2021
"Explain to me again why it is that we ever listen to you!?"
"Shut up, Jack!" Ganbri shouted back, breathless and half laughing. "I'm the oldest!"
"Being the oldest doesn't make you smarter, you know!" Annie argued. Her legs were shorter than his and she was beginning to fall behind. J.J. was the smallest out of the three of them and yet he was somehow the fastest, but he fell back so that he could grab Annie's hand and help her along. He probably should have thought of doing that himself.
"Fine, then it's because I'm a Time Lord," he answered. "Everyone knows that Time Lords are smart."
"That's racist!" Annie barked at him.
Something wet and sticky hit him in the back of the back of the head. It was probably one of the many bulbous yellow fruits hanging low from the trees around them. If he had fallen back to stay with Annie instead of racing ahead as fast as he could, she wouldn't have been able to throw it at him.
Ganbri liked Jack—he really, really did. But sometimes that kid just made him look bad.
"We're going to be in so much trouble because of you!" Annabelle screamed, managing to pick up the pace a little bit.
"If we don't get eaten or squished first!" J.J. added angrily.
He wanted to answer with something smart, but when he looked back to give her his best cocky grin, he saw the trees behind them bending and swaying like grass in the wind.
Okay, so maybe this wasn't the best idea.
"Keep up!" was all he said instead.
Puara was a planet famous for its vast jungles and extensive wildlife. Tokrah had been talking about visiting it for ages now but Banni had always argued that it wasn't safe for children. This year, it had finally been decided that the kids were old enough to properly understand danger and not wander off on their own.
So really, it was his parents' fault for making such wild assumptions.
The creature chasing them was absolutely enormous—the height of a giraffe with the muscle bulk of an ox. It roared loudly enough to make the ground rumble and its many limbs knocked trees over the way Ganbri might push a small branch aside. But it was impossible to really be scared of it—it was just too cute.
The ghorex, which is what Tokrah said it was called, had three sets of black eyes stacked on top of each other that were far too huge and shiny to be creepy. The velvet soft, baby blue fur with the occasional purple polka dot made it look more like a stuffed toy than a dangerous animal. Its four short, stubby legs with massive, clawless feet made it look a bit like a baby, despite its gigantic size. Its two dozen or so flexible, trunk-like upper limbs flicking about to pick up objects and hold them protectively close reminded Ganbri of the behaviour of a squirrel or hamster when they've found something particularly delicious. And the way it occasionally had to flick one of its large, floppy ears out of its eyes was simply adorable.
Tokrah had told them that the ghorex was a gentle herbivore, but dangerous if it felt threatened, and that they were to only watch it from a distance and not disturb it. So they had watched it, wandering slowly about, collecting small treasures that it found. Tokrah said that some of what it collected was food, but some things it took simply because it looked or felt or smelled nice to be hoarded away in the nest. The great, walking plush toy looked so happy and content as it popped fruit into its large, gaping mouth while cradling armfuls more against its body.
It probably wasn't a good idea to steal from it.
"Jack, can it climb?" he shouted over his shoulder.
The animal was huge, yes, but some of the trees in this place were even bigger. It was possible that some of these trees could have supported its weight, and it was also possible that those flexible arms could be used to pull it up the branches.
J.J. had a talent for understanding what an animal was capable of judging by its body or the way it behaved. He had expected the Alreesh boy to look back, take a second to judge, and then report. He hadn't expected him to stop, run back towards it, and then take a sharp turn to climb one of the bigger tree species.
The ghorex roared with rage at the tiny being darting about in front of it, and slammed its massive bulk against the tree the moment Jack had leapt onto it. The tree shook aggressively but its thick trunk stayed rooted and J.J. scrambled up to the higher branches.
Annie stopped running and was turning around to go back for Jack, but Ganbri grabbed her hand and dragged her along behind them. Jack was much faster than they were and he would catch up quickly enough.
