Chapter One
"Bloody hell!" The redhead grimaced and doubled over as soon as she reappeared in a large corridor. "How can he stand using this thing?" she questioned as she glanced down at her wrist. After getting her bearings, she activated the com link attached to her ear. "Jack, come in Jack."
"Right here darlin'. How was the trip?"
"Fantastic." She rolled her eyes as she surveyed her surroundings. "Where am I?"
"Not sure yet. We're having a hard time keeping the system online and my main focus right now is keeping the com link between us up."
The girl reached into the pocket of her blue leather jacket to retrieve a hair tie and pulled her long red hair up into a ponytail. "How is she?"
"Not good, but she still has a bit of time on you." He told her.
"Yeah, well if I can't figure this out it won't matter." She looked up and down both ends of the corridor. "Guess we start by finding out where I am, yeah?"
The grating clinked softly under her feet as she walked along. Whatever this place was, it seemed to be deserted. The cold and silence akin to that of a tomb; save but for the faint hum of the overhead lights that gave off a green tint, casting an eerie glow over every surface and adding to her sense of foreboding. She approached a window and looked out into a blanket of stars. "Well, I'm definitely in space."
"Okay, that's a start. Are we talking spaceship or space station?"
"Not sure yet," she moved to the next window over. "Hang on. I can see some writing along the hull. SS Madame De Pompadour." She read.
"Madame De Pompadour? Like the French courtesan?"
"I guess. Makes you wonder what type of ship this is."
"Sounds like my type." She could almost see his eyebrows wagging in light of his cheeky tone.
"I'll bet." she said in slight amusement. "Still, strange name for a ship."
"Hey, I once knew a guy at the agency who named his 'Tame the Beast'."
"Oh my god." She muttered, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, that was a popular phrase on that ship."
"Jack," she chided warningly as she rounded another corner. "I really don't think now's the time for...Oh my god!"
"Yeah," he chuckled. "That brings back memories."
"Jack!" she hissed.
"What is it? What's wrong?" he asked; his tone now becoming serious.
"There's someone…I'm, I'm not alone." her voice was barely above a whisper, but he could hear the fear in it.
"Who is it? Who's there with you? Are you ok?"
The overhead lights were flickering, casting intermittent shadows across the looming figure before her. White gloved hands reached out and a long blade extending from one wrist glinted faintly under a crimson stain. Head tilted to the side; its eyes, deep dark empty pits staring back at her and the menacing grin painted on its stoney white face made her skin crawl.
"Yeah," she took a deep breath. "I…I'm good. I'm ok. It's just, I found this creepy looking android. I think it's been deactivated though. It's not moving and it's wearing some sort a mask.
"What kind of mask?"
"Um," she swallowed audibly. "Like a court Jester looking type…thing."
"Sounds extra creepy."
"Shut up. You know how I hate anything that even remotely resembles a clown." she shuddered.
"Deep breaths love."
"Yeah, right, ok." She grimaced. "Well, it has long dark curly hair and it's dressed in old Victorian style clothes. There's some sort of knife extending from its wrist and there's…I…Oh god. I think it's blood."
"And you're sure it's not active?"
Cautiously reaching out and lightly tapping the droid's shoulder with her pointer finger, she let out the breath she was holding. "Yeah, it's…cold, actually. It seems to be frozen solid." Another flickering light caught her attention; this one coming from a porthole that sat slightly ajar on the wall behind the droid. Edging carefully around the creature that she was sure would give her nightmares for a good long while, she could make out a faint thumping sound. Slowly she pulled the porthole open. When she saw what was inside, her stomach churned and she covered her mouth in horror and looked away. "My god, there's a heart in the wall."
"What?"
"There's a heart, a human heart, in the wall. It's hooked up to a bunch of wires like it's…like it's powering something. What the hell is this place Jack?"
"Well, the readings show it's definitely a spaceship, 51st century to be exact. Somewhere in the Dagmar system. We were also getting some residual temporal readings though for the most part the connection seems to be gone now. Tosh is trying to pull up the schematics of the ship but it'll take a few minutes to stabilize the system and there's something else. The TARDIS now seems to have virtual memory recordings coinciding for both timelines in her database. Everything is being re-written and the minute you appeared on that spaceship, you became part of events. You're now a fixed point."
"So," she said slowly. "That means whatever happens, whatever I do from here on will basically establish the new timeline."
"It appears so yeah. I'm sorry. I know it's a lot of pressure."
"Ya think?" she snapped. After a short pause, she spoke again. "I'm sorry, that was rude."
"It's ok, I understand." When he spoke next his tone was sullen and filled with trepidation. "Listen, there's something you're gonna need to see. It's part of the virtual memories we got from the TARDIS for the alternate timeline. It will explain what's happening to you. I'm uploading it to your vortex manipulator now."
The girl lifted up her wrist and activated the projection. As she watched the events unfold, her expression went from anger to shock and then finally grief as tears began streaming down her face. "Was that the battle of Canary Wharf?" she whispered.
There was a brief moment of silence before he finally spoke with a shuddering "Yes."
"Jack, this can't…we can't let this happen. We have to find out what went wrong and fix it now."
"I know and we will. Now the TARDIS confirms they're on the ship so find them and I'll contact you as soon as I have any new information."
The redhead moved to turn off the projection and her hand passed right through her wrist. Holding her hand up she stared at it in shock and after a few seconds it became solid again. "Ok," she replied, flexing her fingers. "But please hurry 'cause we're running out of time."
"I'm on it honey. Just hold on." he said and the com link went silent.
Looking back into the empty dead eyes of the droid's mask she shuddered and took a step back. 'What the hell happened here?'