"So, where are we going?" The Doctor asked, eyes flashing between Sky and Rose. The younger human girl, freshly refreshed, stood by the railing watching Sky and the Doctor as they both worked on the console.
She didn't really understand why Sky was doing anything. The Doctor had been flying alone all this time, surely she wasn't needed? If she was then he could have taught her at least a little in all the time she had been aboard.
"Anywhere, anywhere without gingham and doilies would be lovely." Sky had changed out of her blue tea dress eventually after discovering a box of old clothes hidden amongst the wardrobe. It had only taken her an hour to find it, which wasn't bad considering there were several floors and cubbyholes to explore. In exchange for the stiff cotton she had chosen a simple pair of black jeans, a loose grey t-shirt and a black cargo jacket. Simple and good for running...a preparation she couldn't quite shake.
She tapped a flashing button, flicking the switch which snapped upwards as a result, before catching Rose's attention. "Anywhere you would suggest?"
Rose shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Well, there's so many places I've already seen." She was trying to be smart, trying to show off. Having just met this woman it was probably rude and childish but she didn't care, these were meant to be her adventures.
But now, here was this woman. This woman who had a past with the Doctor, the past he had refused to even discuss with her. A woman who had already got him to love her.
In the space of an evening, Rose had gone from being the one and only, to the third wheel, being forced to watch as they ran around and laughed with one another in the TARDIS. Sarah Jane had been bad enough and this was ten times as bad.
However arose couldn't help but be curious about where she had come from? Why this woman had run away and given up searching so easily! If they had been so in love, why hadn't they always been together?
"You're telling me." Rose's smirk came back to her through Sky, as the Time Lord walked over to the Doctor and put a hand to his shoulder. "How about a random heading?"
"Oh, you want to leave it to chance so early?" He replied, unsure…until he smirked and wrapped an open palm around a hidden lever. "...alright." The TARDIS shook, rattling violently as he stood straight and grinned at Sky who held on to the console for her life.
"You still haven't passed your test then!" Huffing, she stood and sorted out her clothes as the shaking slowly desist...too slowly. She sounded like a giant with hunger pains.
Sky scowled as she ran towards the door to the TARDIS, Rose following shortly behind although she was hesitant as the woman swung outside, stroking her hand over the wooden door.
"What have you done to her?" Sky frowned, quickly disregarded the fact they looked to have parked when in a very tight closet, and focusing on the sound of the TARDIS wheezing amongst crates and boxes. "Are you okay?" Rose didn't let the question go unrecognised as she realised she was speaking to the TARDIS again.
"I don't know what's wrong." The Doctor finally joined them. "She's sort of queasy. Indigestion, like she didn't want to land." He appeared next to her, shrugging on his coat, and made a round of the blue box.
"Well, that always bode well for us before." Sky smiled cheekily.
"Oh, if you think there's going to be trouble, we could always get back inside and go somewhere else." Rose suggested casually, followed by a prolonged unnatural silence. Then she burst out laughing, randomly, the Doctor joining in...and this continued for a good few moments too long before they sighed and calmed.
"I think we've landed inside a cupboard. Here we go." There was a hatch door needing to be unlocked by computer, or in their case sonic screwdriver, and then a thick manual airlock release.
'Open door 15'
There was a good few seconds between the Doctor and Rose exiting the hold and Sky following, still not quite sure of the laughing...
"Some sort of base. Moon base, sea base, space base. They build these things out of kits." Sky rolled her eyes around the small space, barely agreeing. Her new mind was still adjusting between human, Time Lord, old and new; things which she'd seen before felt like hallucinations and she was torn between human fear and Gallifreyan adventure.
'Close door 15.'
The computer spoke as Sky resealed the door behind them and quickly jogged to catch up. That was new, back when she was last brought along The Doctor didn't turn his back on her unless it was to push her behind him as he acted as a shield. But, luckily, she had seen enough on her own since those times to know how to watch her own back.
"Glad we're indoors. sounds like a storm out there." Rose interrupted her thoughts, and she was right, the wind was howling outside. Actually howling was an understatement, it sounded like a hurricane was above them.
"Human design." The Doctor concluded. "You lot have a thing about kits. This place was put together like a flat pack wardrobe, only bigger. And easier." A thing for kits and sealed doors it seamed as they reached another, moving at a brisk pace.
