Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or Apollo 23 by Justin Richards. Those belong to the BBC and BBC Books respectively.
There were just the four of them in the jeep – the Doctor, Candace, Agent Jennings, and General Walinski. The General had insisted on driving. Candace was in the passenger seat beside him.
"I don't want anyone else knowing we even thought about this, unless we have to do it," Walinski told her as they pulled out of the base.
A cloud of sand followed their progress, thrown up by the wheels as they sped across the empty desert. There were no landmarks, no signs, not even a road. But Walinski seemed to know exactly where they were going.
"You know this is crazy," Candace told him.
Walinski nodded. "Crazy may be all we have left, Candace."
"You know what they're talking about?" Jennings asked the Doctor from their position in the back of the jeep.
"I can make a pretty good guess," the Doctor admitted happily. He was grinning like a kid in a candy store. "You?"
"Nope. Crazy, that I understand, but nothing else. Hey – this whole thing is crazy, start to finish."
"It's not finished yet," the Doctor reminded him, his expression clouding over as he thought about Alex being stuck up on the moon with a bunch of aliens who had taken over everyone's minds.
"Tell me, are you serious about these aliens? I mean, seriously serious?"
"Very seriously serious. Though I do notice you and the General haven't been kicking up a fuss and insisting there's no such thing as alien life or the whole idea is complete nonsense."
Jennings took off his sunglasses and polished them on a spotless white handkerchief before replacing them. "I guess Walinski's read some of the same files I have. UNIT, Torchwood, Operation Yellow Book – the real deal, not the sanitized cover-up stuff they put out under the Freedom of Information."
"UNIT?" the Doctor repeated. "You know who I am, then?"
Jennings smiled thinly. "I would if you were a good deal older."
"Believe me," the Doctor told him, "I'm a good deal older."
They drove for about an hour, the sun scorching down from a clear blue sky. Finally, in the distance, the Doctor could make out something that wasn't just more sand.
Jennings had seen it too. "What is that? It looks like a building. A spire of some sort." The Doctor didn't answer, but his grin was back.
As they got closer, the shape resolved itself through the shimmering heat into a tall, circular, white tower. It tapered at the top, ending in a sharp-looking spike that thrust up into the sky.
"It's still a long way off," Jennings said. "Is that where we're headed?" he called out to Walinski. "Not that there's anything else out here," he said to the Doctor.
But the Doctor wasn't listening. He was intent on the growing structure ahead of them, gleaming in the sunlight.
The jeep bumped up a sharp incline, like the edge of a crater. It was now apparent that the structure was far taller than just the section visible above the edge of the 'crater'. The ground dropped away into a vast open bowl scooped out of the desert. Walinski stopped the vehicle at the rim, throwing up clouds of sand as he skidded to a halt.
"You are so kidding me," Jennings exclaimed, leaping out of the back of the jeep.
The Doctor was bouncing on the balls of his feet with enthusiasm, very much resembling an excited Alex. "That is…fantastic," he decided. "Brilliant. Fab, if I can use a very sixties word – and I think under the circumstances I can." He grinned. "Oh, Ally would love this!"
The four of them stood at the edge of the 'crater', looking across at the enormous structure.
"It always gets me," Walinski confessed. "I don't come out here often, but every time I do, I'm staggered by the sheer size of it. The engineering that went into that."
"Three hundred and sixty-three feet tall," Candace informed them.
"That's about the same as St. Paul's Cathedral," the Doctor commented. "What's she weigh?"
"Fully fuelled, over three thousand tons."
"That is one hell of a thing," Jennings said.
Below them, several low buildings were clustered around the edge of the crater. They were well away from the main structure in the middle, though roads had been built between them. Huge pipes ran from one of the buildings to the enormous raised square of the launch pad. A massive tower of scaffolding rose from the pad, high above the edge of the crater where the Doctor was standing. And braced against it by supporting struts, standing proud and defiant against the sky, was a huge rocket.
It was predominantly white, with black markings and 'USA' written in huge letters down the side towards the bottom. Two-thirds of the way up, it tapered before continuing as the narrower cylinder that they had seen above the lip of the artificial crater.
"The Saturn Five," Walinski said. "Biggest launch vehicle ever built by Man. That one's serial number is SA-521, and it doesn't officially exist."
"You said there were several secret Apollo missions to the moon, to set up Base Diana," the Doctor recalled.
