A/N - Part Three is finally here! And this is where things get good! I'm hoping to stick to my word and getting two chapters posted every Sunday, but I can't guarantee it'll be definite - things always seem to get in the way! Anyway, I hope you'll think it was worth the wait, and please review, yep!
Izzy's eyes opened to almost complete darkness. His only source of light came from the glow of a distant moon filtering through the barred window of his cell. Of course, he couldn't sit up to enjoy the view as both his wrists and ankles had been clamped down to the stone slab he had been placed on.
"This isn't cool," he tried to say. Unfortunately, he was still clearly suffering from the effects of some tranquilliser or anaesthetic and it came out as more of a random moan.
Okay, that's not cool either, he thought. Now's a good time to try and remember where the hell I am and what's going on.
Then the small hatch on the steel door had slid back momentarily and a pair of glowing green eyes had looked through at him.
Oh yeah, that's it, he remembered. Rutans... I'm undecided on whether they're better or worse than Sontarans. I don't know – whatever the case I'm sick of getting put to sleep. Wonder what the big deal is that they've both had a shot n- Hey, that better not be a spider! Oh, it's not, that's good... Hm, should I start planning a dramatic escape or should I hope for the best that someone else is stupid enough to come save me? Preferably someone whose eyes aren't green. Those Rutans' eyes are freaky as hell.
Callum Hendrick grinned as he pushed open the coffee shop door and made his way to the counter, the sunlight glinting in his cheerful green eyes.
"Oh, I didn't expect you to be in today!" the girl behind the counter said, smiling at him sweetly.
"Aw, nah, I don't have a shift today, Sarah," he replied, "I'm just waiting on Keith and Laura."
"Ah, I should've figured," she nodded, crossing over to one of the machines. "Just having your usual?"
"Yeah, please," Callum said, absent-mindedly gazing up at the menu he practically knew off by heart by now. He'd been working shifts at the coffee shop ever since he got back from his latest travels. Of course, as far as everyone else was concerned – with the exception of Keith and Laura – he'd never left. In reality, altogether he'd spent a good few months away from home, travelling through time and space. And in three more days, as long as the Doctor kept his promise, he'd be off again for more travels soon.
"Three more days," someone said to him, snapping him out of his trail of thought. He looked to see Sarah, with her long blonde hair and her dimples, leaning across the counter, almost right in his face.
"Huh?" he said, taking a flustered step back and nearly tripping over a chair.
"Three more days til payday!" Sarah beamed. "There's your gingerbread latte! Don't worry 'bout the staff discount thing, just take it on the house." She leaned a little further over the counter to whisper consiprationally. "Just don't tell Ms Vandini."
"Ahh, terribly unprofessional of you, Sarah Munro," Keith Whyte joked as he strode in through the door, hand-in-hand with Laura, who was carrying three large shopping bags in her other free hand.
"That's enough out of you, Keith," Sarah retorted, waving a pair of tongs menacingly as she reached into one of the display counters and pulled out a white chocolate cookie.
"Aw, fair enough," shrugged Keith with a grin as he slid into a booth on the far side of the room. Laura slid her bags under the table and sat down next to him, while Callum gave Sarah another smile of thanks and crossed the floor to sit with the couple.
"Three more days, ay?" Laura said. "Reckon he'll be here on time for once?"
"Oh, probably not if I know him," laughed Callum. "I tried to phone him the other day but all I got was some guy called Strax ranting about sherbet fancies and someone called Jenny."
"Universal roaming playing up?" Keith asked. "Mines seemed to pack in as soon as we got back."
"That's because you threw it off a wall six times when you were in a strop with your brother," Laura pointed out.
"Yeah, well, that's not the point!" Keith laughed. "At the end of the day, I take no responsibility for it."
"It was you who did it though!"
"But it's not the point!"
The conversation followed the same sort of path for a few moments before Keith decided he wanted a drink and went up to order for him and Laura.
