Aquarius Epta Mining Compound, Giannes
"River, what are you doing here?" The Doctor's harsh greeting was hardly welcoming.
"Well it's good to see that you're safe too." She remarked dryly, holstering her weapon.
River and Young had found the Doctor conversing with one of the Guardians of Protection in the otherwise empty office section of the compound.
She was relieved to find that the Doctor didn't appear to be in any immediate danger and wasn't being held against his will... but his tone could certainly use an adjustment.
He sighed in evident exasperation. "Did you not hear what I was saying on the intercom?" he asked impatiently. "I needed you to keep an eye on the passengers." He wore a disapproving expression and she very much wanted to slap the self-righteousness right off of his handsome face.
River narrowed her eyes at him. "I am fully aware that the passengers are going to need our help. But there are priorities, and keeping you safe long enough to save the day happens to be number one on my list."
The Doctor blinked in surprise at her words and cleared his throat. "Very well then..." he mumbled, putting his hands in his pockets and breaking eye contact.
She rolled her eyes and nodded toward the man dressed in security garb. "Who's your friend?" she wondered, looking the man over. Certainly not the typically macho Guardian of Protection. She could see that from his eyes. They looked... sort of innocent.
The Doctor patted the man on the shoulder and introduced him. "This is Leigh Schultz. Leigh, this is River Song. And who is your friend?" the Doctor wondered gazing at the Captain curiously.
Young stuck his hand out to shake. "Captain Thorogood Young." he supplied. "And you must be the all-knowing and wonderful Doctor I keep hearing about."
The Doctor glanced toward River with a self-satisfied smile. "One and the same." he replied, turning back to the Captain.
She inwardly seethed and quickly changed the subject. "I'd say if we're going to help those passengers, we should probably hop in the TARDIS and get to it."
The Doctor's eyes grew wide as if something had only just occurred to him and he gripped River's arm. "The TARDIS is here?"
River gave him a strange look. "Well yes. How else do you think I got here? She's right down in the basement."
There was something akin to panic in his eyes. "Are Haven and Turlough safe?" he demanded.
Now River was thoroughly confused. "Well of course they are. They're in the TARDIS. We've only just left them." She motioned as if they should head that way.
The Doctor shook his head, his voice rising in exasperation. "I'm afraid you don't understand. I overheard a radio call between Porter and that Mercer woman when we first arrived..."
River and Young exchanged an alarmed look.
"Somehow she had encountered Turlough and Haven and had gotten on board the TARDIS with them." The Doctor explained quickly. "She claimed to have drugged them, tinkered with their minds so they'd have no memory of even meeting her. That she was still hiding somewhere on board and they had no idea."
River felt her stomach drop, and dread squeeze her hearts.
"Haven." she gasped.
And without waiting for one more word, River turned and ran back toward the TARDIS.
She took the stairs down to the lower level two at a time, cursing herself all the way.
The TARDIS had been trying to tell her something was wrong. That was why the controls were being uncooperative. She should have known somehow.
She could hear that the Doctor, Young and Schultz were not too far behind her on the stairs.
She had her torch ready for the darkness and ran for all she was worth, hoping that it wasn't too late.
She stopped short when they reached the back corner of the room where the blue box had been parked.
Had been parked.
The three men nearly ran right into her back.
"She's gone." River whispered. She turned to face them in disbelief. "They're gone."
The Doctor shouted something uncharacteristically impolite in Gallifreyan and covered his face with one hand.
"So what does that mean? What should we do now?" Schultz wondered looking from River to the Doctor and back again.
"It means that Turlough and Haven are in big trouble." Young sighed, looking for once, very nearly his true age.
River felt completely responsible and very much wanted to blow a hole in something or set something on fire, or scream, or pummel someone. She felt tears stinging her eyes and turned away to regain her composure. She imagined that the Doctor- rightfully- blamed her and she hardly wanted to be accused of feeling sorry for herself in this moment.
