Chapter: Eighth
To the Devil's Triangle
The teleport flashed a bright, brilliant white again. The Doctor lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the harsh glare, and a fluorescent heat passed over him.
When he lowered his hand, the room had darkened once more. Omicron, the two Shezniks, and Taryn had vanished.
Gamma turned to look at the Doctor.
The Time Lord sniffed deeply. "Well," he said. "Our next meeting with them won't be so cheery, will it? I'll be 'ready to die'. Always so dramatic, Daleks, aren't they?"
"Doc-tor," Gamma spoke softly, for a Dalek. "Da-leks do not forget their words."
"That a fact? Blimey, hope I've never promised one any money."
"Om-i-cron's threats are not idle!" Gamma said, his gravelly voice rising with emotion.
The Doctor's cheerful front faded. "I know," he said quietly. "But then I've been promised death so much it almost means nothing anymore."
Gamma looked at him incredulously. "I have not had such a privilege," he said, "of constant death threats."
The Doctor, who had been looking lost in thought, suddenly looked back at Gamma. "You know what," he said, "you're right. And I don't much like it when my friends are threatened."
Bright lights suddenly flared into the dark room, turning everything a fluorescent red. A long, low alarm began to howl above them, reaching a high pitch that made the Doctor's skin prickle. He spun around to look at Gamma. "What's that?"
"Detonation of Ixxa base: imminent," a calm robotic voice announced from the ceiling. "Calculating. . . calculating. . . ."
"Aah, that's it," the Doctor murmured, raising his eyebrows. "The Daleks set this base to self-destruct."
"WHAT!" Gamma shrieked.
"They gave us a time limit, but, yeah. Definitely going to explode. Makes sense, I guess. They've taken Taryn away now. She was the only one they needed."
"Three minutes until detonation," the pleasant voice said over the mournful wail of the alarm.
"Okay. Okay," the Doctor muttered, running both hands through his hair several times. "The Daleks knew we would be here, right?" He didn't direct the question at Gamma and continued speaking to himself. "Right. And then they gave us these. . . ." He thrust his right hand into the air, exposing the black circle of inky blood staining his palm. "Either a tracking device, or some sort of . . . I don't know. New fad? Cool circle tattoos? Permanent. . . permanent tattoos. Why bother with that if they were planning to kill us? Which means!" he said loudly as a new thought occurred, "which must mean they're planning on us still surviving this!" He spun on his heel and looked around the room with fresh, frenzied eyes. "Which means we have some way of a quick escape."
"Two minutes," continued the countdown from above.
The Doctor started pacing in a wide circle around the generator and spoke even faster, with fewer pauses for breath. "But why have this base explode, that doesn't make much sense does it, they spent ages of time and effort building this place, if we're going to survive this anyway, why stack on the pressure – AH! That's it! Pressure," he said, snapping both fingers and spinning on his heel to start pacing the other way. "Either the Daleks just want the stakes to be more exciting or maybe they believe the scientifically debunked myth that one's mental capacity operates faster while under periods of extreme stress. Of course, maybe they know a little bit more than humans do and know that that fact is actually true of Time Lords, cos my mind is on fire right now!" He clapped and started pacing the other way again, rubbing both hands together right beneath his chin. "So, what have we got? Locked door – well, make that two locked doors – and one. . ." he slowed down and looked at the generator, ". . . active and alive teleportation bay straight out of this very base. Still. . . still running and ready to go."
"Is the Doc-tor coming?" Gamma asked, his monotone voice sounding bored. The Dalek had already stationed itself on one of the teleportation pads and was calmly waiting for the Doctor to come to the same conclusion.
"Omicron never deactivated it, I'm assuming?" the Doctor asked.
"The generator never turned off!" Gamma said by way of response.
"Oh, yeah, and you just happened to notice it while I was very busy worrying about other things," the Doctor said, leaping onto his own pad. There were large silver buttons welded onto the generator, each directly in front of its own pad.
"These fire up each pod separately, I assume?" When Gamma nodded, the Doctor reached forward and hovered a palm over his button. "Shall we?"
