Chapter Fifty-Three
Before there was our universe, there was another – the Dvapara Yuga – and there lived the Beast.
A creature of immense power, the Beast was unique of the lifeforms that called the time before time their home as he was born in the darkness. As this was a universe without discernible laws of physics, at least none that we would recognise, the Beast had no form and was a collection of energy that pressed together and burned through the green heavens and between the fat stars, spreading his anger, jealousy, and greed to everything he touched. Wherever he went, shadows remained behind. Life began to wither and die in his presence, rotting from the inside, and the Beast revelled in the despair he wreaked, and with every tear wept and every drop of bloody spilt, he grew stronger.
Entire civilisations fell under the strength of his cruelty, leaving nothing but dust and whispered stories in the wind. And, in his hubris, he believed itself unstoppable; he believed that there was nothing that could stop him from spreading himself throughout the Dvapara Yuga and bending the universe to his furious will. Through his certainty, he grew lazy, careless, and he began to let some people live in order to spread tales of his power. He wanted people to fear him before he arrived, he wanted to taste the fear in the air and revel in it before he moved in for the kill. Sadism ran through his being as easily as anger did, and when the screams started, he grew more and more immense, towering over specks of people that cowered before him.
Yet resistance grew.
Following the destruction of her world, a young woman crawled out of the ashes of her home and over the bodies of her family and stared up at the blood red skies and screamed her grief into the universe. Knelt in the still-hot ruins of her civilisation, she swore to bring light to the Dvapara Yuga and end the Beast's rule of tyranny once and for all. Turning her back on her planet that lost its lush greenness and bountiful water, fires burning it to an ugly chunk of rock, she fled into the stars and sought out others that had been spared by the Beast in order to tell others of his power. She drew them to her, binding them together under one common goal, and the Disciples of the Light were born.
Together, they pushed back against the Beast, forcing him from their territory inch by miserable inch. Furious at the rebellion, the Beast created legions of horrors even the worst nightmares couldn't imagine, drowning billions in such fear that many chose death in the face of him. And a war raged, more fearsome and terrifying than any war has ever been. He consumed the Dvapara Yuga and touched every corner, light and dark crashing together with such force that small cracks appeared, thin fracture lines that let the universe bleed out, creating the origins of the multiverse.
The war continued and the dead soaked the space with their energy, until, entirely by chance, a Disciple injured the Beast.
Slicing through his energy with a weapon of hope, the Beast buckled and roared as pain flashed through him. Never having experienced such a feeling before, he retreated to lick his wounds and recover, afraid of the first time in his life.
The Disciples of the Light used the reprieve wisely and returned to the home of their founder where her ashes were scattered across the surface to join those of her family following her death at the hands of the Beast. On the dead planet, they constructed a cage fit for a monster at its centre, building it so that it would last for an eternity and beyond. High in the heavens, they weaved a black hole into the fabric of their universe and set the planet into a perpetual orbit, spreading gravity across its surface, anchoring it in place with ease. On the walls inside the Beast's cage, rudimentary drawings – fit for even the simplest of the lower life forms to understand – spoke of the history of the Disciples against the Beast thus far, space left to complete the final chapter.
Once completed, the Disciples moved together to hunt the Beast and drag him from the shadows of his home. The battle that took place slaughtered the Disciples' ranks, one after another falling to the Beast that lashed out like a wild animal, snarling and raging, losing himself in his temper. Only six of the millions that once swelled their ranks remained to drag the Beast into his prison, throwing him into the hole that he would rot in for eternity and sealing him from the universe forever.
To ensure that the Beast was properly contained, one brave Disciple ventured down into the prison with him and crafted more chains and fresh locks for his cell before daubing the final part of the story onto the wall. When he was done, he slit his throat and let his blood stain the floor so as to prevent the Beast from escaping in his body, one last act of defiance against the monster that had haunted them all.
And so the Beast was trapped.
As with all things, the Dvapara Yuga came to an end in an almighty bang that reverberated throughout all of reality. It crumbled in on itself before bursting forth and spewing remnants of the old into the new, shaping itself as new life began to form in a universe with new laws of physics that tested themselves on the first planet that formed. Grass grew as tall as the sky and colossuses strode the surface, barely sentient, before their primitive civilisation turned to dust in their absence, another life form taking its place, repeating and repeating for generations.
The universe pushed outwards, expanding to fill the vast emptiness the Dvapara Yuga had left behind, and, through it all, the Beast remained in his prison.
When his home universe collapsed, his energy wasn't recognised by the new laws that governed N-space and the agony of transition from one universe to another forced him into a physical form. He howled and raged at the restrictions such a form placed on him, confining him to something small and physical was torture, and his anger broke free of the Disciples bonds and seeped into the universes.
He became Abbadon, Satan, Al-Shaytan, the King of Despair, the Deathless, and more from within his prison, yet the rise of darkness in the universe did nothing to help his cause and he was forced to wait through the early period until life – true, sentient life – grew on a rust-coloured, snow-capped planet at the centre of a galaxy that would become known as Kasterborous. There, life grew and developed at speed until the native life was twisting something called time in their hands, creating the Web of Time and pushing it out into the universe where chronology took root and the Beast was forced to live each second as it passed.
And so the universe passed.
Civilisations rose and fell as seconds turned into minutes that turned into hours and into days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, and millennia. Through it all, the Beast lived beneath the surface of a once great planet and tried to break free. The Disciples had been as clever as he had been cruel and had forged the perfect prison for the Beast, containing him against all of his tricks; for, if he crossed through the anchors then the planet would fall into the black hole and he would be stretched apart, atom by atom, until he was scattered into nothingness.
The Beast tried to be patient though it was hard as he could hear the universe outside his cell but could influence it only a little, flicking dark thoughts here and there: A small war on one planet, a mass murder on another, it was never enough to fulfil his desire to kill and destroy and hurt. He waited and dreamed of what he would do when he was free, of how the blood would feel against his physical form, of how crushing corporeal flesh in his fists would bring him joy, until his dreams became old and stale and impatience took hold once more.
As time passed, he began to believe that he would remain trapped in his prison until the death of N-space occurred until he sensed the approach of the foolish children of Gaia. A small ship made of patched together hope and endeavour forced its way down the gravity funnel that linked the black hole to the planet, holding it in orbit, and it narrowly avoided crashing into the hard surface. The Beast felt the grief and let it wash over his aching soul, growing stronger at the feel of it as the humans mourned their dead, relishing the drag of the bodies out of the ship and wanting to swallow them hole.
He watched and waited, curious as to what they were doing, and the joy he felt when the humans cremated their dead and got to work was incomprehensible. A heavy, powerful drill pressed into the surface of his prison and began to plow its way down, solid layer by solid layer, directly above his prison cell as it followed the energy signal that the cell put out in order to maintain the funnel. The Beast laughed as each cracked layer or rock made it easier for him to reach out his mind and exert his influence, stretching his power with glee.
Mistakes were made at first. He overestimated how strong the humans were, not used to the weak fragility of their minds in comparison to what he knew from the Dvapara Yuga. He moved too hard and too fast: The woman who had had the easiest mind screamed her throat raw and fought back against her colleagues after he possessed her for the first time. Traumatised, she clawed the skin from her face and threw herself headfirst into a rock wall, a smear of blood left behind from her crushed skull as she slumped dead to the floor, all in an effort to get the Beast from her.
