Chapter LXXVIII
Mira
She stood on the surface of a planet. She had no idea how she had gotten here, or what planet it was, but she knew that the Doctor was with her. And there was someone else – a face she had never seen before, even though she could not really see it. It was blurred, there and not there – but she knew that, whoever it was, she had met him before. She knew him.
But instead of thinking more about it, her attention got caught by an overwhelming feeling of dead and decay which was filling her mind, her very soul, and everything around her. It was the end – THE END – of everything and everyone, ultimate and cruel. Next thing she noticed was that they were running over the surface of this weird, unknown planet. Then, finally, she looked up. What she saw made her stop in her tracks; suddenly she felt dizzy, falling, but she knew she wasn't; even though – as so often in dreams – she couldn't see her own feet. It was a dream, wasn't it? She lifted her hand, looked at her fingers. She counted. Six. Seven? No, six. It didn't matter, it had to be a dream, she was certain of it now.
Reluctantly, she looked up again. The sky was black. Blacker than every night's sky she had ever seen. Blacker even than the skies she had seen on lonely planets, orbiting even lonelier stars lost between the galaxies. It was not just black - it was dead. She suddenly knew. She had no idea how, and it left her with a feeling of utter horror. There would never be any star in any sky again. They would all be black; dead. From now on it would only get darker and darker - and colder. It was the end. The end of everything. And, even worse, it brought to her mind how insignificant everything was. Everything that had been, everything that had been done. No matter what – it would always end in this way. Nothing and no-one would make any difference to it.
She woke up taking a deep, horrified breath and tried to sit up – only to find herself wrapped in the Doctor's arms. She tried to free herself for a moment, but then gave up and sank back into his embrace, her head resting at his shoulder where the scent of his soft, cool skin filled her nose. It was so alien, but in a good way - and so familiar by now.
"What is it?" she heard his soft voice. "You're alright?"
She took a deep breath again, resisted the urge to kiss his neck and said, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a dream..."
She could feel that he was no longer in her head, so he couldn't possibly know what this dream had been about. At least so she hoped. And he also couldn't know that it had been one of these dreams. And as she was still thinking about it; still trying to sort out its meaning, realisation about what they had done struck her. It all felt a bit like a dream as well, but of course it wasn't. Even though they weren't connected any more like she had been, she could still feel a hint of his presence lingering in her mind – pretty much as one could smell someone else's scent on their own skin after a night spent together. And even though she still couldn't feel his emotions, something definitely was different between them now.
"A dream? About what?" he asked.
"It's- I don't know..."
She should probably tell him. She really should. But then again, if she could get a glimpse of the future, it was fixed anyway. Nothing could be done about it. Done about what in this case? It was sort of an open secret that the universe would 'die' at some point, she thought sarcastically. Sure, there had been more to her dream than that; how they would end up there, for example. But anyway - she really needed a bit of time on her own to think about everything, to sort out her feelings and what had happened. And to shake off that feeling of decay and insignificance the dream had left behind in her head.
"Later," she finished. She would get up now. Well, soon. Just one more moment of lying here with him and listening to the calming beat of his two hearts; just one more moment of not thinking about the universe and all her problems, the future, dreams, or anything else for that matter.
Martha
Martha had went to the console room, after she had looked for something to eat in the kitchen. And she had changed her clothes – indeed, the wardrobe in her room was filled with clothes, pretty much with the same ones as she had at home. Not much later the Doctor and Mira had popped up, and now he was scanning her phone with his Screwdriver. Well, not exactly scanning, he had explained what he was about to do, but frankly, she hadn't understood a single word. She had only mentioned after looking at her phone, that, of course, it had no signal here. How could it?
"Right, there we go. Universal roaming. Never have to worry about a signal again," he said with a smile and handed the phone back to her.
"No way," she said and looked at the display. "This is too mad. You're telling me I can phone anyone, anywhere in space and time on my mobile?"
"As long as you know the area code," replied. "Frequent flier's privilege. Go on, try it."
But before she could do so, the TARDIS juddered and rocked violently, making her reach out for something to hold on to.
The Doctor was holding on to the console and said, "Distress signal. Locking on. Might be a bit of-"
But before he could finish they all got knocked to the floor. Then it was quiet again.
"Turbulence," he said and pulled himself up on the console, then held out a hand to Mira who grabbed it, helping her up. They looked at each other for a moment in a somewhat weird way – the second time this morning (wait, was it morning?), she noticed. Had something happened between them while she had been sleeping?
"Sorry," he continued. "Come on. Let's take a look."
He went first, opening the door, herself and Mira following him. As soon as she left the TARDIS, she was greeted by a surge of hot air.
"Distress signal transmitted," a voice announced, almost sounding artificial, like a computer.