Gamma nodded once with his eyestalk, and the Doctor pressed his firmly. It clicked in and stayed that way as the generator began charging up again.
"We are going to the Da-leks?" Gamma asked suddenly.
"Only destination that makes sense."
"Thirty seconds," the robotic voice chimed in from above.
As the light intensified, Gamma pulled away, leaving his teleport pad.
"What are you doing? Get back on!" the Doctor said, having to shout over the noise of the generator.
"I am not yet ready to die, Doc-tor," Gamma said.
"Gamma, you will die if you stay –!" The Doctor's vision blurred into white light, and he was teleporting, completely alone, his mouth open in a scream. "Gamma!"
Something hard and metal prodded the Doctor in the ribs.
He let out an involuntary moan and shifted slightly. His head was throbbing; he felt dizzy and thick.
The hard metal thing jabbed him again, poking into his bruised-feeling lungs.
"Arright – oy, watch it," he mumbled in protest. His eyes opened stickily, and light burned painfully against them. He blinked them shut again with a groan. Feeling like he was moving through cold molasses, he raised both hands to his face and rubbed the bleariness from his eyes. His chest hurt, and his fingers felt numb.
After a moment the fog in his head began to dissipate. As he opened his eyes again, the world cleared, bringing images into sharp, bright clarity.
The first thing he saw was a set of bulging golden eyes on a leathery-skinned head staring down at him, not blinking. It had a huge, gaping mouth that looked like a sieve. Startled by its close proximity, the Doctor cried out and pushed himself backwards. He could now see the rest of the creature, which was bipedal, covered in loose leather clothes, and had two hands that were holding onto a golden stick.
His eyes came fully into focus on the business-end of a shining gold rifle.
"Your name, business, and what you were intending sneaking aboard this ship," growled a low, throaty voice from behind the leather mask. Or rather, the gas mask, the Doctor corrected himself.
"Oh, I should have known," he muttered, letting his defenses lower with relief. "Human. Humans and their guns. What's the mask for, if I may ask?"
"'What's the mask for?' What's my ruddy mask for?!" the man hissed back, sounding truly incredulous. He reached one hand up to his gas mask to unbuckle it.
"That's about the gist of what I said, I suppose," the Doctor said, wary once again.
The mask fell away into the man's hand. He wrenched it away from his face, revealing a scarred, weathered face that looked to be in a very bad temper. One side of his toothless mouth was pulled up into a sneering grimace, closing his left eye in the process. His right eye, on the other hand, was sharp, intelligent, and an eerily bright blue, like radioactive crystal.
"I'd ask where your mask is, but there's no need, is there? I'm sure you were ruddy alright tucked away back 'ere, hiding in the pressure-protected engine room, your lungs safe from the toxic pea soup that's outside," the man continued in a snarl. "Right?"
The Doctor blinked and moved his mouth soundlessly. Even if he was still feeling out of sorts right now, the sentence hadn't made a crumb of sense.
The man jabbed the Doctor's ankle. "Git to your feet, or I'll blow 'em off."
"Alright, alright, no need to be hasty," the Doctor said. "Let's keep our heads. . . and for that matter, our feet. . . ." He stood up and raised both hands to his head.
"Sorry, I'm not actually quite sure how I got here," the Doctor continued as he looked around with a frown. He was in a small, tight room, paneled with a dark wood. There were several rattling, hissing, metal drums at one end of the room, lined up in a row and each as tall as the Doctor. Dozens of gleaming copper pipes connected to the drums and ran up the walls and into the ceiling, disappearing through holes in the wood. Steam hissed from weak joints in the pipes, filling the air with steam and making it hard to breathe. There was a door behind the man but no windows, making the room even more airless. "And. . . where is here, actually?"
"The solar system, planet Earth, middle of the Atlantic," the man said mockingly. "More importantly, the engine room of the pirate ship Cockatrice. I suppose you have a nice little story as to how you snuck onboard."
"Pirates? You're a pirate?" The Doctor looked genuinely happy for a moment. "Lovely. Always wanted to meet one. Sorry, I don't actually know how I got onboard your ship –"
The man facing him actually cocked his gun. "Nor do I. So you'd best explain yourself 'efore I lost my temper."
