A/N thanks for making it so far! I still have no idea of how long this whole thing is going to be. Hope you keep reading.
9- Boomerang effect
Rose screamed from the top of her lungs.
"Doctor! No!"
The other stewards laughed.
"That would just be a waste of precious alien genetics. Not exactly top of our priorities", one said.
"Operation Bad Wolf is almost over. We will be sorry to lose a Time Lord, but that won't stop us. As soon as the eclipse starts, the message will be spread across the universe for the auction to begin".
Steward 79a, still holding the Doctor, looked at Zoe.
Quickly, she reached for the sonic screwdriver and pointed it to the control panel near the trapdoor, furiously switching settings. The buzzing intermitting sound turned continuous. Mumbling, she turned it at the gravity manipulator and called Rose.
"Rose, stay parallel to the exit! On the count of three, jump, okay? One... Two...". She turned the sonic screwdriver on and screamed. "Three!".
With a leap, Rose found herself dive through the opened trapdoor, where, much to her surprise, she hit one of the stewards.
Watching his fellow fall to the ground, the other took aim at Steward 79a and fired. Quickly, he pushed his gun and the Doctor away and reached for his belt.
He pushed another button, and the five Tulas instantly started glowing, and all of them vanished, exploded into atoms except for Steward 79a.
"What did you do?" the Doctor hurriedly asked him, as the Tula fell to the ground, his face starting to glow.
"Extreme measures".
"You're killing yourself! You didn't have to do that!"
"Doctor... the parking slots. It's not too late. The gravitational field...".
Zoe grabbed the gun and ran to the agonizing Tula, trying to hold him as he started to fade into her lap.
"No...", she whispered.
"You can still reverse it... before the eclipse starts... you can let everyone free...", were his last words, while he turned into a blue mist and quickly disappeared.
"What... what happened?", Zoe asked.
"The Tula species are gravity locked. Steward 79a released the lock. It's a self-defence mechanism, it affects who triggers it and the others close enough". The Doctor explained. "He did it to save us", he then added, gravely.
The girl was still looking shocked.
"He saved me, back when I was attacked by the others. He saved me and I was injured and he cured me and I didn't trust him", she ranted. "I called him blue", she carried on. "He saved me and I didn't trust him", she repeated.
The Doctor and Rose leaned over her, kneeled on the floor, and he put an emphatizing hand on her shoulder.
"He got me out of there, too?", Rose asked, gesturing to the trapdoor.
"No", the Doctor replied.
"Thank you, then, Doctor".
"Actually, Zoe got you out", he noted, signaling the girl with his hand.
"Oh, thank you", she gently said, looking at her. "Haven't I seen you before?".
She was still silent, mourning. The Doctor looked at Rose, inquisitively, then put an expecting hand in front of Zoe. "Let's go. We need to reverse the gravitational field and get the spaceships back, before the eclipse starts. You heard him".
Hesitantly, the girl put the gravity manipulator and the sonic screwdriver into his hand and stood up, following the Doctor and Rose, as he flashed up the 3d map again.
They easily reached the glass control room, still crowded with Tulas.
"Doctor, do you think you can reverse the gravity, once you're in?". Rose asked.
"It shouldn't be too hard. But these are mercenaries, I don't think they will just allow me to do it".
"Incoming, Doctor!", Zoe warned him, spotting two stewards coming from the corridor.
He fiddled with the gravity manipulator and watched in glee as they bounced from the floor to the ceiling and back a couple of times. The girls smiled at him and nodded. The third time they landed on their side, both of them punched hard on the back of their heads and they collapsed. Zoe grabbed the ear-piece from one of them and turned it on.
"Personell, maximum alert. Communications breach. Everyone reroute to the lower balcony", she hissed, faking a soft, professional Tula voice.
They heard everyone mutter in the control room.
"What?"
"Could it be command 31?"
"Command 31 is gone. Maybe something happened with the Parliament".
Zoe spoke again.
"Control, everyone reroute to the lower balcony. The prisoners are insurrecting. Everyone reroute to the lower balcony. Emergency", she blabbered, under the surprised look from Rose and the Doctor.
"Oh, I like her!", she nudged him, biting her tongue in a smile.