His second attempt was no more successful, the man weeping as he placed a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
But the Beast learnt and he waited, aware of the precious opportunity he had within his grasp, unwilling to risk his freedom simply because he was impatient.
And as the drill made its way ever further towards his prison, the Beast slipped into the dreams of the young archaeologist and started to pick away at him, making a home for himself in his darkness. He whispered to him when he was alone, enjoying the way fear trembled through his body and sharpened his tongue, isolating him from his colleagues with deliberate care even when he pushed and protested, waking from his dreams to sob wet tears into his pillow.
The fear slacked the Beast's hunger though only briefly.
The time was soon upon him, the drill feet away from breaking through the last layer of rock. He was soon to be free from his eternal prison and the universe was going to shudder and be his, as it should be.
For he was the Beast, the Destroyer, and the Bringer of Night.
Sanctuary Base, Krop Tor, 4221
The low, blinking light of the automated clock caught the corner of Scooti's eye, and she pressed her face deeper into the pillow. She didn't want to get up. Warmth shrouded her beneath the Sanctuary-issue duvet and the blanket Ida's grandmother had made for her years ago, packed away in her suitcase as part of the 4kg allotment of personal things they were each allowed to bring with them on the mission. Her own bed, by contrast, was cold and sad and she wished she had thought ahead about bringing a few more home comforts rather than the food items that had run out months earlier. Chocolate was all well and good while it lasted but a thick, knitted blanket that held the smell of home to it was a better choice all around, and Scooti tugged the blanket further up her body, turning until she was tangled with Ida, hair falling across her bare shoulder.
"We should get up," Scooti murmured against the curve of Ida's breast. "They're going to notice we're missing."
Ida hummed and slung a heavy arm over her stomach, head turning into hers until their foreheads bumped. "They won't. And if they do, they'll only be jealous of us."
Scooti breathed a small laugh. "I've got work to do though. Toby keeps complaining about this squeaking noise in his quarters. I think he's going to throw me out an airlock if I don't fix it soon."
"Toby needs to learn to stop being so annoying," she replied, pulling the covers over their heads until they were shrouded in darkness and warmth and the smell of sex. "Tell him that if it's bothering him that much then he can sleep in one of the spare quarters until it's fixed."
"That really won't go over well," Scooti said, nuzzling her nose into her messy blonde hair and gliding her thumb over the warm curves of her hip. "But I don't want to go. I know I should but I don't want too. I'm warm here. Your bed is so much nicer than mine. Warmer." Her hand deliberately slipped to the soft, warm place between Ida's legs. "Filled with nicer things."
Ida's eyes creased with laughter, her mouth finding hers in the darkness. "To be young and insatiable again. I don't know where you find the energy."
"You don't do so bad." Shifting and taking care to keep the blankets over them, Scooti placed her knees on either side of Ida's body and lay against her, keeping her slight weight balanced on her elbows and forearms. "And you're not old."
"Says you." Ida slipped her fingers through the soft ends of her hair, toying with it gently as she arched her neck to allow her space to kiss and mouth at the sensitive skin there, wondering how she had got so lucky to find Scooti. "And you don't have to go. We're allowed our personal time. It's important to have free time when we need it or were you not paying attention during the six months of training we had for this mission?"
Scooti dragged her teeth over a particularly sensitive spot, feeling sparking through Ida at the touch.
"I couldn't pay attention," she said. "You were there. All I could look at was you."
"Stop it," Ida murmured, embarrassed.
"And when you smiled at me that first time I thought I was in so much trouble," Scooti continued, grinning. "And I was. I wish it hadn't taken you two years to notice me though. Think of all the sex we could've been having if you'd paid attention to me."
Ida pressed her lips to the curve of Scooti's shoulder, arms sliding around her to pull her more firmly against her body, their legs tangling. "Paying attention to you was never the problem. How could I not? You were just so young."
Scooti's smile widened, lifting her mouth to Ida's and pressing herself closer and closer until she wanted to crawl inside her. The blanket fell from their heads, the small rush of cool, recycled air passed over them, and Ida pressed against her, rolling her onto her side until her back was to the wall, deepening the kiss. Scooti let herself drift as her fingers dug into Ida's soft hips, enjoying the slow rolling build of pleasure through her that thrummed low and even; all it would take to stoke the fire would be a pass of fingers across her nipples or the bite of fingernails on her thighs.
"I can't wait for my mums to meet you," she whispered when the kiss ended. "They're going to love you."
Ida swallowed, uncertainty limning her. "They're going to think I took advantage."
"No, they won't," she promised. "They'll love you because I love you."
"Say that again."
Scooti smiled, leaning in until she was a hair's breadth away from her mouth. "I love you."
Ida kissed her again, fingers pulling her hair back from her face, tasting the roof of her mouth and the edge of her teeth. Against her, Scooti mewled and arched her hips against her. There was work to be done but there was always work to be done. Life on any Sanctuary Base was a constant careful slog of hard work to ensure that nothing broke that didn't have to break and that they remained protected from the unforgiving elements outside. Yet, on Krop Tor, there was more pressure to keep the work to schedule as one missed shift or one squeaky pipe might mean the difference between life and death, and even Scooti's warm body and soft sounds brushing over her ear weren't enough for Ida to forget that fact.
Reluctantly and with great effort, she rolled away from her and lay on her back staring up at the plain grey ceiling.
"No," Scooti complained. "Come back."
"You've got work to do," Ida reminded her, gratified by her resistance to leaving. "Toby's squeaky room for one."
She sighed and passed a hand over her face. "It's probably a misplaced coil in the heat converter. When the base was set up, we missed a lot because of everything. That's most likely it."
Ida closed her eyes and tried to ignore the flashes of dead crew that they had pulled from the rocket, the survivors shellshocked. They had all expected the descent through the gravity funnel to be difficult, training and training and training to handle high-gs and a tumultuous journey, but none of them had expected it to kill half of the expedition. Sometimes Danny still woke up screaming in terror from that day and Ida was prone to panic attacks when she looked out of the view ports and saw the black hole, the only thing she had been able to see as the rocket hurtled towards the planet. But they were the lucky ones: The two surviving members of Mr Jefferson's team hadn't been able to handle the trauma of it all and had killed themselves within weeks of each other.
It's in my head, the Devil's in my head, Nadine had sobbed before wrenching herself free of Zach and Scooti and flinging herself headfirst into the stone wall near the drilling platform, caving her skull in until the only thing they were able to do was euthanise their friend out of kindness.
And then poor Dmitri who had put his gun in his mouth and splattered his brains over the wall of his bunk, his journal filled with horrible drawings and terrified writing of the devil haunting him, a horned creature waiting to consume them all.
It was no wonder, given all that, that the establishment of the Sanctuary Base section by section hadn't been done perfectly.
"Do we have any more replacement coils?" She asked, trying to remember their inventory. "Didn't we use the last of it to fix the external sensors?"
"We did," Scooti replied. "But I think I can make it out of –"
Alarms blared, cutting her off, and Ida nearly fell from the bed she was so startled. Scooti yelped, the back of her head smacking into the wall, and the base-wide comms crackled to life, Zach speaking over it.
"Incoming quake," he told them in his usual, calm voice. "It's going to be a big one. We've got nine minutes, people. Positions now, please."