They could hear the creature roaring in frustration as they gained some distance. Branches snapped and the tree could be heard straining as it took on weight, but he never heard the cracking and groaning of the tree falling over.
It was probably less than a minute of them running away from the storm of noise, but it felt like much longer. Annie was shouting at him again, calling him stupid and all other manner of things. He was too focused on getting her away from that crazed monster to care. He was so focused on that, that he almost didn't notice when Jack silently returned to his side, barely breathing any harder as he ran.
"Nope," Jack said simply.
"Then we need a really big tree."
Jack didn't say anything. He just sped up, darting away from them with his inhuman speed. The earlier distraction had gained them some distance and so, for the moment at least, it seemed that running would suffice. But it was catching up quickly . . .
"If we climb up a tree, we have to come down eventually," Annie reminded him, huffing as she ran. "It doesn't fix the problem!"
"It will give me time to think," Ganbri answered a bit sharply.
"Could have done that earlier, couldn't you?"
Jack reappeared, running straight towards them. "Left at the jagged rock," he reported quickly and continued on past them.
Annie shrieked for him to come back and Ganbri glanced over his shoulder just in time to see J.J. flinch with hesitation. Jack found it difficult to ignore the words of a female, whether it was an adult or a little girl like Annie, and Ganbri was sure that it was even harder for him to leave her when she was scared. For a second, Ganbri thought J.J. might actually come back and run with them, but the moment of hesitation passed and he ran faster towards the ghorex.
"We have to get him!" Annie shouted, slapping hard at Ganbri in an attempt to make him let go of her. "Ganbri, I mean it!"
"He knows what he's doing!" He knew she'd be furious with him later, but he tightened his grip and kept running. If he had to hoist her over his shoulder kicking and screaming, he would.
He didn't look back again, but he could hear the ghorex roaring with newfound rage. The rhythmic thumping of its feet striking the ground changed to something more chaotic and random. Jack was likely running around it to catch its attention and distract it while he got Annie to safety, and he was fast enough that he could get away on his own.
Probably.
He saw a boulder with sharp edges facing the sky as though it had pierced its way up through the earth, or perhaps like a trap waiting for something to fall upon it. He turned left and saw the tree just ahead, with a trunk nearly three times the width of the others around it.
Once they reached it, Annie pulled her arm free and climbed up it quickly. Small grooves in the bark made easy hand and footholds and it didn't take long for them to reach the branches. They climbed higher and Ganbri began scanning the ground for signs of Jack.
The Alreesh was nowhere to be seen, but the trees around them swayed with movement. The ghorex had left the path they were running on, which meant that J.J. likely had too.
"You can't just let him run into stuff like that!" Annie barked, eyes frantically searching. "He's too little, Ganbri!"
She wanted to cry, he could tell. He'd seen Annie cry lots of times before but it seemed that, ever since they brought J.J. home, she tried not to anymore. He saw a thin layer of wetness glimmering over eyes and then watched as she bit her lip hard and forced them to go away.
"I didn't tell him to do any of that," Ganbri answered, trying to sound perfectly calm. "All I did was ask if he thought it could climb trees. He did the rest himself."
Her eyes were hard with anger when she looked at him. "You know what he's like."
He couldn't help looking away from her. "Sorry," he muttered quietly.
The next couple of minutes were tense and silent. Annie grew closer to tears the longer they waited and even Ganbri began to get nervous that he had overestimated J.J.'s speed. The ghorex had stopped running, out there in the trees. It could mean that J.J. had gotten away and it had given up the chase.
Or it could mean it was eating him.
After another minute of awful silence, Annie whispered, "Do you think—?"
"He's fine," Ganbri interrupted firmly. "He's coming."
But what was taking so long?
Annie sniffed once and shook her head, disguising the action by bunching up her hair in her hands and tying it in a ponytail. "So what is that stupid thing anyway?"
