CHAPTER 11
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A STAR IS (RE)BORN
"That's it! That must be it," Clara suddenly said instantly catching Martha's attention while she searched the warehouse.
"What is? What did you find out?" Martha asked.
"One of my other selves used to work for UNIT decades ago, and she told me about a strange metal ball that fell from the sky one day. Whenever it came into contact with anyone, it radiated intense heat and possessed them. The possessed host would have glowing eyes and kept telling everyone to hide the ball as deeply as they could. It seemed to be completely terrified of someone or something, and it wouldn't answer anyone's questions to it about anything. It just kept telling them to hide it over and over again so they did. Then they had no more trouble from it, and everyone just completely forgot about it," Clara explained.
"It didn't kill anyone?" Martha asked surprised.
"No. It seemed to be completely benign from what I, I mean she, can remember," Clara said.
"It must be very confusing, not to mention upsetting, for you sometimes having so many lives in your head," Martha said sympathetically.
"You have no idea," Clara said sadly.
"Where is it?" Martha asked trying to quickly change the subject and get Clara's mind off of it.
"In that box on the far right side of the room," Clara said pointing directly at the one she meant as she stood in the TARDIS' doorway.
Martha removed the box from where it had sat for who knew how many years and opened it. Just as she was about to put her hand inside and pull the metal ball that she saw inside of it out though, Clara shouted, "No! Don't touch it! It's probably still able to possess people."
Martha nodded as she mentally kicked herself. She was reacting automatically and hadn't been thinking at all due to being very nervous and upset from all of the noise that the possessed Doctor was making as he continued to slowly burn through the door. All of the tension from the Doctor's rapidly approaching threat was finally starting to get to her.
Martha hurried inside the TARDIS with the box, and Clara closed the doors. Polly woke up just in time to see Martha set the box down.
"Is that what the creature wants?" Polly asked as she looked at it curiously.
"I think so. It's the only thing that makes sense. I think that inside of that ball is another sentient star," Clara said right before she quickly explained her echo's story to Polly.
"So what do we do now?" Martha asked as the three women stared at the metal ball.
"Let's ask it," Clara said as she suddenly surprised the others by picking up the ball.
"You told me not to do that not two minutes ago!" Martha said concerned.
"Yes, but I'm used to having other people in my head so maybe it won't hurt me so much. Besides Rose said I was safe as long as I was in the TARDIS," Clara said.
"Those other people are all you, and I'm not sure even Rose could foresee you doing something this stupid," Polly said worried.
"Stop being my mum, Pol. So far I'm just fine. I was hoping I would at least hear something from the thing inside of this, but I guess it's been too long. It may be dead now," Clara said thoughtfully.
Suddenly Clara's eyes began glowing, and she screamed in pain. Polly and Martha both jumped back from her at once as they prepared to run for their lives.
The entity now possessing Clara said," I'm sorry for her pain. I won't stay inside of her for too long if I can help it. I needed to talk to you though, and she was the only one of you available to me."
"What do you want?" Martha asked in a voice that shook with fear.
"I won't hurt you. I hesitated before I entered this one's mind because I didn't want to hurt her either. It's necessary though because of what I must now tell you. You must not let Targanji have me or he will use me to cause untold suffering to billions of beings," the star inside of Clara said.
"That's the other star, right?" Polly asked feeling a little safer around the possessed Clara now than she had a minute ago.
"Yes. I am the living essence of a star in another corner of the galaxy just as he is. I detached my consciousness from the rest of me and placed it within this carefully prepared metal ball that I had constructed to hide it inside in order to get away from him. I regretfully controlled various beings to create the ball and then transport it with me inside of it as far away from Targanji as possible. I was then set adrift in space far, far away from my home. I thought that I would be safe floating in the darkness there but I was wrong. I was soon caught in this planet's gravity and found by your people. Thankfully though, I made sure that I was well hidden in this place. Until now that is," the star answered.
