Solipsism
Jack: Is That a Yes?
I walk out the entrance and through the TARDIS force field, which is acting like an air lock right now, and turn and watch The Doctor as he closes the ship's doors behind him. I notice he doesn't lock them and I'm about to comment but then reconsider – after all, what else could possibly be around to get inside?
It's dark, but not quite as dark as I expected. There's a very dim flicker of emergency lighting in the shuttle pod bay. And our suits are generating a fair amount of ambient light. A couple of objects are floating around the cavernous room, but not as many as I assumed we'd see. Our boots automatically adjust to the absence of gravity and keep us securely anchored to the floor.
My HUD is displaying all kinds of data that I really don't want to see. I'm tempted to turn it off, but I know doing so would be a mistake. In these kinds of situations more information is always better than less. The head-up display is telling me the room is cold… no doubt about that, and no surprise, either. It's about five degrees Kelvin. But it's also telling me something else that is very interesting.
The Doctor is already on it before I can even finish assimilating the news. "It appears there hasn't been a perforate catastrophic decompression," he states. "There are traces of atmosphere."
"I see that, too," I say. "If we can get life support up, we may eventually have a viable environment."
"Do you remember how to get to the bridge?"
"I think so."
The Newhope is a large spaceship. Almost three kilometers in length. She was brand spanking new when I first encountered her. In fact so new that she was partially unfinished. The important bits were all there, but some of the less critical accoutrements like plumbing, the ship's messes and crew furniture left a lot to be desired. Still, she was beautiful. And fully kitted-out with the latest bleeding-edge tech. And she was brilliant. The ship's AI was one of the most impressive and interesting I'd ever met. And by interesting I mean peculiar. I swear she had a sense of humor. Do you know how rare that is in an AI? They are usually such sticks-in-the-mud. She was also a bit devious… but she may have picked that trait up from her other Captain, John Hart.
I quickly put an end to that train of thought. It's painful to think about John at the moment.
"I don't believe it's much farther," I announce to The Doctor, who is walking a step or two behind me; a tiny slice of my HUD – a sort of virtual rear-view mirror – is displaying him. We're carefully making our way down yet another of what feels like an endless series of corridors. It is slow going. So far we've not come across anything particularly dangerous but any time you EVA you need to be extra-cautious. The amount of junk floating around continues to be minimal, but we've encountered some perilously loose hanging cables, and although I know our spacesuits are good, the thought of inadvertently puncturing one of them makes me nervous nonetheless. Never mind the notion of getting ensnared…
Suddenly I notice The Doctor has stopped. I turn to look at him. "Do you hear that?" he asks through my helmet's com. I slow my breathing and listen. I don't hear anything, but that means very little – I know The Doctor has extraordinarily good hearing. I close my eyes and strain. Still nothing… "No," I answer as I look at him again, "I'm sorry, I don't."
"Keep walking," The Doctor tells me. So that's what I do.
We walk maybe another 200 steps and again he stops. "Listen now," he suggests.
I inhale deeply, hold my breath and close my eyes. Then I hear it.
It sounds like a voice. Barely audible. At first it sounds like buzzing, but then I realize it sounds like a single word or phrase being repeated at a set interval. I can hardly hear it. I can't come close to making it out. But it's there. It's clearly there.
I turn, look at The Doctor and nod. "Can you tell what it is saying?" I ask.
"I'm not certain, and I prefer not to speculate," he replies. I want to groan – when has he ever not wanted to speculate? – but I hold my peace… if he doesn't want to speculate, he doesn't have to speculate.
"If I'm correct, we're only a couple hundred meters from the bridge. Shall we continue on, Doctor?"
"Always forward," he says.
"Is that a yes?"
"Yes."
We walk on in silence and then before I realize it or even have time to prepare, we're on the bridge. I gasp involuntarily. The ship's bridge is as I remember it, except it is dark and it is cold and it is vacant: there is no John Hart sitting on one of the beat-up Captain's chairs, smirking at me. The consoles and stations and terminals are dead. In retrospect I realize I really should've done something to prepare myself, because I am shocked to the point of near immobility.
"Jack? Jack?" I hear The Doctor's voice over the com and mentally shake myself.
"What is it?"
"Listen."
"Captain… Captain… Captain…" is now what I hear, albeit barely. The word is repeated over and over, separated each time by ten or so seconds of extremely faint static.
I fold my arms best as I can considering I'm in a spacesuit and suppress a shudder. "Wow," is all I manage to say.
"Clockwork Droids," The Doctor inexplicably says back to me.
"What?!"
"Ghost ships," he replies matter-of-factly. "Ghost ships are no biggies as long as you stay away from the Clockwork Droids."
I swear the man has attention surplus disorder.