The Tardis landed quietly, but something felt off. I paused and looked at the door, as I normally did when I decided to go for a random stroll in the cosmos. Destination unknown was exciting, yet I dreaded what the Tardis normally chose since she was quite cheeky. This time the Tardis felt queasy as if she wasn't sure this was a good stop.
With a shrug, I grabbed the jacket from the captain chair and twirled the key in my finger. It couldn't possibly be as bad as that one time I went with a random destination and ended up in a primitive world where women were broodmares and slaves. Then again, shooting pigs who wanted to put a collar on me was fun.
I stepped out and glanced about. From the looks of it, I was in a small room in a base.
The kind of base tho was unknown, possibly some ape base. Damn you Tardis, I'm going to find you an annoying name to go with your temper.
I decided to explore like I owned the place, and walked through to the corridor to my right.
"Open door 14." A computer voice said as the door opened.
Nobody came to greet and meet, wasn't that an ape custom or something? That seemed like something Rina would do.
I walked through the corridor and went for one of the nearest doors.
"Open door 17." The computed voice droned.
I walked in and the writing on the wall caught my attention, I walked towards it to have a better look.
'Welcome to hell' was written in big block letters. Underneath there was an unknown vertical script. I ignored the first phrase and locked on to the part that my Tardis hadn't been able to translate into Gallifreyan.
Well, now this just got interesting. Nari's voice sounded through my mind, surprising me. She normally kept to herself.
I know where we are, Rina interjected and I could hear the happiness in her voice. We're in the impossible planet, the scientifically impossible planet. That's just right up your alley Nari, yours too Rani.
I rolled my eyes and ignored them, but what Rina said brought a flash of information from her memories. A planet in orbit with a black hole and the devil. That's cool, maybe the Tardis was going to get a good name after all.
"Open door 17." The computed voice sounded again, startling me. I turned around and saw a male ape walk in.
"What the hell?" He said, looking at me with wide eyes. "Who are you? How are you here?"
I pulled the physic paper out of my back pocket and almost shoved it in his face.
"I'm Rani, I'm here to join the expedition since you have lacked results. Show me to your scientists." I said in an emotionless tone, I sincerely couldn't even bother to act the part.
"Ohh." The man said while looking shocked. "It says here that you're here to asses the scientific work. I guess I'll take you to Ida. But, how did you get here?"
"Magic." I replied, rolling my eyes. "Now get a move on, time is science."
He nodded. "I'm Dany by the way, the Ethics Committee member and yes it's better than it sounds. Follow me."
I ignored his babbling, more concerned with forming theories about how a planet could be in orbit with a black hole. I glanced at the unknown writing on the wall one last time before leaving the room, oh yes this trip was definitely up my alley.
I wonder if the Doctor is here already. If Rina knew this planet then this trip was an episode, oh well, not like I need him here annoying me.
His Tardis was queasy like she didn't want to land. In his books that normally wasn't a good thing, but like that had ever stopped him from doing anything. From the looks of it he and Rose and landed in some sanctuary base, and from the feel of in sometime in the 40 something century.
That in itself was interesting, but the writing on the wall that the Tardis couldn't translate? Now that was just plain mysterious. He liked the mysterious. The 'welcome to hell' bit was just a tad dramatic.
Then the aliens with tentacles in their faces, and white globes in their right hands walked into the room. They reminded the Doctor of the Gaim in Babylon 5 from back in the day, he made a mental note to ask them if they have a Queen too.
"Oh! Right. Hello. Sorry. I was just saying, er, nice base." The Doctor greeted with a smile.
"We must feed." They replied, at the same time.
"You've got to what?" He asked, making sure he heard it right.
"We must feed." They repeated.
"Yeah. I think they mean us." Rose said, grabbing his arm. Both of them started to back away, as he took his sonic screwdriver from his pocket.
"We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed." They continued, as if on replay.
More of them entered through other doors, while Rose picked up a random chair.
"We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed. We must feed." The loop continued, until both he and Rose were backed against the wall.
