AN: Hello my dears! Sorry it's been a while, but I've been terribly busy - lots of stuff to do, medical school things and all that. But I had a quiet day, and thought I'd get some writing done, so here we are!
Happy reading!
Much love, Azzie xx
Chapter 9: The Impossible Planet
From the very beginning, the whole journey had been… weird. Even with the best efforts of both the Doctor and Eris, the Tardis had been reacting strangely to something, and the landing had been particularly difficult. They'd managed to materialise, but it had almost felt like the old girl was begging to go anywhere else. A little uneasy, Eris led the way out of the ship and into the tight space they had landed in.
"Something definitely isn't right with her."
The Doctor agreed. "I don't know what's wrong though. She's sort of queasy. Indigestion, like she didn't want to land."
He patted the doors lovingly, and Rose pulled a face.
"Oh, if you think there's going to be trouble, we could always get back inside and go somewhere else…"
There was the tiniest of pauses, then the three of them burst into hysterics. Between laughs, the Doctor managed to gasp out.
"I think we've landed inside a cupboard. Here we go."
The voice of the computer narrated their actions, "Open door 15." as they stepped out into a corridor.
The Doctor hummed thoughtfully. "Some sort of base. Moon base, sea base, space base. They build these things out of kits."
"Close door 15."
A cacophony of crashes from above made Rose a little uneasy.
"Glad we're indoors. Sounds like a hell of a storm out there."
"Open door 16."
As they came into another corridor, the Doctor ignored Rose's comment entirely.
"Human design. You've got a thing about kits. This place was put together like a flat pack wardrobe, only bigger. And easier."
"Open door 17."
The three of them entered a large, circular room, and the Doctor's smile brightened.
"Oh, it's a sanctuary base."
"Close door 17."
"Deep space exploration. We've gone way out. And listen to that, underneath. Someone's drilling."
Both girls listened closely, and they could hear it too - the soft rumble of machinery, deep underneath them. Graffiti on a far wall caught Rose's eye, and she snorted.
"Welcome to hell."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, it's not that bad."
Frowning, Eris weaved her way around a few chairs to get to the panel.
"No, over here."
The words Rose had quoted were painted on the wall in big block letters, a headline for the twelve lines of vertical alien script beneath it.
Joining his daughter, the Doctor's smile dropped.
"Hold on, what does that say?" He squinted at the characters. "That's weird, it won't translate."
Eris was tracing over the shapes with a finger.
"There's got to be a pattern, at least. It's written similarly to Japanese, so maybe this can be read right to left? Some of these loops look similar…"
Resting a hand on each of her friends' shoulders, Rose peered at the scribbles again.
"But I thought the Tardis translated everything, writing as well. We should see English."
The Doctor ran a hand through his hair.
"Exactly. If that's not working, then it means this writing is old. Very old. Impossibly old. We should find out who's in charge."
Standing up straight, he marched over to the nearest door and started to spin the locking wheel.
"We've gone beyond the reach of the Tardis' knowledge. Not a good move. And if someone's lucky enough-"
"Open door 19."
He was cut off by the appearance of five or so humanoid aliens - at least, they were humanoid from the neck downwards. Clusters of tentacles hung from the area where the nose and mouth should have been, below harshly wrinkled foreheads and watery grey eyes. Each of them carried a white globe in their right hand. A little unnerved, the Doctor backed up.
"Oh! Right. Hello. Sorry. I was just saying, er, nice base."
"We must feed." Their voices were softly apathetic, with no hint of emotion.
"You've got to what?"
"We must feed."
Appearing at his shoulder, Rose pulled him away from the door.
"Yeah. I think they mean us."
As Eris joined them and they moved further back into the room, the beings approached them.
"We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed."
More of the things entered from the other doors leading in, and the trio moved to the very centre of the room, running out of options. Rose and Eris decided on using nearby chairs to defend themselves, while the Doctor relied on the sonic screwdriver.
"We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed..."
The being closest to them shook the globe it held, and tapped it a few times.
"-you, if you are hungry."
Exchanging bewildered looks with the others, the Doctor stared at the alien,
"Sorry?"
"We apologise. Electromagnetics have interfered with speech systems. Would you like some refreshment?"
Before any of them could come up with a coherent response, the computerised voice blared out again.
"Open door 18."
A middle aged man and a couple of young looking people in what looked like security guard's uniforms entered the room. The man in the lead spoke first.
"What the hell? How did…?" He brought his wrist-communicator up to his face, not taking his eyes off the trio in the centre of the room.
"Captain, you're not going to believe this. We've got people. Out of nowhere. I mean, real people. I mean two living people, just standing here right in front of me."
A man's voice came back.
"Don't be stupid, that's impossible."
"I suggest telling them that."
Rose pulled a face. "But you're a sort of space base. You must have visitors now and then. It can't be that impossible."
"You're telling me you don't know where you are?"
Eris shrugged. "No idea. He claims it's more fun that way."
A young woman's voice sounded over the open tannoy system.
"Stand by, everyone. Buckle down. We have incoming. And it's a big one. Quake point five on its way."
He gestured towards the door that he'd come through.
"Through here, now. Quickly, come on! Move!"