"Why does this other star want you so bad though?" Martha asked.
"He wants to take me back home with him and combine with me to wipe out an entire solar system filled with people. He wishes for both of us to purposely burn ourselves out at once and to then turn into black holes as a result that will wipe out everything around us in our home system, and I refused to do so. I will not kill innocents that depend on me to survive," the star explained.
"Why does he want to do that though? It doesn't make sense. He'll die too, right?" Polly asked in confusion.
"Normally, yes. He has been given a way to escape that though. He has been offered a new existence in an immortal humanoid body in exchange for wiping out our home system. He fears his eventual death, even though it is still millions of years away, so much that he's willing to kill billions upon billions of lives in order to save himself plus he wishes to have the same sort of existence as your people have. He has been tempted by your world, and now he will not be satisfied until he becomes a part of it and gets the life that he has now been dreaming of for untold millennia," the star said.
"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Who offered him all of this and why?" Martha asked.
"Someone called the War Lord. She wanted to tap into the power from the two singularities that the both of us together would create once we became black holes and use them to create an incredibly powerful counterpart to the Time Lords' Eye of Harmony. She wants their power to help her turn the War Lords into the new lords of time and space. So far I have denied her that," the star said.
"We'd love to help you escape from him, but we can't get our ship to leave. It refuses to unfortunately," Polly said.
"I should be safe inside of here. He won't dare to enter your ship because it already contains a piece of the Eye of Harmony inside of it. The presence of the pieces of two stars so close to each other is not a good idea. My main essence is contained in this metal sphere and poses no such threat while his is not," the star said.
"He didn't seem to think it was a threat to him earlier when he was trying to burn through the TARDIS doors," Martha said.
"Yes, but the nature of this vessel and how it alters the perceptions of others in order to hide itself prevents the Eye of Harmony inside of it from being noticed by even beings such as ourselves until we are already inside. Once he opened the door, he would know not to enter it or risk blowing both it and himself apart along with everything else in this area of the universe. As long as you stay inside of the ship, you will be safe and so will I," the star said.
"That's why Rose wanted Clara to stay in the TARDIS. She knew that Clara would pick you up and become possessed by you, and that you wouldn't know that there was safety inside of the TARDIS because you wouldn't sense it. Then this other star would probably kill Clara to get to you. It makes sense now," Polly realized.
"I'm glad it does to someone. So what do we do now? We can't stay in the TARDIS forever, and she refuses to leave," Martha said.
"That's what Clara already asked me. I know that the running has to stop now. I must remove the threat that I pose to my home system once and for all so I can't be forced to die by Targanji. I know that he would overcome my will if given enough time because his will is stronger than my own. I tried to stop him by running, but that didn't work. I can see that now. I have to take a stand here and now. It's what I should have done in the first place, but I didn't want to die," the star said in a sad voice.
"Whoa! Wait a minute. Who says that you have to?" Martha asked as she now felt protective of this star despite having been frightened of it only minutes before.
"I do. He won't quit coming until I no longer exist. I see that now. At least my destruction would be for the greater good and hopefully save all of you from him. I'm sure that he will leave your friend as soon as he senses that I'm gone," the star said.
"No. There has to be another way," Martha said.
"I agree. This doesn't have to end this way. Is there any way that we can destroy him?" Polly asked.
"No way that you possess I'm afraid. I will have to disperse my consciousness now as I will myself to die. Goodbye," the star said sadly as it left Clara.
"No," Clara said as soon as she was freed.
"Clara, are you okay?" Martha asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. She was trying very hard not to hurt me too much," Clara said as she looked at the metal sphere in her hand in despair.
"She? That's funny. I thought it was a she somehow. I don't know why," Martha admitted.
"I learned a lot from her while she was in my head. She's the other star's sister. They were both created or 'born' at around the same time. Her name's Toranga. She doesn't deserve this. She really was trying to save lives because she cares about her system's inhabitants," Clara said as she wracked her brain for a way to save the benevolent star.
