Then: But A Little Later
"Doctor!"
A bedraggled figure detached itself from the group of Frowardian slaves that The Doctor and the Frowardian rebels had just rescued from possible toxic poisoning in the Argonite mines used to build the weapons of mass destruction with which the evil Lord Strakov was going to terrorise his neighbouring planets.
It was all in a days work really.
"Doctor it's me!"
"Digby!" The Doctor exclaimed, "You're alive!" He added trying not to sound too disappointed.
"Can we go now?"
"No Digby, there's still work to do," The Doctor explained, "Did you find anything out?"
"Nah…"
"What nothing at all?"
Digby shrugged and adjusted his baseball cap so he was wearing it backwards.
"Well, what have you been doing for the last six hours?"
"Not a lot really, got captured didn't I?"
"So I see Digby, what happened then?"
"Well they made me dig, but I wasn't very good at it so they put me to work cleaning the toilets…"
"And did you find anything out?" The Doctor probed.
"Well the guards never check the toilets, so I just hung around waiting to be rescued!"
"Didn't you try to escape?"
"Couldn't be bothered…you got any food?"
"Digby you are a useless…"
"Doctor!" It was Klarg the Frowardian rebel leader, "We must get these people to safety."
The Doctor left the sentence unfinished. "Come on Digby you can help me sneak into Strakov's palace," he turnedto Klarg, "be ready to move on my signal."
"Which will be what?"
"Loud and chaotic if I can help it, have the palace watched you'll know it when it happens."
So saying, The Doctor swept off dramatically heading in the direction of Strakov's palace. Only to return moments later when he realised that Digby wasn't following behind.
"Digby!"
One of the Frowardian rebels had given Digby something to eat and drink, the Doctor found his latest companion perched on a rock gingerly gnawing at the food.
"Come on Digby you can bring that with you!"
"Don't they have chips?"
"No Digby potatoes are only indigenous to earth!"
"What about kebabs?"
"Digby either eat what you are given, or wait until we get back to the Tardis."
The Tardis! The Doctor flinched at the very mention of the word. Once again it had performed its equivalent of a two-fingered salute and refused to take Digby home, thrust them instead into yet another threat to universal harmony.
However seeing as he was obviously going to be stuck with Digby for the foreseeable future, The Doctor resolved to make a man out of the walking couch potato if it was the last thing he ever did.
Digby took a sip of the drink; having tried some earlier The Doctor knew it tasted like orange juice. Digby must've thought so too as he drank the whole thing in one go.
The Frowardian rebel took the container from Digby when he was finished; he shook the empty container and glared at Digby in disbelief.
"I think that was supposed to be shared with the others." The Doctor commented dryly.
But Digby just shrugged.
The Doctor grabbed his arm and steered him away from the mines before Klarg or any of the others could comment.
*****
To a certain extent The Doctor was winging this particular adventure on autopilot. During almost a thousand years of travel he had lived this situation through on countless other worlds. Someone seizes power, and enslaves the people and puts them to work on a scheme that will then help them seize more power, and enslave even more people, which inturn is intended to generate another opportunity to seize yet more power and…Well who knows where it would stop if it was left unchecked?
All The Doctor had to do was work out the plan, find its flaw, and then ruin it for the bad guy.
That's not to say that The Doctor's interference was an automatic guarantee of success, or indeed that everything always went according to plan, but so far they had been on the planet barely six hours and whilst Digby had been skulking in toilets, The Doctor had made contact with the rebels, and rallied them into a strategic attack that had successfully captured the Argonite mines and effectively cut off an essential part of Lord Strakov's weapons program.
To a certain extent this was admittedly more by luck than judgement in fact The Doctor often relied on luck more than he cared to admit. The next stage of the "plan" for want of a better word was to employ the timely old yet highly dangerous strategy of allowing himself to be captured, and find some way of thwarting the enemy from within.
"Hello!" The Doctor called cheerily to the guards outside the palace checkpoint. "I was wondering if the palace was open for guided tours? My friend and I have come a long way, and wondered if you could point us in the direction of the nearest souvenir shop?"
The two guards were predictably unimpressed.
"Take them for questioning!" Bellowed the more zealous looking of the pair waving some type of toxic chemical handgun at them.
"Will we get any food?" Digby asked The Doctor shook his head in disbelief Digby couldn't even be bothered to be scared!
They were led into the bowels of the palace and locked away in a deep dark cell where they were told to await their fate.
The Doctor assured the guards that they weren't in any hurry.
Digby remained quiet.
It was some twenty minutes later that a Frowardian dressed in black entered the cell. He was flanked by two Frowardian Imperial Guards. The figure in black wore a matching tunic, cape, and boots. He also had a neatly trimmed goatee and a malevolent gleam in his eye.
The Doctor wondered idly whether there was some kind of universal retail outlet for despotic tyrants operating somewhere in the universe, as these days they all seemed to look alike.
Strakov's opening gambit was as predictably clichéd as his look.
"So Doctor, we meet at last, but unfortunately the pleasure is all mine." This was followed by raucous laughter.
The Doctor waited for him to stop.
"Doctor…" It was Digby and at last he sounded fearful.
"Not now Digby leave all the talking to me."
"But Doctor I need to go…"
"Can't you wait until after we escape?" The Doctor hissed.
"So Doctor…" Strakov had finished with the megalomaniacal laughter bit and was anxious to get onto the gloating about his cunning master plan segment of the proceedings.
"One moment Strakov…" The Doctor waved his hand dismissively as Digby told him that he couldn't hold on much longer.
"I've told you before Digby, you really should try and go before we get captured."
"Sorry Doctor…"
"Anyway serves you right for drinking all the…" The Doctor was distracted by something waving in his face. He realised this was because one of the guards had shoved a toxic handgun under his nose.
"As I was saying…" Strakov was saying satisfied that he had The Doctor's attention.
But The Doctor turned back to Digby and shook his head in disbelief, "you were cleaning toilets for six hours, didn't it even occur to you to actually use one?"
"Didn't have anything to drink then did I?"
"Is it okay if my friend uses the toilet?" The Doctor finally turned his attention to Lord Strakov.
"NO IT ISN'T!" He snarled.
"I'm sure a bucket would do," The Doctor shrugged.
"Before I subject you both to a slow and painful death Doctor, I want you to appreciate just how out of your depth you really are!" He paused, "what do you think you're doing?"
Digby had turned to face a corner and a stream of steamy liquid was now oozing into the cell from the passage between his legs.
"Don't mind me just carry on."
It was now The Doctor's turn to shrug.
******