"That's right," Candace confirmed. "Apollo 18 to Apollo 22. Then they got the quantum displacement systems activated and working, so they didn't need the trouble and expense of another rocket."
"But they already had one waiting," Walinski picked up. "Couldn't easily get rid of it without attracting attention and raising a few questions. The officially aborted the Apollo 18 and 19 rockets, and the back-up Skylab launch vehicle were already decommissioned and on display at Houston, Kennedy, and the Space and Rocket Center at Hunsville, Alabama."
"So this one stayed here," Candace finished. "Notionally as an emergency back-up, ready to be fuelled for take-off at a week's notice."
"Except that was thirty years ago," Walinski told them. "Who knows what condition she's really in now?"
"And we don't have a week," the Doctor reminded them. "We have twenty-four hours at most to get her ready." He clapped his hands together excitedly. "And we'll need to speed up the journey too. Apollo 11 took four days to reach the moon. I want to be there in forty-eight hours."
"This baby will be quicker than the first moonshots," Candace assured him. "They found a way to use the M3 Variant fuel developed by the British Rocket Group for their aborted Mars Probe Missions way back. That'll shave a lot off the journey time."
The Doctor brandished his sonic screwdriver. "And I can shave off even more."
"You know," Candace reflected, "this is not sounding as crazy as I thought it would. If you'd told me yesterday that we'd be seriously considering getting that thing ready for launch, I'd have said you were mad. But somehow, now we're here, looking at her... Well, it sounds so plausible."
"If that thing will actually work after all this time," Jennings said. "And if you can find anyone experienced and crazy enough to agree to fly it."
"So we're looking for three astronauts," Walinski summarized.
"Two," the Doctor corrected. "You've got me already."
"Like you're trained up for this sort of thing," Candace retorted.
"Got my Mars-Venus license," the Doctor said, apparently affronted. "Probably better qualified than anyone else you can rustle up. Ask Jennings here, he's read the files."
Jennings nodded. "Don't ask," he said. "Just believe."
After a moment's silence, Candace said "Pat Ashton is notionally in charge of keeping that thing in shape. He's got experience on the shuttle, so he can probably pilot it."
"And Marty Garrett is back from his shopping trip," Jennings added. "He has more hours as Technical Officer on Base Diana than anyone. Be a good idea to take him anyway to help sort out the problems there."
"Garrett's the astronaut who turned up at the burger bar, yes?" the Doctor checked. "Then I only have one question before we start getting this thing literally off the ground."
"And what's that?" Walinski asked.
The Doctor nodded at the colossal rocket in front of them. "Does she have a name?"
Walinski laughed. "She sure does, though it's not very imaginative. She may not officially exist, but you are now looking at Apollo 23."
With his automatic pistol in a shoulder holster under his uniform jacket, Captain Reeve led the way to Jackson's office.
"Not all aliens are afraid of guns," Amy warned him.
Once again, Reeve surprised them by taking the statement seriously and not questioning how they might have come by this information. "His body's human even if his mind is alien."
"Fair enough. Let's hope he realizes that."
"We'll make sure he does."
Jackson's door was closed. Alex half-hoped he wasn't in his office. She'd much rather have the Doctor next to her, completely confident about what was about to go down and flashing her that grin that made her feel safe, even in the face of danger. But the Doctor was trapped on Earth and they had already passed the empty Process Chamber. Next port of call would be Jackson's living quarters.
"Leave this to me, okay?" Reeve said, knocking on the door.
"You're the man with the gun," Amy agreed. "You can do the talking."
Alex stayed silent. She was getting a bad feeling. What if they couldn't trust Reeve? He's got a gun though, doesn't he? Her mind argued. Maybe she was being a little paranoid.
Jackson's voice was muffled by the door as he called for them to enter. He was working at his desk, and stood up as Reeve, Amy, and Alex came in.
"Captain, Miss Pond, Miss Locke. What a delightful surprise. What, may I ask, brings you to my humble abode? Do, please, clear a space and sit down. Can I get you some tea?" He gestured to the metal water heater nearby.
"We're not here to chat, Professor," Reeve said shortly.
"Oh, that's a pity. Then why are you here, may I ask?"
In answer, Reeve drew his gun. "I'm afraid the game's up, Professor Jackson. Miss Pond and Miss Locke have been doing a bit of investigating on their own account. They know everything."