"Shit," Scooti swore, scrambling over Ida's legs to grab her trousers from the floor and pull them on, used to dressing quickly as the earthquakes had increased over the last few months, becoming stronger and more violent with each one. "We had one only three days ago. This keeps up and it's going to shake the base apart."
Ida tugged her shirt on over her head. "Maybe the planet doesn't like us here."
"We're the bitter pill to its bitter pill?" Scooti asked, faintly amused, shoving her feet into her boots and lacing them tightly. "Not stranger than the fact there's a planet in orbit of a black hole and we're the idiots who decided to come and see what it was."
"Yes, but think of all the money you're making," Ida said.
Scooti picked up her underwear and threw it at her, laughing. "You sound like Danny, stop it."
Dressed and ready to go in less than thirty-eight seconds, they rushed from Ida's quarters and made their way through the base to the central control room – the most protected room of the whole base – where everyone was already in position. With a gentle squeeze of her hand around her wrist, Scooti slipped from Ida's side and swiftly took her station, pulling up the schematics of the station so that she could worry about the structural integrity of it in real time. The last quake had cost them three diggers and twelve crates of emergency rations, news that had given them all something new to worry about.
"How bad is it going to be?" Ida asked, circling behind Zach to reach her station.
"Don't know yet but it's definitely building," he said. "It's epicentre is 200km away and we're already reading sinkholes."
"Damn," she muttered, pulling her computer screen out from the console and tapping into it, sweeping through the screen with irritated fingers. "We're probably going to lose the outer storage then."
"Reckon so," Zach agreed as though they were discussing missing a transport rather than losing yet more sections of their base. "Good job Mr Jefferson took Scooti's advice and emptied it. Isn't it, Mr Jefferson?"
"Yes, sir," Mr Jefferson replied.
"Captain," Scooti interrupted, a troubled expression passing over her face. "Door seventeen's just opened."
Zach frowned. "Is it the Ood?"
"No, sir, all Ood are accounted for," she said, shaking her head.
"Dammit," Jefferson sighed, rising from his seat and grabbing his jacket that he swung onto his body in one, smooth move. "It'll be a faulty reading, no doubt, but I'll go and check it out just in case."
"Wait." Scooti turned to grab her toolkit. "I'll come with you."
"No, stay here," he said, holding up a hand to still her movements.. "You can't fix it now anyway. If it's broken, I'll do a quick patch and you can get it later. No sense putting you in danger when you don't have to be."
"But –"
"Stay here, Scooti," Zach ordered, and the protest died on her lips. He glanced to his chief of security, not that they needed much by way of security officers but Torchwood refused to sanction the mission without a security contingent, and nodded. "Hurry, Mr Jefferson, and stay safe. This quake's going to throw us off our feet if we're not lucky."
Jefferson inclined his head, making his way to the door. "Copy that, captain."
"Six minutes and twenty-nine seconds until impact," Toby read from his screen. "He's not going to make it."
"Not with that attitude he won't," Danny said, tugging his makeshift seatbelt over his shoulders and chest, knee bouncing nervously. "God, I really, really hate quakes."
Zoe ran her finger over a small join on the wall and it came away dirty. The entire corridor had the heavy feel of grime that made her want to find a mop and duster. It reminded her a little of the Grifari space ship – dark and functional with an extra helping of dirt layered on the top – and she hoped they weren't about to enter another slave situation. It had been bad enough coming to terms with what Hebe had done as vengeance that she didn't want to touch something like that ever again. She slipped behind the Doctor and squeezed between him and Mickey, the latter of whom was glazed over and not listening as the Doctor lectured him on leaving the TARDIS without properly assessing the situation, blithely ignoring the fact that he burst out of the TARDIS on a daily basis without checking what was outside.
"...can't wander off like that, especially given everything that's just happened," the Doctor told him. "Who knows what could've been waiting for us outside the doors? And, yes, there's nothing obviously threatening here but, quite frankly, Mickey, you should know better by now."
"It's like really dirty in here," Zoe complained, wiping her fingers on her shorts. "You'd think someone would run a duster around every once in a while."
"There could've been Daleks," the Doctor continued. "Zygons. The Master. My point is that I didn't know and you didn't know either. So wandering out like that put you in danger and I've had enough of seeing the people I care about suffer this week. Save the recklessness for next month. I can handle it then. This month I need you – all of you – to not wander off."
Rose yawned and covered her mouth with her hand. "Don't forget to tell him about Santa puttin' him on the naughty list for wanderin' off. That's my favourite part of this."
The Doctor sighed, heavily, and rubbed his eyes.
"Wait, Santa puts us on the naughty list?" Jack asked. "Since when?"
"He never told you that?" Rose replied, smiling. "I got a full-on lecture about him bein' mates with Santa an' puttin' in a word with him about the naughty list if I kept wanderin' off. I've been meanin' to ask about that actually, did you think I was five or somethin' when we met?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "All humans are babies in comparison to me."
"Says the man having sex with a human," Mickey noted, relieved that the lecture was at an end. "So is Zoe a baby, mate? Is that what you're sayin'?"
Zoe's nose wrinkled as she peered through a grubby window, using the bottom of her top to clean a patch on the surface, her face lighting up.
"Sometimes, you lot make me want to scream," the Doctor told them, hands in his pockets. "It's at times like these I wonder why I out up with all of you."
"Space base," Zoe said, excitedly, immediately reminding him why. "We're on a space base."
Rose appeared at her shoulder. "We are?"
"Maybe a moon base," she corrected, eyeing the rugged terrain outside the base. "Or a planet base. Maybe they're terraforming! Oh, I'd love to see that in action, it's so Trek. Actually, you know what? I don't care. This is some sort of base and I'm excited."
"You're adorable is what you are," the Doctor said, leaning against the wall with a grin. "I didn't know you liked space bases this much."
"What's not to like about them?" She asked. "They're bases in space. Everything about that is so unbelievably cool. Do they have tourist places like this? Because I'd love to spend a weekend knocking about one of these."
"They're not really built for holidays," he replied. "But there is a planet in a system of an xtonic star that has a really nice spa and wellness centre in its leisure planet. Also, there's this shuttle bus tour takes you to the Sapphire Waterfalls that I've been meaning to take. That might be a nice break."
"You don't strike me as a spa type of person," Jack said. "I think you'd get bored with all the face masks and massages. You didn't really use them when we were in Jamaica."
The Doctor nodded. "True but Zoe and I had just started sleeping together so we were very much –"
"Please don't finish that sentence," Rose requested, tightly.
"Righto," he agreed with a grin. "Anyway, I think it's called Midnight that spa place thing. I've got the brochure somewhere onboard."
"Wouldn't say no to a spa visit," Jack said before flicking his fingers at the design of the base. "This is a Sanctuary base, by the way." The Doctor's face opened with recognition, eyeing the structure with interest. "I've been to a couple of these before, although they're out of date by my time so I'd put us somewhere in the 40th to 45th centuries. I once spent a very wet weekend on a Sanctuary Sea Base trying to deal with some protestors who had got their hands on time travel technology."
Rose wiped the dirt from the wall off her hand and onto the back of Zoe's top. "What were they protestin'?"
"You know, I never did find out," he said. "I got knocked on the head about twelve hours in and was held captive while John tried to negotiate for my release. They didn't read me their manifesto. Not sure they actually had one to be honest, it was a bit of an amateur affair."
She reached up and rapped her knuckles against his forehead. "Good job you've got a hard head then."
