The TARDIS raced through the vortex, following the trail of the distress signal. The ship had left Seventeenth Century France quickly and was now approaching the origin.

"Well this is interesting" came Curristan's remark as he glanced at the main monitor screen.

"What's up and what are you doing?" Sam asked in curiosity and a little apprehension.

"Following the trail of this distress signal...from what looks like a signal beacon of a space station. I locked on and I am going to see if I can be of any help. If we have to we can evacuate them to a nearby system so they can be safer."

"Makes sense but why should we be going? Surely the nearby authorities could be better suited to doing that themselves?"

"Yeah, but I feel that it may take too long and we can get them off quicker if the space station is falling out of orbit or hull breached."

Sighing in defeat Sam relented. "Fine lets go."

Smiling Curristan operated a switch, causing the TARDIS to rock slightly as it approached the source of the signal.

–

Materialising on the space station, the TARDIS appeared as a white cabinet in a corridor with alarms blaring constantly.

A woman began to approach the suddenly appeared cabinet before the doors shot open and two people burst out startling her,

"Hello there I am Curristan and this is my friend Sam. Sorry for bursting in on you like this but my ship here detected your distress signal and here we are."

The bewildered woman suddenly broke out of her shock before replying "Ah I see, well if you can help then come with me."

Curristan grinned before saying "Lead the way miss?"

"Commander Katria."

"Nice to meet you. Hope that Sam and I can be of some help."

"I would welcome that very much" Commander Katria exclaimed with relief.

Katria then beckoned them to follow her.

After a couple minutes the group had reached the command centre near the centre of the module. The mood seemed to be quite nervous and the alarms which were still sounding didn't make things easier.

"Turn that off! Status report."

The alarms immediately ceased, though the red lights continued to flash.

A female crewmember rushed to Commander Katria and saluted . "Life support systems are still stable, though there seems to be something hampering with the security systems. I don't know what I can do to maintain the forcefield surrounding the station."

"That's understandable. I hope that we can sort this out soon. Otherwise the station could be in trouble."

Curristan immediately cut in. "I wonder if I could help. I have a way with computers."

Without listening to respond he moved what he could see was the main console and began to type out rapidly. Looking quickly he could see that a block had been placed on the system. It didn't look Dalek which was a relief. However he was sure that it was something sinister.

However he was on his guard which he had always been since the Time War. Even though it was over, he never had really lost that feeling he had when things seemed to be wrong.

"So what is the matter Curristan?" came the inquisitive question from Sam.

Frowning Curristan scratched his head. "Right now I do not know, but I am sure that sooner or later something will give me an idea of what is happening. I have a feeling that we will know very soon."

Satisfied with the answer Sam fell silent.

Walking over to Commander Katria, Curristan decided to see what he could do to help.

"Commander can I do anything to deal with this situation?"

Turning and fixing a smile on her face she nodded. "I think that you could help with the sorting of the data which we have collected. It seems that we have detected something and you may know what it is.."

Quickly moving to the console indicated, Curristan began to type on the keypad. As the information moved across the screen, he had a sudden realisation of what he was looking at. He could see that these were life-sign patterns of some kind. It seemed to Curristan to be a mixture of both electronic and biological signals. It reminded him of something Romana had told him about she had heard from the Doctor.

"What the hell is this? It can't be. This seems like something similar to...Cybermen!"