Charity rubbed her forehead as she sat up, repairing all of her mental walls. They had shattered from the shock of floating in outer space. The past and future of the entire universe were almost screaming at her now, leaving her immediate surroundings a blur of sight and sound. Finally, as the walls repaired themselves, there was silence, and she let out a breath as she opened her eyes and looked around the spaceship, stepping down from a medipod.
Graham was stood in front of a medipod on the other side with Ryan inside. "That's it. Well done."
Ryan's eyes were wide. "I'm alive." He paused. "We are alive, right?"
"Are all humans this simple?" Charity groaned, rubbing her forehead again.
Ryan stumbled out of the pod, crashing to the ground. "Where are we?"
"On a spaceship," Graham said.
"My spaceship!" a woman called from the front of the ship, making Charity begin to move towards her. The ship itself seemed cobbled together, nowhere near the ships Charity was used to traveling about in.
"Who's that?"
"Presumably, the pilot," Charity called back. She stopped trying to pay attention to him and focused on Ash.
'What happened to you?'
It took a few seconds for Ash to respond. 'I'm on a ship with the Doctor, Yasmin, and the pilot.'
'Safe?'
'The Doctor is arguing with the pilot.'
Charity laughed and refocused on her current situation. The pilot had left her seat, staring at Charity oddly, as Charity had stopped in the middle of the room. "I scooped you," she was saying, shaking her head. "That was a very sneaky trick of his, especially coming out of hyperjump. Now, you could've been killed!"
"Listen," Graham said, coming forward, "I keep telling you, we haven't got a clue what you're talking about."
The woman turned back to her controls. "Oh, have it your own way."
Charity frowned at the ship's screens. "Where in space are we?"
"Just off the Final Planet. Which is out of orbit, not where it should be. But I still found it."
"What do you mean, Final Planet?" Ryan asked. "How can a planet be final?"
The woman laughed. "You are a very funny little bonus."
"Where's Yaz, and the Doctor, and Ash?" Ryan looked to Charity. "Are they here?"
"They're on another ship."
"How'd you know?"
"Alien stuff." Charity wiggled her fingers at him, but then grabbed the back of the pilot's chair as something flashed through her senses. "Best return to the pods. Landing ahead..."
"How do you..." the pilot began, but then the ship began to shake as it entered the atmosphere. Ryan and Graham started to scream.
Charity only cursed.
-I-I-
The landing was smoother than Charity would have guessed. They lowered down to the surface of the planet, which was hot and dusty. The pilot strode forward, taking out some computer device. Charity took a few steps after her, shielding her eyes from the sun. She did have sunglasses on, as always, but the sudden arrival of three suns still took some getting used to.
Ash was close, she could tell, even if whatever was happening on his ship seemed to be distracting him too much for him to communicate with Charity again.
And there was something about this planet that felt familiar. It wasn't as specific as her knowing could be, but there was something. Enough that Charity grinned.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Ryan called after the pilot.
"I need to survey the atmospheric data."
Charity turned back to face the humans as they took in their surroundings. "We're on an alien planet, Graham."
Graham nodded. "I know. Well, three suns in the sky are a bit of a giveaway."
"Everything alright over there?" Charity said, taking out her vaporizer and flicking it to a non-lethal setting for now. The Doctor hadn't mentioned the weapons Ash and Charity carried, a conversation she was not looking forward to having with her aunt.
"What do we do?" Ryan asked her.
"Follow the pilot," Charity nodded back to the woman. "We'll find the Doctor, Ash, and Yaz soon enough." She held up her free hand. "I know because of alien stuff, so I would appreciate you just filling in that answer every time you have a question to ask me." Ryan had opened his mouth but promptly closed it.
Charity gestured for the humans to follow her towards the pilot, eventually catching up. The woman gave them a look over her shoulder.
"Whatever you think we are, we're not, all right?" Graham said.
"Are you still pleading ignorance?"
Charity stopped walking, turning to look behind her. A second later, the sound of something approaching very fast reached them, as did the sight of something very bright plummeting towards the surface of the planet. Almost directly behind them.
"Do you guys hear that?" Ryan asked, following Charity's movements.
"Finskad!" the pilot said. "How did he even make it?"
"It's another spaceship!" Ryan said.
"Another spaceship about to crash land."
Charity turned and pointed in the opposite direction. "Time to run!" she led the charge, moving past them. She focused on where the ship would crash in the near future and attempted to direct them elsewhere.
There was a cloud of dust as the ship hit the surface just behind them. In the force of the impact, the group was thrown backward. As it went into her mouth, Charity cursed sand for what she knew would be the first time of many.
