Credit for the idea for this episode goes to BlueShadow4!
And I've been having a lot of computer troubles so it's a little bit iffy of when I'll be posting for the next few weeks. Love reviews, as always! :P A lot of these characters (Verdance and the Protocols specifically) come from a short story I'm working on for a summer assignment. :)
Project Kakoon Headquarters, Kakoon Asteroid, edge of the Ginnungagap time rift.
"You hire Judoon guards?" the Doctor asked incredulously. The Protocol didn't look around and continued marching forwards, with the Doctor trailing in its wake and inspecting the dimly lit prison.
"Keep up," the Protocol droned. The Doctor smiled. "I've been in lots of high-security prisons. Asteroids seem like a favorite spot, this one's a bit different. Any activity from the innmates and the place falls into the rift, am I right?"
The Protocol nodded once, its head moving jerkily as it continued down the hallway. The dark, helmeted figure moved in a tight lockstep, following the fluorescent line painted along the hallway.
"Does it really, though? Your boss won't want to drop us all straight into the untempered vortex without a good deal of provocation. And I bet it's not a hair-trigger system, maybe just a few cells with the most dangerous characters. Since you're taking me to my cell now, that means it must not have been fully set up, so nothing much will happen if I do this-"
Turning sharply, the Doctor started to run down the nearest hallway. Shoving her curly purple hair out of her eyes, the Doctor glanced back at the Protocol. It was moving quickly, but not as quickly as she was. And if she could get off of the fluorescent yellow line, she should be safe from Protocols. The Doctor also wasn't sure if the purple hair was a good look on her. The blue had been much nicer, she'd go back to that as soon as she could get the purple out. Might be a few days, though.
THE EDGE OF TIME
By Gakorogirl
There was a flash of light behind the Doctor and she ducked. The wall above her melted with a low hiss.
"Careful with that!" she called back at the Protocol. Find the third cell in the Green corridor. The door is reinforced with three seals, but nothing the sonic shouldn't be able to handle. -The Far Traveler
The note, enclosed with a set of coordinates for the Kakoon Asteroid, had almost certainly been written by Jack, and the Doctor really hoped she wasn't risking this nice regeneration for him. She really did like the fluffy hair, even if she was a bit short.
There was a door in front of her. With a glance back at the Protocol, the Doctor soniced the control panel and the door swung open. After darkting quickly through the door, she closed it again and locked it. As she ran down the corridor, she noticed that the yellow line had changed to green, and slowed down. This hallway was less well-lit, and there were cameras everywhere. Too many to take out one by one with the sonic, so the Doctor waved at the closest one and activated the glass-shattering frequency. With a splintering sound, the camera lenses cracked, and the Doctor hurried on.
The third door was black, not matched with most of the other drab grey doors. Made of some other metal, the Doctor supposed. "Now, who's in here..." she murmured. It took a few moments to open each level of the seal, and the Doctor heard the clang of metal as the Protocols broke down the door from the Yellow hallway.
There didn't seem to be anything in the cell at first, just a small, slumped figure chained to the wall. It looked up, and the Doctor peered into the darkness. "Hello?" she said. "I'm the Doctor, someone sent me to find you."
"Lorel," said the small thing. It sounded female, and as the Doctor's eyes adjusted to the light she could see that she was a dark reddish color, with scales on the face and hands. Small pearly horns poked out of a mane of greasy hair. "Are the Protocols coming?" Lorel asked. "I could fight them, if I were just loose," she added.
"Lorel, have you ever heard of the Far Traveler?" the Doctor asked quickly as the stomping of the Protocols drew closer.
"Yes. I know him," Lorel said. "He mentions you often," she added. "Or someone else with your name, is it a title?"
"Nah, I change how they look," the Doctor said. "Are you afraid of the Protocols, Lorel?"
"No," Lorel answered. "They can't hurt me. They can just keep me in here."
The Protocols were almost to them. One droned, "The Doctor must step away from the cell. You are to be escorted to the Overseer." Shrugging, the Doctor held out her hands. Behind her, Lorel pulled on the chains connecting her to the wall.
"Fine then, maybe I want to talk to the Overseer." the Doctor said. She mouthed, I'll be back, at Lorel.
Verdance the Overseer was perched on his chair when the Protocols escorted a small, dark-skinned woman with bright purple hair into his office. "Is that the Doctor?" he asked.
"She identifies as such. Species seems to be Gallifreyan." the lead Protocol responded. Verdance really needed to find a new voice for the Protocols- one that was still intimidating, but didn't grate on his nerves so much.