He grabbed her wrist and pinned her against him, planting a wet kiss against her cheek, her body twisting with a squeal of disgust as the others ignored them.
The Doctor ran his hand along the wall. "I really do like these bases. It's human ingenuity at its finest."
"You said that about the waffle maker just the other day," Mickey pointed out.
"That's because it's also true," he replied. "And if the waffle maker learns to actually make the waffles without us, then it'll be almost as good as a Sanctuary base. They build these things out of kits, sort of like flat pack furniture at – what was that place we went to to help Shareen out?"
"Ikea," Zoe said.
He nodded. "Ikea. It's sort of like that."
"Open door sixteen."
"I really don't like that." Mickey, who had developed an aversion to non-corporeal AI after his encounter with Omni some months earlier, looked around warily. "What the hell is it?"
"It's an automated computer system," Jack said, releasing Rose to reassure him. "When a door opens, it logs the action and lets other people in the area know what's happening. Too many doors opening at once can destabilise a base like this."
"That's not comfortin'," he said, nervous as the base was battered by external forces that filled the air with the rattling sound of their shelter. "D'you hear that storm?"
While the base remained steady under the deluge of the storm that raged outside its walls, whistling and howling as a frenzy was whipped up, it made everything feel fragile and infinitely breakable. Goosebumps burst into existence over Zoe's bare skin and she rubbed her hands over her bare arms, dressed for a day relaxing on the TARDIS in a pair of denim shorts and the baggiest vest top she had been able to find that left her bra on display – fine for around family, less fine if they were about to run for her life. Since her only plan that day had been to eat popcorn and sleep, she hadn't thought to put more clothes on.
The Doctor stepped up behind her and smoothed his hands down her arms as they entered another room. "Cold?"
"I'm fine," she said, leaning back into him.
"Do you want my coat?"
"Nah, I'll warm up in a bit," she told him, twisting her head to smile up at him. "But thanks."
He pressed a kiss to the back of her head and took her hand. "You humans have a thing about kits, I've never understood it. Shareen's whole place is made out of flat-pack stuff and this base is the same, only bigger and a lot easier."
"It would've been easy to assemble Shareen's stuff if you'd actually listened to Mickey," Zoe told him.
"Bah," the Doctor replied with a wave of his hand. "I had it under control."
Rose laughed at the lie as he had grown so frustrated with the wardrobe that he had ranted for a good seven minutes about the confusing instructions and lack of proper tools, stopping only when Mickey finished assembling it in moments.
"I'm ignoring that laugh for the sake of our friendship, Rose Tyler," he told her, and she laughed again, harder. "But this base is really taking me back. This is some deep space exploration here. You know, my lot never really did this but I did once spend a couple of months with the first Luna colonists from Earth. Accidentally misplaced the TARDIS. Easy mistake. She dropped out of sync and I got stuck."
Jack rolled his eyes fondly. "Sounds about right. What do you think they're doing out here ""
"Absolutely no clue, though we've gone way out." He held up a finger for silence and they all paused just inside door fifteen, the computer announcing their presence. He waited until its mechanised voice finished. "Listen to that. Underneath us, someone's drilling. I can feel the vibrations in my feet."
"Should wear those socks Mum got you then," Zoe said, tangling her fingers with his. "And drilling for what, anyway? It didn't look like there was anything out there. Just a dead hunk of rock."
"Shame on you," the Doctor said. "You know that appearances are deceptive. For all we know this dead hunk of rock could be a fantastic energy source or made of cheese."
Jack turned, surprised. "What now?"
"We watched Wallace and Gromit the other night," he said, gesturing between him and Zoe. "You've never seen it?"
"No."
"Mickey, what're you doing?" The Doctor complained. "You and Jack have been dating for months now and you haven't shown him Wallace and Gromit?"
"There's a lot to get him up to speed on," Mickey said with a shrug. "We've only just finished watchin' The Thick of It an' that's only because Harriet recommended it."
Zoe laughed. "I loved that show. I always had to sneak up to yours because Mum never let me watch him." She grinned up at the Doctor. "Too much swearing for my young, delicate ears."
He snorted. "Too much swearing, you? I remember a seventeen-year-old who looked a lot like you swearing a me a whole lot when we first met."
"Yeah, well, you'd kidnapped my sister," she said, swinging their hands. "Them's the breaks."
"I still don't know what Wallace and Gromit is," Jack reminded them, bouncing down the steps into a small recreation room that felt cluttered and small. "Is it a sitcom?"
"Nah, it's like –"
"Welcome to Hell," Rose said.
"Oh, come on," the Doctor laughed. "That's not right. It's a masterpiece of TV. Stop motion clay things with the evil penguin? It's perfection."
Zoe nodded. "That penguin was evil. It was all in the eyes."
"No." Rose turned and smacked him lightly in the chest, pointing at a wall half hidden by a serving stand. "Welcome to Hell. Look."
The grey wall in front of them was scrawled with symbols painted black on the surface, running down in vertical lines. Above that were the words Welcome to Hell spray painted with the sort of ominous foreboding that the Doctor did not enjoy. Whoever had done it hadn't bothered letting the paint dry as parts of it were smudged, small droplets of paint dried beneath it. Shuffling Zoe forward, unwilling to release her just yet, he waited for the TARDIS translation matrix to kick in, surprised when it didn't. He had taken extra language classes at the Academy, focusing on ancient ones as he had briefly considered becoming a historian, and enjoyed picking up languages wherever he went – English being one of them, Judoon another – but he didn't recognise the language on the wall and neither did the TARDIS as the words remained stubbornly translated.
What's this? The Doctor asked, floating the thought back to the TARDIS.
An unhelpful shrug rolled through his mind.
Removing his arm from around Zoe, he slipped his glasses onto his nose and stepped up onto the ledge, crouching to look at it closer. He brushed his fingers over the symbols: They looked similar to Ancient Classical East Asgardian from the Breiðablik region three billion years earlier but only in the verticality of how they were written and with one symbol that repeated itself that meant draugr or beast, an undead creature. Even that translation was open to interpretation as the angle of the letter also could have it mean kjǫt which meant meat.
He might very well be looking at a recipe for all he knew.
Zoe's hand slipped into his pocket to remove her own glasses, perching on the end to look at it closely, using Jack's phone to snap pictures of it.
"I think this is the first time the TARDIS hasn't translated something," she said. "Except Russian. I keep meaning to ask her to start translating that for me again. But I don't think this is Russian."
"It's not Russian," he agreed.
"Do you recognise the writing?" Jack asked.
"No," he murmured, frowning. "I don't even recognise the language group, though one symbol bears a similarity to old Asgardian. Not that that means a lot. Language descended from Asgard back in the day. A lot of cultures have imprints of it, such as Earth. Strange for the TARDIS not to know though. She's been about a bit has my girl so for this not to be translating...I don't know."
Zoe handed Jack his phone once more and swept her fingers over the Doctor's knee. "I guess even the TARDIS has to experience new things every now and then. We can't be the only ones having fun."
"That's true," he agreed. "But if she's not translating this because she doesn't know and not because she wants to be difficult, then it means that this writing is old, really old. Older than whatever you're imagining."
"Are you sure it's even writing?" Jack asked, arm looped through Mickey's as Rose drifted away from them to explore the room, tapping her nails against various surfaces and listening to the faint echo it created as the storm increased and the floor began to shake lightly. "Could be artwork. Not very good art, I'll admit, but if the TARDIS isn't translating it, maybe it's not writing."