Jackson raised an eyebrow. "Everything? Oh, I seriously doubt that."
"You're not denying it then," Alex noticed.
"I'm not quite sure yet what I'm being accused of, so no – I'm not denying anything at the moment."
"Miss Pond and Miss Locke have been to Pod 7," Reeve said. "They've seen what's inside. They know that you've been downloading alien minds into the blank bodies created by your process."
"Do they now?" Jackson looked thoughtful rather than anxious, which unnerved Alex.
He knows something we don't, she thought. She backed away a little from Reeve, but not enough for anyone to notice.
"Yes, we do," Amy told him, not noticing Alex's heightened nerves. All she wanted to do was wipe the smugness from Jackson's tone and the half-smile from his face. "So like Captain Reeve says, the game's up. You and Nurse Phillips and whoever else you've got control over will have to come quietly."
Jackson sat down again. "And what are you going to do with us, young lady? Shoot us?"
"No," Amy told him. "We're going to lock you in the empty cells in the prison hub. We'll keep you there until the Doctor comes back. He'll know what to do with you."
"Except that the Doctor isn't coming back. How can he?"
"He'll find a way," Amy said, sounding more confident than she felt. "It's all over, Jackson. You're in a whole heap of trouble, and you know it."
Jackson nodded slowly. "I was right to accelerate the schedule and disable the quantum systems. Whoever sabotaged them originally did us a favor there. This is getting out of hand. The sooner we take over the whole of Base Diana and make preparations to infiltrate the minds of the people of Earth, the better."
Amy gave a snort of derisive laughter. "You just don't get it, do you? It's all over! The invasion's off. In case you haven't noticed, Captain Reeve has a gun pointing at you."
Jackson cleared his throat, a strangely apologetic sound. "I'm afraid it's you that doesn't 'get it', as you say, Miss Pond. In case you hadn't noticed, Captain Reeve's gun is not pointing at me."
Amy felt the color drain from her face. She looked over at Alex. Her friend was looking behind Amy, a strangely calm look on her face. "Amy, don't panic," she said easily.
"The gun is pointing at you, Miss Pond."
Above the pistol pointing straight at Amy and Alex, Captain Reeve smiled. But his eyes were cold and gray as stone. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly. "But I couldn't risk you telling anyone else what you'd found out. After all, you never know who you can trust these days, do you?"
"Apparently not." Amy could have kicked herself. Then again, Reeve had found her and Alex in Pod 7. If one of them had realized he was being controlled by the aliens, he'd still have brought them to Jackson.
"Frankly, I kind of like this," Alex piped up. Everyone turned to stare at her and Amy was stunned to see a gleeful but slightly sinister smile on her face. "Takes all the guesswork out of everything." She then calmly turned to Jackson, ignoring Reeve and his loaded gun. "So, what are you going to do with us then? Put us through your process?"
How was she being so calm about this? Alex was acting a lot like the Doctor right now, easily laughing off the danger and acting like she had already won. Amy half-wondered whether the Doctor had been able to do some kind of mind-swap with Alex and he was the one actually here right now.
"Of course," Jackson said in a matter-of-fact tone, though even he seemed a little surprised by Alex's dismissiveness. "But the schedule is very precise. We can only instil one of our minds into a human brain at certain predetermined times. The signals from our home world are timed to the second." He smiled. "But rest assured, we are fixing that. Soon there will be a constant supply of thought and personality data that we can tap into and siphon off at will."
"Of course you can," Alex smiled back at him. "Why couldn't you?"
The Doctor's going to kill her when he finds out about this, Amy thought. After all the times Alex had berated him for baiting aliens, here she was doing the same thing!
"The next signal isn't due for a few hours yet," Reeve said. "I suggest we adopt Miss Pond's own plan and lock her and Miss Locke in the hub until then."
"There's a spare cell now that Nine is no longer with us," Jackson agreed. "Very well. I was going to start downloading into the Blanks in Pod 7, but we can wipe and replace in a single operation."
"Sounds wonderful," Alex complimented, but there was an underlying darkness to her voice.
"I'm afraid not," Jackson corrected her, not noticing the darkness. "There will be considerable pain."
"You don't sound too upset about it," Amy observed.
Jackson seemed surprised at the comment. "Why would I be? It's not me who'll be feeling the pain."
"Not yet…" Alex sang, purposefully allowing her voice to trail off.