Ganbri had almost forgotten the small treasure he had stolen and immediately started checking his pockets. His hands fumbled, trembling slightly from the combination of nerves and adrenaline, but he managed to pull it out without dropping it.
While everyone else was staring at the ghorex and its odd features, or the enormous and exotic plants it was picking its way through, Ganbri noticed this tiny tool being clutched greedily against the beast's fur. The device was obviously homemade, with its wires poking out in loops with only small and ill-fitting pieces of metal to act as a sort of casing. A small, disc shaped piece of silvery metal sat on the end of it like a tiny antenna and, when Ganbri pointed it forward, the device fit comfortably in his hand with all the buttons within easy reach of his fingertips.
"Looks like Uncle John's screwdriver," Annie said, looking at it carefully as Ganbri held it out. "Do you think there were Time Lords here?"
Ganbri shrugged his shoulders. "Someone who liked to make things anyway."
"I guess if it were a Time Lord, it would probably look better," she added thoughtfully. "My dad could probably make one better than that."
"Well, we are in a jungle," he answered, feeling slightly defensive of the little thing. "It's not like there are a lot of mechanic shops around here." No matter how shabby it was, it was something familiar and so he liked it. Besides, it was obviously very useful to whoever had owner it judging by the marks of wear all over it. You don't use something that often if it doesn't work well.
He didn't know what it was about the strange little thing that had driven him to steal from an animal as massive as the ghorex. Some part of him that still spoke with a very small child's voice wondered if the ghorex would let him trade it back for Jack.
Time ticked by. Minutes felt like hours and the silence of the jungle around them pressed on his ears like a scream. Annie grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight.
He kept thinking that he should go looking for Jack, but he also knew he couldn't leave Annie alone up in the tree. He got up and carefully walked along the branch, stretching out as far as he dared to get different views of the area around him. What if Jack was just at the base of the tree and was too tired to climb up? What if he was hiding just a little ways off?
He leaned a little further, stretching his hand out against another nearby branch, causing the small device he held to push into his palm. A high-pitched and extremely loud buzzing sound filled the air, like a million angry insects. Annie shouted and covered her ears while Ganbri lost his balance and almost fell from the tree.
"Turn it off!" Annie shouted at him. "What is that!?"
He flipped the thing over in his hands, wincing at the horrible noise it made, until he found the switch he'd activated and turned it off. Even with the noise stopped, Ganbri felt like he could still hear it buzzing angrily in his head.
"Mum and Dad might have heard that," Annie said, glancing hopefully out at the trees. "Maybe they'll find us?"
"Yeah," Ganbri agreed quietly. But who else had heard?
Trees began moving a short distance off. They weren't bending beneath the weight of something monstrous, but the leaves swayed back and forth as if something small and quick were rushing past.
Ganbri's hearts beat a little faster. Was it J.J.?
Then he saw more movement and realized that whatever was moving towards them was being followed. Ganbri stretched forward again, squinting desperately at the moving foliage for a glimpse of something in between.
It was just a flash, but it was enough—bronze skin with patches of golden brown fur.
"It's him!" Ganbri announced happily. "It's Jack! He's coming!"
"Where!?" Annie jumped up at his side, leaning over dangerously far to get a good look.
Whatever was chasing Jack wasn't as fast, and he was quickly gaining distance. He should make it to the tree safely. All the same, Ganbri caught himself holding his breath.
Then suddenly he was there, scrambling up the branches as though he'd done it a thousand times before. J.J. had begun to lose his "baby fur" as he called it in the last couple of months, but whatever running and chasing he'd been doing had definitely sped up the process. There was noticeably less fur than before and there were even a couple of tufts clinging to his shorts as he moved.
He wasn't sure what he expected to happen when Jack got to the top, but it wasn't for him to grab Annie's hand and start running down the branch. Ganbri scrambled after him, glancing over his shoulder to try to catch a glimpse at what they were running from.
