Chapter 7:

Donna felt the palms of her hands prickle with sweat, whilst the inside of her mouth seemed drained of all moisture. She fixed her eyes on the small painted square on the floor- willing something-anything -to appear.

Suddenly there was aloud 'crack!' and a bright flash which caused her to close her eyes momentarily. As she opened them, she quickly focussed on the strange hunched figure now filling the spot in the middle of the hangar. It seemed to be human in shape, wearing a worn and mottled woollen cloak, with a battered black felt hat. On top of the hat was perched, rather surreally, a pewter tankard - some of the contents of which were now dripping down the sides of the hat. In its hand it clutched the brass compass.

As she took in this bizarre sight, the 'creature' raised its head, and she found herself looking directly into a pair of familiar deep brown eyes!

"...accurately!...Oh! Hullo!" said The Doctor, as he saw her standing there.

Donna felt a sudden rush of that complex emotion all mothers get when a lost child turns up safe and well. A mixture of bubbling joy, and anger at the fear and stress so recently experienced.

"What the Hell...?" she began, gesturing towards the hat.

The Doctor gingerly reached up, removed the offending item with its pewter ornament, and placed it carefully on the ground. He stood up, shrugged off the cloak, ran his fingers through his damp and sticky hair, and shook his head as if trying to dislodge something.

"Don't like time travel without a capsule!" he muttered, before looking back at Donna, who was by now standing with her arms folded and a thunderous look on her face.

"What on Earth were you doing with that?" she nodded at the sodden hat "on your head?"

"Robert and I were playing a game to pass the time - I was hours sitting in that field waiting for the rift to reopen!" he complained.

"A drinking game, by any chance?"

"Well- more of a 'spilling' game in my case!" he conceded.

It was at this point that they heard an ominous 'click' from the open end of the hangar, as light flooded the area. They all turned to find four UNIT soldiers, spread out, their weapons trained on the trio in the centre of the room. Slowly they all raised their hands.

"Move away from the equipment. We need total and immediate shut down - Colonel's orders!"

barked one of the men.

Karen stood up from behind the desk,and she and Donna moved to stand next to The Doctor.

The Doctor took a deep breath,

"Right!" His eyes darted from one soldier to another. "I am The Doctor - I must speak with whoever's in charge!"

"Dr. Harrison? They said you were in London." The first soldier responded.

"No!" chimed in Donna "He's The Doctor - your colonel will have heard of him even if you haven't!"

There was some hurried communication on the radios, before the soldiers led them from the hangar, and showed them into a small room at the end of the corridor. There they found the rest of the scientific team, still looking a little shell-shocked, and Karen went over to them, and began trying to reassure them.

Donna took the opportunity to fill The Doctor in on what she had learned at the Institute. The Doctor's main concern seemed to be the name.

"Saxon Institute - Harold Saxon?" he asked, starting to look concerned. "Why...? I'll have to find out what technology he gave them. And what it was he was trying to develop"

"They never really said what happened to him" Donna mused. "At the time they just said he was 'removed' What did that mean, I wonder!" She noticed The Doctor had that look of deep sadness he adopted when memories troubled him.

"Best leave it at that!" was all he said.

"The Colonel wants to see you!" A soldier interrupted their conversation. "Just The Doctor." he added as they both got to their feet.

"She comes with me" replied The Doctor, preparing to follow.

The soldier shrugged, and led them to a room across the corridor.

They entered to find the Colonel sitting at a desk, speaking on his phone. He looked The Doctor up and down, and spoke into the phone. "Skinny, yes...freckles...OK, looks like it then...Actually, yes." Here his gaze shifted to Donna. "Red hair, yes...Yeah, I imagine she would be...OK. Yes...I will! Bye!" and with that he rang off.

He addressed them both, "Dr. Jones sends her regards -said you should get in touch more often, in fact. You, I presume, are Donna Noble?" he said looking at her.

"Yeah, that's me!" said Donna with a note of defiance, standing shoulder to shoulder with The Doctor.