The man who'd found them - Mr Jefferson, who'd introduced himself as head of security - led them through a twisting maze of corridors towards some sort of central hub. Above them, conduits banged loudly, making Rose worry slightly about the structure's stability. Jefferson ushered them forwards.
"Move it! Come on! Keep moving. Come on! Quickly! Move it!"
At the end of their current hallway was a door, and when they arrived at it Jefferson reached past them to open it, revealing a busy control hub of people behind it. As the trio followed him in, everyone stared at them in shock.
"Oh, my God. You meant it." A black man in his late twenties peered at them like he didn't believe they existed.
On the other side of the central desk, a girl about Rose's age grinned at them.
"People! Look at that, real people!"
The Doctor beamed back at her. "That's us. Hooray!"
Eris reached out to shake the hand of a bewildered looking Asian man. "Yep, we were definitely real the last time I checked. Nice to meet you!"
Not wanting to look rude, Rose joined in.
"Yeah, definitely real. My name's Rose. Rose Tyler. And this Eris, and the Doctor."
The man Eris had shaken hands with scoffed.
"Come on the oxygen must be offline. We're hallucinating. They can't be. No, they're real."
Banging a hand on the desk, the black man - presumably the crew's captain, by the way he took charge - got everyone's attention.
"Come on, we're in the middle of an alert! Danny, strap up. The quake's coming in! Impact in thirty seconds! Sorry you three, whoever you are. Just hold on, tight."
"Hold on to what?" Rose frowned, not seeing much around them that looked like it could be of any use.
"Anything. I don't care. Just hold on. Ood, are we fixed?"
Compared to the rest of the crew, the Ood were incredibly calm.
"Your kindness in this emergency is much appreciated."
Curious, the Doctor asked, "What's this planet called, anyway?"
A woman in her early thirties raised an eyebrow at the three of them.
"Now, don't be stupid. It hasn't got a name. How could it have a name?" The blank look on their faces confused her. "You really don't know, do you?"
Before the conversation could continue, the entire place shook beneath their feet. It really wasn't too bad, and the trio by the doorway managed to stay upright fairly well. They'd had worse turbulence on the Tardis!
As always, the Doctor opened his mouth just before the situation got worse.
"Oh, well, that wasn't so bad."
This time, several of the peripheral consoles burst into flames, and the shakes were far more violent. Eris and Rose were hanging onto each other and a couple of wobbly handrails in an attempt to stay on their feet, and the Doctor ended up leaning heavily against the door they'd just walked through. Once the shakes subsided, the captain checked on his crew.
"Okay, that's it. Everyone all right? Speak to me, Ida."
"Yeah, yeah!" This was the woman who'd started explaining the lack of name.
"Danny?"
The man who'd believed they were figments of his imagination. "Fine."
"Toby?"
A slender, pale man in a far corner of the control room. "Yeah, fine."
"Scooti?"
"No damage." This was the youngest crew member.
"Jefferson?"
"Check!"
After a few seconds, the Doctor realised that he wasn't going to check on them.
"We're fine, thanks, fine. Yeah, don't worry about us."
Eris groaned, working the stiffness out of her shoulders. "Speak for yourself."
The captain ignored them completely as he looked over a schematic report of the base's structures.
"The surface caved in. I deflected it onto storage five through eight. We've lost them completely. Toby, go and check the rocket link."
Toby pulled a face. "That's not my department."
"Just do as I say, yeah?"
As he left, Ida checked the system.
"Oxygen holding. Internal gravity fifty six point six. We should be okay."
Finally feeling safe enough to let go of the railing, Rose gestured up at the ceiling.
"Never mind the earthquake, that's, that's one hell of a storm. What is that, a hurricane?"
Scooti shrugged.
"You'd need an atmosphere for a hurricane. There's no air out there. It's a complete vacuum."
"Then what's shaking the roof?"
There was a moment of silence, in which Scooti and Ida exchanged bemused looks.
"You're not joking. You really don't know. Well introductions. FYI, as they said in the olden days. I'm Ida Scott, science officer. Zachary Cross Flane, acting Captain." The captain nodded at the trio. "You've met Mister Jefferson, he's Head of Security. Danny Bartock, Ethics committee."
Danny interrupted. "Not as boring as it sounds."
"That man who just left, that was Toby Zed, Archaeology. And this is Scooti Manista, Trainee maintenance." Walking over to the nearest wall, Ida wrapped her hand around a lever. "And this? This is home."
As she pulled the lever, Zach raised an eyebrow at the three newcomers.
"Brace yourselves. The sight of it sends some people mad."
Overhead, the shutters pulled back to reveal a vast expanse of space above them. In the centre of the view was an impossibly black disc, surrounded by fiery tendrils of hot white light. In the space surrounding it, clouds of coloured gas travelled slowly towards the darkness. There was only one thing it could possibly be.
"That's a black hole." Eris murmured, not blinking as she gazed at the vision above.
The Doctor gaped. "But that's impossible."
Zach shrugged. "I did warn you."
"We're standing under a black hole."
"In orbit." Ida added.
"But we can't be"
"You can see for yourself. We're in orbit."
"But we can't be!"
"This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole without falling in. Discuss."
Rose pulled a face. "And that's bad, yeah?"
The Doctor looked deadly serious.