When she felt a hand touch her back gently, the last person she expected to look up and see was him. His blue eyes were still full of concern, but now it seemed he was concerned for her. She quickly wiped at her eyes to remove the evidence.
"This isn't your fault." he told her in a low voice. "You had no way of knowing."
"Sure." she replied curtly, shaking off his hand along with the unexpected absolution. "So what can we do now?"
He looked like he was about to say something else to her, then changed his mind and cleared his throat. He turned to face the others. "It would seem we have yet another calamity on our hands. My craft is missing and I fear it may have been hijacked with two of my friends still on board."
Young looked thoughtful. "Is there any way we can contact your friends?" he suggested.
The Doctor exhaled loudly. "Neither Turlough or Haven carry any sort of mobile device." He began to pace the way he did when he was thinking. "The only line of communication I might have with the TARDIS would be a direct link to the console room."
"Which you assume has been taken over by this Mercer woman." Schultz guessed.
The Doctor nodded.
"What makes you so sure this woman is any way capable of piloting the TARDIS?" River wondered, her mind turning things over.
The Doctor shrugged. "The TARDIS does have some automatic functions. I don't imagine it would take an experienced pilot too long to figure out how to work something like the fast return switch."
As realization dawned, River felt a small glimmer of hope. "Oh you clever Girl." she breathed.
The Doctor frowned. "What am I missing?" he demanded.
"The automatic controls, every last one of them, stopped working." River explained, a bit of optimism returning to her eyes. "Turlough was puzzled. Said they'd been that way ever since they returned from the flight deck." River paused, her eyes narrowed. "I had the distinct feeling the Old Girl was trying to tell me something."
So the TARDIS already had her defenses up. "Interesting." he murmured. "It would seem that the one thing that Turlough and Haven have going for them is an ally in the TARDIS."
"And the two things that Mercer has going for her are the element of surprise and the fact that she's evil incarnate." Young mumbled.
River raised her eyebrows. "Glad you're looking on the bright side." she remarked with a chuckle.
The Doctor sighed. "So we somehow have to locate- and find a way to reach- a time capsule that could be anywhere in time and space." He grinned ironically. "And I thought we had a challenge on our hands."
"Sarcasm doesn't become you Sweetie." River smirked. She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Wait a moment, how exactly did you know that I'd gone to the flight deck of Aquarius Epta earlier?" she asked suddenly. "After I left you in the library and you had to come... rescue me." It must have nearly killed her to have to add that last bit.
The Doctor's eyes widened. "I put a tracking device on your vortex manipulator..." he said slowly as his mind caught up with his words. "If we can somehow get it back, I might just be able to reverse the signal and locate the TARDIS." A grin spread across his face and he rushed forward to grab River by the shoulders in his excitement. "Professor Song, I do believe we've found a solution."
Young and Schultz exchanged a hopeful look.
But River was looking at him in such an unfriendly way that the Doctor dropped his hands from her shoulders.
She held up one finger, and squinted at him in utter disbelief. "Hold on just a moment...You put a tracking device on my vortex manipulator?" Her voice raised in pitch as if she was terribly affronted. "When exactly did you do that?"
The Doctor felt a small amount of triumph at her incredulity. He leaned ever so slightly in to her personal space. "Children really shouldn't play with fire." he told her in a low voice.
She looked ready to physically assault him so he stepped away quickly and turned to face the others, clapping his hands together decisively. "Right. We need to get a hold of that vortex manipulator. Any idea where it might be at the moment?" He looked around at all of them.
"I know right where it is Doctor." a familiar voice mocked from behind them.
The Time Lord rolled his eyes and turned to face the newcomer.
Porter. Standing between them and the doorway leading to the main level. Armed as ever, weapon pointed right at the Doctor.
Schultz and River immediately turned and trained their weapons on the unstable scientist.
"Not another step." River warned. "You already have two strikes against you. One for stunning me, two for tying me to that bloody chair."