For a second there he thought he was about to get eaten until one of the Gaim look-alikes tapped the globe.
"You, if you are hungry." The alien said.
"Sorry?" He asked, his breath still shaky.
" We apologize. Electromagnetics have interfered with speech systems. Would you like some refreshment?" The now much more friendly looking alien asked.
"Er..." He wasn't sure what to reply.
"Open door 18." The computer voice droned, and humans entered the room.
"Ohh, you must be the Doctor." One of the humans said, after looking at him. "We have been expecting you for the past two weeks."
Before the Doctor could even question on how they knew him, the human used his wrist-comm. "Captain, the Doctor she mentioned is here. Out of nowhere, I guess it might really be magic. There's a blond woman too, must be the assistant. Where should I take them?"
"Oi, I'm not his bloody assistant." Rose said, glaring at the chap. Meanwhile, the Doctor was theorizing on who could have mentioned him. Well, he had a pretty good idea. He didn't feel her mind nearby, but his gut feeling was saying that the Rani had her nose in this. Whatever this was.
"Bring them to the control room for introductions." The male on the other line, the Captain apparently, replied.
He was about to question the man on where they were, when a female voice sounded on the tannoy. "Stand by, everyone. Buckle down. We have incoming. And it's a big one. Quake point five on its way."
The man opens and door and ushes them through. "Through here, now. Quickly, come on! Move!"
They all run for it.
I heard the female voice through the tannoy and let out a sigh, damn it another damn quake mucking up my research. I would rather spend my time trying to understand how this planet stays in orbit than to run around a base filled with apes who don't know what they're doing. Seriously, they only had pre-historic equipment. Well, pre-historic for a Time Lady but still, pretty much useless equipment. How could they analyze samples like this?
Two weeks and she had barely scratched the surface of what the hell was going here. According to the Tardis, the terrain samples we're unidentified. Which meant, in all the Time Lord history (which was since the beginning of time) no one had ever found this type of soil.
We're talking about the race that had the ability to go anywhere anywhen, and somehow the humans discovered a planet never recorded by the Time Lords? Don't fuck with me. That's utterly impossible.
I had been using that word a lot in the past few days, and I didn't like it one bit. Impossible was just the word idiots used before science... I refused to be one of them.
I grabbed my research papers and ran into the control room. Everybody was already working in the panels, but I was more interested in the new arrivals.
"I'm the Captain, Zachary Cross, you must be the Doctor that Rani mentioned." Zach greeted, nodding at me when he mentioned my name. After that returned his attention to the control panels.
I took that as a cue and walked towards the Time Lord in the room, who was looking at me with an arched brow as if asking 'the hell you doing here?'.
"Greetings, you're late again. Two weeks this time, seriously you need to learn how to drive."I said, barely sparing him a glance. Me ignoring him always rilled him up, it was a fun game we used to play. It went like this- I ignored him, he got annoyed and I had a good laugh. Too bad the Master wasn't here egging the Doctor on, now that would have been hilarious.
"Hello to you too Rani." He huffed, rolling his eyes at me. He was ticked off but was playing it cool. Alright, I'll take that as a challenge. "How am I? I'm doing great thanks for asking." I ignored him.
"You're the one from Pete's world." The blonde ape said, staring at me in surprise.
" Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me." I said with a smirk before I remembered that this one was from the early years of the 21st century. "Right, too early for that reference. Maybe later... not."
"Come on, we're in the middle of an alert! Danny, strap up. The quake's coming in! Impact in thirty seconds! Sorry you two, we will do introductions later. Just hold on, tight." The Captain said.
" Hold on to what?" Rose asked, panicked.
"Anything. I don't care. Just hold on. Ood, are we fixed?" Captain Zach replied.
" Your kindness in this emergency is much appreciated." The Ood replied calmly.
"What's this planet called, anyway?" The Doctor asked, looking at me for an answer.
"Now, don't be stupid. It hasn't got a name. How could it have a name? Rani, thought you said he was smart!" Ida replied, before turning towards me.
