Dedicated to Sepik! Because Sepik reviews so much! -
I don't think thischapter is very long either,I tried! I'm sorry!
"Any ideas, Doctor?" Nova walked up to him as he examined the bodies with his sonic screwdriver, his black glasses now upon his nose.
"Well, they've all been frozen. No brain activity though no actual physical problems. All perfectly healthy apart form the minor detail of being frozen-" Nova stared at him, appalled.
"Were they killed then…?"
"Well, no- that's what's so puzzling. If these bodies were unfrozen they have every chance of just being able to get up and go. With some help, mind. They might snap along the way…"
"Get up… and go? How can they live if they've been frozen?" Mickey asked, shocked and bewildered.
"They won't be alive in the way you know of." The Doctor replied. "Just exist. But someone has to control them." Came the Doctor's grim reply as he scanned one body with the screwdriver.
"Aha!" The Doctor exclaimed loudly after a brief pause and made Mickey jump. There's a little device in their brains! That's how they'll be controlled! It sends out impulses, activates the neurones!" Nova looked completely perplexed by the last remark, as did Mickey but that was for a different reason (he didn't understand).
"So," Nova spoke, "you're saying that someone froze all these people so they could control them?"
"Yep!" The Doctor smiled, looking very proud of himself.
"But," Mickey spoke. "Who'd wanna freeze so many? There must be hundreds of 'em."
"There are…" The Doctor replied, suddenly solemn. "But why…?" He walked further in the room, ducking down to examine the floor then standing up again to examine the walls. "Why would someone freeze all these people then transport them into the middle of space- the middle of nowhere?" He turned on his heel and made his way back towards Nova and Mickey.
"And," he said as he came face-to face with Nova, "why do they need your brother?"
"Do you think…He's…?" She pointed towards the frozen bodies behind the Doctor, her question hung in the air, unfinished, yet both the Doctor and Mickey knew what she was thinking.
"No," the Doctor said firmly, "He's worth more to them alive." Nova did not look all too relieved by this comment in fact, she looked a lot worse.
Rose opened her eyes slowly, her left side completely numb from lying on what felt like a hard, steel floor. Her vision was very blurred so all Rose could see of her surroundings were faint, hazy red lights that penetrated the darkness and reached her line of vision. Rose attempted to stand but her left leg was unwilling to co-operate and when she tried to move it a horrible, prickly sensation went up and down the nerves in her and it collapsed underneath her.
"Best just to sit." Bren's voice floated through the darkness. Rose looked up, blinking rapidly in order to dispel her blurry vision. Slowly her surroundings swam into focus, though it was still quite dark, Rose was able to see that she was in what appeared to be a cage. She crawled her way towards Bren's voice on the far side of the cage. Bren was sitting in the corner, his back resting against the metal bars, and a boy's sleeping head resting in his lap. The boy had a young face but Rose guessed he must have been the same age as Bren.
"That Damian?" She nodded her head towards the dozing figure.
"Yeah," Bren looked down at Damian fondly, "though what on bountiful earth they've been doing to him…" Bren traced the wounds on Damian's arm, worried creases appearing in his face. Rose peered at the small white marks scattered over Damian's arms.
"Looks like 'e's been burned." Rose said, also looking worriedly down at Damian.
"I know. I want to know who did it." Bren said fiercely.
"'As 'e spoken to you yet?" Rose asked and Bren nodded slightly.
"Yeah, he mumbled something about skeleton people and spirits. That's all I got out of him." Bren shrugged whilst he said it, indicating to Rose he did not understand what Damian was talking about. "He's tired." Bren said as a way of apologising. Bren clearly thought Damian was confused and his incoherent ramblings were due to exhaustion or the torture Damian had obviously been through.
Just then, Rose became aware of a movement behind her. A guard had stepped forward from the wall where he had previously been in shadow but now the red light reflected off the smooth, armoured plates on his torso.
"Order from commanding officer; you are to be taken." Rose blinked in puzzlement.
"Taken where?" She demanded, standing up to make herself look more powerful, though this effect was cancelled out by the fact that her leg would not stop shaking.
"You have no right to an answer." The guard replied.
"What d'you mean I 'have no right to an answer'?" Rose mimicked the guard, glaring angrily at him. "If you don't tell me then I ain't gonna-" But what Rose was not going to do the guard did not find out as the door suddenly opened and in came another guard, almost similar apart from the silver badge on his chest. Rose assumed immediately this was the commanding officer. The guard who had first spoken stepped backwards as the commanding officer entered.
"I am to take you two." His voice was low and droning. "Now." The guard raised his gun up a little higher. Bren now stood up and joined Rose.
"Why?" Bren too demanded.
"Come with me." The guard spoke again in his monotonous voice.
"Why?" Rose said, not moving. "Where're you taking us?"
"You do not make the demands on this ship!" The guard said heatedly and he raised his gun up higher.
"I'm not leaving Damian here!" Bren spoke furiously. "I am not letting you touch him again!" The guard moved forwards slightly, if she could have seen his face Rose was sure it would be smiling evilly.
"His pain is necessary." Came the reply.
"What are you doin' to 'im?" Rose was frustrated with the guard's pitiless replies.
"You can ask those questions soon." Came the vague reply. The commanding officer then pointed a control at the cage and it opened to let in four guards, two on either side of Bren and Rose. They grabbed them forcefully and led them out of the cage as Bren and Rose struggled, fruitlessly resisting the powerful guards.
The Doctor, Mickey and Nova had left the ice room and were now heading down a dark corridor that was a lot warmer then the ones they had been down so far. They were now hoping to meet with Rose and Bren but Nova could not reach Bren on his Transmitter.