"There's someone down there!" J.J. said between gasps for breath. "Some woman. She tried to take me, tried to make me lead her to you guys. I was hiding where she couldn't reach me, but I couldn't leave."
They had run clear across the tree and were nearing the ends of the branches on the other side. Ganbri began to feel nervous but he trusted in Jack's instincts and followed him anyway. Those golden eyes scanned the branches carefully and then he switched direction, pulling Annie behind him with Ganbri bringing up the rear.
The branches creaked threateningly as they crossed, but did not break. They were able to jump to the next tree.
"As soon as I heard that sound, I knew it had to be you guys," J.J. continued. "I think she did too. She left me alone and starting moving towards you."
"Who is she?" Ganbri asked, looking back again to see the swaying of branches behind him. "What does she want?"
"Ganbri, turn that thing on again!" Annie called out suddenly. "Mum will hear it!"
It was tricky to follow the perilous path that J.J. was taking them down and to play about with the device in his hands, but Ganbri managed it. He flicked the switch, and that terribly annoying sound roared through the trees again. Uncle Shaun had been teaching him a bit about morse code, so he flicked the switch in an S.O.S. rhythm as he leapt from one tree to the next.
A moment later, he could hear Banni's screwdriver answering.
J.J. changed directions slightly, taking them over thinner and thinner branches. He could hear branches snapping in the trees behind them and was sure that J.J. was trying to pick ones that weren't quite big enough to support an adult's weight.
"Ganbri!"
That was Tokrah's voice, closer than where Banni's screwdriver was sounding off from. He didn't have to say anything before J.J. changed direction again.
"I see them!" That was Uncle Jack.
J.J. couldn't help himself at that point. He was a brave little kid and Ganbri really believed that he could do just about anything, but he got scared too. As soon as J.J. heard Uncle Jack's voice, a tiny, frightened sounding whimper escaped him and he slowed down.
Getting down from the trees was not nearly as easy as climbing up had been, but at least they weren't in as much danger of falling. Ganbri looked up as he scurried down and caught sight of the woman chasing them. She was very dirty and covered in leaves and things, which made it hard to see her properly, but he could tell that she was built to run. Probably built to fight too.
They reached the ground to see Tokrah and Uncle Jack running towards them. J.J. held Annie's hand and pulled her behind him until they were only a few feet away, then abruptly let go of her and jumped up onto Uncle Jack instead. It wasn't until Ganbri saw the way he quivered slightly or breathed so hard that he realized J.J. was close to crying. It was really hard to remember how little he was sometimes.
"What happened?" Tokrah's voice boomed.
Ganbri and Annie were quickly pushed behind the two adults and Ganbri watched the way their eyes scanned the trees expertly. Jack held J.J. protectively against his chest with one arm and held a gun raised and ready with the other. Tokrah's knees were bent as though he were ready to pounce on something and he had a wicked looking curved knife in each hand.
Ganbri didn't remember seeing them bring any weapons off the TARDIS.
J.J. blurted out a rushed explanation of being chased by some woman in between gasps for air. Uncle Jack patted his back a couple of times and his hand came away with a clump of fur between his fingers. Ganbri felt a nauseating wave of anger roll off of him after that and he cocked his gun.
"These your kids?" a voice called out to them from the trees. "Got to say, kind of a dangerous place to let them run around, isn't it?"
"What's it to you?" Jack shouted back, his back stiffening.
"Ohh, the angry papa-bear type," the voice replied teasingly. "I kinda like that."
"Lady, this one papa-bear you're not gonna like, I promise you that."
Tokrah held out one hand, touching Uncle Jack gently on the arm before moving back into his defensive position. "No harm's been done yet," he said clearly and with a measure of calm. "You can leave now. We won't come after you."