"Bad doesn't cover it. A black hole's a dead star. It collapses in on itself, in and in and in until the matter's so dense and tight it starts to pull everything else in too. Nothing in the universe can escape it. Light, gravity, time. Everything just gets pulled inside and crushed."
"So, they can't be in orbit. We should be pulled right in."
"We should be dead."
Ida smirked. "And yet here we are, beyond the laws of physics. Welcome on board."
Rose still didn't quite get it.
"But if there's no atmosphere out there, what's that?"
"Stars breaking up. Gas clouds. We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above our heads, before falling into that thing."
"So, a bit worse than a storm, then."
"Just a bit."
"Just a bit, yeah."
Another slight shake ran through the ground beneath them.
"The rocket link's fine." Toby re-entered the main room, only to be ignored by the rest of the crew that were present. Captain Zach was showing their new arrivals exactly where they were.
"That's the black hole, officially designated K Three Seven Gen Five."
Ida picked up the narrative.
"In the scriptures of the Falltino, this planet is called Kroptor, the bitter pill. And the black hole is supposed to be a mighty demon. It was tricked into devouring the planet, only to spit it out, because it was poison."
Rose chuckled. "The bitter pill. I like that."
The Doctor was looking at the coordinates.
"We are so far out. Lost in the drifts of the universe. How did you even get here?!"
Zach smiled, pulling up a holographic display of the planet and a sort of funnel wavelength.
"We flew in. You see, this planet's generating a gravity field. We don't know how. We've no idea. But it's kept in constant balance against the black hole. And the field extends out there as a funnel. A distinct gravity funnel, reaching out into clear space. That was our way in."
A grin crept onto Rose's face. "You flew down that thing? Like a rollercoaster."
"By rights, the ship should have been torn apart. We lost the Captain, which is what put me in charge."
Seeing the uncomfortable look on his face, Ida patted his shoulder reassuringly.
"You're doing a good job."
"Yeah, well, needs must."
Danny snorted. "But if that gravity funnel closes, there's no way out."
Next to him, Scooti grinned. "We had fun speculating about that."
"Oh, yeah. That's the word. Fun." He rolled his eyes, and bopped her over the head with a rolled up plan.
The Doctor was still baffled.
"But that field would take phenomenal amounts of power. I mean not just big, but off the scale! Can I?"
Ida slid a small calculator across the table at him.
"Sure. Help yourself."
One of the aliens passed Rose and Eris a plastic cup for each of them.
"Your refreshment."
"Oh, yeah. Thanks. Thank you. I'm sorry, what was your name?" Rose smiled.
"We have no titles. We are as one."
As it walked away, Eris got Danny's attention.
"Sorry, what are they called?"
He looked at her oddly. "Oh, come on. Where have you been living? Everyone's got one."
"Well, not me, so, what are they?"
"They're the Ood."
Rose let the new word cling to her lips. "The Ood?"
"The Ood."
"Well that's... ood."
He laughed. "Very ood, but handy. They work the mine shafts. All the drilling and stuff. Supervision and maintenance. They're born for it. Basic slave race."
Rose's expression dropped. "You've got slaves?"
Scooti joined the conversation, pulling a face.
"Don't start. She's like one of that lot. Friends of the Ood."
"Well maybe I am, yeah. Since when do humans need slaves?"
"But the Ood offer themselves. If you don't give them orders, they just pine away and die."
As they walked off, Rose turned to the nearest Ood.
"Seriously, you like being ordered about?"
The Ood's tone never changed. "It is all we crave."
"Why's that, then?"
"We have nothing else in life."
"Yeah, well, I used to think like that, a long time ago."
The Doctor slammed the calculator down on the desk in front of him with a loud bang.
"There we go! Do you see? To generate that gravity field, and the funnel, you'd need a power source with an inverted self extrapolating reflex of six to the power of six every six seconds."
Eris peered over his shoulder, scanning over the calculations he'd made on a scrap of paper.
"Looks about right."
"That's a lot of sixes." Rose nudged Eris in the ribs.
"And it's impossible." The Doctor agreed.
Zach stared at the Doctor, amazed. "It took us two years to work that out!"
"I'm very good."
"But that's why we're here," Ida explained "this power source is ten miles below us, through solid rock. Point Zero. We're drilling down to try and find it."
"It's giving off readings of over ninety stats on the Blazon scale." Zach made the statement like it was meant to be something impressive, but it meant absolutely nothing to the newcomers.
"It could revolutionise modern science."
From a corner, Jefferson added, "We could use it to fuel the Empire."
The Doctor's tone was dark. "Or start a war."
Sat at one of the tables, Toby murmured just loud enough to be heard.
"It's buried beneath us, in the darkness, waiting."
Rose pulled a face at him. "What's your job, chief dramatist?"
"Well, whatever it is down there is not a natural phenomena. And this, er, planet once supported life, eons ago, before the human race had even learned to walk."
The Doctor got involved. "I saw that lettering written on the wall. Did you do that?"
"I copied it from fragments we found unearthed by the drilling, but I can't translate it."
"No, neither can I. And that's saying something."
"There was some form of civilisation. They buried something. Now it's reaching out, calling us in."
Gazing at all of the crew members, the Doctor's face split into a grin.
"And you came."
Ida smiled back. "Well, how could we not?"