The Doctor continued to lead the way and after practically running down a connecting walkway, they entered a larger area filled with a few tables and chairs. "Oh, it's a sanctuary base. Deep Space exploration."
Deep space…didn't feel like deep space. It reminded Sky of a base she had ended up camping in for three months, in the dessert plains of the planet Yozollo during her search for the Doctor. She had arrived a damp, starving refugee of war which wasn't even her own and left somewhat afraid of the confined space these iron bases offered.
"We've gone way out. And listen to that, underneath." He turned back to the two girls; Rose spinning around the room grinning, Sky silent and barely standing with them. "Someone's drilling." He finished.
"Welcome to hell." Rose spoke quietly.
"Oh I don't know, I've experienced worse." Sky answered, walking around and picking up random objects to inspect them, one hand remaining in the pocket of her jacket, wrapped around her sonic.
"No, over there." Rose pointed to the wall in front of them. The Doctor and Sky both looked, frowns overcoming both their faces as they too noticed the words painted on the wall in bold black ink. But what was underneath the warm 'Welcome' was much more interesting. There was some sort of foreign vertical script and it ran all the way down to the floor.
"What does that say?" Sky thought aloud, lips parting as she stepped forward, slowly approaching the wall until she was able to crouch down and run her hand over the markings. "I can't read it. Don't even recognise it."
"That's weird, it won't translate." The Doctor confirmed and crouched next to Sky as Rose stood behind them both.
"But I thought the TARDIS translated everything, writing as well. We should see English."
"Exactly. If that's not working, then it means this writing is old. Very old. Impossibly old. We should find out who's in charge." Standing, the Doctor ran to another door and started to spin it towards being unlocked. "We've gone beyond the reach of the TARDIS' knowledge. Not a good move. And if someone's lucky enough-"
The door opened and Sky stood with a sigh, getting ready to follow the Doctor and his new companion. However when the door opened, it seemed some members of the base crew had already found them.
"Oh! Right. Hello. Sorry. I was just saying, er, nice base." The Doctor jumped back, causing Sky to laugh under her breath as she tried to peek over his shoulder. And upon seeing who was here to greet them, she grinned…well…smiled. The fond memories they brought back were of horrid places.
"We must feed."
"You've got to what?" The Doctor frowned, stepping back.
She'd witnessed them before like this, humans were good at surviving but God they could be slack when it came to telepathy. Loose wires, dodgy connections. After all these years and it was still so hard for them to hack a simple mind properly.
'Theta.' Sky tried to reach out but he wasn't listening.
"We must feed." All of the Ood chorused and Sky had to admit, they did look a little threatening. Okay maybe not threatening, herd like.
"Yeah. I think they mean us." Rose gulped.
"I really don't-"
"We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed." She was interrupted by the Ood as they began to walk forward into the room, making the Doctor and Rose back away. Then other doors opened and more Ood began to enter, surrounding them from every angle. Sky got lost in the crowd, ignored as the Ood swarmed around her.
The Doctor withdrew sonic screwdriver while Rose picked up and armed herself with a chair. They were both pushed into a small corner, stressed and bug eyed, while Sky stayed by the writing, watching and trying so hard to hide her amusement. There she was laughing and the Doctor was panicking, it was not how she recalled the roles being assigned in the past,.
'Theta!' She tried to reach out to him again but his mind was turning too fast trying to search for a way out for him to hear her.
"We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed." The Ood started chanting louder, meaning there was no chance in hell of her reaching through to him or even talking above to them. "We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed."
"We must feed." One Ood spoke independently this time and it was at this point that Sky lost what little patience she had these days. Sighing, and with a roll of her eyes, she stepped down from the writing and started to weave through the crowd of Oods.
"Excuse me. Thank you." She smiled, stepping cautiously through the small gaps created by politely parting Oods. "Pardon me, tah." She reached the head Ood who stood directly in front of the Doctor and Rose and laid a hand on it's shoulder as she brushed around him.
"What are you doing?" The girl asked in a whisper, paralysed by fear and holding her stool in the air.