She laughed and it was a light, almost magical sound. "You say these things as if I've done something wrong." She appeared then, looking down at them between two tall branches with eyes like glowing emeralds. "I saw a bunch of kids alone in the jungle, being chased by ghorex and I was supposed to, what, just stand by? I found that little one by himself and he ran from me and hid under a bunch of rocks. I told him I just wanted to help. Said I'd help him find his parents if he just told me where the other kids were hiding."
"I don't know her," J.J. hissed quietly. "She chased me."
"When you have your teeth," Jack answered him in a whisper, still holding his gun at the ready. "No one will ever chase you again."
But Tokrah looked less certain. His knives had lowered slightly, though his eyes were more aware than ever.
"Shall I come down?" the woman asked next. She sounded like she thought this whole thing was great fun, with the ghost of a laugh in her voice with every sentence.
"Come down," Tokrah answered quietly.
She bowed to him gracefully from her perch in the branches and then swung her leg down. Where Ganbri and the others had climbed down, she simply slid as easily and controlled as though she'd been doing it her entire life, and landed on the ground with barely a sound.
"Quite the diverse little family you two have got," she said casually, picking leaves from her golden hair as she stepped towards them and gesturing towards J.J. with her chin. "I like your youngest; he's got spirit."
Now that he could see her in the light, Ganbri could see that she was quite pretty. She wasn't very tall, but she was lean and covered with clearly defined muscle. Her blonde hair was long and shiny but her fingernails were short and dirty, and she wore a tool belt along with her makeup.
Tokrah said nothing, but Ganbri felt a shift in his emotions. His arms relaxed a little more, but his back stiffened. He stared at the woman intently, but he still didn't speak.
"Your other boy's got something of mine though," she said cheerfully, leaning forward on her knees a bit to get a good look Ganbri. He suddenly felt very small and childish, hiding behind his father's legs. He grabbed Annie's hand so that he it would look like he was protecting her instead of hiding.
"Hello, Champ," she said with a shining smile. "That little toy you found? I made that. I was actually following that animal, waiting for a time to sneak it back. Give that back to me and we all can leave happy."
"Ganbri, what is it?" Tokrah asked him quietly, trying to look over his shoulder without looking away from the woman. "Is it a weapon?"
"It's a . . ." Ganbri turned the device over and over in his hands. "I think it's a sonic screwdriver."
"That's right," the woman said warmly. "Clever little man, aren't you?"
"What's your name?" Tokrah spoke suddenly, his voice a little softer than before.
She stood up straight and eyed Tokrah carefully. "Why should I tell you?"
"My name is Harry," Tokrah answered, lowering his knives as far down as his hips now. He nudged Uncle Jack with his elbow until he reluctantly followed his lead and lowered the gun. "This is my son, Ganbri. This is my friend Jack Harkness and his ward, J.J., and this girl is my friend's daughter, Annabelle. The rest of our group is not far off, including Ganbri's other father. Most people know him as the Doctor."
The woman's eyes flicked to Ganbri immediately, then to the device he held in his hands. "How do you know what a sonic screwdriver is?" she asked in a whisper.
"My . . . my dad has one," Ganbri answered nervously. He kept looking up to Tokrah for a sign, not sure what he was supposed to do. He reached out with his mind, but Tokrah's head was blocking him out and anything he could get was a confusing cloud of emotions.
He reached out to the woman instead and found that tapping into her head was far simpler than it should have been. His mind slipped into hers with the same sort of ease and familiarity that he expected with his parents, not a stranger, and in her mind he found breathless excitement.
The trees rustled behind them and Ganbri knew without looking that Banni, Donna, and Shaun had finally joined them. There was a brief second of silence while Tokrah put his knives away, tucked beneath his shirt where they couldn't be seen.
And then Auntie Donna blurted out loudly, "Jenny!?"
Tokrah smirked and looked back over his shoulder. Ganbri looked back too and saw the way Banni's eyes had widened to an enormous size and his mouth had dropped open slightly.
"Doctor," Tokrah said calmly. "I believe we've found your daughter."