"So, when it comes right down to it, why did you come here? Why did you do that? Why? I'll tell you why. Because it was there. Brilliant. Excuse me, er, Zach, wasn't it?"
"That's me."
"Just stand there, because I'm going to hug you. Is that all right?"
"I suppose so."
"Here we go. Come on, then."
Eris choked back a laugh as her dad squeezed the Captain tightly.
"Oh, human beings. You are amazing! Ha! Thank you."
Zach looked a little awkward. "Not at all."
"But apart from that, you're completely mad. You should pack your bags, get back in that ship and fly for your lives."
Ida rolled her eyes. "You can talk. And how the hell did you get here?"
"Oh, I've got this er, this ship. It's hard to explain. It just sort of appears."
Rose piped up. "We can show you, we parked down the corridor from er... Oh, what's it called? Habitation area-"
"Three."
"Three. Three."
Slowly, Zach raised his head to make eye contact with the Doctor.
"Do you mean storage six?"
Realising what he was talking about, Eris blanched and sprinted from the room, ignoring Rose's questioning. The Doctor still seemed oblivious.
"It was a bit of a cupboard, yeah. Storage six. But you said... You said..." And it hit him. "You said storage five to eight."
He followed Eris' path, catching up with her quickly.
Rose struggled to catch up with them, breathless. "What is it? What's wrong?"
They didn't answer, and the computer logging the doors opening and closing provided the only background noise other than their feet on the metal floor.
"Open door 19. Close door 19."
They stopped at one door in particular, Eris using her entire body weight against the wheel lock as the Doctor punched at the accompanying keypad.
"Door 16 out of commission."
He snarled. "It can't be. It can't be!"
"What's wrong? What is it? Doctor, the Tardis is in there. What's happened?" Rose grabbed his shoulders, trying to make eye contact.
"The Tardis is gone."
"Door 16 out of commission."
His voice was toneless now, lost. "The earthquake. This section collapsed."
"But it's got to be out there somewhere."
Eris pulled back from the porthole in the bulkhead door, eyes shining.
"Look down."
And she did - but there was nothing to see. Beneath them was a sheer drop into pure darkness. The Tardis was gone.
A much more grave Doctor returned to the console room, and immediately sprung a proposition at Zach.
"The ground gave way. My Tardis must've fallen down right into the heart of the planet. But you've got robot drills heading the same way."
He shook his head. "We can't divert the drilling."
"But I need my ship. It's all I've got. Literally the only thing."
"Doctor, we've only got the resources to drill one central shaft down to the power source, and that's it. No diversions, no distractions, no exceptions. Your machine is lost. All I can do is offer you a lift if we ever get to leave this place, and that is the end of it."
Ida laid a consoling hand on his arm.
"I'll er, put you on the duty roster. We need someone in the laundry."
And then the others left the three of them alone there, with the Ood, to think.
"Open door 1. Close door 1."
He was quiet for a moment.
"I've trapped you both here."
Rose shook her head. "No, don't worry about me."
Eris laced her fingers with his, holding tight. "Stuck with you isn't so bad. I know I can think of worse things."
The shakes got worse again, and Rose laughed nervously.
"Okay, we're on a planet that shouldn't exist, under a black hole and no way out. Yeah, I've changed my mind. Start worrying about me."
The Doctor wrapped his free arm around her, holding both his girls as tightly to him as possible. He couldn't risk losing them too.
Overhead, the computer made another announcement.
"Entering night shift. Your chosen track for transition is Ravel's Bolero."
The familiar sweet opening notes of Ravel's most famous work filled the air as the ship and it's crew started the switch into night mode.
Scooti led their guests to the canteen area, the Doctor and Eris bringing up the rear as they examined a couple of the fragments that Toby had lent them.
In the background, they were vaguely aware of Zach making a call to Danny on the open channel as they sat down at one of the tables.
"Danny, check the temperature in Ood Habitation. It seems to be rising."
A little peckish, Rose stood up again.
"I'm going to give the food a go. Eris, you up for trying some?"
She shook her head. "Nah, I'll pass. Space base food doesn't usually agree with me."
Scooti brushed past her as she made her way to the food windows, and passed her a tray.
"Help yourself. Just don't have the green. Or the blue."
Slightly unnerved by the Ood behind the window, Rose slid her tray into the slot and pointed down at a lumpy looking blue substance.
"Er, bit of that, thanks."
The Ood served her a scoop, before asking, "Would you like sauce with that?"
"I'll have a go, yeah. I did that job once. I was a… a dinner lady. Not that I'm calling you a lady. Although, I don't know, you might be. Do you actually get paid, though? Do they give you money?"
The answer to her question was very different from the one she'd been expecting.
"The Beast and his Armies shall rise from the Pit to make war against God."
"I'm sorry?"
The Ood tapped a hand against it's vocal globe, shook it for a moment, and then tried again. It's voice had never changed from the usual monotonous flatness.
"Apologies. I said, I hope you enjoy your meal."
Slightly shaken up, Rose managed a smile.
"Yeah."
As she sat down, the lights flickered briefly. Frowning, Ida went to the comms unit next to the door. "Zach? Have we got a problem?"
His voice crackled back. "No more than usual. Got the Scarlet System burning up. Might be worth a look."
"You might want to see this. Moment in history."