"Maybe," the Doctor agreed though he sounded unconvinced. "I don't know and I hate not knowing."
"Liar," Zoe said, softly, Rose poking curiously at the closed door behind Jack. "You love not knowing. Makes you feel like a kid again."
A smile split his face. "Maybe."
"You sound worried," Mickey noted. "And whenever you sound worried I get this feelin' in my stomach like somethin' horrible's about to happen."
"We've gone beyond the reach of the TARDIS's knowledge," the Doctor replied, straightening up and removing his glasses. He hopped down from the small platform and automatically offered his hand to Zoe who took it and stepped into his space, arm around his waist in a half-hug. "Which in the grand scheme of things that aren't great is right up there with not very good at all and oh dear, this is a pickle."
"That's not helping me feel better," Jack said, moving forward to help Rose turn the stiff wheel on the door that she was struggling with. "It's actually made me feel a lot – AH!"
Rose let out a small scream and stumbled back as Mickey tripped over himself in his surprise, grabbing hold of Jack's coat – the only one who didn't recoil – before he fell to the floor. Grabbing Zoe, the Doctor dragged her back behind him, an instinctive act of protection that earned him the flat of her fist landing softly against his back in annoyance, even as her eyes went wide at the sight before them.
Framed in the doorway were three creatures he had never seen before. Grey skin was stretched over perfectly egg-shaped skulls, small ears jutting out from the side, and two black pupils in the middle of eyes that looked bloodstained. The front of their faces appeared as though they had been pinched shut, deep wrinkles cutting into their flesh before opening up where the nose and mouth were on humans to a cascade of thick, fleshy tendrils that rested against the front of a grey worker's uniform.
"Hello," the Doctor said, finding his voice, arm a steel band keeping Zoe behind him. "Sorry, you scared us. Are you in charge here? We've just stopped in for a visit, apologies for not calling ahead and all that but we're here now." He smiled at them, unnerved by their silence and their unblinking stare. "I'm the Doctor, by the way. These are my friends."
Silence pulled taut, quivering in the air.
"Who are they?" Rose asked, hand clamped to her chest in surprise. "What are they?"
"I've got no idea," the Doctor said, and when it became clear that the creatures weren't going to speak – or weren't capable of speech – his polite look shifted into open fascination. "Never seen them before in my life. Today's a day of firsts, isn't it?"
Jack turned, startled. "Really? You've never met them before? They're the Ood, everyone knows the Ood."
Zoe batted at the Doctor's arm, sticking her head around him. "The Ood?"
"The Ood." He turned to the creatures and respectfully inclined his head, hand touching his heart. The Doctor straightened, observing Jack's sign of respect with curiosity. "They're pretty important. I'm surprised you haven't come across them before."
"Me too, if I'm –"
"We must feed."
The Doctor's mouth froze around his sentence as the Ood spoke with one, synthesised voice that sank into his bones. "I'm sorry, you've got to do what now?"
"We must feed." Slowly, as one, the five of them took a step back as the Ood took a step forward, the orbs in their hands glowing. "We must feed."
"Great," Mickey said, not sure why he had had expected anything different given how life tended to unfold towards the extreme with the Doctor. He turned and snatched up the nearest chair, spinning it in his hands, the legs pointed towards the Ood. "Cannibals."
"It's not cannibalism if it's cross species," the Doctor informed him, choking when Zoe sank her fingers into the back of his coat and pulled him sharply back. "But that's a discussion for a later date. Do you speak their language, Jack?"
"No, I don't need to, they speak every language," he said, only moving when Rose reached out and dragged him back by his wrist. "Will you lot stop panicking? You're embarrassing us in front of the Ood. They're not going to eat us. The Ood don't eat meat. They don't believe in the subjugation of any living creature. And they certainly wouldn't eat humans. Why would they?"
"We must feed. We must feed." The Ood approached them with at a steady pace, pushing them further back into the room. Rose tripped but Jack caught hold of her and yanked her upright, taking hold of her hand as the Ood repeated their words on a loop, not helping Jack's defence of them. "We must feed. We must feed."
"Why don't you ask them that?" The Doctor asked, keeping Zoe locked behind him as he backed up. "Because it looks like we're on the menu."
Zoe freed herself from the Doctor's protection and looked around the circular room for a way out. There appeared to be only two doors: The one they had come in through and the one that the Ood were blocking. It was an easy sprint back to the TARDIS if they weren't penned in on all sides but the door behind them was shut, spun back up by a safety-conscious Jack who worried about a breach in atmospheric containment. Both Rose and Mickey were using chairs as shields and potential weapons while the Doctor was unhelpfully pointing his screwdriver at the advancing Ood, forgetting once again that it was a scientific implement and not a weapon, and she jumped up the steps to grab hold of the wheel lock, spinning it open as fast as she could.
"We must feed. We must feed. We must feed –" one of the Ood shook their orb and gave it a tap, nail striking hard against the outer shell. "You, if you are hungry."
The tension held before Jack released a long sigh, hands falling to his hips, head drooping in relief, laughter bubbling out of him. "See, what did I tell you?"
"We apologise," the Ood said, politely. "The electromagnetics outside this Sanctuary Base have interfered with our speech systems." Its head tilted to one side. "Would you care for some refreshment?"
"Christ." Zoe fell against the door with her shoulder and looked around with a small laugh that broke free of the adrenaline racing through her. "Talk about lost in translation. I don't suppose you have any alcohol, do you?"
"Unfortunately, we do not," the Ood said. "Perhaps a glass of water will quench your thirst?"
"I'm actually good, thanks." She put her hands on Mickey and Rose's shoulders and jumped down. "We thought you were going to eat us. For a second, I was worried."
"We do not consume the flesh of other living creatures," it said.
Jack nudged the Doctor with his elbow. "Told you."
The Doctor opened his mouth to swear at him, Rose and Mickey setting their chairs down, when the door behind them opened. A solitary man dressed in a hybrid security uniform that, across the universe and throughout time, was more or less ubiquitous entered and froze.
His eyes swept them, automatically assessing them for danger to him or his friends, and the Doctor found himself instantly wishing that Zoe was standing just a little bit closer to him even though she was more use in a physical confrontation than he was. There was no weapons strapped to the man's thigh or in clenched in his hands; and, while he appreciated that from a moral standpoint, it concerned him that a security official didn't seem to feel the need to carry weapons when coming to greet unexpected visitors on their out-of-the-way Sanctuary Base.
Nor did he like the look of abject surprise and shock on his face as he pulled up short at the sight of them, stumbling back from the unexpectedness of their presence.
"What the hell? How did –?"
Stamped onto the pocket of his jacket was the name Jefferson, and he stared at them with wide eyes, slowly lifting his wrist to his mouth, tapping to open the comm. He slowly walked down the stairs, eyes fixed on the Jack who cut a fine authoritative figure in his long blue coat and general air of competence. His hand stretched out and pressed against Jack's chest, jerking back as though burned.
"Captain, you're not going to believe this, but we've got people," Jefferson said in wonder. "Actual, real live people from out of nowhere. I mean five living people, just standing here right in front of me."
There was a crackle as the electromagnetics disrupted the comm. before the captain responded.
"Don't be stupid, that's not possible."
