Chapter Four

Forced Landing

After fighting turbulence most of the way, the small shuttle craft managed to land on the planet's surface with minimal damage to itself or its passengers. The Captain freely admitted this to be due solely to King Jason's piloting skills and not his own.

"Do you think you can repair the damage?" the King asked as the pilot and his navigator went over the ship's engines. The Captain informed him that the damage was not extensive and he would probably be able to have the ship space worthy within two days.

"I'll leave you to it, then," Jason called back and strode back into the ship, relaying the pilot's findings before announcing that he was going to see if there were any towns or villages nearby. The instruments had all been affected by the temporal disturbance, yielding nothing but static and he had been too busy trying to land rather than crash to pay attention to such details on their arrival.

"No, Father," Juris objected, "you shouldn't go off on your own. I'll go."

"I'm not that old yet," the monarch replied sharply. "And I've a lot more experience doing this sort of thing than you do. I'll just have a quick recce and be back before you know it."

Lady Asta listened to this exchange in silence. What had begun as a relationship of kindness and understanding had deteriorated to the point where she actually avoided speaking to her guardian, and he to her. She had been filled with a sense of foreboding the moment they en countered the turbulence, and she had originally discounted it as being the strain of the journey. Now she was uncertain what it was. She was a very powerful and highly trained telepath now, but had been unable to pinpoint the source of her ill ease. Something she would have been able to do were it simply tension from her fellow passengers.

As the King prepared to leave, Asta knew she had to tell him what she felt, despite the fact that he usually scoffed at her warnings. "Majesty, wait!" she called, watching as he stiffened dramatically before turning back to her.

"Yes?" he said coldly.

"Please, be careful. There's danger."

Jason's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but there was something in her voice that put him on his guard. "What kind of danger? Where?" he asked, his voice having lost its accusing edge.

His ward shook her head. "I don't know. It's just a…a feeling I have. I can't explain it. I just …I thought you should know."

King Jason turned his gaze from Asta to his son and back, surprising them both when he inclined his head and thanked her before departing.

While Ace's Doctor was forced to trudge slowly through the undergrowth in search of civilization, Jason was able to take a more expedient form of transportation, transmuting into an eagle and taking to the air. He soared for several miles in one direction, seeing what appeared to be an ancient ruined city. His curiosity piqued, he dropped from the sky for a closer look. From this vantage point it was obvious the buildings had lost their battle with the surrounding vegetation a long time ago. He landed and returned to his human form, looking around the apparently deserted city.

"No help here, that's for sure," the Alterran muttered as he walked a short distance in the center of the street. He entered the nearest storefront and stopped dead in his tracks. It was in pristine condition, as though the owners had shut down for the night and never returned.

"Now that's odd," he observed, looking around in bewilderment. Asta's warning returned to mind and he wondered if some catastrophe had occurred that she had picked up. Where were all the people? If they had died in a war, the buildings would have been destroyed, either by bombs or looters. The Alterran had seen his fair share of natural disasters, and he knew they always brought out the best—and worse—in people. "Not a natural disaster, then," he concluded.

Jason checked several other buildings, finding them all in similar condition. Was this one of those pre-fabricated colonies? Built and forgotten?

"Well, we'll get no help here," Jason concluded as he returned to the street and took to the air once more. He went in the opposite direction, following what seemed to be winding road, or what was left of one. At the top of a small hill he saw an open green area that may have at one time been a park. To his utter astonishment, he saw the familiar, if incongruous, shape of a police telephone box sitting to one side of the clearing.

Jason landed and returned to his human form, but not that of the King. Instead he adopted his casual dress of blue jeans, brightly colored shirt and sneakers. He went hesitantly to the TARDIS door and was startled when it swung open when he touched it. "Oh great," he moaned, not liking the implications of this at all. "Doctor?" he called as he went in, finding the console room empty. Puzzled, he looked around in bewilderment. It isn't like the Doctor to go off and leave the TARDIS unlocked. He crossed to the console, seeing all the systems were off-line. Asta's warning returned to mind a second time, sending a chill down his spine. Perhaps there was something to it after all. First the city was deserted, and now the TARDIS was also.

Jason cautiously opened the inner door and looked down the empty corridor. He threw a quick glance back into the console room then back down the corridor. He decided to go for broke and called out loudly, "Hello! Anybody home?"