She opened the roof shutters to reveal a pinkish red streamer of light being drawn into the black hole.
"There. On the edge. That red cloud. That used to be the Scarlet System. Home to the Peluchi, a mighty civilisation spanning a billion years, disappearing forever. Their planets and suns consumed." She stood silent for a moment, as everyone in the room watched the spectacle above. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have witnessed its passing." As she moved to close the shutters again, the Doctor called over to her.
"Er, no, could you leave it open? Just for a bit. I won't go mad, I promise."
"How would you know?"
Eris looked up from the clay piece in her hands, an eyebrow raised.
"I'm pretty sure he's been mad for a long time, Ida."
Conceding, Ida turned her attention to the other members of staff around her.
"Scooti, check the lockdown. Jefferson, sign off the airlock seals for me."
Rose leant across the table, shoving aside the tray of pungent blue stuff.
"I've seen films and things, yeah. They say black holes are like gateways to another universe."
The Doctor shook his head. "Not that one. It just eats."
"Long way from home."
"Go that way, turn right, keep going for er, about, er, five hundred years, and you'll reach the Earth."
She huffed a laugh, and reached into her pocket to dig out her phone.
"No signal. That's the first time we've gone out of range. Mind you, even if I could. What would I tell her?" There was a long pause. "Can you build another Tardis?"
The look on the Doctor's face was melancholy, mixed with grief and a touch of nostalgia.
"They were grown, not built. And with my own planet gone, we're kind of stuck."
Eris squeezed the Doctor's forearm comfortingly. She knew it was difficult for him to talk about Gallifrey, and losing the last thing he had of home was hardly going to make it any easier.
Oblivious to the silent interaction between her friends, Rose carried on.
"Well, it could be worse. This lot said they'd give us a lift."
"And then what?"
"I don't know. We find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe."
A look of horror passed across his face.
"I'd have to settle down. Get a house or something. A proper house with, with doors and things. Carpets. Me, living in a house! Now that, that is terrifying."
Eris giggled, and Rose broke into a singsong voice.
"You'd have to get a mortgage."
"No."
"Oh, yes."
He fell forward and smacked his head against the table.
"I'm dying. That's it. I'm dying. It is all over."
"What about me? I'd have to get one, too. I don't know, could be the same one. We could both, I don't know, share. Or not, you know."
An awkward silence fell for a moment, and Eris looked between the two of them curiously. Could it be…? She doubted something had been going on between the two of them - there's no way she wouldn't have noticed that - but it was perfectly plausibly that Rose had started to fall for the Doctor.
Rose hastened to fill the quiet.
"Whatever. I don't know. We'll sort something out."
"Anyway."
"We'll see."
This time, the silence was a little more comfortable. Eris poked about at the fragments again, looking for patterns. She couldn't translate it; that was definitely beyond her abilities. But the least she could try was to look for patterns in the letters. A downstroke here, an odd Z-shaped squiggle there. Finding a pattern would be a good start, and might even make the translation easier for her dad.
He still seemed rather morose.
"I promised Jackie I'd always take you back home."
Rose brushed it off. "Everyone leaves home in the end."
"Not to end up stuck here."
"Yeah, but stuck with you two, that's not so bad."
A slight smile caught his mouth. "Yeah?"
"Yes."
Her phone rang, buzzing against the table as it did so. That was odd. It hadn't had any signal a moment ago. Nevertheless, she answered the call anyway. The voice on the other end of the phone sent chills through her whole body, and a terrible fear carved a pit into her stomach.
"He is awake."
After explaining what she'd heard on the phone, and what the Ood behind the counter had said to her, Rose followed the others down to Ood Habitation for a little bit of investigating.
"Evening." The Doctor grinned. "Only us."
Danny glanced up from his work at them.
"The mysterious trio. How are you, then? Settling in?"
"Yeah. Sorry, straight to business, the Ood how do they communicate? I mean, with each other."
"Oh, just empaths. There's a low level telepathic field connecting them. Not that that does them much good. They're basically a herd race. Like cattle."
Below the catwalk, the Ood were sitting calmly on long benches, staring straight ahead.
Eris thought for a moment. "This telepathic field. Can it pick up messages?"
Rose jumped in. "Because I was having dinner, and one of the Ood said something, well, odd."
"Hmm. An odd Ood." Danny smirked.
"And then I got something else on my er, communicator thing."
"Oh, be fair. We've got whole star systems burning up around us. There's all sorts of stray transmissions. Probably nothing. Look, if there was something wrong, it would show. We monitor the telepathic field. It's the only way to look after them. They're so stupid, they don't even tell us when they're ill."
The Doctor focused on one of the screens, showing a wavelength and a number.
"Monitor the field. That's this thing?"
"Yeah. But like I said, it's low level telepathy. They only register basic five."
Unbeknownst to him, the number was steadily climbing.
"Well, that's not basic five. Ten, twenty. They've gone up to basic thirty."
"But they can't."
Noticing a movement, Rose leant over the railing to look down at the Ood, who were now standing.
"Doctor, the Ood. What does basic thirty mean?"
Danny answered for him. "Well, it means that they're shouting, screaming inside their heads."
"Or something's shouting at them." The Doctor sounded thoughtful.
"But where is it coming from? What is it saying? What did it say to you?"