Sky didn't answer but tapped the globe the Ood still held with her finger. "Sorry, may I?" She asked once the being looked at her and then took out her sonic screwdriver, slightly and harmlessly bleeping the ball. "There you go, try that."
"We must feed you, if you are hungry." He spoke fully know, no stutter or catching...and definitely no feeding on human flesh.
"Sorry?" The Doctor screeched, eyes wide as he dropped his screwdriver by his side and stared between the Ood and Sky.
"Thank you miss." The Ood turned to Sky, bowing it's head.
"My pleasure." She smiled and then turned back to the Doctor as the Ood did, a very smug smile upon her face.
"We apologise. Electromagnetics have interfered with speech systems. Would you like some refreshment?" Raising her eyebrows, Sky pouted sarcastically at the Doctor, still relishing in her knowledge. Knowledge the Doctor didn't have, and oh she knew it really riled him when she knew more than him.
"Er..." He wanted to laugh, he really wanted to burst out laughing. Partly because of what happened but mostly because of Sky. He wanted to grab her and laugh. Had she been able to do that before or was that new?
"Open door 18." The amusement dropped however when the door was being reopened behind them. Sky turned and the Doctors eyes finally left her as humans entered.
"What the hell? How did?" An older man came up to them out of the group, the Ood separating for them instantly, creating a path way to the three newcomers. The man...actually all of the team who'd just entered looked like they were dreaming. "Captain, you're not going to believe this. We've got people. Out of nowhere. I mean, real people. I mean three living people, just standing here right in front of me." Any closer and this man was going to start stroking faces.
"Don't be stupid, that's impossible." A reply soon came through the mans wrist device he had just spoken into, some sort of communicator.
"I suggest telling them that."
"But you're a sort of space base. You must have visitors now and then. It can't be that impossible." Rose's face twisted as she looked at the man dressed in black cargo pants, t-shirt and a black leather jacket. Him and the other couple of humans behind him all carried guns over their shoulders. Big guns. Really, what was it with humans and big guns?
"You're telling me you don't know where you are?"
"No idea. More fun that way."
Sky started to get the fell this wasn't going to turn into the soft start and perfect way to get familiarised with each other again. On a base camp with Oods and humans in distress.
"Stand by, everyone. Buckle down. We have incoming. And it's a big one. Quake point five on its way." Suddenly, a woman's voice sounded over the tannoy system across and the crew stiffened.
Once again, the Doctor and Sky exchanged a look as the crew turned to head back with urgency.
"Through here, now. Quickly, come on! Move!"
Seconds after The Doctor pushed Sky a head of him, his hand resting on her lower back, the ground started to shake. Whoever had sounded the alert hadn't been joking when they said this was a big one. Keeping on the path was difficult as the tremors started and they were all but thrown across the floors, vents steaming and sparking around them.
"Move it! Come on! Keep moving. Come on! Quickly! Move it!"
The shaking just about subsided as they were fed into another room. From the looks of it Sky guessed cock pit, but it was full of people working furiously at different control stations. Standard base control room, standard skeleton exhibition crew, non standard location from their description.
Sky's curiosity got the better of her and she began looking around curiously as Rose and the Doctor stayed standing by the door.
"Oh, my God. You meant it." Their attention was drawn by a new voice, a man sat at the main controls in the centre of the room. Middle aged, far too smooth and polished to be a maintenance worker, but the brow creases and posture of a senior officer.
"People! Look at that, real people!" A young woman, a very young woman Sky noted, gaped at the three of them. She was dressed almost identically to Sky, the only difference being instead of a loose grey t-shirt, the young girl wore a dark vest top.
"That's us. Hooray!" The Doctor smiled at the girl but his eyes soon started scanning around the whole room, subconsciously following Sky's path.
"Yeah, definitely real. My name's Rose. Rose Tyler." She smiled, introducing herself sort of shyly. "And, and this is the Doctor. And this is the Sky."
"Just Sky." The woman, who remained incapable of standing still, added with a small forced smile.
"Come on the oxygen must be offline. We're hallucinating." A younger boy dressed casually spoke as he stood from his station and walked over to Sky, studying her face closely. She stopped what she was doing, lifting her eyes from studying a panel of controls and perking a brow at the him, a show of false intrigue. "They can't be. No, they're real." The Doctor appeared behind Sky and stood close to her, very close…too close to be considered coincidental. A small bubbly feeling came into her stomach as she felt his breath against the back of her neck. Was he getting protective already?