"What do you mean?"
Alex leaned over the desk so that she was up close and personal with Jackson. "Here's a very good piece of advice, Prof. Prof. Can I call you that? Well, I already am, so I suppose I can. Our friend, the Doctor? Aside from being a very handsome man, he's also a very, very dangerous one. I've seen aliens like the Daleks – have you heard of the Daleks? Very pissy race. Probably cause they look like R2D2 on steroids – but anyway, try to destroy him because they fear him so much. And he's defeated them. And, if you know the Daleks, that's a pretty big accomplishment.
"The point here, Prof, is that the Doctor is not someone you want to tangle with. Mind-switching people? That's strike one. Harming me and Amy? That's strike two. But planning a full-scale invasion of the Earth? That's strike three. And with those strikes, you're unleashing some pretty damn terrifying hell on yourself. Now, you seem like a smart person. So, on behalf of the Doctor, I'm going to give you a chance. One chance to call this whole thing off, put everyone's mind back in order, and leave. Go back to ET Land or wherever it is you come from. Because if you don't..." Alex's voice trailed off.
Jackson fixed his gray eyes on her, regarding her without expression. "Take them away," he ordered.
Alex shrugged, not very surprised by this. "Very well. One chance. But you'll be sorry."
"Okay, that was impressive," Amy admitted. "But have you been drugged though? Are you high? Because only a crazy person would do something like that!"
Alex shrugged. "The Doctor does it all the time."
Amy snorted. "Like I said, are you high?"
It seemed as though the base was deserted. Alex guessed that when the aliens had brought forward their plans, Reeve had consigned all the soldiers to their quarters, or made sure they were busy well away from Pod 7 and their cells.
Their only moment of hope on the way back to the central hub was when a uniformed figure appeared from a doorway ahead of them. Should they call for help? Alex considered it. Would Reeve really shoot them, even with someone else there to witness it? It took her less than a moment to decide he would – he could explain it away. Blame her and Amy for the sabotage or something. He might just shoot all of them.
Or the soldier in front of them might already have been taken over. The figure turned and Alex saw that it was Major Carlisle. She tensed up. The Major had probably already been turned but Alex still felt that little twinge of doubt.
"What's going on?" Carlisle demanded.
"I'm putting them in the cells," Reeve explained.
"Why?"
"Because we know," Alex said, deciding to test her. "We know everything about your plan, about who you really are and what's going on here." Carlisle stared back at her, her expression giving nothing away.
"They've seen Pod 7," Reeve elaborated.
"Which is more than I have," Carlisle retorted.
"But you've been processed. So you know what's in there."
Carlisle blinked. "Of course." She drew her handgun. "All right, Captain. I'll take them from here."
"Thank you Major," Reeve said. "But I want to see them in a cell myself."
Alex barely paid attention though. Her mind was going into overdrive. She had seen Carlisle blink. She had seen the uncertainty in her eyes. Speaking of…Alex checked the Major's eyes. They were a pretty chocolate brown. She then remembered how she had thought the amount of gray-eyed people here was weird.
Of course! She mentally cried. Carlisle hasn't been processed, or at least not fully. Something must have gone wrong during her processing session. That Blank must've done something when he sabotaged the systems! Carlisle still has her mind, but there must be enough of the alien in her head to allow her to play along with all this. She's been helping us all along! And the eye color must be a symptom of the processing. Everyone who's been processed has gray eyes but she still has her eye color!
Alex was pulled out of her sudden realizations by Carlisle jabbing her handgun into Amy's ribs. "Move it," she ordered.
Alex glanced over. Amy had at least two seconds to grab the gun. It was a shame Alex was on the wrong side. She could easily grab that gun and knock Reeve out with it. But it was up to Amy. And the girl, who still didn't know about Major Carlisle, seemed frozen with fear.
Alex gently nudged her to try and get her to do it. Amy looked over at her, confused, and the moment was lost. Reluctantly, Carlisle withdrew the gun and motioned for the girls to continue on down the corridor.
As they approached the hub, Alex knew there were no chances left. There was no way back and the only other escape route from the hub area was down the corridor to Pod 7. No way out. Unless…
There was something stirring at the back of her mind. It was something to do with the route to Pod 7. Come on Alexandria! You figured out Carlisle. This should be easy!