The Colonel turned back to The Doctor,

"Now, Doctor, it is of course a great honour to meet you! Could you perhaps give us some explanation of what is happening here, and your own involvement?"

"I was just passing, and got caught up -literally it seems- in their experiments. I'd like the chance to have a good look at the technology they're using myself, if I may?" he scratched the back of his head. "Could probably tell you a lot more about it after that!"

The Colonel came to a decision. "OK Doctor - you're probably the best person to have a look at it, after all - but you won't have to activate the machine ,will you? The readings we were getting at HQ were extremely worrying!"

"Quite!" agreed The Doctor. "We might as well make a start straight away - Allons-y?" and he indicated the door through which they had come.

Back in the hangar, The Doctor at first sauntered around the machine, hands in pockets, taking it all in. Then, donning his glasses and pulling out the Sonic, he began a closer inspection of some of the components, occasionally darting from one part to another. From time to time, a small 'Oh!' or 'Aah!' would escape as he studied various screens and dials. Eventually he went over to the computer, sonicked it into life, and began scrolling through the data on the screen.

"Very bad!" he muttered. "Oops- risky that!" he continued, shaking his head as new information came to light.

"So -what they're doing is dangerous?" queried Donna.

"Yeah! Meddling with Time..." he said, whilst tapping away on the keyboard.

"But we travel in Time all the time, Doctor." she ventured.

He stopped, and looked at her over his glasses.

"That's the difference, Donna -we travel in Time - these people have been punching a hole through Time - bound to cause instability in the temporal flux! And I'm worried what else they might try, if they work on some of this stuff for any length of time..." He looked back at the screen.

"OK!" he said to the Colonel, who had been watching every move. "Some of what they have here is dodgy - positively dangerous, in fact! But there's other stuff which, with a little tweaking, it's safe to let them loose on - could help advance the human race, in fact! I just need to talk to one of the team here - establish exactly where they can go with this!"

A few moments later, Karen was ushered into the room. The Doctor flashed her one of his brilliant smiles, and beckoned her over to the computer. As they became engrossed in some technical discussion, Donna wandered over to the sheep pen, and began to scratch the sheep gently behind the ear. She wondered what the sheep made of all this. Was it as blown away as she was when she first travelled in Time with The Doctor? Somehow she doubted it.

She heard a clatter behind her as The Doctor sprang to his feet, and darted over to the machine again, and began fiddling with controls. He lifted up some metal flaps, and appeared to be sonicking what was underneath. He tugged out some of the wires, re-arranged them, and attached them in new positions. At one point Donna was surprised to see him slip something round and orange into one of the compartments and sonic the lid shut.

At last he stood back, sighed and removed his glasses. He turned to Karen.

"I think I've got you back on track with your research - the teleport will now function purely in Space rather than Time. I should start small - a few feet at a time- until you get to grips with it! All the information you need is in the computer -I should spend some time assimilating that before returning to practical experiments!"

He nodded, and turned his attention back to the Colonel.

"A quiet word in your ear!" he said. Donna accompanied the two men to the far end of the hangar, where they all turned back to look at the great machine.

"Harold Saxon gave them some technology it's safest they don't have access to, so I've removed that, but left them enough to be going on with. It should all be quite safe now, but I should continue to monitor their activity - just in case!" he explained.

"And the satsuma?" Donna asked.

"Oh! Citric acid! Plays havoc with the circuitry! By the time they realise what's in there, it should have corroded away most of the microchips!" He gave her a lop-sided grin.

"I don't suppose the Tardis turned up did it?" he asked, suddenly serious again.

It was Donna's turn to smile. "For once, you can follow me, Doctor!"

A while later, as they opened the Tardis door, Donna stopped in her tracks.

"My hat! I left on Rachel's bed in the farmhouse!" she wailed. "Now I'll never be prepared for

'Planet Of The Hats'!"

"Donna!" sighed The Doctor, in mock exasperation,

"How many times? There is no Planet Of The Hats!

The End.

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