He reached out again, staring in amazement as he rubbed the collar of Jack's coat between his thumb and forefinger. "I suggest telling them that."
"You're very friendly," Jack said with an easy smile. "I think I'm going to like it here."
"If I'm hallucinating," Jefferson murmured, blinking slowly. "It's vivid, more vivid than anything I've experienced before."
"You're a sort of space base," Rose said, exchanging a look with Zoe who gave a small shrug of confusion. "You must have visitors now and then. It can't be that impossible for us to be here."
His hand fell from Jack's collar, accepting the reality of what was before him, eyes moving smoothly to Rose. "You're telling me you don't know where you are?"
"That's exactly what we're saying," the Doctor smiled. "It's so much more fun not to know."
"Stand by, everyone, and buckle down," Ida said over the base's tannoy system. "We have incoming, and it's definitely a big one. Quake point five on its way. This is going to worse than last time."
"Enough of this," Jefferson said, pushing through the middle of them and pulling the door open only to gesture sharply at them. "We'll figure out how you got in without anyone noticing later. Through here, now, and make it quick. Ood, strap yourself down." When they didn't move, impatience rolled across his face. "Come on, move!"
A conduit sparked and sizzled, smoke filling the air, and they followed Jefferson through the door at a run. They moved through the corridors of the base, forced to pause each time they came upon a sealed door, before they entered the main control room that looked as though it had seen better days: Rustic and rusted Zoe thought from her brief glance before her vision was blocked by Jack's back. Hammered together walls that worked as make-do patches where pieces had given way, and cables that were held together by thick tape did not fill her with confidence about the base's structural integrity.
Her stomach turned over, acutely aware that all that stood between her and the atmosphere outside the walls was MacGyvered equipment. Her head span a little and she instinctively reached for the Doctor, his arm going around her waist, holding her against his side.
"Oh, my God," Zach breathed, staring at them in amazement, the whites of his eyes bright in the darkness of the room as the lights flickered. "You meant it. They are actual people."
"That's us," the Doctor said, thumb sweeping over Zoe's hip. "Real people. I'm the Doctor, this is Zoe." She lifted her hand in a wave as he nodded at the others. "Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, and Jack Harkness. All very much real and alive."
Rose raised a hand and waggled her fingers. "Hello."
"Come on the oxygen must be offline," Danny said, rising to his feet and moving towards them. "We're hallucinating. They can't be –" he poked Mickey's arm. "No, okay, they're real."
"Come on, we're in the middle of an alert," Zach exclaimed, annoyed. "Danny, strap up. The quake's coming in, impact in thirty seconds. Sorry you lot – whoever you are – just hold on, tight."
"Hold on to what?" Mickey asked.
"Anything. I don't care. Just hold on," he said, hands clenching into fists atop the display console that was flickering. "Ood, are we fixed?"
An Ood emerged from the shadows to incline its head in gratitude. "Your kindness in this emergency is much appreciated."
The Doctor bracketed Zoe within his arms as he held onto the railing by the door, the warmth of her body seeping into his chest. He gripped the railing and addressed the crew of the base and looked back to Zach. "What's this planet called, anyway?"
"Now, don't be stupid," Ida chastised. "It hasn't got a name. How could it have a name?" The Doctor shook his head and lifted his eyebrows. She stared back at him, eyes narrowing as information began to slot together in her mind: A confused, almost amused, smile touched her lips. "You really don't know, do you?"
Zach's body tensed. "Impact!"
The violent tremors that shook the base reminded Zoe of Thanatos, a planet the Doctor had taken her and Rose to early in the days of them knowing each other, before she had heard of the existence of Daleks and long before she knew of Jack or even Reinette, except those tremors hadn't been half as violent as these ones.
Beneath her feet, the ground surged up and her hands tightened on the railing, and the Doctor plastered his body over hers. She glanced across to see Mickey and Jack keeping a tight hold of Rose, their arms linked, hands fastened to the railing, as the quake shook the base so hard that cables burst out of their plugs, sparks scattering across the ground, momentarily heating Zoe's bare legs. As soon as it started, it stopped, and the Doctor made to let go but she clamped her hands down over his just as the true quake hit, a thousand times worse than before.
Rose screamed, her feet disappearing from beneath her, and the Doctor was swept into a wall, hitting it with a grunt. She reached out for him, pulling him back to her, the world exploding around them as consoles burst into flame and someone screamed. It felt as though the base was going to rip itself apart around them, panic surging through Zoe at the thought of being exposed to the elements. Wrapping himself around her, gripping the rail afresh, the Doctor pressed his face into her hair as she closed her eyes, riding the violent quake that went on and on and on and on until it finally stopped.
Ears ringing, Zoe released a shuddering breath. "Fuck."
"You okay?" The Doctor's concern was warm and sincere in her ear, his hands moving to check her over. "Zoe?"
"I'm fine."
She felt the worry easy from him before he checked on the others, releasing her. Stepping away from the railing on unsteady legs, she made herself useful and found a fire extinguisher, helping Scooti put out a fire in the corner as Rose bent double, fingers pressing against her temple, massaging. Her teeth felt as though they were vibrating in her jaws as she helped put out the fires and wave the smoke towards the ventilation system that was humming loudly as it worked overtime.
Jumping across the floor, Zoe hurried to help the Ood trapped beneath a live wire that sparked dangerously. Taking care to grab the insulated section, she dragged the heavy cable off of it and extended her hand.
"C'mon," she said. "Be careful and don't touch the end."
The Ood took her hand, its touch warm and dry, and she pulled it back to its feet, brushing the dust from its shoulders.
"Thank you for your kindness," it said.
"Don't mention it," Zoe smiled, turning back to check on the others.
"My head hurts," Rose groaned, pulling a face. "An' I think I bit my tongue."
"What the hell was that?" The Doctor demanded, bewildered. "An earthquake?"
"No, the surface caved in," Zach said, a soft huff of laughter causing his mouth to curve up. He pulled up a schematic of the base and gestured. "I deflected it onto storage five through to eight. We've lost them completely. Toby, go check the rocket link."
Taller than the Doctor but all around less genial, Toby scowled. "Yeah, that's not my department."
Annoyance settled into the lines around Zach's. "Just do as I say, yeah?"
"Oxygen holding," Ida said. "Internal gravity fifty six point six. We should be okay."
"We've lost maintenance drones six through nine," Scooti said, flicking through the contents of storages five to eight. "Fire suppressants tools but we've got back ups in the rocket. Shit. Our secondary space suits are gone. They were in storage eight."
"Damn," Zach muttered, rubbing his jaw. "That's annoying."
"We'll just have to be extra careful with the ones we have now," Ida replied. "Get Mr Jefferson stitching up some patches for us to use."
Mr Jefferson coughed, unamused. "Your humour still needs some work, Dr Scott."
"I think she's funny," Scooti said with a sly smile, grinning at Ida who pressed her lips together to stop from laughing.
"I hate to interrupt this banter because I love me a good bit of banter," the Doctor said. "But what exactly was that just now? The surface caved in but from what? The storm outside?"
Jack fixed his hair in the handheld mirror Mickey held up for him. "Sounds like a hurricane to me."
"You'd need an atmosphere for a hurricane," Scooti said. "There's no air out there. It's a complete vacuum."
"That's wonderful, could've done without hearing that, if I'm honest," Zoe complained. "And at the risk of sending my anxiety further through the roof – if there's no atmosphere, what the hell's the source of that noise? It's like a wind battering us."
