Doctor Who
~ The Necrocite Plan ~
by Ghost Scribe
~ Chapter Seven ~
The Event Horizon
There was a clatter of gunfire from just outside the room, and an instant later half a dozen Necrocites fell to the ground, their bullet-ridden bodies twitching in spasm. The other thirty Necrocites stopped, looking dumbly at their fallen comrades.
'Kill the Doctor and his companion,' the Tula shouted, a note of panic sounding in her voice for the first time. 'Kill them now.' She knew she was now vulnerable. She was as susceptible to simple projectile weapons as the humans and Necrocites, and teleported away from the danger before one of those bullets penetrated her naked, unprotected flesh.
There were three more shots, and another three figures dropped to the floor. A small group of soldiers broke through and entered the centre of the circle, their rifles pointing outward. They were so young, Donna thought as her eyes darted from one to another. Each was attired in period British infantry uniforms. Five of them carried rifles. The other – the only officer among them, she presumed – carried a revolver. She recognised it. She had seen an identical weapon before. That gun belonged to her own grandfather, and she wondered for a moment where he might be at this moment. For all she knew, he could be one of these brave young soldiers.
'Would you be the Doctor?' the officer asked.
'Yep, that's me,' the Doctor replied. 'I think this is what's known as the nick of time.'
'Apparently so. I have orders directly from the Prime Minister to offer any and all assistance necessary.'
'Ah, good old Winnie. I knew he wouldn't let me down. I need you to... What's your name?'
'Corporal Lethbridge-Stewart, Sir. And would this be Miss Pond?'
'Pond? No. But I'm sure she'll be along sooner or later. No, this is... Lethbridge-Stewart? No! No-no-no!' The Doctor stared at the young man's face intently, looking like a child who'd just met Santa Claus. 'That's brilliant.'
'Do I know you, Sir?' the young officer asked, an edge of impatience to his voice.
'Yes. No. Well, sort of. Not yet, but you will. Long story. All a big wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey thing. Ever thought of growing a moustache, Corporal? I think it'd suit you.'
'I hardly think that is relevant to our current situation, Doctor. Can you apprise me of what it is my men and I are supposed to be doing?'
'Yes! Sorry, getting a bit carried away there. Corporal, your men need to drive the Necrocites – the zombie humans – into the ship. All of them. Once they're securely inside I can handle things.'
'The ship?'
'The big spaceship thing. The thing we're in at the moment?'
The young officer momentarily lost some of his composure as he realised that this was not in fact a building, but a vessel.
The Doctor continued after giving the soldier a moment to assimilate this. 'And Corporal: no guns. Don't shoot any more of them if it can possibly be avoided.'
'But Doctor-'
'No guns. The more of these who get shot, the harder it will be to save them.'
The corporal stared at him for long moments, and the Doctor stared back, his piercing gaze unwavering. In that instant, something passed between them. Maybe it was respect, or perhaps understanding; there was no way to tell. But suddenly the two men understood one another.
'Very well, Doctor,' he said, holstering his gun and gesturing to his soldiers to lower their weapons. 'We'll try.'
'Thank you. And Corporal?'
'Yes Doctor?' he asked as he kicked away a Necrocite's knees and disabled him with a chop to the back of the head.
'Keep this up and you'll make brigadier one day.'
More soldiers entered the room, and the young corporal began barking out orders. He was a natural.
'Come on, Donna,' the Doctor said as the troops started to take control of the situation. 'You and I need to go for a little walk.
'Where are we going?'
'We need to get back to the bridge.'
'How far's that?'
'About half a mile, straight up,' he grinned.
'Oh, wizard!'
-0-
'But where're you going?' Rose asked, tugging at the hem of her union flag t-shirt.
'I told you,' the Doctor replied, 'I've just got an errand to run.'
'Is it dangerous?'
'I'll be reprogramming the central computer in orbit around a black hole inside a giant Tula battleship, surrounded by zombies. No gas masks this time. What could be safer than that?' He looked up from the Tardis controls and grinned mischievously.
'Can I come?' she asked, relishing the opportunity to share yet another amazing experience with this extraordinary man.
'As if I could stop you.'
'What about me?' asked the nauseatingly handsome man in the RAF uniform.
'Not you. I don't trust you enough yet, Captain. Black holes are way beyond volcanoes.'
Captain Jack Harkness shrugged ruefully, but accepted the statement without argument. He knew that he would have to do a lot more to win the Doctor over.
The Tardis landed with its customary thump, all three occupants lurching and almost - but not quite - losing their footing. The Doctor made a quick check of the external conditions. Atmosphere was good and radiation levels were bearable, but it would be best if Rose weren't exposed to it for too long.
The two of them emerged onto a circular platform toward the rear of the warship. Any normal human would have gasped in awe at the sight that met them, but not Rose. She just gazed at it excitedly, flashing that child-like smile at him and biting her bottom lip.
On one side was the cavernous belly of the ship, filled with thousands upon thousands of cryogenic chambers. But within the confines of the circular platform was the power source for this giant spacecraft: a mass of swirling plasma revolving around a tiny point of utter, infinite blackness. The artificially created singularity was tiny compared to most naturally occurring black holes, but could still power the ship for a billion years.
'That's amazing,' Rose said, staring into the eye of the gravitational storm that raged just fifty yards from them.
'That's nothing compared to the untempered schism on Gallifrey. That's a hole in the fabric of reality where you could gaze into the time vortex.' He smiled ruefully at the memory. 'A black hole is a window into the dark. The time vortex is a window into the entire history of the universe... Anyway, no time to stand around gassing! Let's get this computer reprogrammed and get out of here before the Tardis decides to do a runner.'