"Toranga, if you can still hear me, I have a question. Can your brother sense if you're still alive or not as long as you're in the TARDIS?" Martha asked.
"It's okay. Use me," Clara said and then her eyes began to glow again while she gritted her teeth in pain.
"I'm sorry, Clara. I hate doing this to you. As long as you keep the door closed, then he won't sense whether I'm alive or dead. Why do you ask?" Toranga asked.
"I have a plan. I just hope that it works," Martha said.
She ran to the TARDIS' communication system and said, "Toranga's dead. She destroyed herself rather than letting you use her to kill others. There's nothing left for you here now so why don't you just go?"
The door to the warehouse finally gave way at that moment as the star possessed Doctor broke through it at last. He began to laugh as soon as he came inside.
"I don't believe you. If she were going to do that, then she would have done it long ago instead of running. Give her to me or you will burn along with your precious Doctor," Targanji said.
"I have proof of it. She asked me to record her death and show it to you so that you would believe it," Martha said as she crossed her fingers.
Clara used the TARDIS to project a hologram outside that showed an image of the metal sphere that contained Toranga suddenly melting into a puddle of goo and then even that disappeared completely within a matter of seconds.
"See? She's gone. So you can leave our world now," Martha said.
"How do I know that what I just saw is real? You could have easily faked it," Targanji said.
A hologram of a blonde woman with glowing eyes appeared now, and he recognized his sister inside of her as she began to speak to someone that he couldn't see off screen.
"I told you that it wouldn't work. Thank you for trying to save me but now it's time. I have to do this. It will fix everything," Toranga said.
Then he saw Toranga walk up to the TARDIS console and open a part of it as the other two women shouted at her not to. He watched in horror as the power of the Vortex came flowing out of it and consumed her and the body that she wore. The hologram immediately faded away, and a bright light poured out from under the doors of the TARDIS as he heard several screams coming from inside of it.
"No!" a woman's voice screamed in what he recognized was the screams of the dying.
"I can't believe that she actually did it and that she took the rest of them with her. I never would have thought her capable of it. Very well then, Doctor. I'll leave you. It seems that we have both lost something here today," Targanji said in a defeated and disappointed voice.
Then the glow faded from the Doctor's eyes, and he stumbled weakly toward the TARDIS screaming, "What have you done?!"
He opened the doors to find a shaking but otherwise unharmed Polly holding the metal sphere and a guilty looking Clara and Martha trying to comfort her as the Heart of the TARDIS rapidly sealed itself up behind them. Clara was holding the metal sphere once more because Polly had handed it to her at the very last second to avoid it being disintegrated too and probably killing them all.
"You're all alright," the Doctor said as he quickly hugged all three of them.
"I'm so sorry, Pol. I told you that you didn't have to," Clara said.
"I had to do it for it to be believable. It was the only way to get him to believe that Toranga had actually destroyed herself.
"You had the star take you over and then exposed yourself to the Vortex in the hope that it wouldn't kill you for good," the Doctor realized.
"Yeah, that was the idea. We hoped that if we pretended to fake Toranga's death once that he wouldn't think that we would fake it twice especially if he could actually see the light from the Vortex coming from the doors and heard our fake screams," Clara said.
"Mine was real. I was really afraid that we had lost Polly for a minute there because she didn't come back for a while after she was disintegrated," Martha said upset.
"You're lucky that she didn't die for real. Her immortality came from the Vortex and being exposed to it might have been enough to undo it," the Doctor said disapprovingly.
"I'm alright, Doctor, other than the trauma of being completely disintegrated and then coming back to life of course," Polly said shaking all over.
"I'm sorry. I should have been stronger and fought him off," the Doctor said in a guilty voice.
Clara's eyes started to glow as Toranga said, "You couldn't have held him off. His will is too strong. I know that from personal experience. I just want to thank you all for helping me. Now I will go back into the metal sphere permanently, and you can do with me what you will, Doctor."