It seemed to take Porter a moment to notice that one of his own men was pointing a gun at him.
"Schultz." he spat, meeting the Guardian's eye briefly. "I'd say I was surprised but you've been a pain in my ass for decades. You never had the stomach for this kind of work."
The Guardian's mouth twitched but the resolve in his eyes never wavered.
Porter's eyes flicked over to Young. "Et tu Captain?" Porter quipped with a smirk.
Much to the Doctor's shock, Young immediately came forward, hands high in the air. "Not a chance." he told Porter. "That woman abducted me right out of the cockpit." His turned and gave River a fairly convincing look of utter contempt. "After shooting me earlier of course."
"Oh for goodness sake. It was set to stun." River pointed out in annoyance, as if not for the first time.
The Doctor had no idea where Captain Young's loyalties were but since River wasn't disputing the so-called abduction, he chose to follow suit.
Porter motioned with his gun for Young to come stand near him. "Oh Captain, my Captain." he chuckled, looking triumphant. Young scrambled over, looking back at the others with an unreadable expression.
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Porter, I've helped you. I've made it so your base is secure from those androids. Now we need to help the passengers and find my friends."
Porter laughed cheerfully. "Oh. You mean the friends who were so hospitable to Officer Mercer earlier?"
The Doctor just managed not to react to that remark. Only just.
Porter nodded, looking pleased with himself. "Oh yes. I made the connection. And if I know Anaïs, she will use them for what they know and dispose of them efficiently." His eyes positively sparkled at the prospect. "I have a hunch that magical blue box of yours will be property of Carr enterprises in no time at all."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "A hunch? Aren't you in radio contact with your good friend Officer Mercer?"
Porter shrugged. "She must be having transmission difficulties. Haven't heard back since we've arrived."
Transmission difficulties. The words gave the Doctor hope.
"Porter, just lower your weapon." River recommended, sounding bored. "There's nothing for you to gain here. We've two guns trained on you. You go your way, and we'll go ours."
To the astonishment of everyone, he did lower his weapon, but raised his left arm, leveling his wrist at them.
His wrist that prominently displayed River's vortex manipulator.
River gasped. "You thieving bastard." she snapped.
"Such a nifty little transmat device." Porter mused tapping a few buttons. "I've been trying to figure it out since I took it from you earlier..." He squinted down at the screen.
The Doctor and River shared a look. The technology was far beyond anything Porter had seen. He really had no idea what it was capable of.
"Porter... it's probably not a good idea to go fiddling around with technology you don't understand." the Doctor warned, glancing nervously at the man's wrist.
Porter looked up at the Doctor, smiling at him like he meant it. "Not to worry Doctor. I'm more clever than you give me credit for. It's how I was able to sneak up on you down here, after all. I've discovered how to move around anywhere in this compound." And then he raised his gun and shot Schultz.
There was a moment of frozen shock during which Porter clutched Young's shoulder and pressed the actuate button on the vortex manipulator.
Both men vanished with an electric zap.
Cloister Room, TARDIS
"So explain to me again what exactly this place is and what we're doing in here." Haven whispered as Turlough led her by the hand down a sweeping stone staircase into an ivy covered cathedral of a room.
"This is the Cloister Room." he whispered back. "The main power source for the TARDIS. The Doctor once told me that repairs and adjustments could be made throughout the ship from this room."
"Now we just have to hope that Mercer doesn't find us here." Haven grumbled. "That lying slag must have drugged us."
Turlough stopped and turned to look at her when they reached the bottom of the stairs. "Well I can't remember a thing about her... and what makes you so certain that she'd hang around anyway?"
Haven shrugged. "A very strong hunch." she admitted.
Turlough sighed. "Unfortunately, I am having the same very strong hunch." He scratched his head and nodded toward one of the stone columns nearby. "There's a control mechanism right there. Let's go."
They headed to the column and Turlough flipped a small toggle switch which caused the column to split in half vertically, opening to reveal a computer inside. Haven noted that it was a simple active matrix display with a touch screen input. She would have expected something more alien and complex.