Rose shrugged. "Something about the beast in the pit."
"What about your communicator? What did that say?"
"He is awake."
"And you will worship him." The Ood spoke in unison, and the humans in the room whipped around to stare down at them.
"What the hell?" Danny breathed.
The Doctor's tone became sterner. "He is awake."
"And you will worship him."
"Worship who? Who's talking to you? Who is it?"
He got no response.
Without warning, the base shook again, more violently than before.
"Emergency hull breach. Emergency hull breach." The computer was stating that which was blatantly obvious as the floor juddered beneath them, almost knocking them off their feet.
Danny shouted down the comms. "Which section?"
Zach responded through the open channel.
"Everyone, evacuate eleven to thirteen. We've got a breach. The base is open. Repeat, the base is open!"
As they ran through the corridors to avoid the dangerous sections, they met up with Jefferson and the others, knocking into each other as they battled to stay upright.
"Breach sealed. Breach sealed."
Everyone relaxed a little as the shakes subsided, breathing heavily as things returned to normal.
Looking over the others, the Doctor asked, "Everyone all right?! What happened? What was it?"
Jefferson coughed a little. "Hull breach. We were open to the elements. Another couple of minutes and we'd have been inspecting that black hole at close quarters."
"That wasn't a quake. What caused it?"
Zach, examining the base plans, called out to the rest of the crew.
"We've lost sections eleven to thirteen. Everyone all right?"
Performing a quick head count, Jefferson responded.
"We've got everyone here except Scooti. Scooti, report. Scooti Manista? That's an order. Report."
Everyone held their breath for a moment as all he got back was a static crackle. Then came Zach's voice again.
"She's all right. I've picked up her biochip. She's in Habitation three. Better go and check if she's not responding. She might be unconscious. How about that, eh? We survived."
Laughing with relief, the other crew members brushed themselves off and patted each other on the back, gently stretching their strained muscles.
Jefferson rubbed at his shoulder, which was already beginning to bruise.
"Habitation three. Come on. I don't often say this, but I think we could all do with a drink. Come on."
As the others moved on, the Doctor and Rose noticed that Toby was still sat on the floor.
"What happened?"
The young man's voice shook and his words seemed to tangle together in his mouth.
"I don't… I don't know. I was working and then I can't remember. All that noise. The room was falling apart. There was no air…"
Rose helped him up, tucking an arm around his back.
"Come on. Up you get. Come and have some protein one."
Eris snorted. "Oh, you've gone native."
"Oi, don't knock it. It's nice. Protein one with just a dash of three."
While Rose and Toby got settled at one of the tables, the other crew members were growing increasingly worried at Scooti's absence. Ida was checking the other habitation areas, and reporting back to Jefferson as she went.
"I've checked Habitation Four. Can you hear me?"
Jefferson sighed, trying to get through to Zach.
"There's no sign of her. The biochip says she's in the area. Have any of you seen Scooti?"
The others shook their heads.
"Scooti, please respond. If you can hear this, please respond. Habitation Six."
"Nowhere here. Zach? We've got a problem. Scooti's still missing."
In the control room, Zach finally managed to get through to them.
"It says Habitation three."
Jefferson groaned, frustrated. "Yeah, well, that's where I am, and I'm telling you she's not here."
Away from the main group, Eris felt a cold finger trail down her spine, and she cringed back a little - only to look upwards as she did so. Her heart stopped. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words froze in her throat. Every attempt she made to talk, it was like an invisible hand clamped itself over her mouth. Going for the second best option, she tiptoed her way over to where the Doctor was standing and gripped his forearm tightly.
He glanced down at her to ask, but the expression on her grey face was enough to answer his question before it even left his lips. She flicked her eyes up for a fraction of a second, and the Doctor followed her glance. His hearts sank.
"I've found her."
Everyone else looked upwards, and gasps echoed through the hub.
"Oh, my God." Rose gulped.
It was Scooti. She looked so peaceful, drifting in the darkness of space above them, her hair fanning out behind her head in the vacuum.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The Doctor breathed, pulling his daughter close to him.
As Ida burst into the room, panting, Jefferson spoke into the comms unit on his watch and broadcast his voice to the whole ship.
"Captain. Report Officer Scootori Manista PKD, deceased. 43 K 2.1."
Ida's voice was little more than a sob.
"She was twenty. Twenty years old."
As she reached out to close the shutters, Jefferson quoted a poem while Scooti vanished from sight.
"For how should man die better than facing fearful odds? For the ashes of his father and the temples of his Gods."
His voice trailed away into nothingness, and the whole base was quiet. Too quiet.
"It's stopped." Ida sounded awestruck.
Rose turned to the Doctor, confused. "What was that? What was it?"
He sighed. "The drill."
Now, Ida's voice was tinged with hope. "We've stopped drilling. We've made it. Point Zero."
Over the tannoy, Zach's voice ricocheted through the ship as the crew made their way to join him in the drill room.
"All non essential Oods to be confined."
Ida was now in an orange spacesuit, checking the readings of a metal two-man pod.
"Capsule established. All systems functioning. The mineshaft is a go. Bring systems online now."
The Doctor, followed by Eris and Rose, joined her there. He was wearing a matching spacesuit, a helmet tucked under his arm.
"Reporting as a volunteer for the expeditionary force."