"Ey, ey, watch where you point that." The Doctor reached a finger forward and gently guided the gun's nozzle away from him. "People get hurt with those things, you know."
The man let out a snarl and swung the gun back to the Doctor, aiming purposefully for his throat. "Think that's the general idea."
The Doctor started to remember. "Wait, hold on, hold on, I was. . . I was. . . ." He groped for the memory, the word. Transporting?
Teleporting.
"OH!" His hands flew to his head. "Gamma! I'm so stupid! Gamma's –" He spun around to look around the room, but stopped short as more memories came flooding back to him. "Gone," he whispered, finishing the sentence. "He's gone."
A cold metal ring pressed the back of the Doctor's neck. "I wouldn't make any more sudden moves, mate. You stay right where you are or I'll blast you t' bits."
The Doctor didn't move. His mind was working quickly, retrieving everything he could remember from before waking up. The memories came firing back into his mind like bullets.
The generator.
The teleport.
Daleks.
Gamma –
Oh, Gallifrey.
After a moment, the Doctor slowly raised his hands again. "All right," he said quietly. "All right. If you'll just let me turn slowly round and reach into my jacket, I can show you who I am and why I'm here."
"Won't matter who you are if the captain don't want you here," the man grunted, but the gun pulled away from the Doctor's neck nonetheless. A hand gripped his shoulder and flipped him around quickly.
He winced at the swift movement – his body was still aching from the teleport – but his mind highlighted the man's last statement. "You're not the captain, then?" he asked, rubbing his shoulder.
A corner of the man's lip twitched in irritation. "First mate," he growled. "Big man's on his way right now to sort all this out."
"First mate, then. Brilliant. You can help me sort it out with him." The Doctor licked his lips and chose his words carefully. "Cos I'm hardly a stowaway. If I could get my. . . credentials?"
At the man's curt nod, the Doctor slowly reached into his trench coat pocket and retracted a thin leather wallet. "I am this ship's new. . . Overseer. It's a position above the captain, in charge of special cargo. Fairly recent sort of job popping up – there's not many of us around yet."
The man took the wallet from the Doctor with rough, scabbed hands and squinted at it.
Trying to emanate calm, the Doctor stared straight back into the man's blue eye. Up close, the Doctor realized the man wasn't closing his left eye – the burned skin on his face had scarred over it completely.
"Overseer, huh?" the man grunted as he pushed the psychic paper back into the Doctor's hands. "Sure. We'll see what the captain has to say 'bout that."
Heavy footsteps thudded against the floorboards overhead.
The man smiled, revealing shiny metal teeth. "Well, speak of the devil. Here he comes now."
"Stowaway, yeh said, Gork! Never had that happen on my ship before!" The captain's booming voice, like nearby thunder, sounded loud even through the door before he burst through it.
The door snapped opened on its hinges, and instantly the captain seemed to take up the entire space of the small room. He was tall, and about as wide around the middle. His belly swelled over a broad leather belt, which hung heavily from the weight of guns and a golden gas mask swinging from it. He had extravagant eyebrows and a long, rust colored beard that hung below his chest.
"But then I like me a new adventure." The man looked straight at the Doctor. Beneath his bushy eyebrows, his irises were gray, his pupils misty.
"Claims he's an 'Overseer', cap'n." The first man, who had had the Doctor at gunpoint, spoke sharply.
"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Gork," the captain said, never taking his eyes off the Doctor. "I'll take care of him from here."
Gork nodded curtly, reaffixed his gas mask over his face, and slipped out the door without even glancing back at the Doctor.
As the door clattered shut again, the captain raised one eyebrow at the Doctor. "Yeh're welcome to explain yourself well and proper now, before I decide what should happen to yeh."
"O-Overseer." The Doctor offered the psychic paper again. "New job, not many have heard of it. In charge of special cargo."
The man looked the paper over carefully. After a few moments he looked up at the Doctor again. The Time Lord tried not to hold his breath and offered a smile.
