A/N: Still don't own doctor Who or Torchwood. And sorry if Jack doesn't seem quite right, he's tricky to write for me. Also this and the next chapter most likely won't be as funny as the first four, but to be honest, you'll just have to live with that since I know where I want to go with it. One chapter left then it's done!
Jack led the Doctor down a long corridor, entered a large room at the end of it, did a beeline past the massive amount of filing cabinets that had been jumbled around at some point or another and held the door on the other side of the room open for the Doctor.
"First four floors are mainly small and medium sized things, some we know what it is, some we don't. Bottom floor is for the big stuff. Knock yourself out." He flipped a switch on the wall and the cavernous room lit up, revealing rows upon rows of shelves filled with alien gadgets.
The Doctor started to look over some things on a close by shelf that had apparently caught his eye, but quickly discarded them as junk, broken beyond repair or toys. He went through the first floor in less than an hour like this, finding nothing of interest and generally causing a mess as he didn't have the courtesy to put things back where he had found them.
"So any idea where the Master went?" Jack asked when the Doctor was about halfway through the second floor.
"No, why?" he replied, turning over a spherical object that was about the same size as a football and made from what appeared to be glass with thin metal wires snaking through it. "This might actually be useful." he grinned. "It's an energy converter, well part of one anyway, but I should be able to modify it to work with the resonators." he beamed, shoving the thing into Jacks hands for him to carry.
"You don't know where the Master is or what he's doing?" Jack said slowly, barely registering the energy converter he was now holding.
"No. I'm not his nanny. He probably got bored. He'll show up eventually."
Jack dropped the energy converter when he heard that and sped up the stairs and out to the rest of the Hub. He most certainly didn't want the Master lose in there. The Doctor on the other hand was just glad he had been able to catch the device before it hit the floor.
He continued exploring the first four floors, finding bits and pieces of technology he could probably use, not to mention finding a few bits and pieces of technology that he really didn't trust Torchwood with at all, the most startling of these was a broken De-mat Gun. Luckily they didn't seem to know what the weapon was as the small tag on it read "Energy weapon? Possible Judoon origin?". The Doctor would have laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all, but he was already to busy disassembling the broken weapon to make as much of it as possible fit into his pockets. He didn't want anyone to get a hold of it, not even the Master. Well especially not the Master actually. Once he'd finished he decided that as soon as the Tardis was off the ground again the weapon would be destroyed, if he could find a star hot enough to be able to melt it.
But if the De-mat Gun had left him breathless the thing he found sitting on the bottom floor knocked him of his feet. For starters the bottom floor itself wasn't a floor as much as it was a hangar, and a big one at that. the Doctor couldn't see one, but he assumed it had a separate entrance somewhere. But no, it wasn't the size of the room that stunned him, or the large but heavily damaged Dalek ship sitting in the center of it. And the wreckage of an Anubian ship, parts of a Judoon tower and half of a Sontaran scout ship didn't even phase him.
It was the moss green rectangular box sitting in a nearby corner that had made him stop to stare in complete and utter disbelief while gripping the railing so hard his knuckles were turning white. It was a SIDRAT.
Recovering from his initial shock he practically flew down the remaining stairs and rushed over to the small ship, only to find it locked. "Oh, come on!" He glared and banged on the doors with the palms of his hands a couple of times, then tried to sonic the lock. The banging of the doors only served to hurt his hands and the sonic screwdriver did absolutely nothing.
When Jack found him he was back to banging on the ship doors in frustration, but now there were a rather impressive pile of knick-knacks, wires and strangely blinking or glowing things next to him.
"You know, according to the records no one has been able to open that thing since it got here 50 years ago." Jack commented walking up behind the Doctor, causing the Time Lord jump.
"Oh, so does that mean someone was able to get inside it at one point?" The Doctor inquired.
"Not sure. It's been a while since I read those files." Jack put his hands on his hips, trying to think. "But I guess we could just take a look at the report, it should be in a cabinet upstairs."
Jack led the Doctor back up to the first room they had entered. "The rift caused a bit of an earthquake a while ago and we haven't gotten around to sorting this out yet." Jack said to explain the mess. "But that box showed up 50 years ago, and the files are organized by date so it won't be too hard to find."
The Doctor nodded and they went to work sorting through the filing cabinets, ignoring the ones with the wrong dates on them, turning over the ones they couldn't read and sighing with frustration when the ones from roughly the right time period came up empty.
"By the way did you find the Master?" the Doctor asked a while later, just having finished looking through yet another cabinet of files and reports without any luck.
"No, Ianto said he left the Hub a while ago now." Jack replied with a grunt, moving a cabinet out of his way.
"Too bad, could have used his help with this mess." the Doctor sighed and opened yet another cabinet, this one apparently containing reports ranging from April 1959 to July 1959. "Busy year for you lot, 1959." he noticed while flipping through the papers.
"Yhea, looks like it." Jack agreed and came over to help.
After 10 minutes or so Jack pulled out a folder from one of the drawers with a triumphant "Aha!" and gave it to the Doctor.
The Doctor quickly skimmed through it, noticing the doors had indeed been open when it arrived, but had later been closed and they had been unable to open it again. But it did hold a vital piece of information that made the Doctor grin. "Jack, it says here they found a small, flat metal object inside the SIDRAT, where is it?" he pointed out a spot in the appendix with the description and item number.