"You're not joking. You really don't know," Ida said, the crew exchanging startled looks with each other before she took charge of the situation. "Well, introductions. F-Y-I, as they said in the olden days. I'm Ida Scott, science officer. This is Zachary Cross Flane, acting Captain, sir." Jack gave a small salute that brought a smile to the man's face. "You've met Mr Jefferson, he's Head of Security. That one there is Danny Bartock, Ethics committee –"
"Not as boring as it sounds," he promised, cheerfully.
"And that man who just left, that was Toby Zed, Archaeology," she continued before resting her hands Scooti's bare shoulders. "And this is Scooti Manista, Trainee maintenance." She released Scooti and put her hand on a lever, pulling it down to trigger the shutters overhead. "And this – this is home."
"Brace yourselves," Zach warned, leaning back in his seat, hands linked over his stomach. "The sight of it sends some people mad."
Turning her face upwards, Zoe's mouth dropped open as the shutters retracted and the outside was revealed.
A black hole loomed overhead, splayed out through the universe above them as a great, yawning maw that stretched further than she had ever imagined possible, it was ring by oranges and reds that blended together, making it look as though space was burning. In the centre was a perfect circle of pure blackness that sucked in all the light and matter around it, eating everything it could. A belt of broken up asteroids, meteors, and planets was being pulled into the centre and, for a moment, she imagined the tug of it against her body, stumbling forwards as she lost balanced, clutching at the console and blinking the sight from her eyes.
It remained seared against her retinas.
"Whoa," Zoe breathed, a fine tremble running through her, meeting Ida's eyes across the console. "That's a black hole."
Jack's mouth moved, eyes fixed above them. "How? How is this possible?"
Ida passed her hand across her mouth, amused. "We're in orbit."
"We're what?" The Doctor tore his gaze from the black hole and stared at the crew of the Sanctuary Base. "We can't be. That's impossible."
"And yet here we are," she said. "This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole without falling in." Her lips twitched. "Discuss."
Mickey blinked and looked away. "I don't understand."
"Me neither," Rose admitted.
"Ida, hi," Zoe said, leaning forwards. "I agree with the Doctor here, which, if you know me is odd because generally when I hear the word impossible I'm all improbable not impossible, but this is actually impossible. We cannot be in orbit of a black hole. We just can't be. It goes against the laws of physics and, you know, human biology. This lump of rock, whatever it is, would need to be travelling at speeds just really fucking fast, none of which would support human life. Maybe like smeared human life where we're all mushy on the ground but even then I'm pretty sure we'd be going so fast it'd be like a steam clean."
"And yet we're not," Ida replied. "Interesting, don't you think?"
"No, no, no, no, no," Jack said, shaking his head. "You can't be in perpetual geostationary orbit around a black hole. You just can't. Zoe's right: The amount of speed you'd need to maintain a safe distance is incomprehensible. We wouldn't even be mush on the ground. We'd be – well, I don't know what we'd be but it wouldn't be anything good. We can't physically be here if that's actually a black hole."
Zach leaned back in his chair and grinned up at the black hole as Scooti and Danny laughed, amusement sparking in Ida's eyes.
"Guys, there's too much science," Rose interrupted. "Why's this bad?"
"Because a black hole is a dead star," the Doctor explained, turning to her and Mickey. "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 we can't be in orbit because we should be pulled right in. We should be dead."
"But here we are, beyond the laws of physics," Ida said, smiling. "You're all caught up. Welcome on board."
Zoe shook her head. "But we can't be beyond the laws of physics. The laws of physics are universal. Multi-universal even and you can trust us on that. Or rather –" she held up her thumb and grinned. "You can trust me on this."
Rose ducked her head and coughed to hide her laugh.
"You're going to drive yourself mad if you keep trying to make sense of it," Zach told her, sympathetically, twisting his back to pop his spine with a grunt. "It's a lot easier if you just accept that this is real. Stops you going crazy."
Jack laughed and looked back up at the black hole. "This is – I can't even begin to..."
Rose pointed at the dust she could see. "But if there's no atmosphere out there, what's that?"
"Stars breaking up," Ida explained, circling the console to stand next to Scooti again, fingers brushing against the back of her hand. "Gas clouds. We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above our heads before they fall into that thing."
"So, a bit worse than a storm, then," she said.
Ida flashed her a grin. "Just a bit, yeah."
"Zo." Zoe moved her head a little, indicating she was listening, and Mickey murmured against her ear. "Break it down more for me. I don't get it."
She nodded and quietly, so as not to attract attention from any of the others, simplified the explanation for Mickey. He was a smart man who had educated himself on various scientific theories when Rose ran off with the Doctor, searching for various explanations about what he had seen, but he worked better with his hands and with the words in front of him. At school he had been deemed a 'slow learner' because of his inability to follow along with what the teachers were saying, no one caring enough to push deeper beneath the surface to find out what the best style of learning for him was, and he had fallen behind.
Aware of this, Zoe kept her explanation simple and to the point and switched out the scientific terms for mechanic analogies that she knew he would get, using a method her teachers at MIT had done for her when it became clear she wasn't understanding the basic concepts. By the time Toby returned from checking the rocket, scrolls tucked under his arm, Mickey had a foundational understanding of black holes and the improbability of being in orbit of one.
"The rocket link's fine," Toby said, sullenly, as Zach called up a hologram over the central console. "As it always is."
"That's the black hole," Zach told them, ignoring Toby with the air of a man used to doing so and gesturing to the representation of it. "Officially designated K37-Gem-5."
"How big is it?" Jack asked.
"Its diameter measures at 92 billion miles," Ida said.
"Holy shit." Zoe looked to the Doctor. "Guess we've found something smaller than your ego then."
He stared at her, confused, before remembering their conversation after the events on the Grifari space ship and he grinned. "You're the worst."
"You love me anyway."
He sighed, happy. "I really do."
"Save the flirtin'," Rose ordered. "Honestly. Big black hole an' the two of you are doin' this. Priorities."
"Always time for a good flirt," the Doctor said.
"That's my motto anyway," Danny said, grinning at Jack. "Hi."
"He's taken," Mickey said, dryly. "Monogamously."
A wide grin stole over Jack's face, his shoulder pressing against Mickey's in delight.
"K37-Gem-5?" Rose said, loudly, pulling the conversation back onto topic. "Not all that inventive, is it? Could've called it – I don't know – Scooby Doo or somethin'." Zoe looked at her, confused. "Because it's a mystery."
"Jesus," she muttered.
"It has another name, one you might enjoy," Ida said. "In the scriptures of the Falltino, this planet is called Krop Tor, or the Bitter Pill in their language, 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."
"A demon, you say?" The Doctor asked, thoughtfully, thinking of the symbol back in the rec room that meant either beast or meat. "That's interesting."
Mickey raised his eyebrows. "Is it?"
"To be fair though, everything's interesting right now," he said, checking their location. "Blimey, we are really far out today. We're lost in the drifts of the universe. You're not from Earth then."
"We're all human," Zach said. "Except for the Ood, of course, but we're all from the Outer Colonies. Not one of us has ever been to Earth."
"Didn't think so," the Doctor replied. "It'd take five hundred years for you lot to get to Earth with the tech you've got right now. Where's home then? How far away is it?"