"You still haven't explained what you're trying to do here." Haven reminded him, leaning closely over his shoulder to watch what he was up to.
He sighed and tapped the screen. "I figured it'd be safest to avoid the control room since it's likely what the good Officer is interested in." He explained, selecting from a list of applications. "This seemed like the safest place to come to figure out where she is."
He opened a program and initiated a scan. Very basic and user friendly. A progress bar appeared on screen with the word scanning beneath it.
"Lifeform detection program." Turlough explained. "This should tell us if a hostile entity is on board. And where to find them."
Hostile entity on board.
Haven felt a rush of self-directed anger at those words. She had naively allowed some maniac into the Doctor's ship, into his home and now they were in terrible trouble as a result.
The progress bar concluded and the screen displayed a diagram that mapped out the configuration of the TARDIS.
Turlough sighed with relief. "All console rooms clear."
"All console rooms?" Haven asked incredulously.
"There!" Turlough suddenly exclaimed, pointing to the red blinking dot in one of the tiny boxes on the diagram. "In the Doctor's laboratory."
He'd no sooner spoken when the whole room was filled with the low, ominous sound of a bell ringing.
Bong.
Adrenaline shot through her system as she and Turlough exchanged an anxious look.
"The Cloister Bell." he whispered. "The TARDIS is warning us we're in danger."
"This is very bad." she groaned. "What the hell do we do? Is there a weapon somewhere we can use? Because I'm quite sure that bitch is armed."
Bong.
Turlough grew thoughtful. "I recently helped the Doctor install a software patch... a sort of update to this older model TARDIS. I remember there being several new security protocols included, but obviously the Doctor never bothered to set up any of the automatic countermeasures."
"Well what are you waiting for?" Haven hissed. "Call up the security program."
Realization seemed to dawn on Turlough and he closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "But of course the TARDIS will only allow an operator to access security functions." He put his face in his hands and made a sound of frustration.
Haven's brows drew together and she stood up a little straighter. "Move." she instructed calmly.
He looked back at her like she'd lost her mind. "You think you can just hack a TARDIS?" He asked her in disbelief. "This is far more complex than the Aquarius Epta database."
She set her jaw and narrowed her eyes. "You think I can't?" she challenged.
A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth and his eyes shined with amusement. "Do your worst." He moved away with his hands in the air, shaking his head.
Haven took his place in front of the screen and was quickly able to access the command line interface. She made a face of approval. A fairly intuitive system. She squinted at the screen and chewed at her lip as her fingers flew over the touchscreen's keyboard.
It took her less than a minute to access the Security Protocols interface.
Turlough made a noise somewhere between disgust and amazement. "Unbelievable." he muttered, crossing his arms, sounding more butt-hurt than appreciative.
Haven allowed herself a small smile. Sorry about your ego, she thought to herself as she inspected the settings.
After a moment, she pointed at the screen. "Know anything about this Echelon circuit?" she wondered, chewing at her lip once more.
Fortunately Turlough had gotten over himself and was by her side, studying the interface. After a moment he shrugged. "I say try it. We'll never know if we don't try."
She blew out a breath. "Here goes." she mumbled, activating the Echelon circuit.
The last thing she expected was for a life size hologram of the Doctor to materialize immediately to their left.
"Holy hell." she choked, grabbing Turlough by the arm.
"This is Security Protocol Seven One Two." the Holo-Doctor informed them. "The Echelon circuit has been activated."
Turlough and Haven looked at each other wide-eyed.
"This time capsule has detected a hostile entity on board." the hologram continued. "The architectural configuration system has diverted all dimensional junctures leading to control rooms. Please prepare for departure."
"Departure!?" Turlough and Haven shouted in unison.
The familiar sound of the TARDIS engines dematerializing echoed throughout the stone chamber, drowning out the menacing tone of the Cloister Bell.