"Come on, we're in the middle of an alert! Danny, strap up." The man from earlier, the middle aged one, shouted over the alarms which started to sing. "The quake's coming in! Impact in thirty seconds! Sorry you three, whoever you are. Just hold on, tight." The Doctor grasped Sky's hand tightly and led her over to the edge of the capsule where there was more than just a few overhead cable to grab a hold,of.
"Hold on to what?" Rose questioned, looking around.
"Anything. I don't care." They were all as secured as they could be, the three of them sat on the steps leading down into the control room and holding on to a railing…real secure. "Just hold on. Ood, are we fixed?"
"Your kindness in this emergency is much appreciated."
"What's this planet called, anyway?" Sky asked, looking towards a group of three crew men who were all stood around the centre console, one being the young girl.
"Now, don't be stupid." An older woman, who looked practically like an older version of the young girl, answered. "It hasn't got a name. How could it have a name? You really don't know, do you?"
"And impact!" Before either Sky or the Doctor could ask where it actually they were and why it was that was so impossible, the man yelled out and the floor began to shake.
It lasted no longer than a few seconds, but it rattled Sky's brain something awful to the point her ears started to ring.
"Oh, well, that wasn't so ba-" He just had to open his mouth, and then the Doctor fell back with a thud as the shaking grew in intensity, flames erupting from some of the control panels from electrics malfunctioning.
This time, it wasn't just a rumble under their feet but the entire base was shook, fixings becoming loose as if the ground under them was alive. Outside, the storm rubbled and roared as it it were working with the quakes, planet and atmosphere united. Whereas inside, they were thrown apart from one another, each body rolling and turning like a loose screw.
When it finally subsided, Sky continued to brace herself against any aftershocks. But then the wind died down and all that was left was the drilling. She stood from where she had managed to miraculously stay sat on the steps and ran towards the centre console, laying her hand lightly against the knowledge base.
"Okay, that's it. Everyone all right?" There was just a sequence of groans as people stood. "Speak to me, Ida?"
"Yeah, yeah!" All of the crew answered as their names were called as the Doctor and his own human from the past, sorted themselves out sitting on the steps.
"We're fine, thanks, fine. Yeah, don't worry about us." Sarcastically the Doctor groaned, sitting up straight as Rose rushed to his side, holding his head for him. Sky, even with her back to them, would have sensed a change in the girl's mind if had she not have been busying herself with downloading all she could on their whereabouts.
"The surface caved in. I deflected it onto storage five through eight. We've lost them completely." In the background, on the edge of her mind, Sky heard one of the crew speak but it went straight over her head. Even as a hand was laid upon her shoulder, the touch was categorised on non threatening and ignored.
"You okay?" Rose watched the Doctor ask the question lightly and then she also watched him not receive a reply. She wanted to scoff, until she noticed the vacancy in Sky's gaze.
The woman was watching nothing, staring at nothing but her eyes moved back and forth as if she were reading. He really did look worried about her for a moment, the Doctor, until he too noticed her concerning demeanour and..smiled.
"Oxygen holding. Internal gravity fifty six point six. We should be okay." The older women in the small crew spoke as she walked by them.
"Never mind the earthquake, that's, that's one hell of a storm. What is that, a hurricane?" Rose asked, looking around her to try and decipher where the noise seemed to be coming from but it was all around them.
"You'd need an atmosphere for a hurricane. There's no air out there. It's a complete vacuum."
"Then what's shaking the roof?" It wasn't just shaking the roof, even after the earthquake had completely gone, the base floor still had a slight rumble to it.
"You're not joking. You really don't know." The older woman repeated herself and had Sky been consciously aware, her patience would have reached its end but thankfully she had already found what she had been looking for, for herself.
"You know every time you say that it makes me just a tinsy bit more weary. So would you please tell us what is going on." The Doctor spoke to them and moved around the other side of the console, trying to figure out why these people were so astounded at their existence.
"Well introductions. FYI, as they said in the olden days." The older woman nodded. "I'm Ida Scott, science officer." Then she pointed to the middle aged man from before. "Zachary Cross Flane, acting Captain, sir." Then to the man who had found them. "You've met Mister Jefferson, he's Head of Security." To the younger man. "Danny Bartock, Ethics committee."