Zach came over to them, regarding the Doctor warily.
"Doctor, this is breaking every single protocol. We don't even know who you are."
"Yeah, but you trust me, don't you? And you can't let Ida go down there on her own. Go on. Look me in the eye. Yes you do, I can see it. Trust."
"I should be going down."
Eris sighed, resting a hand on the man's shoulder.
"There's no use arguing. He's made up his mind, and nothing's going to change it."
The Doctor agreed.
"The Captain doesn't lead the mission. He stays here, in charge!"
Huffing, Zach relented.
"Not much good at it, am I? Positions! We're going down in two. Everyone, positions! Mister Jefferson! I want maximum system enhancement."
As he walked away, the Doctor checked the readout on his sleeve.
"Oxygen, nitro balance, gravity. It's been ages since I wore one of these."
Rose shot him a mock glare, before her expression softened into worry.
"I want that spacesuit back in one piece, you got that?"
"Yes, sir." He raised an eyebrow, and put the helmet on, clicking it securely into place.
"It's funny, because people back home think that space travel's going to be all whizzing about and teleports and anti gravity, but it's not, is it? It's tough." Rose's voice had started to crack a little, and she stopped talking before it went completely.
The Doctor pulled her into a hug. "I'll see you later."
"Not if I see you first." She managed a laugh, and leant up to press a kiss onto the glass of the helmet.
He turned to Eris. "Stay out of trouble, yeah?"
She scoffed, "I should be saying that to you!" and hugged him tightly. "I'll see you later."
Zach had returned to the console room, and finalised the setup.
"Capsule active. Counting down in ten, nine, eight, seven, six-"
Once Ida and the Doctor were both safely inside the capsule, Jefferson closed the door behind them.
"-five, four, three, two, one. Release."
And the capsule started to descend.
Rose and Eris gathered by the screen to watch their progress, the blonde clutching the microphone tightly.
"You've gone beyond the oxygen field. You're on your own." Zach sounded proud, and understandably so. He had been working towards this for years.
"Don't forget to breathe. Breathing's good." Rose took a deep breath in, and then out, as if doing so would help the others in the capsule to do the same.
"Rose, stay off the comm."
Eris chimed in, "Leave it Zach, she's not doing any harm."
Suddenly, there was a loud crunch, and all mechanical noises stopped.
"Doctor? Doctor, are you all right?" Rose was a little panicked.
Zach was also worried by the silence. "Ida, report to me. Doctor?"
"It's all right. We've made it. Getting out of the capsule now." The Doctor reassured them, peering into the dark as he left the capsule.
Eris' voice trickled into his ears through the speaker in the helmet.
"What's it like down there?"
"It's hard to tell. Some sort of cave. Cavern. It's massive."
"Well, this should help. Gravity globe."
Ida picked up a ball from the bottom of the capsule, and threw it high into the air where it exploded into light.
"That's - that's... My God, that's beautiful."
The walls of the cavern had been carved into, chiseled delicately into pillars and statues. It almost felt like a cathedral; it's ethereal beauty was almost unbelievable.
The Doctor sent a message up to the base.
"Rose, you can tell Toby we've found his civilisation."
She grinned, looking over her shoulder at the man.
"Oi, Toby. Sounds like you've got plenty of work."
"Good, good. Good."
Nobody noticed the tremor in his voice and the fear in his eyes as he stared at his hands.
Zach got them all back on track. "Concentrate now, people. Keep on the mission. Ida, what about the power source?"
"We're close. Energy signature indicates north north west. Are you getting pictures up there?" Ida replied.
"There's too much interference. We're in your hands."
"Well, we've come this far. There's no turning back."
The Doctor groaned.
"Oh, did you have to? No turning back? That's almost as bad as nothing can possibly go wrong… or, this is going to be the best Christmas Walford's ever had."
"Are you finished?"
"Yeah. Finished."
In the base, their attention was drawn away from the Doctor and Ida by a message from a worried sounding Danny.
"Captain, sir. There's something happening with the Ood."
"What are they doing?"
"They're staring at me. I've told them to stop, but they won't."
Zach's eye-roll was practically audible. "Danny, you're a big boy. I think you can take being stared at."
"But the telepathic field, sir. It's at basic one hundred. I've checked. there isn't any fault. It's definitely one hundred."
"But that's impossible."
Rose - who'd been listening in - asked, "What does basic one hundred mean?"
Eris frowned. "Nothing good, by the sound of it."
"They should be dead." Danny still hadn't calmed down.
Jefferson nodded. "Basic one hundred is brain death."
"But they're safe. They're not actually moving?" This time, Zach did sound a little concerned.
Danny confirmed. "No, sir."
"Keep watching them. And you, Jefferson? Keep a guard on the Ood."
"Officer at arms!"
The nearest crewman cocked his gun. "Yes, sir."
Rose shook her head.
"You can't fire a gun in here. What if you hit a wall?"
Jefferson brushed it off. "It's firing stock fifteen. It only impacts upon organics. Keep watch. Guard them."
Hearing some of the chatter going on up above, the Doctor became concerned and called up to the others.
"Is everything alright up there?"
Not wanting to worry the pair below, everyone's voices overlapped as they did their best to hide the incident occurring.
"Yeah, yeah."
"It's fine."