"So, have you been feeling all right ever since... that thing?" Laura asked. Callum looked up from his drink to see she was looking at him with deep concern.
"Completely," he nodded. "Seriously, I can't even completely remember what happened!"
"Hm, okay," she said. "You still haven't explained what the deal with the picture Mimi gave you is."
"I've left that to the Doctor to work out," Callum said. "He figured it was better that way. I've just been trying not to dwell on it."
"Well, that's fair enough," Laura nodded, reaching under the table and into one of the large shopping bags. Keith crossed over and sat back down, placing a cup down in front of Laura and taking a drink of his own.
"What's up?" he said as he placed his own cup back down – a small white mustache of cream had formed on his upper lip. "You two okay?"
"Probably," chuckled Callum. On the other side of the shop, a bell chimed as someone entered, making their way up to the counter.
"Anyway," Laura said, taking this opportunity to lead the conversation, "have either of you started your summer project for English yet?"
"What one – the fictional one or the review?"
"Fiction," Laura answered. "I was thinking of writing about how we helped that couple fall in love to save Sperius Six."
"Oh, they were the ones who thought Shakespeare was a god, yeah?"
"Ahaha, yeah," laughed Callum. "The real life Romeo and Juliet of the 53rd century."
"Ah, yes, I remember it well!" said a familiar voice, sliding into the empty seat beside Callum, catching them all offguard.
"Doctor!" the three cried in unison, happily. The Time Lord smiled to himself and took a sip of tea out of the small cup he had placed down.
"Hello, you three!" he said. "Long time no see!"
"How long?!" cried Callum, as he followed the Doctor out the coffee shop, giving a quick wave to Sarah on the way out. Keith and Laura followed close behind – Laura still clutching her shopping bags.
"Oh, a couple years, maybe more – I don't know," the Doctor said, waving a hand dismissively. They followed him past two other stores, and then down a small alleyway in between a charity shop and a Subway.
The TARDIS sat halfway down the alley, its paintwork looking slightly faded than the last time the three teens had seen it. Besides that, however, it was the same old TARDIS.
At least until they stepped inside.
"You've redecorated," Laura pointed out, as they stood in the open doorway for a moment, looking around at the console room's new look.
Instead of the orange light, brass and glass look they had grown so accustomed to, this room was smaller and more confined, with a strange blue-green glow. Everything was much more mechanical now, with a sharper-looking six-sided console and a thinner, more stream-lined looking time rotor. Two banks of controls were also on either side of the main level, and on the floor below, they could see a tunnelway leading further into the TARDIS.
"Ah, yes, it was time for a change," the Doctor said, a sudden sad look crossing his face. "But never mind that now, you three! We have a mission!"
"A mission?" Callum repeated, arching an eyebrow.
"A mission!" the Doctor beamed, suddenly an overexcited child. "Hurry up and shut the door, you're letting a draught in!"
Laura closed the door behind her as she dropped her bags at the side, and followed Callum and Keith up to the main console with the Doctor. The Doctor gestured for them to look at one of the two monitors round the console, as it displayed an image of a small orange sphere.
"Where's that, then?" Keith asked, squinting at the Gallifreyan symbols running across the screen.
"The fourth moon of Glamisium Calit," the Doctor replied, already rushing to set the controls, his new purple coat flapping behind him.
"And what's the mission?" Callum asked, looking around the time rotor as the Doctor adjusted something on one of the control banks.
"Rescue someone, do a jailbreak, prevent a genocide, just the usual," the Doctor listed off, turning back to the main part of the console and slamming down on a lever, setting the time rotor into motion.
The engines began their characteristic metal throb of power as the TARDIS took off, dematerialising from its parking space in a Glasgow alleyway, and launching off into the infinite tunnels of the time vortex.
"Alright, so what's the deal with this prisoner then?" asked Callum, as the Doctor continued to guide the TARDIS through time and space.