"Not as boring as it sounds." He butted in.
"And that man who just left, that was Toby Zed, Archaeology, and this is Scooti Manista, Trainee maintenance." She said, placing her hands on the shoulders of the young woman. Them she walked over to the opposite wall of the room, placing her hand on a switch. "And this? This is home."
"Brace yourselves. The sight of it sends some people mad." Zach warned before he too turned his eyes up to the roof which was now being revealed as the security shield was pulled back.
Sky came to, only for a moment lasting long enough to cast her gaze upward. And the sight which greeted her was angry, so angry. All that met them was a blinding white disk which dissolved into a black centre deeper than the whole of space itself. Lumps of rock unidentifiable in size or material, stars, galaxies, light and time; all of it slowly being pulled into the core.
"A Black Hole." Sky whispered, glancing at the Doctor briefly as he glanced at her, then back to the skies. It was beautiful. So so beautiful, but so ugly at the same time. A magnificent occurrence but a mass murderer of species and existence. Sky could have stood and looked at the beauty of it all day but no one could watch the death as worlds were continuously devoured without consequence or something, someone, to blame.
"But that's impossible." The Doctor gasped, voice just a small husky sound in a Sky's ear, but she had already returned to reading. "We're standing under a Black Hole."
"In orbit." Ida added, and smiled sadly when she allowed her eyes to hover on Sky's glazed over form.
"But we can't be." The Doctor said, shaking his head.
"You can see for yourself. We're in orbit." And they could see, they could also see it quite clearly. But they just couldn't be, it went against everything he had ever been taught in the Academy.
"But we can't be." He was loosing his own patience, getting louder and angrier. This generation had not changed so much from the last.
"This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole without falling in. Discuss." Ida asked with grim excitement lurking in the corner of her mouth.
"And that's bad, yeah?" Rose asked barely above a whisper, hands buried in the pockets of her shockingly pink leather jacket as she wound a path towards the Doctor.
"Bad doesn't cover it. A black hole's a dead star. 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, they can't be in orbit. We should be pulled right in."
"We should be dead." He answered looking down at Rose.
Ida walked down to the centre of the room to take one final look at the black hole herself as the shield began to close again. "And yet here we are, beyond the laws of physics. Welcome on board."
"But if there's no atmosphere out there, what's that?" Rose said, pointing the the black clouds that flew over the base just seconds before the shield shut.
"Stars breaking up. Gas clouds. We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above our heads, before falling into that thing." It felt wrong, it was hard to look at. Because it shouldn't have been happening. They shouldn't have been able to land here, or walk here...it was disturbing.
"So, a bit worse than a storm, then." Rose concluded.
"Just a bit, yeah." Ida nodded before getting back to work as another shake hit them.
As the crew started to move around them, securing systems which had become vulnerable during the harsher quakes, Rose took a second to watch Sky again now she was closer.
"Doctor?" She whispered and lightly tapped a finger against his arm so to only draw his attention and no others. Upon getting it, she pointed towards Sky and frowned as her lips pouted on the edge of a difficult question. "What's wrong with her?"
The Doctor was calm, too calm considering what his so called wife was currently doing in Rose's opinion. There she was staring silently at air as they faced an impossible situation and all the Doctor could do was faintly smile.
"Nothing." He whispered, also conscious of disturbing her. "She's downloading."
"Down…downloading?" Rose gapped, chuckling and then frowning. "Like an android?"
"Finer tune of telepathy." He reminded the girl beside him of words previously spoken. "She can hack into these systems…" The Doctor patted a hand against the centre console displaying holograms of systems and engines. "Into their core. Read the files."
"Bu- but how? Like…how?" Rose stuttered. "Like..Professor X?"
"Who?"
Rose rolled her eyes. "X-Men? Mind control and…stuff?"
"I can't control minds." A voice which was not the Doctor's answered and when Rose looked up, Sky was smirking and looking down at her. "Minds are complex, too many doors to open and explore. Computers are simple, and they can't fight back."
The Doctor smiled, grinning as Sky finally took her hand from the console and walked around to another panel, and Rose built another barricade.