The Doctor was talking. "Who is the prisoner in the third cell in the Green corridor?"
Verdance checked his records. "Apparently you were attempting to get to her? She's dangerous, Doctor. But then, so are you. Did you turn yourself in for the purpose of finding her?" Shrugging, the Doctor replied,
"I was told to find the innmate in the third cell in the Green corridor. Turning yourself in is always the fastest way to get in jail. Less troublesome than waiting to be arrested, too."
With a sigh, Verdance pulled up an image of G-312 on the screen embedded in his desk. "A child. Her mother was of an unidentified species, and her father appears to have been of Terran origin. Do Terrans tend to have a high healing factor, Doctor? Perhaps you can help us figure that out."
"A high healing factor?" the Doctor repeated, raising her eyebrows. "I can't think how that would happen."
"Yes, did you not hear me? None of my experiments have managed to isolate anything in her genetic code that would lead to her amazing healing capacities, and I was wondering if it was something I'd overlooked."
"Temporal energy, possibly." the Doctor said. "Did you say you were experimenting on her?"
Verdance shrugged. He didn't see much wrong with his statement, although G-312 was younger than the usual inmates. "She broke onto a space freighter, badly injured several of the crew, and then escaped from any age-appropriate prisons, often leaving fatalities. She's a dangerous criminal, and by the sector laws she has forfeited any right to better treatment."
"That's not a license for you to do experiments on her," the Doctor snapped, and Verdance sighed again. Prisoners were so hard to deal with sometimes, especially the ones who still had their own moral codes.
Lorel waited for a long time before the burning wreck of a Protocol crashed onto the floor in front of her cell and the Doctor sprinted in, her bomber jacket flapping behind her. "Glad to see they didn't manage to close those doors," the small woman panted as she pointed her glowing instrument at Lorel's chains. The chains snapped open, and Lorel clambered to her feet. Her legs hurt from being used after so long.
"Thanks," she said. There were another couple Protocols striding down the hall towards them, with Verdance the Overseer behind them. Lorel wasn't afraid of the Protocols, but after so many months locked up her Verdance made her skin crawl.
"Doctor?" she asked. "Do you have a way out?"
"Um, I'm really not sure," the Doctor said anxiously. "I can distract Verdance, if you need me to, but the Programs aren't going to fall for it."
"I got the programs."
The Doctor released a crippling burst of noise from the glowing thing, and Verdance curled up and covered his ears with his nobbly talons. Lorel sprinted forwards and grabbed one of the Programs, yanking it off its feet and slamming it to the ground. The next two tried to fire some bursts of energy at her- most missed, but one glanced against her skin and left a blistering line across her shoulder. She grabbed the Protocol responsible and tore its head off, squinting against the shower of sparks. The burn on her shoulder still hurt like hell, but it was less sharp than it had been a few seconds before. Lorel tackled the other Protocol and dug her fingers into its control panel, yanking out handfuls of wire as it crumpled to the ground.
Verdance had climbed to his feet again and was running down the hallway. Lorel laughed and punched the air, and the Doctor grabbed her shoulder and pulled her out the door and down the hall.
Alarms began to blare around them, and the big steel doors began to slide down at the ends of the corridors. "Hurry!" the Doctor shouted.
"Are we falling into the rift?"
"Not yet we aren't," the Doctor said grimly as they ducked under another door. Lorel gasped.
"What about the other prisoners?"
"I can't help them, Lorel, I'm sorry. Here, this is the right corridor," she said, checking the vibrant blue line embedded into the floor. "I really am sorry, though. If it helps, it might be better for them to be torn apart by the temporal energy in the rift than to spend the rest of their lives stuck here."
"Yeah," Lorel said as the Doctor pushed her inside the TARDIS.
"It's bigger on the inside," said Lorel, as she gazed around at the inside of the TARDIS. One of the Protocols banged on the outside of the door, rocking the interior slightly, and the Doctor started up the launch sequence.
"Yeah." the Doctor answered as she raced around the console. "So, there's some spacetime coordinates I need to drop you off at. Meet up with your dad, I suppose. Or the Far Traveler, or whatever. Seems a bit stilted to me, The Far Traveler."
"My dad? How did you know?" Lorel asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Only human I've ever met who had that kind of healing factor," the Doctor laughed, indicating the healed scar along Lorel's shoulder. The rest of her skin was crisscrossed with faint white scar lines. "It wasn't a big secret."
Hooray for short chapters! Lorel will be important at some point, if not in the finale of this season then sometime in the next one. I hope you guys liked it, and don't forget to go check out BlueShadow4!