"Not sure – they've nicknamed him 'the Apocalypse Boy', though," the Doctor frowned, tapping something into a keypad and squinting up at the monitor. "Let's see if I can break into a databank or two."
Meanwhile, Callum was trying to recall the various TARDIS controls, as they'd all been rearranged during the TARDIS' last reconstruction. The helmic regulator was now at the panel facing the door, and the Ziton crystals were now over on one of the control banks to the side.
"You need a new thermo buffer," he said, pointing at the burnt out looking device on the panel to the right of the helmic regulator.
"Ah, yes," the Doctor nodded, giving it a quick glance, before rattling some more keys on the small pad, "been meaning to do that for a while now – it's been a little hectic."
"Y'know, it's funny," Laura said, sitting down in a seat to the side of one of the control banks, "it's been years since you last saw us but you act like it's barely been a couple weeks."
"I'm a Time Lord," shrugged the Doctor. "Time doesn't affect me the way it does with you lot!"
"Do you ever... wish it did?" Keith asked, curiosity obvious in his tone and expression. The Doctor looked thoughtful for a moment.
"Well, I've... not had to think about it for a long time," he admitted, "not since I was about nine hundred or so. Different man back then, of course."
"You were only nine hundred and seven when we first met," Callum remembered. "Blimey, I'm saying that like it's barely anything."
"It's been a busy three hundred or so years," the Doctor said, his smile tinged with just a hint of sadness. "Anyway, enough of that! Looook what I have here!"
"What is it?" asked Callum, as the three of them crowded around the Doctor at the monitor again.
"The Apocalypse Boy. Human-ish. Says here he was taken from the settlement on the planet SandSphere in the year 4129. 42nd century boy, hm."
"Is that... important?"
"Hm, oh yes," the Doctor nodded, the light from the monitor shining in the lenses of the reading glasses that had apparently appeared out of nowhere – or more accurately: from the depths of one of the dimensionally transcendental pockets of his coat. "42nd century humans are very adaptable. Perfect for turning into a biological doomsday device. And this one was practically bred for adaptating!" He paused again, squinting at the text on screen, before he typed something else in quickly, and the image onscreen changed to show a schematic of a massive spaceship.
The central part of the ship was a large sphere, covered in lots of small pods, perhaps big enough for two people to fit into. On either end of the sphere, three large spikes reaching about double the length of the sphere perched on, small blue lights flickering along the length of it.
"What's that, then?" Keith asked.
"Is that their ship we're gonna be looking for down on that moon?" Callum asked.
"No," the Doctor said, shaking his head slightly. "It's the Sontaran warship that the boy was on originally. I'm just trying to access their data logs – but we're too far out of range."
"So, we'll need to do a little nudge their way then?"
"Oh, Hendrick," the Doctor smiled, "you're brilliant! Shall we do a refresher course on flying the TARDIS?"
"Sounds like a plan!" Callum beamed as the Doctor yanked down on the helmic regulator and reached over for something else. "Geronimo?"
"Geronimo!"
My head is killing me, thought Izzy, staring up at the ceiling once again. It's like I'm burning behind my eyes. An unrelated thought came to mind. I'd kill for a kronkburger right now.
It was daytime now – or at least, the closest to daytime it ever got to on a moon. The sky was a strange sort of pink-purple, and through the window Izzy could see the large orange planet on the skyline.
"Wonder if there's any kronkburgers down there," he said to himself, pleased to hear he could speak again. He was quiet for a moment, and then: "Oi, you guarding the door, fancy finding me some decent food? An IV feed a day isn't keeping the doctor away."
The hatch in the door slid back, and the glowing green eyes glared through at him.
"Silence, child."
"Hey, I'm starving here! The least you could do is give me a good meal."
"I said silence," shrieked the Rutan through the door, slamming the hatch shut behind it.