"I know he had it!" She said, rattling her Transmitter. "But I'm not even getting interference." She was becoming agitated now.
"What if they've been caught?" Mickey said, voicing his concern.
"Rose is a bright girl. I trust her." Mickey looked at him astonished.
"Trust? How is that gonna help her?" The Doctor ignored Mickey's outburst and continued.
"They won't kill them anyway. They'll want to know how they got on the ship." Nova and Mickey exchanged an uneasy look. They reached the end of the corridor only to be greeted with another door. The Doctor retrieved his sonic screwdriver from within the depths of his coat and begun working on the lock. Within seconds the door was wide open.
"So simple!" He grinned and they entered. The room was smaller than the ones they had been in so far but it was still quite a large room. All around were steel boxes; Mickey peered cautiously into one, half expecting to see a frozen head but there was not one. Instead there were many smaller steel boxes each with 'Nitro-9' engraved on the side.
"Nitro-9…" Mickey said vaguely as he read the labels. The Doctor whipped round on hearing it.
"Nitro-9?" He asked, peering also into a box. "Oh! How fantastic!"
"What is it?" Mickey asked.
"Explosives!" The Doctor replied. Mickey wondered what was so fantastic about explosives when the Doctor spoke again. " I knew someone who used to make this…" He paused for a second; plainly remembering some long-distant acquaintance, then he moved off again and headed for the door on the opposite side of the room.
"Let's move on, shall we?"
Rose and Bren were thrown down roughly onto the floor by the guards who then stood back against the walls. Rose glanced up into the darkness ahead to see what looked like a skeleton propped up in black, pod-shaped chair ahead of her. It was only when the 'skeleton' raised an arm did Rose realise it was a human. Next to the skeleton, in a similar chair, but slightly lower and further forwards sat a short, pale woman.
"Come forward." said the woman coldly. "Stand." Rose and Bren obeyed, both warily watching the skeletons in the pods.
"What's your name, girl?" The woman spoke again.
"R-Rose Ty- Rose Tyler." Rose gulped, closing her eyes. She wanted the Doctor.
"And yours?" The woman turned slowly towards Bren.
"Bren Hartnell." Bren was obviously attempting to sound fearless but his voice was at least two octaves higher than normal. The woman surveyed them both for a few seconds before speaking again.
"Why are you here?" She asked coldly.
"We're saving Damian." Bren replied daringly. The woman looked at him, her eyes were wide and she looked surprised but then that was replaced by a look of malice.
"You thought you could save your friend did you?" Sneered the woman. "Thought you could just pluck him from right under our noses?" She laughed. "Oh children! What fools you are!" Rose's fists clenched as the woman continued to laugh at them.
"Tell them," the skeleton man suddenly spoke, his voice was low and sent cold shivers down Rose's spine, "tell them why their friend is going to die."
"Oh yes! Your friend! Your friend is quite important to us children. With his power, his power to see the future."
"What about his power? Bren snapped.
"We harness it. We can harness his power." She paused, obviously wallowing in her own smugness before continuing. "By using … preserved souls, shall we say?" Her lips flickered upwards into what Rose presumed was meant to be a smile.
"Souls…? Those frozen bodies!" Bren gasped next to Rose. "All those people…" He broke off. Rose did not know what he was talking about but she did not like the mention of the frozen bodies.
"They would be proud if they knew what their deaths were for!" The woman spoke sharply. "Proud to know they came to some use!" Rose's fist clenched further, her nails now digging into her palm.
"What are you using 'em for?" Rose suddenly spoke loudly, her voce unusually abrupt and irate. But it was not the woman who answered.
"Power." Came the rasping voice. The figure moved his heads forwards so Rose now had a clear, though unpleasant, view of his face. "I shall harness the power from the souls… the operative spirits. I shall have limitless power! Limitless!"
"Limitless…?" Rose felt unnerved by his confidence that he would succeed, especially as she was still unclear on how he was to achieve the 'limitless power' he spoke of.
"I shall soon be your ruler Supreme!" He contorted his face into a smile, and watched Rose and Bren under the misguided belief that he had impressed them and that they were in awe of him.
"But-what…who… are you?" Rose asked, hesitating slightly.
"I? I! I'm The Necromancer, dear child! The man cackled cruelly and Rose flinched at the harsh, icy tone in his voice. "Soon to be the most powerful human Earth has ever known!" He sat back in the black pod, his face self-satisfied, his thin, blue lips twisted into an evil grin. No, Rose corrected herself, a grimace. This man was pure poison, so corrupted he was willing to slaughter countless innocents in order to gain the power and supremacy he desperately longed for. The sight of him sickened Rose.
"You're twisted. You're killing people for what? Supremacy? Power ain't everything!" The Necromancer just continued laughing in reply. Rose was infuriated, her anger was bubbling under her skin, she could feel the white-hot flames in her chest cavity and her stomach was in knots.
"You won't get away wiv it!" She shouted at him. "The Doctor will stop you! You'll pay fer what you done to all those people! You'll pay for what you done to Damian!" The Necromancer simply surveyed her outburst with mild interest.
"The Doctor?" He said as one corner of his lips twisted upwards. "The last Time Lord?" Rose's stomach did a flip inside her, her toes tingled and the shiver went up her body like a power surge. Immediately she wished she could have controlled her temper; now he knew the Doctor was aboard.
"Well, my child." The Necromancer grinned to reveal a set of yellow, pointy teeth. "I think you've given me enough information."
Thanks for reading! (If you actually read it!) Now go review!