Chapter 13: Pitch Black

"Doctor... I am sorry," started Brownie as he tried to recover to his feet.

"No need to explain Brownie," I said with a wink. "Protect the Queen. Protect the Colony". HEY! Did that rhyme? And with a shine of my screwdriver, I made the switch.

I strolled out of The Tardis and into the Queen's chamber. It had been a while since I've been to Hymeno. Outside, to greet me, was that giant blue creature trying to rip at my Tardis. How Rude!

"Looks like somebody let the cat out of the bag," I laughed. The Tardis produced a field that protected me as the large creature tried desperately to claw at me. Behind the creature I saw Leppi! All grown up, my little Leppi was now a full-fledged scientist. She looked so adorable standing there in her little white lab coat with her arms crossed. They grow up so fast... Except this was not my Leppi. Her mind had been taken over by the nanites. She had those vacant white eyes that the other infected people had. Leppi waved her hand, and the creature halted its assault and receded to the back of the cavern. It was pulled by that black column acting, almost like a leash.

"Doctor, how good of you to come," she started as she crossed the chamber towards me. "And you even brought The Tardis with you. I appreciate it."

"I did bring The Tardis... but I've always been bad at sharing."

"We'll see about that." Leppi said coldly as she snapped her fingers. At her command, a thick black fog began to enter the chamber from the entrance above. It surrounded The Tardis on all sides and began to lift it up. The black cloud was trying to work its way inside, encircling my Tardis like a swarm of insects around a meal. The fog was made completely of nanites. Leppi stood there concentrating, working the nanites around The Tardis, trying to penetrate her defenses. I bet this is the hardest they have ever had to work for something.

"Sorry Leppi," I teased, "You can't enter my Tardis that way." I swung Erin's key from the keychain, taunting Leppi as I ran. Her head spun around towards me as I disappeared out of the royal chamber and into a nearby tunnel. She sent that black nanite fog after me. The fog dropped The Tardis and moved my direction, slithering like a jet-black snake through air.

The tunnels were dark. I couldn't see in front of me, but I made sure I spent a few minutes memorizing these tunnels before I set down on Hymeno. A left here and then about 600... wait, was that in yards or meters?

I heard the fog funneling through the tunnels, sloughing off rock from the walls and ceiling. I had been running for maybe ten minutes and the fog had almost caught up. But it was too late, I had made it. I spun a right turn and then a left to put me at the entrance to a deep cavern that descended into the deepest recesses of the colony. It led to a bottom chamber that served as a storage area for food. I threw the key into the deep well, and doubled back. I pressed my body against the rock wall and I could hear the fog rush past me and descend down the well after the key. I began to run back when it passed.

Another right and then a left, and I was back at the royal chamber. The fog hadn't made it back yet. It was probably still searching that cavern for the key. But it wouldn't take long. As I entered the chamber Leppi's head spun towards me, and the gigantic creature began to rise. I was only 50 meters from my Tardis. With the sound of claw against rock, I heard the creature move but it wouldn't catch up to me in time.

With a snap of my fingers, The Tardis doors opened up before me. I thought I had a clean break to The Tardis, but then I heard the rush of that black fog against rock. I looked behind me to see it catching up. I was about 20 yards from my Tardis now, but that black nanite cloud was at my heels. It did indeed catch up to me. I jumped out of the way of the fog onto the hard cavern floor. I looked up to see the fog begin to funnel into the now open Tardis doors. It seemed like an endless nanite cloud entering through those tiny blue doors. More and more fog from outside of the cavern descended down and continued to fill The Tardis.

"It is over now Doctor," Leppi said as she stood over me. And how pathetic did I look! Flat on the ground with that black stuff filling into my Tardis! I bet she got a sick pleasure out of that. I looked backwards to see the Tardis being lifted off of the ground by the influx of black nanite.

I began to get to my feet and put on a face that made her think she had me beat.

"With The Tardis we will now be able to..." she couldn't finish. Her hands went up to the sides of her head, and she was obviously not okay.

More and more nanites continued to enter the Tardis at an even faster rate.

"What... What did you do?" she said as she struggled to keep her balance. She fell over.

"Sigh, I wish I could take credit for that one," I started as I reached my hand over to help her up. "That Dowitcher kid, before we left Ferros, got a pretty good handle on Time Lord 'bigger-on-the-inside' technology. What you have in front of you is not actually my Tardis, but a fake."

And it was a pretty good trap too. I don't know how the kid was able to replicate my Tardis so well with only a couple of panels, but he did it! Well he was a genuine technopath aftererall, and had the real Tardis giving him directions. Now the nanites that were entering would be trapped in the containment field inside of the false Tardis. Sigh, I wish I thought of it. Leppi struggled back to her feet.

"No!" she screamed. She lifted up her hands, but the streams of nanites entering the faux Tardis would not respond.

"Oh no, they won't listen to you anymore. Your nanites run on a central relay system that is propagated from nanite cell to nanite cell," I started to explain, but I think she had the gist. "My companions must have just reset your central relay to the original locus. The nanites will continue to send the signal to enter that Tardis until they have completely filled it... In other words, you are beat."

"Hahahahaaha!" Leppi laughed uncontrollably. She had lost it. She started laughing madly as she got back to her feet. Her hair was a mess, sticking to her face and she was breathing hard.

"Kill him!" she screamed, as her monster rose up and charged for me.

::Vee-hee-yey-oh::

::Vee-hee-yey-oh::

My Tardis arrived and landed besides the fake one. Out of it jumped Fornicks! And he held his hand out in front of the large rampaging beast. The creature stopped in his tracks, mid-slash. Frozen in place.

Fornicks then winked at me. Or what I think was a wink where a white covering enclosed his large black eye like a camera shutter. At this hundreds if not thousands of Velum poured out of the surrouding tunnels. Those large ant-like creatures that made up Fornick's colony, blanketed the massive beast's body. The creature let out another of those nasty roars as it attempted to tear the insects from his body.

::GRAAAWWWWR!::

The Velum swarmed around it from all sides and in a matter of seconds the creature was reduced to nothing but large and heavy bones that fell to the ground at great speed and shattered. Fornicks looked over to me, standing up straight as his brothers and sisters picked at the creature's bones.

"Protect the Colony, Protect the Universe," he said.

Boy, did I laugh at that one!

Chapter 14: Lightsaber Blue