It came to her as the door slid open and they entered the foyer area with its huge windows looking out at the prison block at the hub of Base Diana. If they could just get to the far end of the log room, to the door to the corridor down to Pod 7.
Major Carlisle roughly pushed Amy forwards, as if sensing what Alex was planning. To Alex's surprise, Amy went staggering across the foyer, although it was in a very fake manner. Gaining courage, Alex kicked Reeve in the shin and immediately sprinted forwards.
Alex glanced back briefly. Carlisle had stepped in front of Reeve, effectively blocking the Captain's gun. Carlisle's own gun was still in her hand, but her hand was by her side as she watched the girls. She smiled, clearly pleased with her handiwork.
Amy caught sight of Alex and continued staggering backwards, but quickly turned and kept going, running as fast as she could behind Alex.
"Stop them!" Reeve yelled.
"Oh, don't worry," Carlisle replied. "Where can they go? What can they do?"
Alex and Amy knew exactly what they could do, if only they could get there. Neither turned back as they heard Carlisle's shout of 'realization'. "If they set off the evacuation alarm, they'll open all the doors. They'll release the prisoners!"
I knew that glass plate did something, Alex thought. Releasing the prisoners seemed like a very good idea.
Amy jabbed at the glass plate with her curled elbow, shattering it. Immediately, a klaxon started to sound. Red emergency lighting cut in, flashing in time with the noise of the alarm. The doors at either end of the foyer area slid open – and so did the doors all along it. The doors to the cells.
Captain Reeve was staring in horror at the opening doors, his gun raised. Major Carlisle looked along the length of the room at Amy and Alex. There was the ghost of a smile on her face.
Then the prisoners appeared in the doorways, and they were not what either girl had expected at all.
Neither were sure what they had expected – large, fierce-looking men with broken noses and a wealth of tattoos maybe. Not thin, emaciated figures in ill-fitting overalls. Some of the men were barely out of their teens. There were women too, their faces haunted and eyes sunken. All of them looked half dead with exhaustion and despair. In Alex's opinion, it was a scene straight out of Schindler's List.
If they ever had a moment of distraction, a moment to get past Reeve and escape, then this was it. But neither girl took it. Alex immediately started towards a young woman who barely looked eighteen, shivering and cowering under the alarms and harsh lights.
Amy fell back against the wall, trembling in horror and pity. "Oh, you poor people," she murmured. "What have they done to you?"
The Mission Control building at the Johnson Space Center in Houston had three main floors. The first two contained identical control rooms. The third floor was allocated to the U.S. Department of Defense, and housed a mission control suite very similar to the others. Except that on the third floor, there were no cameras, no press access, no way for details of military-funded space projects to leave the room.
It was impossible for any other agency – even NASA itself – to get access to this floor, let alone 'borrow' it to control a secret launch of their own. It took Agent Jennings eleven minutes to get agreement from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Candace Hecker personally chose the control staff. Flight Controller was Daniel Bardell, veteran of a dozen shuttle launches. Jennings, Candace, and Walinski watched from the back of the room as Bardell checked each of his senior technicians was happy.
"I need a Go or a No-Go decision from each of you."
"I'm getting some seriously weird readings here from one of the crew," the Medical Officer revealed.
The Doctor's voice came over the speakers loud and clear. "Ignore that. Otherwise all right?"
Bardell nodded his agreement to the medical officer.
"I guess. That's a Go, then, Flight."
It was incredible, Candace thought, that just twenty-four hours earlier, no one had really believed the huge Saturn V would ever leave the ground. Now it was fuelled and ready, waiting in the secret crater several hundred miles away in the vast, empty desert. The crew was installed in the Command Module, a tiny capsule at the top of the enormous structure. The Doctor's non-stop, frenetic work leading a team of technicians had achieved the impossible.
"Go, Flight," confirmed the last of the technicians.
"Then let's get this baby off the ground," Bardell said. "We are at T-minus 40…39…38…"
Jennings leaned over to Candace and quietly asked "You seriously think this is going to work?"
"The Doctor does."
"You really respect that guy, don't you?"
Candace nodded. "I've seen him working the last day. Never mind six impossible things before breakfast. He'll get through sixty and still have time to make the toast."
"He knows how to get the best out of other people, too," Walinski put in. "He inspires them. His enthusiasm rubs off." The General turned back to face the main screen at the front of the room. As well as numerous data feeds and graphs, it showed a live video feed of the huge rocket, smoke drifting from beneath it.