She had just jumped up again when the Doctor emerged from the clouds. "Sorry about the mess," the Doctor said. Ash came up behind her adjusting his jacket.
"Could have warned me," Charity told her twin.
"Bit distracted by the ship nearly killing us, terribly sorry."
As they spoke, the humans were having an equivalent conversation, though Charity was fairly certain it had something to do with thinking each other group was dead. In unison, the twins turned to face them. "Right, quick update," the Doctor said. "I made a terrible mistake. We shouldn't be here. I'm going to fix it and get you guys home, I promise. Soon as I figure out where we are."
"How are you going to do that?" Graham said.
"Not sure." The Doctor shrugged. "Treating it as a chance to surprise myself. Oh, by the way, welcome to what I presume is your first alien planet. Don't touch anything."
"This way," Charity said, moving forward across the sand. Ash joined her.
'Weapons out already, then.'
Charity glanced at him. 'We're on an alien planet with our aunt. Something is bound to happen.' They exchanged grins.
Suddenly, quite loudly, a klaxon sounded. "What's that?" the Doctor called.
"Here we go," the female pilot said, jumping down a small hill. The male pilot joined her, taking the twins' place in leading the group.
"What you mean, here we go?" the Doctor asked her. "Here we go where? To what?"
"Yeah, where are we actually going?"
The female pilot just gestured to them. "Come on." They started trekking through the sandhills.
As they walked, the Doctor, coming up just behind the twins, began to dig through their new coat. "Oh, I forgot I put stuff in these pockets." She pulled out an odd box, studied it, and shoved it back in to continue searching.
"All this sand is getting in my eyes something rotten," Graham said, furrowing his brows.
"Want to borrow my shades?" the Doctor pulled out a large pair from her pockets, passing them back to Graham.
"Oh, ta."
"Like an old pair of mine. I say mine. Can't remember who I borrowed them off now. It was either Audrey Hepburn or Pythagoras."
"Eh? Pythagoras never wore shades."
The Doctor glanced behind her. "You obviously never saw him with a hangover."
Finally, they crested the hill, revealing a white tent in the middle of the desert.
'Do you know what's going to happen?' Ash asked her.
'There is something familiar.'
'Something good familiar or something bad?'
As an answer, Charity held up her vaporizer.
"Do you two know what that is?" the Doctor asked. For a second, the twins believed she was speaking to them, but a quick turn around revealed she was focused on the pilots.
"It's a tent."
The Doctor nodded. "Obviously, it's a tent. I meant..." the pilots began to go forward, "oh, never mind. Come on, no dawdling."
They followed the pilots down to the tent, though Ash glanced back, frowning at a piece of cloth in the sand.
"Losers first," the female pilot said, making the male one laugh before entering.
"Be careful." The Doctor turned to look at the rest of them. "I still don't know what's going on." She glanced at the twins. "It could be dangerous. Probably is dangerous."
"Can I ask," Graham said, "if we are on an alien planet, with aliens, how can we understand them? Ain't they talking alien?"
Ash tapped the back of his neck. "Standard procedure from medipods is to put implants in. It looks for a universal translator and, if it can't find one, implants one."
"Eh? Well, can people and things stop putting stuff inside me without my permission!"
The Doctor sighed. "If I had my TARDIS, you wouldn't need them. Anyway, shall we?" she gestured to the tent.
They stepped inside. It was rather richly furnished, using an aesthetic that both twins wrinkled their noses at. On a long couch, a man, a hologram, if the slight wince Ash gave was any guide, was sitting, his arms spread out on the back of the chair.
"This is lavish, for a tent," the Doctor said, approaching the new man. "I'm the Doctor, these are Ash and Charity, and these are my new best friends, Ryan, Graham, and Yaz. Now..." she reached forward and passed her hand through the seated figure, making both him and the surrounding tent flicker. "Oh. See? Hologram. Thought it might be. Good one, though. I love a good hologram. I was a hologram once, for three weeks." The Doctor shook her head. "The gossip I picked up."
"Are you a projection of reality or an AI interface?" Ash said, approaching on the Doctor's other side. "Because this is remarkable quality."
'Stop flirting with a hologram.'
Ash winked over his shoulder, though she did wonder if he was thinking of Richard at all, and then wondered why she was thinking of her brother's human boyfriend for him.
"Who are these people?" the hologram asked.
"Bonuses."
"No," he snapped.
"What?"
"I told you, bonuses and snake traps are over."
The male pilot gestured at them. "They were hanging in the starfield when we exited hyper. Are you saying we scooped them for nothing?"
"Yes."
"I sacrificed my ship!"