"Oh, this just isn't my day," Izzy hissed, tilting his head to look back out the window again as a flock of red birds flew by, their strange birdcall ringing through the bars in the window.
An alarm blared as the Doctor and Callum leaped through the doorway, as laser fire tore through behind them. They ducked behind a section in the wall and the blasts ripped into the wall at the end of the corridor.
Again, they dived out and round the corner, Callum tearing over from the left hand side to the right, following the Doctor through the winding black-and-purple labyrinth of the warship of the Seventh Sontaran Scientific Research Fleet.
"Take a left at the end of the next corridor," Laura instructed through the earpiece Callum had put in his ear as soon as they'd left the TARDIS in hunt of the main computer database.
"Okay, got it," nodded Callum.
"Wait, no, sorry, I was pressing the wrong button," Laura replied. "That was meant to be Keith's direction. You're going straight on and then taking your third left."
"God, I've missed this!" he laughed.
Moments later, they were back in the atrium where the TARDIS had landed, just as Keith rushed in through a side door, slamming his hand down on a button that slid the door shut behind him.
"You would not believe the day I'm having," he groaned, sliding down the door, panting for breath.
"Come on," Callum grinned, helping him to his feet as the Doctor unlocked the TARDIS. "We found the databanks like three floors up and the Doctor managed to get the data disc!"
"Well, at least our ordeal wasn't a complete waste," chuckled Keith, as the two of them made their way back into the TARDIS. A moment later, there was a dull clunk and then the whoosh of ancient engines as the blue box began to dematerialise.
Once they were back in the safety of the time vortex, the Doctor slid the Sontaran's data disc into the side of the monitor and quickly loading the files.
The Doctor threw his jacket onto the railing by the door and slid his reading glasses on again, swivelling around to inspect the monitor.
"What is it, Doctor?" Laura asked, as the Doctor's eyes widened.
"This is worse than I thought," he murmured. "I already knew he had been attuned to become a bio-weapon, but this is worse than I thought."
"Why's that?" frowned Callum, craning his neck to see over the Doctor's shoulder.
"Because it's completely unstable! These readings here," - he pointed at the left hand side of the screen, where several circles were pulsating erratically - "basically confirm that without direct action, that explosion could tear a black hole into existence."
"I thought black holes could only be made by collapsing stars or something?" Keith said.
"Well, yes, normally," the Doctor said, nodding furiously, "but in this case, the explosion, bio-tuned to the Rutans DNA will filter out in temporal and spatial dimensions."
"And that'll be enough to tear a hole in the universe?" Callum reasoned.
"Well, they don't call him the Apocalypse Boy for nothing," put in Keith.
"Exactly," the Doctor nodded grimly. "Things are getting more and more complicated by the minute."
Onboard the Sontaran ship, an alert flashed up on one of the computer banks and Research Commander Skel, an unmasked Sontaran scientist with a large scar running across his domed head, punched a code into the device, and the ship's computer voice boomed through the speakers, "Intruders have been identified as the Doctor and his companions. The files on the bio-weapon child have been stolen."
"Then the Doctor can lead us right to the Rutan Host!" Commander Skrel said approvingly. "Excellent."
"Temporal co-ordinates can be traced to follow the route of the Doctor's vehicle."
"Ah, yes, his TARDIS," Skrel said. "It is said Staal of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet was once able to capture the Doctor's TARDIS. In retaliation the Time Lord turned them all to dust. We must tread lightly..."
"Will the strategists be required?"
"Yes, yes," Skel said, turning to face out of the window, gazing out into the red starry sky of the Spiralhart Nebula. "I shall leave it to them to devise a stratagem so that we may retrieve the weapon, crush the Doctor and his foolish friends, obtain the last living TARDIS in the universe, and wipe every single last stinking Rutan off the face of the Universe. For the glory of Sontar!"
"For the glory of Sontar!" echoed the ship's computer.
"Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!" bellowed the rest of the crew in echo with their leader.
