There are literally no excuses for my lateness.

Warnings: none

So today I came out as trans masculine wow happy trans visibility day

Chapter 5- Croatoan, Day 2

The golden glow of the TARDIS was a small comfort to me, I sat off to the side in the nook of one of the coral structures that decorated the room, leaning back with my eyes closed. I was quietly fuming, angry with the Doctor for sending me into a situation that ended with me getting misgendered. I knew that he couldn't have known, but I was still mad. I calmed a bit when I remembered what we were doing, and I couldn't really be mad at the Doctor for something like this when there was a lot to be done. I felt the fear finally creep up my spine, slipping from the top of my shoulders in a shiver. Those kids... God knows what was being done to them right now. I would talk to the Doctor later.

The Doctor was hovering over a mess of buttons and tiny screens, banging on them with a hammer every so often, which seemed to help somehow. It was when he was doing this that I saw how old he seemed. The tiny wrinkles on his forehead seemed more pronounced, and his eyes were tired. I wondered, not for the first time, how many times he had done this, how many people he had saved this way.

"I've got their location within about a hundred miles, just another minute and we can go get those kids." he mumbled.

I stood, briefly stretching my arms before pulling on my shoes (I had kicked them almost to the other side of the room earlier,) and gripped tightly onto a railing to avoid being thrown around when we finally started moving- not that it ended up helping much.

I stood and shook my head, trying to get rid of the haze of motion sickness that clouded my vision and made a knot in my stomach.

"Do you plan on ever flying this thing right?" I groaned.

The Doctor chose to ignore this. He waited at the door for me, and when I arrived, looked me straight in the eyes. "This is where it gets dangerous. Last chance to back out?"

He had been asking me all throughout his calculations whether I really wanted to come with him onto the ship to help get the children out, telling me I could just wait on the TARDIS and help them when they got back. Every time, I had refused to back out. Face your fears, that's what my personal motto was. Of course, I hadn't anticipated aliens at the time I had made it up, but I was determined to stick to it nonetheless.

I shook my head determinedly, making a move towards the doors. "You're stuck with me."

The ship was pretty incredible, though it had nothing on the TARDIS. Everything was streamlined and silver, with a bit of teal light radiating from the floor providing the only visibility. A white panel labeled with a writing that looked like a series of complex scratchy lines was visible at a corner ahead, but a tiny warm nudge in my head told me it was a direction to the control room. Looks like the TARDIS could still send telepathic messages even when I wasn't inside.

We hadn't been out the TARDIS doors for more than a few seconds before the Doctor recognised the ship's design.

"It's a Asketan ship. Standard design, fairly common across this galaxy, but not for a long, long time, so this must be a sort of prototype. I was good friends with the species that builds these, but I'm not sure they'll recognise me..." he trailed off, before quickly snapping to his senses again. "Right. We ought to find the command center. Sign says this way, come on!"

I held out an arm to stop him from skipping off too soon. "So the plan is just to dive straight in?"

He nodded.

I shrugged, letting him go, and we finally left the dim hallway, following the white signs to a door that was sea green and had a pattern resembling what it would look like if a computer threw up its guts all over a sheet of metal. The Doctor scanned it briefly with his sonic screwdriver, and it split into four panels, which slid back into the wall, forming a square entrance.

I'm not going to lie, the first thing I thought as I entered the command center was definitely Star Trek. Seriously! It was mostly white, with blue touchscreen panels lining the walls and a big comfy captain's chair in the middle. I was getting serious flashbacks of that time my dad and I had marathoned Star Trek all night, about a year before I told them...

Nevermind. Don't think of him. Not worth it. I took a brief moment to remember that I was living a new life, far, far away from those scumbags that happened to be my parents.

Jesus, Sophia. of all the things to think about on a spaceship...

I shushed my inner monologue and got a good look at the aliens.

They were humanoid in shape, two legs, two arms, a head, but the similarities stopped there. Instead of skin, they were covered in a thin feather-like fur, ranging in colors from tawny to grey to even jet black. They had what could count has hair, long feathers sprouting from their scalp and reaching to their shoulders or further in shades of mostly red and blue, with a bit of green as well. They each had two antennae sprouted from their forehead, only a few inches long and the same color as the rest of their bodies, but I have to say the most incredible thing about them was the wings.

Thin and almost paper like, the wings folded up smoothly against the backs of the creatures, and I almost hadn't seen them until a jet-black creature (who seemed to be in charge) let out a loud screech at a small light brown creature at his feet and spread its wings wide. It really was a beautiful sight.

While I gaped at the creatures, the Doctor decided to make our presence known.

"Kroaloans." he shouted. "That's your name, isn't it? From the planet Ichor, in the Gaan system."

The creatures seemed to freeze, and slowly, we were faced by around fifty pairs of yellow and green eyes.

"My name is the Doctor," he continued on when he felt he had the room's attention. "I'm here on behalf of the planet Earth, and according to code 8612/X of the Shadow Proclamation, you have to return the children you have kidnapped and leave this planet's airspace immediately!"

Even I knew how ridiculous that had sounded. We were two people, standing in front of a crowd of about 50 aliens bigger than us, demanding they do something with no real authority or position of power other than a bunch of numbers and letters.

Of course they were going to throw us in jail.

~0~

"Nice plan, Doctor," I remarked, rubbing at the silver band around my neck that the Kroaloans had put on, somehow it kept us from leaving the white square room we were currently in. Something to do with force fields, I hadn't really been paying attention. I couldn't help it, my mind just zoned out when it came to anything to do with math or science.

He chose to ignore my comments, pressing an ear to the smooth white wall and recoiling when it shocked him. He scowled at it, before turning back to me. "Maybe this was part of the plan."

I simply stared at him.

"Okay, maybe not part of the plan. But at least, now we have time to figure out what to do now that we know what we're up against."