Overlaid on this main image was the countdown. 19…18…17…
"Guidance release," a technician announced.
15…14…13…12…11…10…
"Main engine start."
Fire and smoke erupted from the bottom of the rocket. It trembled on the launch pad.
"All Stage One engines, thrust okay."
The metal gantries from the launch tower to the side of the rocket swung clear. Cables dropped away.
"Umbilical disconnected."
Slowly, almost ponderously, the Saturn V began to lift. At first it seemed like it would rise only inches from the pad on its cushion of smoke and flame.
"We have lift-off."
Then it gathered speed. A cascade of ice crumbled from the sides of the rocket, so cold from the liquefied fuel inside, and fell in chunks into the roaring flames spewing from the engines. The rocket continued to rise.
"Apollo 23 has cleared the tower," a technician declared as the engines passed over the scaffolding structure that had supported the rocket.
Less than a minute later, the spacecraft reached the speed of sound. A minute and a half after that, all fuel exhausted, the first stage dropped away and the second stage rockets fired, powering Apollo 23 onwards.
There was a smattering of applause in the control room. Candace couldn't suppress a grin. She was pleased to see that Walinski and Jennings were both smiling too. "Well done," Walinski told her.
"That's the easy part over," Jennings joked. "Now it's up to the Doctor."
Candace checked her watch. "With the adapted M3 Variant fuel and the modifications the Doctor made, they should achieve lunar orbit in about eighteen hours. They'll land as soon as they can after that."
"So long as nothing goes wrong," Jennings said.
"You're a pessimist," Walinski told him.
"I'm a realist," Jennings countered. "If the Doctor's right and there's an alien invasion force gathering up there, how much do you want to bet they know he's coming?"
"But what can they do?" Candace asked.
"I guess we'll find out," Jennings said quietly.
A voice rang out from the speakers. A single word from the most experienced of the crew of Apollo 23 as they began their journey. "Geronimo!"
Several hours out from lunar orbit, the third stage of the Saturn V disengaged to reveal the pod where the Lunar Excursion Module was stored. The tiny Service Module with the main capsule – the Command Module – attached to it swung around to dock with the LEM, the craft that would actually land on the moon's surface.
All that now remained of the huge craft that had taken off from the Texan desert was a stubby cylinder with a single rocket engine, attached nose-first to a fragile module largely made out of thick metal foil. With its four landing legs folded underneath itself, the LEM looked like a glittering spider ready to pounce.
"You reckon they know you're coming?" Pat Ashton asked.
The three astronauts were making the final checks before entering lunar orbit. The Doctor was in the middle of the three chairs, Pat Ashton on one side and Marty Garrett on the other. Ashton was the Command Module pilot – he would stay in orbit while the Doctor and Garrett descended to the moon in the LEM.
"Oh, they know," the Doctor said without turning from the controls he was checking. "They'll have seen us coming."
"Base Diana might be on the dark side of the moon," Garrett said, "but there are satellites to bounce radio signals down to them. They'll have tracked us most of the way." He grinned. "Probably wondering who we are and what we're doing."
"They'll be waiting for you, then," Ashton said. "You ready for that?"
"I'm ready for anything," the Doctor told him. "Question is – are they ready for me?"
"You got some experience of tackling alien invaders then?" Garrett asked. His tone was suddenly serious. His eyes seemed to lose color as he turned slightly to watch the Doctor answer.
"Just a bit. Well, quite a lot actually." The Doctor adjusted a dial and tapped a gauge. "That's funny." He glanced at Garrett. "Don't worry, we'll be fine. I don't expect they'll give me much trouble."
Ashton leaned forward to examine the same dial the Doctor had tapped, straining against the straps holding him into his seat. "Looks like a radio wave," he muttered. "But there's nothing on the speakers. Nothing from Houston."
"There wouldn't be," the Doctor said. "That's coming from the opposite direction." He pointed a gloved hand towards another readout. "See? A signal of some sort. But what's it for?"
"It's for me," Garrett replied, his voice devoid of expression. A moment later, his booted foot slammed into the center of the control console.
Sparks erupted from shattered dials and gauges. A mass of red indicator lights blazed into life. A buzzer sounded insistently. Garrett drew his foot back, ready to kick out again. The whole ship lurched, throwing him sideways in his seat. His colorless gray eyes glared across at the Doctor, who was already unstrapping and floating clear of his seat.