"I never said that." I replied, pretty much growling. That idiot did not need an ego boost, especially not coming from me. "I just said he wasn't that much dimwit."
"In Rani speak you're calling me a genius." The Doctor said, sending me a wink. I wasn't amused, at all.
"And impact!" The Captain loudly shouted and the whole place shook for a few seconds.
"Oh, well, that wasn't so bad." The Doctor comments with a grin. At that the room shakes again, this time much worse than before and the consoles burst into flames.
"Bloody jinx it why don't you."I snark at him, if any of my research got on fire I would throttle him to next week.
"Okay, that's it. Everyone all right?" The Captain asks, looking around the room. "By that annoyed tone, Rani is as good as rain. Everybody?"
Everyone replied with affirmation, nobody dead. Good enough for me.
"We're fine, thanks, fine. Yeah, don't worry about us." The Doctor informed, talking about him and his blond pet. I wasn't the only one that ignored them.
"The surface caved in." The captain said looking up at the schematic of the base. "I deflected it onto storage five through eight. We've lost them completely. Toby, go and check the rocket link."
"Did you just say storage five?" I asked quietly, my voice as emotionless as possible.
"Yes. I did. Five to eight caved in." Zach replied as Toby left the room grumbling about it not being his department.
I almost had a heart attack, because my Tardis was in storage five. Then I remember that I was a bloody genius and looked down at my black belt which had a built-in Stattenheim Remote Control which was used to control the Tardis. Thank all the Gods that I decided to make one last month, just a touch and the Tardis would return to me.
"Oxygen holding. Internal gravity fifty six point six. We should be okay." Ida informed, checking the data.
"Never mind the earthquake, that's, that's one hell of a storm. What is that, a hurricane?" Rose asked, and I snorted. Does she think she's in Oz or something?
"You'd need an atmosphere for a hurricane. There's no air out there. It's a complete vacuum." Scooti said, also amused at the blonde's question.
"Then what's shaking the roof?" Rose asked.
"You're not joking. You really don't know. Well, introductions. FYI, as they said in the olden days. I'm Ida Scott, science officer. Zachary Cross Flane, acting Captain, sir. You've met Mister Jefferson, he's Head of Security. Danny Bartock, Ethics committee."
"Not as boring as it sounds." Danny comments.
"Actually, it's more boring than it actually sounds." I interjected. Danny gave me funny looks, probably because I had been Rani the no-nonsense scientist for the past two weeks and he hadn't seen this other side of me.
" And that man who just left, that was Toby Zed, Archaeology, and this is Scooti Manista, Trainee maintenance. You obviously know Rani already, she's here to inspect my scientific findings. And this? This is home." Ida said as she pulled down the lever.
"Brace yourselves. The sight of it sends some people mad." The Captain advised, meanwhile I was grinning because my record necklace was on and I wanted to get the Doctor reaction on tape. You know, for future blackmail or just for shits and jiggles.
The shutters overhead are pulled back, revealing a white disc with a black center that sucks the light and everything else surrounding it. Expect, us.
"That's a black hole." Rose said, gasping.
"But that's impossible." The Doctor mumbles, narrowing his eyes and half gaping at it.
"Isn't it a marvel?" I ask, stopping next to him. "A star ten times more massive than the sun squeezed into a sphere approximately the diameter of New York City which results in a gravitational field so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. Expect us, this planet is escaping it."
"We're standing under a black hole." The Doctor said, possibly trying to believe it himself. If I hadn't had Rina's knowledge before looking at it myself, I might have stabbed myself just to check this view wasn't a dream.
"In orbit." Ida informed.
"But we can't be." He says to himself, dumbfounded.
"But we are." I informed him. "It's me saying this Doctor, this is real. Welcome to the uncharted regions of science."
"But we can't be." He repeated, this time looking at him with wide eyes. I understood his panic, this was something never recorded in the history of time. We both knew it because if not It would have been taught in the Academy. Weirder than this would be hard to accomplish.
"This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole without falling in." Ida said, getting a tad annoyed at his repeated skepticism.