"Whoa, now that is hot," the Doctor complained.
"Yeah, it's like a sauna in here," she agreed with him.
"Quite nice actually," Mira objected, "I'm done with freezing."
"Freezing?" the Doctor asked astonished.
"Yeah, freezing. It's slightly on the cold side in the TARDIS. But I'm afraid the heat's not normal in here. Seems like a spaceship or a space station."
"Yeah, spaceship I might say. Venting systems," the Doctor said and looked at some sort of control module at the wall. "Working at full pelt, trying to cool down."
"But that's it," Mira replied, holding her head as if listening. "Venting system but nothing else. Listen," she paused for a moment and then added, "Either they have very advanced and quiet generators, or-"
"Well, wherever it is we are," the Doctor interrupted her, visibly uncomfortable, "If you can't stand the heat-"
He threw open a massive bulkhead door, and before she could really take in her surroundings, three people, a woman and two men, were running towards them, yelling and waving.
"Oi, you there!" a young, rather handsome man yelled at them.
"Get out of there!" a woman in a tank-top added.
"Seal that door, now!" the other man, a bit older than the first one, yelled.
"Who are you? What are you doing on my ship?" the woman asked, but they didn't really have time to answer.
"Are you police?" the young guy asked.
"Why would we be police?" the Doctor finally managed to throw in.
"We got your distress signal," she added.
"If this is a ship, why can't I hear any engines?" the Doctor asked.
Now she recognised it as well. Just as Mira had said it. It was, apart from the venting systems, awfully quiet. She had thought it was quiet inside the TARDIS, but even in the time-ship it was louder, sounded more like 'spaceship', more alive.
"It went dead four minutes ago," the woman said.
"So maybe we should stop chatting and get to Engineering. Captain," the older of the two men said.
"Secure closure active," the synthetic voice announced.
"What?" the woman said.
"The ship's gone mad."
Then another woman, younger than the first one, came running towards them, bulkheads slamming shut behind her, one after the other.
"Who activated secure closure?" the young woman asked, being out of breath. "I nearly got locked in to area twenty seven."
"Who are you?"
"He's the Doctor," she said before the Doctor could reply, "That's Mira and I'm Martha. Hello."
"Impact projection forty two minutes twenty seven seconds," the computer said.
"We'll get out of this. I promise," the first woman said, trying to sound reassuring.
She looked after Mira who had went to look out of a porthole. She followed her.
"Forty two minutes until what?" the Doctor asked.
"Death by burning," Mira said quietly and somehow finally. "I don't assume the ship is equipped for getting this close to a sun."
And then she was standing next to Mira and saw it for herself.
"Doctor! Look," she said, unable to avert her eyes.
"Forty two minutes until we crash into the sun," the woman explained.
The next moment he was between her and Mira, seeing for himself what was going on. Not a second later he had turned around again.
"How many crew members on board?" he asked.
"Seven, including us," the woman answered.
"We transport cargo across the galaxy," the older of the two men explained. "Everything's automated. We just keep the ship spaceworthy."
"Call the others, I'll get you out," the Doctor said and went back to the door which was leading to the room with the TARDIS.
She saw the crew of the ship watch in horror and then they started to yell at him again, trying to make him stop.
But, of course, it wouldn't have been the Doctor if he had listened to them. Instead he pulled the door open, and was instantly thrown back by a blast of heat. He landed on the floor on his backside, and a moment later the younger woman had put on a welder's mask and shut the door again.
"But my ship's in there!" the Doctor yelled as he Mira helped him up.
"In the vent chamber?" the young man asked.
"It's our lifeboat," the Doctor explained, his browns furrowed with sorrow.
"It's lava!" the older man said.
"The temperature's going mad in there," the younger woman explained whilst looking at a gauge on the door. "Up three thousand degrees in ten seconds, and still rising."
"She's a space ship, so she should be able to handle that temperature, shouldn't she?" she heard Mira asking with sorrow in her voice.
The Doctor didn't reply, just stared at the door.
"We're stuck here," she finally said. "Aren't we, Doctor?" she added as he remained silent.
Then he almost made her jump as he sprung into action. "So, we fix the engines, we steer the ship away from the sun. Simple. Engineering down here, is it?"
Had there been a hint of panic in his voice? Oh, she so hoped she was wrong.
"Yes," the older woman replied.
"Impact in forty twenty six," the computer-voice said.
Mira
McDonnell had introduced her crew on the way to the engineering room. As they finally reached it, she tried to take in the chaos of cables and melted circuit boards that once had been a vital part of the main engine - and realised that things had gone from bad to worse. There was no way to fix this mess in whatever little time was left. She doubted it could ever be fixed.
She almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of the situation. Back home she had been as close as that, and even closer, to suns – and it had been completely save. Hiding in the corona of a sun was a long established procedure - the downside was being relatively blind. But then again, the sensors and scanners from enemy vessels weren't working under those conditions either. But, obviously, this ship had no shielding against the incredible heat and gravitational forces worthy of mention. She highly doubted that they even had the most simplest four-dimensional force-fields.
"Blimey," the Doctor commented the chaos, "Do you always leave things in such a mess?"
"Oh, my God," McDonnell said, absolutely shocked.
"What the hell happened?" Scannell asked.
"Oh, it's wrecked," Riley added.
"Pretty efficiently too," the Doctor said. "Someone knew what they were doing."
"Where's Korwin?" McDonnell asked now. "Has anyone heard from him or Ashton?"
"No," Scannell said and Riley and Erina were shaking their heads.
"You mean someone did this on purpose?" Martha pointed out the obvious.
"Well, doesn't look like someone just slipped with a screwdriver," she said whilst McDonnell went over to an intercom.
"Korwin, Ashton?" the Captain asked. "Where are you?" No answer. "Korwin, can you answer?" Then she let go of the intercom button and added as if talking to herself, "Where the hell is he? He should be up here."
She noticed that the Doctor was standing at a small screen and she walked over to him. It showed a star-map with a trajectory, most likely of this ship.
"Oh, we're in the Torajii system," he said eventually. "Lovely." He turned his head to Martha. "You're a long way from home, Martha. Half a universe away."
"Yeah. Feels it," Martha replied.
She noticed that Martha was still feeling awkward, just as the evening before, but she couldn't tell if it was because Martha now not only knew who she was, but also how old she was. Or if she had noticed what had happened between her and the Doctor. She tried to keep it down, to not show anything, and she was quite convinced she was doing quite a good job, but then again – did she have the same look on her face as the Doctor whenever he was looking at her? Hopefully not. Martha would have to be blind to not notice it. And she didn't want her to notice it, not until they themselves had worked out where this was going.
"And you're still using energy scoops for fusion?" the Doctor said and pulled her out of her thoughts. "Hasn't that been outlawed yet?"
Even now, after what she had seen in his mind, his perception and knowledge of time and history, it still was amazing how he knew all this stuff.
There was an awkward silence.
"We're due to upgrade next docking," McDonnell said finally. "Scannell, engine report."
"No response," he replied.
"What?!"
"They're burnt out," he explained. "The controls are wrecked. I can't get them back online."
"Oh, come on," the Doctor said, "Auxiliary engines. Every craft's got auxiliaries."
"Auxiliaries?"she said disbelievingly. "There's a whole lot of gravitation out there, do you-"
"They are strong enough," McDonnell interrupted her, "But we don't have access from here. The auxiliary controls are in the front of the ship."
"Yeah, with twenty nine password sealed doors between us and them," Scannell added. "You'll never get there in time."
"Twenty nine password sealed doors? What in hell are you transporting?" she asked, but instead of answering they all just looked at each other.
"Can't you override the doors?" Martha asked eventually.
"No," Scannell replied. "Sealed closure means what it says. They're all dead-lock sealed."
"So a sonic screwdriver's no use," the Doctor realised.
"Nah, rather some explosives or a blowtorch – a big one," she said quietly to herself.
"Nothing's any use," Scannell said. "We've got no engines, no time, and no chance."
"Oh, listen to you," the Doctor said, raising his voice and looking at him. "Defeated before you've even started. Where's your Dunkirk spirit? Who's got the door passwords?"
"They're randomly generated," Riley replied. "Reckon I know most of them."
"Then what're you waiting for, Riley? Get on it!" the Doctor said.
"Well, it's a two person job. One, a technish for the questions, and the other to carry this. The oldest and cheapest security system around, eh, Captain?"
"Reliable and simple, just like you, eh, Riley?" McDonnell replied.
There definitely was a certain kind of companionship on this ship, one that she had seen and felt so many times before between crew members who had happened to work on the same ship, been together in outer space for months, even years, and had to get along with each other. It was not really friendship - in some way it even was more. It was a weirdly intense way of getting to know each other, of getting along with each other and all those annoying little habits people tended to have. Getting along without killing each other at some point.
"Try and be helpful, get abuse," Riley replied with mild sarcasm in his voice as he put a massive backpack on. "Nice."
"I'll help you," Martha said. "Make myself useful."
Probably a good idea – it would keep Martha distracted, stop her thinking about dying in probably not even thirty minutes.
"It's remotely controlled by the computer panel," Riley said to Martha. "That's why it needs two."
"Oi. Be careful," the Doctor said to her.
She was glad he didn't object. It most likely was the safest thing for her to do. What could go wrong with unlocking doors?
"You too," Martha said.