And the captain returned it. "Overseer, eh?" he chuckled, tossing the wallet back. "Hell, if we find cargo worthy of being called 'special', you can be in charge of it. Whadda we call yeh? Got a name?"
Relief made his smile widen more genuinely. "Doctor." He offered his hand.
"Cap'n." The man gripped it firmly and gave a hefty shake that traveled all the way up to the Doctor's shoulder.
"Right," the Doctor said, and blinked. "Captain what?"
The man let out a bark of a laugh and raised one eyebrow. "Doctor who?"
The Doctor grinned back at him. He was starting to like this man – at least more than his first mate. "Touché. Just 'the Doctor' will do, er, Captain. . . Cap'n."
"Just Cap'n! If it's not to much effort!" The man slapped the Doctor's shoulder. "Save your time and breath, and don't waste mine. Now, my ship set sail with fourteen and I know every mate down to the cabin boys. Do enlighten me as to how I missed yeh, or we'll just have to throw you overboard to keep that count."
The man's tone remained jovially pleasant, but the Doctor suddenly had a feeling he wasn't joking at all.
"Of course," he said quickly. "Forgive the intrusion on your ship. I came here by way of. . . ." He suddenly faltered. "What year is this?"
"3012." Cap'n said it as thirty-twelve.
"Right, of course." The number ran quickly through the Doctor's mind. Earth. . . human civilization. . . invention of teleport, year 2645. "I came from a teleport. Didn't mean to end up here, honestly. . . Overseers are in great demand, you see," he hastened to add. "I think I was supposed to end up somewhere rather different. The destination must have malfunctioned, or. . . ." He broke off again as a thought occurred. "Have you . . . have you ever heard of Daleks?" he asked carefully. "They're made of brown metal, they have gold spheres all over them, blue optics?"
Cap'n leaned back with a knowing glint in his eye. "Aye, I see," he said softly. "So yeh're treasure seeking as well? Heard the rumors onshore?"
Not quite what the Doctor had been expecting. His brow furrowed. "Rumors?"
"Nae? They'd best keep their Overseers more in check." Cap'n lowered his voice and leaned closer. "Well see, some folks have been talkin' – rumors, you know. Started when some members of a shipwrecked crew washed up on the shore from crossing the Atlantic. Apparently they were mad, scared outta their wits, the lot of 'em. 'I seen it,' each of them said. 'That Bermuda Devil in the sea.'"
Atlantic – the Bermuda Triangle. The pieces clicked together, piquing the Doctor's interest. He leaned forward a little as well.
"So the story went, their ship had been devoured by the sea. Some terrible beast had 'swallowed it whole,' they said.
"We tossed the story aside, 'course – them were just tall tales spun by madmen sick from the sea. Probably lost their ship in a hellstorm and felt shamed when they hightailed it straight outta their duties onto a lifeboat." Cap'n paused for a moment. "But then there came more stories. Each one the same – no extra embellishments, no fanciful details. All just looked scared – like they were scared to be alive, maybe. In every account, more'n half of the crew were missing. They all described the beast the same way."
Cap'n's eyes got a faraway sort of look to them as he recalled the details. "Three great big claws, they said. It's got hide like steel – nothing can get through it. Three blue eyes, round as you like, with silver pupils in 'em like pearls. Spines of pure gold – pure gold!" he chuckled, punching the Doctor's shoulder. "Pure profit!"
The Doctor didn't move. "Your first mate said we were in the middle of the Atlantic ocean," he started slowly.
Cap'n gave a sharp laugh, and it the noise was like a gunshot in the small space. "Well, I hav'n't told yeh the best bit!" he barked, swinging to his feet and stamping over to the door. His hand resting on the handle, he raised his extravagant eyebrows at the Doctor. "We're out to hunt the beast too!"
He swung the door wide open. Instantly, the salty scents of the sea swirled into the room in one gust. Outside, green and white waves crashed against each other, filling the air with wet, splashing sounds. There was absolutely no land in sight. The Doctor stared out, his eyes wide, bracing himself against the wall of the room.
No Gamma.
No TARDIS.
And a crew of pirates on a suicide mission at sea.
