, like the ground's just fallen through."
"That's our compound!" said the Doctor triumphantly. "Right, then, let's put this baby on the ground."
He clamped the piece of string between his teeth and pulled with his head, as he needed both of his arms to see to other bits of the controls. Ryan nearly fell to his death for the seventh time in as many minutes as the TARDIS began to lean backwards and begin it's descent. He gripped the doorframe tightly and held on, watching with wide-eyes as the broken ground and the barbed wire fence got closer and closer.
"Doctor, aren't we going to slow or anything?"
"What?" shouted the Doctor.
"I said aren't we going to slow down?"
The Doctor looked at him, noticing the rapidly approaching terrain behind him for the first time.
"Ah. Yes, that's probably a good idea." He raced around the console searching for a button, only to find it slightly indisposed. "…Oh."
Ryan didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean, 'Oh'?"
"Nothing. It's just that the button that does the slow-y down-y stuff is sort of… on fire, slightly, a little bit."
"So what do we do?"
"Errr… well, crash, I suppose."
"What?" Ryan cried.
"Calm down!" said the Doctor, whilst looking thoroughly uncalm himself.
The TARDIS had started to shake violently now. They were plummeting towards the ground, and the wind and the engines were combining to make that 'neeeooowwwn' sound that planes usually made before they crashed into a ball of flames.
"Doctor, there must be something you can do?" said a terrified Ryan.
The Doctor tried prodding at the slow-y down-y button repeatedly, with small yelps each time the flames burnt his finger.
"Nope," he told Ryan. "No good. There's nothing else for it, time for crash protocol."
Ryan racked his brain, but found nothing. "You never showed me any crash protocol!"
"Well," said the Doctor. "Basically, it looks a little something like this."
And he dived over the railings that surrounded the TARDIS console, falling to shelter beneath the glass platform.
"Yyyyaaaaahhhhhhh!" Ryan screamed, slamming the doors closed in front of him and running for cover under the staircase to his right.
In the past few months, this world had received it's fair share of bumps and collisions, and this was as big as any of them. The TARDIS hit the ground in an explosion of dust and debris, and the unsteady terrain in this part of the planet became even weaker.
Inside the TARDIS, Ryan had remained in his foetal position under the stairs, shaking slightly and still in a state of shock. Gradually, he heard noises from underneath the console, and decided to crawl out of his own hiding place.
He stumbled out from under the stairs, and looked to the console, where he saw the Doctor climbing back up onto the platform - dishevelled but alive.
"Are you alright?" asked the Doctor urgently. "Anything broken?"
"No," said Ryan, though very quietly. His voice hadn't quite recovered yet. "I'm… I'm fine."
"Just tell me, tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it," the Doctor said.
"I'm fine, honestly," said Ryan, leaning against the wooden doors to support his unsteady legs
"Oh my goodness, look at you!" said the Doctor. "Don't you worry, I'll fix you right up, I promise."
"Doctor!" said Ryan, louder this time. "Really, I'm fi…"
He stopped when he turned around to face the Doctor, only to find him stroking the TARDIS's central column softly.
"There, there, old girl," he said tenderly. "You'll be fine."
Ryan just stared at him. It was a full minute before the Doctor noticed him.
"Oh. Ryan." he said, surprised. "There you are. All in one piece?"
Ryan continued to gaze at him for a second, then turned and walked out of the TARDIS, shaking his head.
Once outside, the Doctor again turned his attention to his beloved ship, wiping some of the debris off the doors with a handkerchief.
"Don't you have seatbelts or anything?" asked Ryan sullenly.
"Yes," replied the Doctor. "I really must get around to installing them one of these days. Ah, look!" he pointed to the barbed wire fence a few feet away, which was slowly falling to the floor. The hatch it protected opened, and a group of men climbed out, signalling to the Doctor and Ryan. "A welcoming party. That's always nice."
"No, it isn't," said Ryan, looking in the opposite direction to the compound, where he'd heard footsteps.
"Oh, come on. Look at them, they look friendly enough, and we're here to save their lives, what's not nice about that."
"No," said Ryan. "that welcoming party is nice. This one…" he pointed to where he was looking. In the distance, there was another group of men, only these ones looked far more foreboding, seeming to be hunched over like apes and breathing heavily. "…not so much."
End of chapter three.