Just then a voice could be heard via intercom, "McDonnell. It's Ashton."
"Where are you?" McDonnell asked. "Is Korwin with you?"
"Get up to the med-centre now!" he yelled, and the tone in his voice left no room for interpretations.
She followed the Doctor and McDonnell who ran past Martha and Riley.
"Impact in thirty four thirty one," the computer announced emotionless.
Doctor
In the sickbay two members of the crew he hadn't met so far were trying to hold a man down, who was halfway lying inside a stasis chamber. Most likely there were also scanners integrated – but he was not too familiar with this technology without scanning it first.
"Stop it!" the man yelled as if in great pain, struggling and trying to get free.
"Korwin, it's Abi," a woman said. "Open your eyes, I need to take a look at you."
"Korwin!" McDonnell yelled. "What's happened? Is he okay?"
"Help me!" Korwin cried. "It's burning me!"
"How long's he been like this?" he asked, looking down at the man.
"Ashton just brought him in," Abi replied.
He had already pulled out his screwdriver and was scanning him. But it didn't make any sense – no signs of an infection or anything like that. But it looked like an infection. But then it must be something he had never seen before – and that was almost impossible.
"What are you doing?" McDonnell asked him.
"Don't get too close," he replied and turned his head, searching for Mira.
He saw her halfway between the stasis chamber and the door, frozen to the spot, staring at Korwin.
"Don't be so stupid," McDonnell replied. "That's my husband!"
"And he's just sabotaged our ship," the man who was still trying to hold Korwin down replied. It must be Ashton.
"What!?"
He looked up and saw the shock in McDonnell's face.
"He went mad," Ashton explained. "He put the ship onto secure closure, then he set the heat pulse to melt the controls."
"No way. He wouldn't do that."
"I saw it happen, Captain."
He looked back and forth between the two of them, then turned his head to Korwin again. "Korwin? Korwin, open your eyes for me a second."
"Don't!" he heard Mira say, in such an alarming way that for a moment everyone – apart from Korwin of course – looked at her.
"I can't!" Korwin cried.
"Yeah, course you can," he said, ignoring Mira's warning. "Go on."
"No," she said again and came closer, looking at McDonnell. "What's your cargo? Anything living?"
McDonnell just shook her head.
"Did anything weird happen lately? Did anyone – or anything – else get on board?"
"No, what-" McDonnell said.
"Was their a collision? Anything?" Mira interrupted her.
"No, there was nothing, what-"
But before McDonnell could continue, Korwin cried out in pain again.
"Don't make me look at you, please!"
"All right," he said and took a hypo-gun from a tray. Obviously Mira knew more than he did. "All right, all right. Just relax." He looked up to Abi, who seemed to be the medical specialist on this ship. "Sedative?"
"Yes," she replied.
He pressed the device against Korwin's neck and a moment later he visibly relaxed and then fell asleep.
"What's wrong with him?" McDonnell asked.
"Rising body temperature, unusual energy readings," he replied and looked up. "Stasis chamber. I do love a good stasis chamber. Keep him sedated in there. Regulate the body temperature. And, just for fun, run a bio-scan and tissue profile on a metabolic detail."
"Just doing them now," Abi replied.
"Oh, you're good," he said and smiled at her. "Anyone else presenting these symptoms?"
"Not so far," she replied.
"Well, that's something."
"Will someone tell me what is the matter with him?" McDonnell demanded. Oh, she certainly was some though woman. No wonder, with her being captain of this bunch. "Why did you ask all those questions?" she added and turned her head to Mira.
"He's possessed," Mira replied gravely.
"What?!" McDonnell asked.
"Possessed," Mira repeated, looking down at Korwin. "Don't ask me by what – or how. There's something to him – I... I don't know. I've never seen anything like that before."
"What is it?" he asked her. "Something on this ship?"
"I just said, I don't know," she replied, still looking at Korwin. Then she shook violently. "It's alien, that's for sure. Keep him sedated here. Don't let him walk out of the sickbay. Don't even let him wake up."
He saw how McDonnell's face fell as she looked down at her husband.
"Hey," he said softly. "See about those engines. Go." She still didn't move. "Hey. Go."
Then, finally, she lifted her head, nodded and followed Ashton.
"Call us if there's news. Any questions?" he said to the woman.
"Yeah. Who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor," he said, took Mira by the hand and pulled her with him. "And that's Mira."
"Heat shield failing. At twenty-five percent. Impact in thirty two fifty," the computer said.
OneWhoReadsToMuch, Natasha Strong, Wicken25, AxidentlGoddess, MiaEther, bored411, herherondaletotherescue, oXxgeorgiaxXo, Type40TARDIS, moonlightprincess99, NeoMulder: Thanks for leaving a review :-)