The stewards inside were still working.
"Impossible! The advertising message was just transmitted! They can't know!"
"It's the Galaxy Parliament, you idiot! Someone must have a communication device on the space station".
"You mean the Parliament knows what's going on?".
"Someone out must have warned them. Everyone, reroute to the balcony! Command 99, keep transmitting", someone instructed, and everyone rushed out of the room.
The Doctor, Rose and Zoe hid until they left and peeped into the room. Only three Tulas were left, busy working on the far side of the cylindric control panel. The Doctor sonicked the lock and the glass door slid open. They crouched to sneak in.
"Zoe, keep an eye on them. Rose, with me", the Doctor said.
Zoe turned so she could watch the room entrance and the stewards working at the same time, as the Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her to follow him along the complicated cylindric panel, far from the girl. She looked around grabbing a piece of metal for self defence even if she was still holding Steward 79a's gun.
"If I can just fix this...", the Doctor was thinking aloud, as he started working with his sonic screwdriver on a screen.
"Doctor, who's that girl, Zoe? Friend of yours?", Rose asked.
"Not sure yet".
"Funny. That's exactly what she said".
He sighed, turning his eyes to her without distracting from what he was doing.
"She... I don't know. She's from my future".
"What? Is she your girlfriend?", Rose teased him, nudging his arm.
"No! No! Not at all! She's just... trouble! I only met her once, and I don't think that's happened to her yet. Time travel is messy- ok, this is sorted. Now let's stop the advertising transmission, shall we?".
"Commander, something is wrong, look!" one of the stewards said.
"The parking slots are returning to the stations. Something is meddling with the gravitational fields!"
"Impossible! The controls are all here!".
Zoe waved a hand to the Doctor and Rose, keeping her eyes on the stewards as they passed to the wall to check the side of the cylinder where the pair was hiding, and they had just the time to spot them.
The Doctor and Rose jumped up, surprising them.
"Hi!", they said as one.
"What are you doing there? This is a restricted area! Steward 40, give the a-".
Mid-sentence, they fell to the ground, as something hit the three of them in the back of their heads, one after the other. Zoe, standing behind them, grabbed an l-shaped piece of metal mid-air.
Rose nudged the Doctor, smiling.
"Nice boomerang skills, your friend".
"Lived down under for a while- you done there?", she cut in.
"We need to stop the transmission, and send a distress signal to the Shadow Proclamation. This is serious political conspiracy", the Doctor replied.
"Seriously though, that was great!", Rose cheered.
"If I wasn't a vegetarian I could be some hunter, yeah", she smiled back, nodding, without noticing the cold look the Doctor gave her in hearing her words. "Hurry up, then. It won't take them long to see there is no insurrection whatsoever at the balcony".
He managed quickly to fix the transmission, and as they started walking out Rose watched out of the glass window. The dark space out was beginning to shine brightly, as the eclipse approached. Tiny capsules were coming back to the station from every direction. It was quite a suggestive image, Rose thought. The Doctor smiled at her side, relieved that his TARDIS was on her way back.
"Fantastic!", the Doctor exclaimed. "Off we go!".
They ran out and he sonicked the glass door locked to prevent the returning steward to restore their original scheme, and the Doctor picked up the 3d map.
"Can you get the map to show us where the stewards are?", Rose asked.
"Already done. got the frequency from their belts, now it shows them on the map. See? Now- to the TARDIS, then!".
They started running again, along the corridor walls and jumping at the intersections, until the Doctor stopped and both Rose and Zoe bumped into him.
"Incoming! Back, back!".
Stewards were coming from behind them as well, and they were surrounded at an intersection. Zoe pointed the gun at the stewards and screamed.
"Doctor, Rose, go!".
The Doctor and Rose ran down at the intersection.
"Doctor, we can't just leave her!", Rose protested.
"We're not! Zoe, get ready".
As soon as he saw her jump, he pulled a lever on the gravity manipulator and everyone in the corridor fell off to the opposite side, while she looked like she was diving from on top of them.
She landed in the Doctor's arms.
"You were so brave up there!", Rose smiled to the girl.
"Come on, the Shadow Proclamation ambassadors are almost here", the Doctor interrupted.