"What the hell?!" Ashton yelled above the alarms and the explosions. "Are you crazy?!"
"Possessed more like!" the Doctor yelled back. "Get this thing under control!"
Ashton struggled with his straps, floating clear of his seat to grab a small fire extinguisher. Garrett was also free, kicking against a bulkhead to float after the Doctor. There was no escape in the tiny cabin.
"What's going on up there?" Bardell's voice was tinny and distorted by the speakers. "We've got alarms going like crazy down here. You guys okay?"
"Not now!" Ashton shouted back. "We've got problems!"
Garrett was holding a heavy metal spanner. He swung it at the Doctor, who managed to roll backwards out of the way. The movement spun Garrett too, disorientating him as he turned lazily in the zero gravity.
"I'll get him out of your way!" the Doctor shouted to Ashton. "It's me he's after."
"There's nowhere to go!" Ashton pointed out. But his voice was lost as another alarm went off. Ashton punched the button to reset it. "We're venting fuel. That's not good." He glanced around as he worked, wondering what he could do to help the Doctor, wondering what had happened to Garrett.
But the capsule behind him was empty.
The docking linkway between the Command Module and the LEM was only a few meters long. The Doctor launched himself through the hatch from the main capsule, glancing back to check that Garrett was following him. With luck, Ashton would be able to sort out the problems caused by Garrett's foot. If not, then it didn't really matter if the Doctor could escape Garrett or not – they'd all be dead.
If he'd had time and thought about it, the Doctor would have brought his helmet. Without that, it didn't matter that he was wearing his spacesuit. The Apollo craft was so fragile, designed to be as light as possible, not to endure an attack from a possessed man. What had Amy and Alex said they were called? Blanks.
That made sense. The radio signal, the transmission was a download of some sort – instructions beamed into Garrett's head. The man's eyes were pale gray as he floated down the linkway after the Doctor, as if the humanity had been drained out of him as well as the color.
"When did they get to you?" the Doctor asked.
Garrett didn't answer. No chance in engaging him in conversation while the Doctor thought of a plan, then.
"Not in your instructions to answer, I suppose." The Doctor gently pushed off from a control console in the LEM, floating across the small craft. Garrett had to change course to follow him, flailing for a while in the weightless environment before he could adjust.
"Is it a switch, in the true sense of the word?" the Doctor wondered out loud. "Your mind primed and ready to be switched off, changed for a new set of instructions? Presumably instructions to ensure that I don't make it back to the moon."
Garrett was braced against the opposite side of the LEM, ready to launch himself at the Doctor.
"Maybe you had to gauge if I was a threat first. Hence the questions about my experience with alien invaders."
In a blur of motion that defied the graceful weightlessness the Doctor was experiencing, Garrett flew across the LEM. His hand snatched at the Doctor.
But the Doctor was already pushing himself away, out of reach. "Maybe that's why you ended up on Earth. Someone realized you'd been got at and sent you for a burger…" He remembered Amy and Alex recounting their story over the radio. "Aha! Liz Didbrook, at a guess. The original saboteur, trying to attract attention when she realized something was terribly wrong on the moonbase. Then I guess Jackson realized that breaking the quantum link wasn't such a bad idea after all, so he could work in peace."
Again, Garrett's sudden movement was a fraction of a second too slow. He crashed into a bulkhead. The whole craft shuddered. The Doctor could see the metal skin of the LEM shimmer as it stretched under the impact.
"I guess – that is, I hope – you're more used to the shuttle," the Doctor said. "If you remember anything of your own experience." He'd managed to maneuver himself closer to the linkway back to the Command Module. He'd need to get out of here fast and close the door.
Garrett's blank face twitched in what might have been the hint of a smile.
"You think that if I shut the hatch, you can just open it again from this side," the Doctor said. "And you're right. There's no way to lock it. Except, to open it again you'd have to still be inside the LEM."
The Doctor moved as he was speaking, pushing against the solid bulk of a storage locker. Immediately, Garrett hurled himself after the Doctor. He kicked out strongly against the wall behind him with both feet at once.
"They had to keep the weight right down, you know," the Doctor continued. "And the walls in here are so light, so fragile, they're like tin foil."