"Six years in that direction," he said, pointing vaguely north-east. "There are some trading ports about two years away but that's it."
"God, we are far out," Jack said, feeling the emptiness of where they were. It wasn't as though he had forgotten what it was like to travel without the TARDIS but the last year and a bit had been like a whole lifetime lived that it was jarring to remember how things used to be for him. He shook the thoughts from his head and looked at Zach again. "Did you use cryostasis for the journey?"
"Had to," he said. "Couldn't have made it otherwise. Too many crew, not enough space for the supplies we needed. Our ship's only so big."
Jack glanced at Scooti. "How old were you when you started the trip?"
"Eighteen," she said. "Started the training at sixteen. I should technically be twenty-four now but I'm only really twenty. Get to save some time on the way home as well, which is nice."
"Guess we're not the only ones with strange lives," Rose said, elbowing Zoe lightly.
"How did you even get here anyway?" The Doctor asked. "The planet might be immune to the gravitational forces of the black hole but whatever ship you used can't be."
"You're one to talk," Zach scoffed, changing the display. "But, for your information, we flew in. You see, this planet's generating a gravity funnel. We don't know how – even now we've still got 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."
"Gravity funnel," the Doctor repeated, leaning in. "That must be what clipped my ship and pulled us in. Knew it couldn't have been the black hole. My girl doesn't bother much with those but this gravity field is a bit of all right, isn't it? Not naturally occurring, surely?"
"We don't have any other theories right now," Ida said. "Though Toby thinks there was once a powerful civilisation that lived here but he hasn't been able to find any concrete evidence. Not yet anyway."
Toby scowled as though Ida was laying the blame of their lack of knowledge at his feet. "I am trying."
"She wasn't saying you weren't," Zach said, enough firmness in his voice to shut down any further complaints. "There's a lot we don't know about this planet. And by rights, the ship should've been torn apart when we flew down it the funnel. We lost the captain – the proper captain – which is what put me in charge, and the rest of the crew too."
"But if that gravity funnel closes," Danny said to break through the malaise that fell at the memory of their late captain and colleagues. "There's no way out."
Scooti grinned. "We've had fun speculating about that."
The Doctor frowned. "But that field would take phenomenal amounts of power. I mean not just big but off the scale." He gestured at the equipment. "Can I?"
"Sure," Ida said with a nod. "Help yourself."
"Don't tell him that," Mickey warned. "You'll never get rid of him."
The Doctor gestured rudely behind his back as Zoe and Jack stepped closer to bury themselves in the science and maths of the situation. With a faint roll of her eyes, Rose stepped away from the console and drifted over to the Ood, sitting herself down on a crate, occasionally glancing at the strange alien next to her. It didn't say anything or do anything except stand there and wait, silent and utterly forgettable. Mickey picked a piece of broken equipment up off the floor, turning it over in his fingers, absently trying to figure out how it worked until Scooti took it from him with a smile. He grinned at her before the Doctor whipped around, a familiar look of triumph on his face.
"There we go," he grinned. "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."
Rose swung her legs. "That's a lot of sixes."
"That took us two years to work that out," Zach exclaimed, stunned.
He shrugged, smug. "I'm very good."
"But that's why we're here," Ida told them. "This power source is ten miles below 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 said.
Excitement swept through Ida. "It could revolutionise modern science."
"We could use it to fuel the Empire," Jefferson added.
"It's buried beneath us," Toby said, the sullen tone of his voice cracking through the enthusiasm of unknown possibilities. "In the darkness, waiting."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Toby? You sure know how to kill a mood."
"Well, whatever it is down there is not a natural phenomena," he replied, face pinched in annoyance. "And this planet once supported life aeons ago, long before the human race had even learned to walk."
"I take it you're responsible for the Welcome to Hell sign we came across," Zoe said. "That was cheerful. Run out of paper, did you?"
He threw her a disdainful look that made the Doctor's eyes narrow imperceptibly.
"I copied it from fragments we found unearthed by the drilling, but I can't translate it," he said. "I thought it might help me think better to see it on a bigger surface. There was some form of civilisation and they buried something. Now it's reaching out, calling us in."
The Doctor flicked his eyes over the group of scientists and explorers. "And you came."
"Well –" Ida paused. "How could we not?"
"So, when it comes right down to it, why did you come here?" He asked, enthused and Zoe and Jack stepped back, aware of how loose his limbs became when he was excited. "Why did you do that? I'll tell you why – because it was there. Brilliant." He looked at the captain. "Excuse me, Zach, wasn't it?"
He nodded. "That's me."
"Just stay right there because I'm going to hug you," the Doctor said, Mickey dropping his chin with a huffed laugh. "Is that all right?"
"I suppose so," Zach said, not at all bothered by the Doctor's oddity, accepting the hug as though it was just another thing to check off his list, listening patiently as the Doctor enthused over human beings.
"Absolutely brilliant," he said once he released Zach. "But apart from that, you're all completely mad. You should pack your bags, get back in that ship and fly for your lives because this is utter, utter madness. And that's coming from me. I eat madness for breakfast."
"He doesn't," Zoe said. "It's croissant and a cup of tea. Sometimes a banana, occasionally a coffee. Once or twice a month, a fried breakfast."
"You do make a nice fried breakfast," the Doctor agreed. "But the madness is really metaphorical here. I eat metaphorical madness for breakfast."
"I'm sorry, we're mad? You can talk," Ida said. "How the hell did you even get here? You weren't picked up on our scanners and there's only one way in and out of this place, so how did you do it?"
"Oh, I've got this – this ship," he said, scratching the back of his neck, always hating when he had to try and explain the TARDIS to people who didn't know. "It's kind of hard to explain. She just sort of appears in places. We got to skip the whole gravity funnel thing."
"She's not like normal ships," Zoe told them. "We're able to get to places that other people can't. And now that I think about it, the implausibility of this place explains both why she was sounding off earlier. That's probably what was causing her indigestion."
Jefferson frowned. "Is your ship alive?"
"Yes," the five of them said in unison.
"We can show you," Rose offered, hopping off her crate and tucking her hair behind her ears. "We parked down the corridor from – er –" her mind went blank. "Shit, what's it called? Habitation area...somethin'?"
"Three," Mickey said. "You always forget where we park. Remember that time you sat down in the middle of Tesco's car park because you swore the car had been nabbed even though it was right behind you?"
She stuck her tongue out at him and turned back with a grin to the crew. "Habitation area three. We're just down from there."
Zach stiffened slightly. "Do you mean storage six?"
"It was a bit of a cupboard, yeah." The Doctor bobbed his head before he stilled, eyes flickering to Zoe and then Jack, realisation creeping across his face. "Storage six. But you said – you said, you said storage five to eight!"
The Doctor rushed for the door with Zoe on his heels, chasing after him, the others not far behind. Racing through the corridors, yanking the doors wide open and ducking past the Ood who were cleaning up the mess that had been made with the storm, desperately hoping that they weren't going to find what they already knew they would find. They passed through the rec room where the smell of an evening meal being prepared filled their noses, sprinting towards door sixteen.
Grabbing hold of the wheel and trying to turn it, the veins on the back of his hands standing out with the force he was exerting, the Doctor he released it with an annoyed grunt and pressed his face against the viewport.
"No." His voice cracked, eyes fixed on the empty expanse of space before them. "No, no, no, no, no."
The TARDIS was gone.