"And that's bad, yeah?" Rose asked, and I groaned. Can't you ask a more idiotic question, dear Rassilon.
"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." The Doctor explained using the blandest way. I doubted the blonde even understood half of it.
"So, they can't be in orbit. We should be pulled right in." Rose said. Ok, she got the very basic gist of it.
"We should be dead." The Doctor replied with a deadpan.
"And yet here we are, beyond the laws of physics. Welcome on board." Ida informed with a grin.
"But if there's no atmosphere out there, what's that?" Rose asked, but before either Ida or I could answer the Doctor spoke.
"Rani, you can't possibly accept this!" The Doctor said, turning to me. "What have you figured out? You said you've been here for weeks."
"Well, everything on this bloody planet is impossible. From the soil to the bloody black hole, to the non-translatable language on the wall." I explained, wanting to get another opinion on my findings. He was an idiot, but I couldn't deny the fool was smart. "The soil is unknown in the Tardis database. The black hole is just plain impossible for the obvious reasons. The language also isn't on the database. You know what that means."
"It's not possible." He replied, set in his ways.
"That's what the humans used to say when one of them discovered that the earth rotates around the sun and not the other way around, and I call them apes for a reason." I replied with a huff. "It's possible because I've checked, we're not hallucinating. This planet and a language not recorded on the Tardis databanks, do you know how impossible that is? The Tardises have access to all of the timelines, from beginning to the end. Something not recorded in time, that's what this whole planet is."
"But how can something like a whole planet be hidden from time? It's impossible."
"Impossible my ass, it just means that we don't have the answers yet but don't be more a fool than you already are. Nothing can be hidden from time, as you very well know. There's only one hypothesis, even if it's impossible. But once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
"Have you been reading Arthur Conan Doyle?" The Doctor gaped, more shocked at I possibly reading ape books than he had ever been while looking at the black hole.
"No, you tosser I watched the bloody tv show." I replied rolling my eyes at him. "Anyway, the only possible conclusion is that whatever is going on in here is beyond time."
"What does that mean?" Rose asked. I had forgotten she was even in the room, Ida too. Both were looking at me as if asking me to dumb down the explication.
"Either before, or after time. Since the bloody stars haven't light out yet I would say before time." I explained, even If I wasn't particularly convinced of my own theory yet.
"There is no before time, that's ..." The Doctor ranted before I stopped him.
"Yes, yes impossible I know. I'm just tired of saying and listening to that bloody word." I said with a groan. "There's no scientifically proven explanation for this, that's the truth. The End of Time is a confirmed event. However, energy cannot be created or destroyed. What if time is a cycle? There was time before time, that time ended and a new one began. It would make so much sense. Hell, it would actually give answers to so many ancient Gallifreyan Theories."
"That's at best a half-assed theory." The Doctor replied, rolling his eyes.
"Try and explain it then you twat." I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
"Enough children, there's no need to start a fight." Ida said, trying to calm us both down. We both quieted down but continued glaring daggers at each other. "Ahh, I just bet you're childhood friends. That or I'd guess you were a married couple. Anyway, your theories on time are interesting but irrelevant to the matter at hand."
"Now, answering your question Rose before these two are at each other's throats again. Stars breaking up. Gas clouds. We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above our heads, before falling into that thing."
"So, a bit worse than a storm, then." Rose said, a tad afraid.
"Please, Fred the Second, compared to a storm that's the freaking apocalypse." I huffed.
The room shook once more.
A/N: Hi guys, here's an update. I decided to do the Impossible planet and the Satan Pit episodes. What do you guys think? I thought it would be a good episode to do since it full of impossible science, something the Rani would definitely want to dabble in. Btw, she called Rose as Fred the Second because I mentioned in the previous chapter that the Doctor used to have a pet cat called Fred. The Rani arrived two weeks before the Doctor most of the conversation with the secondary characters went a bit different from canon, I hope it wasn't too boring. Tell me what you thought in the comment section down below, and if you have any questions or ideas please do share.
xx, ritz