They ran past the balcony entrance and again they were surrounded by stewards, and one of them grabbed Rose, holding her neck, a gun pointing to her head.
"Doctor!", Zoe warned him. Terrified, he Doctor tried to reason with them.
"No need to shoot! Your plan failed, you can't sell the Galaxy!".
"Miss, put your gun down. Command, take aim" the steward replied.
Zoe shyly put her gun on the floor and kicked it aside, raising her hands.
The Doctor insisted.
"You don't need to shoot us! It's too late for your plan to work! The eclipse is starting, the gravitational field will expand and lock the space station!".
"At the count of three. One...".
Before he could get to two, Zoe grabbed the sonic screwdriver from the Doctor's hand and pointed it to the commander's belt.
They heard a buzz, and all the Tulas glowed and vaporized.
A blue mist was filling the air, as Rose caught her breath.
"Why did you do that for?", the Doctor angrily faced Zoe, her face blushing as she panicked.
"I... I wasn't thinking! They were going to shoot us!"
"You murdered them! Just minutes ago you watched that happen to your friend, and now you go and kill them all?".
"I'm sorry! I followed an instinct!".
"The sonic was on the stewards' frequency! You just killed every single Tula on this station!".
"I'm... I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say!".
"Then just shut up! You...Rose is right! You were brave up there, how come? A 21th century human, first time on a space station, you said, and off you go, kicking and punching and... killing! Again! You did this on purpose! How did you get the gravity manipulator to work?".
"The...I... I just made it work, I don't know! I only tried!".
"With my sonic screwdriver? I made it, I'm the only one who knows the settings! How did you do that?".
"I said I don't know!", she let out.
Rose was watching the two of them, a worried expression.
"Doctor... maybe she's just... a natural?". She hinted.
He didn't smile.
"Look, I'll have to go and talk to the embassadors and explain why there's not a single Tula alive on this ship. For once in your lifetime, both of you, don't wander off. Wait here".
Zoe was still, paralized. The anger in the Doctor's voice made her shiver. Rose placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, he'll come around".
"How do I know?".
"He seems harsh, but... you just made a mistake. He'll cope".
"I hope so. I'm lost here, I might need him", she said, her eyes wandering away. I am on a space station, and I don't know a single thing, she thought. Who's this Doctor? Or the pinstripe-suit-Doctor I met, for all that matters? How will I go back? Can I go back?
Rose stepped to the red curtain, and called the other girl.
"Look".
Zoe went to her side, peeking through.
"All these species, and... people. You helped saving them, and they never even knew they were in danger". Rose kept on.
A faint smile appeared on her lips.
"You were only trying to help them. You helped them". Rose's voice was kind and conforting. "Tell you what? You saved me".
As the girl turned to smile at her, the eclipse finally began, and the dark screen window burst into golden, green and red shades of colour, like paint scattered on a canvas.
A gentle, humming vibe resounded in the theatre, amplified by the shape of the building. The light and the power reflected by the galaxy, now fully shining, was the most beautiful thing Zoe had ever seen, and she stood petrified until it finished, overwhelmed by a thousand feelings. Lost in wonder, a tear fell from her eye. She didn't know how much time had passed when she heard the Doctor's voice.
"Time to go". She turned around, to see the Doctor and Rose standing outside the TARDIS.
"I'm sorry", she said again. Rose nudged the Doctor. With a sigh, he pushed the door aside to let Zoe in.
"Do you want to call your family?" Rose asked. "He's done this universal roaming thing, you can, uhm, call anyone anywhere anytime, if you want".
"Well I'm not doing that to her phone", he cut in, still angry at her. "I've had enough with Jackie Tyler, thanks".
"No risk, really", Zoe replied, somehow surprised herself of the relief she felt once she stepped again in the TARDIS. "I left my mobile on my desk in... 2008. Besides, got no family to call".
"I didn't know, I'm... I'm sorry", Rose replied.
"2008, you said?", the Doctor asked, his brains trying to figure out what that meant.
He never got his answer, and turning around to face her he was surprised by a sudden burst of golden light, only to find out - just seconds later - that Zoe had disappeared.