"Great."
"Nothing to worry about."
Deep in the belly of the planet below, the Doctor decided there was nothing to worry about. If there was, surely they would let them know. He and Ida continued, walking under a gargantuan arch into another large open space. This one was different from the last, though. In here, there were piles of rubble scattered over the dusty ground. The central feature of the room, however, was a colossal round metal disc embedded in the floor. He radioed up again.
"We've found something. It looks like metal. Like some sort of seal. I've got a nasty feeling the word might be trapdoor. Not a good word, trapdoor. Never met a trapdoor I liked."
Ida was examining the border of it closely. "The edge is covered with those symbols."
"Do you think it opens?" Zach sounded wary.
The Doctor shrugged. "That's what trapdoors tend to do."
"Trapdoor doesn't do it justice. It's massive, Zach. About thirty feet in diameter."
"Any way of opening it?"
"I don't know. I can't see any sort of mechanism."
"I suppose that's the writing." Running a hand over it, the Doctor recognised some of the same symbols as had been written on the wall. "It'll tell us what to do. The letters that defy translation."
Zach directed his next question to the team's resident archaeologist.
"Toby, did you get anywhere with decoding it?"
The man didn't answer, and Rose called to him over her shoulder.
"Toby, they need to know that lettering. Does it make any sort of sense?"
"I know what it says."
The moment he opened his mouth, alarm bells started ringing in Eris' mind - something was very, very wrong about Toby Zed.
Rose didn't seem to have noticed.
"Then tell them."
Jefferson frowned. "When did you work that out?"
"It doesn't matter, just tell them."
Toby stood up, moving his hands away from his face to reveal skin covered in black markings that matched the symbols he had scrawled on the walls earlier. His voice had deepened, and his eyes were a bright scarlet.
"These are the words of the Beast. And he has woken. He is the heart that beats in the darkness. He is the blood that will never cease. And now he will rise."
Jefferson shoved himself in front of the girls, pulling a gun.
"Officer, stand down. Stand down."
The Doctor could hear the ruckus over the comms.
"What is it? What's he done? What's happening? Rose, what's going on? Eris, talk to me, what's happening up there?"
At the same time, Zach was also trying to get through to them.
"Jefferson? Report. Report!"
"Officer, as Commander of Security, I order you to stand down and be confined. Immediately!" Seeing as Jefferson wasn't going to explain what was going on, Rose grabbed the microphone.
"He's come out in those symbols all over his face. They're all over him."
A malicious smile crossed Toby's face.
"Mr Jefferson. Tell me, sir. Did your wife ever forgive you?"
"I don't know what you mean." The pause before his response gave away that Jefferson was lying.
"Let me tell you a secret. She never did."
"Officer, you stand down and be confined."
"Or what?"
"Or under the strictures of Condition Red, I am authorised to shoot you."
Toby cackled. "But how many can you kill?"
He tipped his head back and opened his mouth - and the symbols on his face lifted, drifting through the air in clouds of black smoke and settling around the Ood. As Toby dropped to the floor, the Ood around them spoke in synchrony; they were pretty sure that every Ood on the ship was being affected.
"We are the Legion of the Beast."
The comms unit was going crazy, the Doctor's voice mixing with Zach's as they both tried to get in touch with the group.
"Eris? What is it, Eris? I'm going back up.
"Report. Report! Jefferson, report. Someone, report!"
"The Legion shall be many, and the Legion shall be few." The Ood's voices were echoing off the walls.
Eris and Jefferson both spoke to the others, shielding Rose from the Ood as best they could.
"It's the Ood."
"Sir, we have contamination in the livestock."
"Dad, I don't know what it is. It's like they're possessed with something."
"They won't listen to us."
In Ood Habitation, Danny and a couple of guards were hearing the exact same things as everyone else on the ship.
"He has woven himself in the fabric of your life since the dawn of time. Some may call him Abaddon. Some may call him Kroptor. Some may call him Satan or Lucifer."
He called through to Zach, aware that he probably wouldn't hear the message.
"Captain, it's the Ood. They're out of control!"
"Or the Bringer of Despair, the Deathless Prince, the Bringer of Night."
The first Ood walked up the steps to the main catwalk, vocal globe in it's hand. It threw it straight at the face of the nearest guard, electrocuting him.
"These are the words that shall set him free."
The group in the drilling area had backed up to the door, Rose supporting a very weak Toby as Eris and Jefferson formed a barrier between them and the ood.
"I shall become manifest. I shall walk in might."
"Rose, get the door open!"
"My Legions shall swarm across the worlds."
Deep in the planet's belly, the ground shook violently, and Ida grabbed the Doctor's arm.
"The seal! Doctor, it's opening!"
In the control room, Zach stared in disbelief at the geographics display on the console.
"We're moving! The whole thing's moving. The planet's moving. The gravity field. It's going! We're losing orbit! We're going to fall into the black hole!"
"I am the sin and the temptation and the desire. I am the pain and the loss. I have been imprisoned for eternity. But no more."
The Ood approached the group by the door, getting closer and closer with every step, and Rose struggled with the opening mechanism.
"Door sealed."
"Come on!"
"Door sealed."
"The Pit is open. And I am free!"
And the maniacal laughter of something utterly deranged echoed through every facet of the ship.