The Doctor held up a hand. "Yeah, sorry. Some of this is my fault." She stepped forward again. "Hi. We were loads of solar systems away, I was trying to find my own ship, I got a fix on it here...and then it all went quite badly wrong, actually. These three are being very good not going on about it." She looked to the pilots. "Very grateful you came along." Back to the hologram. "Can I ask, what is actually going on here? Cos I'm confused. Are you confused?"
"Pretty confused," Yasmin said.
"Proper confused," Ryan nodded.
"I'm way beyond confused," Graham said.
"More confused than I'd like to be," Charity added, which Ash nodded along to.
"You're intruding on the final stage of the last ever Rally of the Twelve Galaxies," the hologram said.
Ash frowned. "That's a race, isn't it? Typically thousands enter."
"We're the finalists," the female pilot said.
"Four thousand entered, two are left. Only one will claim the prize."
"Which is?" Charity asked.
"For the final ever race, 3.2 trillion krin."
The Doctor frowned. "3.2 trillion what?"
"Krin."
"How much is a krin?"
"200 kavlons," the female pilot said, eyebrows raised.
"90 forvalars."
The Doctor shook her head. "No..."
Charity blinked. "Oh, 4000 trynties."
"Well, in old money," the male pilot said, though he nodded to her.
"Lot of exchange rates I had to process," Charity said.
The hologram nodded. "Enough to provide a lifetime of comfort on a safe world for the winning pilot and their entire clan."
"Are we eligible too?" Ryan asked.
"No," Ash answered for them. "What's the final task?"
"The final challenge is to cross the terrain, survive the planet, make your way to the other side of the mountains, and the first one to get to the site marked as the Ghost Monument will be crowned the winner and transported off this planet. The loser will not."
The female pilot gasped. "You can't leave one of us here. The ships are out of fuel."
The hologram stood and closed in on her. "Don't tell me what I can and cannot do with my own race. You knew the risks when you joined. Biggest ever prize, biggest ever risk."
Graham came forward. "Oi, hang on, what about us?"
"Shut up. You're not part of this."
"'Scuse me, we are human beings. Show a bit of solidarity."
"I'm Muxteran," the male pilot said. "She's Albarian."
The female pilot frowned. "Never heard of Moomanbeans."
"Beings," Ryan tried. "Human beings. Earth?"
"Nope."
"Pretty cruel race," the Doctor said, drawing attention again, "leaving the loser stranded."
"It's meant to be. The rally is a test of survival," Ash said. "How far people will go? How will they react when challenged? The ultimate test." He glanced at the group. "What? I did a lot of reading on it." He turned to face the hologram. "You must be Ilin. You started the rally, won it yourself."
The hologram nodded to him. "And now I'm going to end it. No sabotage, no injuries and no killing each other."
"Shame."
"Instant disqualification applies," Ilin told the male pilot. "Now, take your meds, don't travel at night, and don't drink the water. In fact, don't even touch the water. This entire planet has been made cruel."
Charity frowned. "Made cruel how? And by whom?"
"This stage must be completed before one full solar rotation. You have one single piece of assistance. Transport, provided by the water. Get across the water, through the ruins, and the site of Ghost Monument is on the other side of the mist swamps."
"Mist what?"
"Your route trackers are over there," Ilin gestured to the side. "Good luck."
"I know you prefer to ignore me," the Doctor said, "but what is it, this Ghost Monument?"
Ilin finally looked to her again. "The site was named by the ancient settlers. It appears in exactly the same place every thousand rotations."
"I've got my tracker, I'm good to go," the female pilot said.
"See you for the prize, Ilin. I'll finally get to light my Althusian cigar. Saving it for the win." With their final nods, the two competitors left the tent.
"What does it look like, this monument?"
"What does it matter?" Ilin stepped through the Doctor, fazing out for that moment.
"Look at us." The Doctor gestured around at the humans. "Six people who barely know each other, stranded on a planet called Desolation. No route trackers, no way off, and judging by what you've just told us, very little hope of survival. I need all the information I can get. Including, but not limited to, what this Ghost Monument actually looks like when it appears."
Ilin raised his hands, bringing up another hologram of a ship that the Doctor, Ash, and Charity were very familiar with.
Zia.
And, if Charity was right, and she always was, their mother was with the Doctor's TARDIS.
But of course, it was at the end of the space race that Ash had once spent an entire afternoon quoting all of the history of to Charity and their mamaidh.
They would get there. They had to.
A/N: Time for a proper adventure! Now that the Doctor knows who the twins are, they will be quite a bit less discrete about everything...
Notes on reviews:
Purplestan: I've been looking forward to that scene for some time now. Always love a good family reunion :)
Guest: I am definitely leaning towards that being what happened, and actually quite excited for what that would mean for this story. Don't worry, I have quite a few ideas about who might be coming back quite soon...