"I think I know just the thing to do with you. I have just the place to put you," the Doctor said as he quickly took the sphere away from Clara because he didn't like seeing her in pain.
"And where is that exactly? Please tell me that we didn't save her life just so that she can spend the next couple of decades stuck somewhere again like she was in UNIT's warehouse," Clara said indignantly.
"I agree. I didn't go through all of that just for that to be what happens to her," Polly said.
"I'm not letting that be what happens to her. Surely you could do something better than that for her, Doctor," Martha said.
"Well, look at you, Martha Jones. You've gone from being completely terrified of her species to becoming protective of her," the Doctor said with pride.
"Of course I am. She's so sweet," Martha said.
"Well, what are you going to do with her?" Clara demanded.
"You'll see. I think you'll like it. At least, I hope you will anyway," the Doctor said grinning.
The Doctor walked back into the corridors of the TARDIS and disappeared for several minutes. Martha looked at Clara and Polly as if to ask what was going on, and they both shrugged since they had no idea what he was up to.
The Doctor returned dragging an Auton body along with him, and then took both it and the metal sphere outside.
"It's better to do this out here instead of in there. A completely released Toranga and the Eye of Harmony being so close to each other is definitely not a good idea. Here's a new body for you that you can't possibly hurt, Toranga. I hope you like it. I made sure that I picked a female one that looked nice because I know that women like that sort of thing," the Doctor said.
Toranga completely left the sphere for the first time in decades and entered her new body. The body came to life and the others suddenly couldn't tell that she wasn't really a human being. She even sounded real.
"This is amazing. It's just like being human, and I'm not hurting anyone. Are you sure that I won't melt this body though?" Toranga asked.
"Ordinarily you would because Autons are very susceptible to heat but I've been working on that one. I made it much more resistible to heat than the average Auton. I'd still try to keep from becoming too hot though just in case," the Doctor said.
"So where are you going now that you finally have a body?" Martha asked Toranga.
"I don't know. I don't know anyone here but you," Toranga said looking worried.
"Well, why don't you stay with us and work for UNIT? It'll be a first for us to have an actual walking, talking star be one of us. In fact, I have a team where I think that you'd fit right in. A lot of them are unusual in some way so you might not feel so out of place there," Martha said.
"Thank you, Martha. I think I will," Toranga said.
"Don't let Donna hear you say that she's unusual. She wouldn't like it too much. Trust me on that," the Doctor said cringing at some long buried memory.
Martha laughed at him as a mental image of Donna clobbering the Tenth Doctor popped into her head. She was sure that he had said plenty of things that Donna wouldn't have liked while she traveled with him. He was always speaking without thinking first and could be quite rude.
"Why in the world would you be trying to find a way to improve on the Autons for?" Clara asked the Doctor.
"I just decided to see if I could or not. It was a challenge to myself," the Doctor said.
"You did it when you got bored once, didn't you?" Clara asked knowingly.
"It was while you were trapped back in the past, and I didn't feel like going anywhere. I had to do something to keep from losing my mind. I also worked on a Cyberman head. I called him Handles. He's still around here somewhere. Maybe I'll let you see him sometime," the Doctor said thoughtfully.
Clara shook her head at him and smiled as she said, "I'd love to. Only you would keep a Cyberman's head for a . . . pet? companion? Whatever it is, that's just so you."
"Thank you," the Doctor said smiling and completely missing the implied insult.
"He never really changes, does he?" Martha asked laughing.
"No, he really doesn't. He was the same back when I first traveled with him too," Polly said.
"He's completely thick and absolutely oblivious to everything going on around him. And you know what? I wouldn't have him any other way," Clara said hugging him and kissing his cheek.
Next: Rose returns to join the Doctor, Clara, and Polly as they investigate a ghost ship that the TARDIS comes upon by accident that's just floating lifelessly through space. What happened to its crew and what horrible secret lies hidden inside of it?