But his words were lost in the sudden explosion of noise as Garrett's feet kicked through the thin metal membrane of the LEM. The fragile skin was all that protected the occupants of the craft from the freezing vacuum of space.
Explosive decompression. The spaceship slammed sideways as the air was sucked out. Garrett's face was suddenly a mask of surprise, pain, and fear. For a fraction of a moment, his eyes were pale blue, staring back at the Doctor. Then he was gone, tumbling away into the vast blackness of space.
The Doctor braced himself against the wall of the linkway. Once he moved the hatch slightly, the air rushing past him slammed it shut. The Doctor spun the locking wheel. "Turn the oxygen pumps off in the LEM!" the Doctor gasped. "Otherwise it'll tear apart as the air escapes!"
Ashton battled to stabilize the capsule as it bucked and twisted, rolled and shook. Finally, the craft settled down and Ashton turned in his seat. "Where's Garrett?"
The Doctor was looking through one of the thick triangular windows, sadly watching a tiny figure spinning away into the inky distance. "He went outside," he said sadly. "He might be quite some time."
A/N: A big action-packed chapter here! Who liked Alex's 'Doctor' moment? I felt that she really needed to have some brilliant moments and she had two here! :) And, GASP, what will happen to Amy and Alex?!
Some notes on reviews...
SopherGopher'sAwesomeSister - That part is pretty creepy, isn't it? Speaking of zombies, I wish they would put some in a Doctor Who episode. I think it would be pretty cool, even though you can essentially outrun a zombie. :) Aw, the Doctor misses Alex! That Snow White part is in the original book but refers to Amy, so I changed it here. :) Lol, don't procrastinate too much! :)
SopherGopherroxursox - Thank you! I'm still in shock that it's over 50 chapters! Nope, the part with Rory was not in the original book. I put that in myself. :) According to Wikipedia, 'Apollo 23' takes place between 'Victory of the Daleks' and 'The Time of Angels', but I changed it here. :) I love those episodes too. Time and Space is hilarious. :) I know, I wish they would bring in a few more companions from previous seasons. But we'll see some of them in this series. :) I can't wait for the 50th Anniversary, or 'The Day of the Doctor', as it's now called. Thank you again! I'm glad this story is different from others and is almost on par with the actual show! :) Lol, Alex is cool, but I may be biased. :)
TheGirlWhoWaited - Glad you got caught up! Yeah, we got to some of the crap part in this chapter. What will happen to Amy and Alex?! :)
NunquamAlius - Yep, from a Doctor Who book. And thanks! I'm glad this adventure is being well-received! :)
ElysiumPhoenix - Nope, not too much of a cliffhanger and not too much of one here either. Thanks! I can't believe it's this long! :) Wow, I didn't realize I'm that close to 350,000! I'm very wordy in my writing, lol. :) I like that moment too along with the 'don't call me Doc' conversation. :)
Gwilwillith - Thanks! Glad you love this adventure! :)
Timey-Wimey Somn-Like Lass - Lol, yeah, I think it still counts. I'm guilty of doing that too, mostly in really horrible situations the characters find themselves in or long rambling sections I don't have the patience to read. :) I hate those too, which is why I really try to keep the characters as true to their TV selves as possible. :) Yay, 50 chapters later and still on board! *claps for reader* I'm glad you like how the Dalex relationship is evolving. I feel that it's important for them to get to know each-other as friends first before moving in romantically. :) Yep, Alex is going to meet Rose in the 50th Anniversary special aka 'The Day of the Doctor' (minor note, I think they could've been a bit more creative with the title). I have to see how the special goes, but I think it's safe to say there will be a few jealous moments, but also some bonding moments. Alex will also meet Rose in a story I'm planning that takes place before that, where she meets the other Doctors. :)
ShadowTeir - Glad you liked the joining of the chapters! This chapter was originally one whole chapter and a quarter of another. :) Lol, good to know I still have your attention! :)
babestac99 - Don't worry. In the long run, the Doctor and Alex will have a happy ending, but that doesn't mean they won't face some challenges along the way. After all, it wouldn't be very realistic if their relationship was completely Disney-movie happy, would it? :) Thank you! I'm SO glad you like the story! :D
Lazyandloveit - I'm glad to hear that my chapters make your day! And you really should read Apollo 23. It's really good! :)
Thank you to everyone that reviewed and to those that followed/favored this story. Please review and see you tomorrow!