"Should be on floor three. I think." Jack wasn't quite done talking yet, but the Doctor was already dragging him back downstairs, so he decided it would be easier to keep up if he shut up, at least for now.
As soon as they got to the third floor Jack took the lead again, steering them to a row of shelves filled with small boxes. Once there he quickly located the box they wanted and pulled it out.
The Doctors cheeky grin somehow managed to grow a fraction wider when he opened the box and pulled out the small metal object.
"What is it?" Jack asked with a bewildered look.
"This is a key." The Doctor beamed holding it up by it's chain and letting it spin slowly.
"It doesn't look anything like a key to me." He said sceptically.
"That's because you've spent to much time on Earth." he grinned and started to walk back to the SIDRAT. "Besides, the key to the Tardis used to look almost exactly like this for a long time, then she decided to change. To bad, I liked the old key."
"And just what is a SIDRAT?" Jack asked as they got back to the green box and the Doctor started to fiddle with the lock. "We always called it the box."
"SIDRAT stands for 'Space and Inter-Dimensional Robot All-Purpose Transporter' and was built by the War Lords using Time Lord technology. It's basically a primitive and ineffective type of TARDIS." The Doctor explained and finally managed to get the door open. "I guess this one somehow managed to avoid getting sealed away with their home world." he continued as he stepped inside to have a look around.
Jack of course followed him in and was more than a little surprised to see the condition the ship was in. "The report didn't mention anything like this."
"No, it didn't. But SIDRATS needed a lot of maintenance to keep working. After it landed here the systems must have gotten clogged up and caused an explosion." The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the console room, trying to detect any systems still running, especially any security systems. "And it's dead, completely dead. Which is a good thing, means we can work in peace. If we can get some light in here."
Jack stepped outside for a few minutes and came back in with some torches and a toolbox and they set to work.
"So if this is some sort of Tardis, how can it be a good thing that it's dead? And if it's so primitive how can you be sure the parts will fit?" Jack asked after they had found some stairs that lead down under the main console and then kept spiraling down around what looked like a time rotor.
"Because SIDRATS were never supposed to be alive. They were built, just like any other machine, but their systems sometimes behaved a lot like a living thing." the Doctor said, still scanning for signs of running systems with his screwdriver. "And they came from a race who thought the sole reason for existing was to wage war." he spat. "As for the parts fitting. I can't be sure, but it's based on Time Lord technology so it's worth a try. Besides I'm very good with making things work." He smirked, and mentally added 'and so is the Master', but he didn't say that out loud.
They ended up spending a few hours stripping the SIDRAT of usable parts, both what they would need right away and what might be useful in the future. When they were done and everything was loaded into boxes it was already late and Jack was exhausted. Even the Doctor admitted to feeling tired, but still insisted on getting back to the Tardis.
"Fine fine. We'll put everything in the car. Just show me where to go." Jack gave in, sounding quite unhappy about it. But at least he'd get the Doctor off his back faster. Really when had he gotten so frustrating anyway? He didn't remember him ever being so annoying in the past. But then again he had always been too attached to the Tardis for his own good, so maybe fixing it would fix his mood. Jack hoped so.
After nearly falling in the stairs a few times they managed to get everything up and out of the archive and down the long corridor. But the last, short set of stairs finally got the better of the Doctor, who stumbled and came crashing forward into Jacks back, causing both men to fall the last few steps and hit the floor hard. Well Jack broke the Doctors fall, but the Doctor still somehow managed to get one box on his lower back and one box on his neck and head. The very long and elaborate string of alien curses were enough to make even Jack blush. Well the parts he understood anyway, he suspected the Doctor was swearing in every language he knew, which apparently were a few. He finished it off with a very human and very British, "Oww! Bloody Hell!" while he tried to pick himself up from the floor.
The Doctor and Jack managed to get everything back into the boxes, and the boxes and themselves into the car without any further injuries. Which their dented and wounded prides were very grateful for.
"Well at least everything survived." Jack said in an attempt to cheer his friend up.
"Yhea." He nodded in agreement. "Left here, then a right." he pointed them down a small side street, then a narrow alley, just wide enough for the car.
Jack stopped just in front of the Tardis and went around back to get the boxes while the Doctor went to open his time machine.
"What?"
Jacks head snapped up, looking at the Doctor.
The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver again and aimed it at the ship. "What?"
"Whats wrong Doc?" Jack asked, leaving the boxes and closing the rear hatch.
"The Tardis has quarantined herself. For 24 hours, no one gets in or out." he said with a slightly tired and annoyed voice.
Jack was tempted to ask why, but thought better of it, the Doctor didn't look like he was up for explaining things right now. "So you need a lift anywhere or anything?"
The Doctor thought for a moment, then shrugged and put on his typical carefree expression. "Nah, just take the parts back and we'll pick them up later."
"All right. What are you going to do then?" Jack reluctantly moved up to the drivers side again.
"Take a walk I suppose." He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.
After Jack had got back into the car and disappeared out of view the Doctor closed his eyes and reached out with his mind, searching for the Master. It took him a little while to pinpoint him, but once he did he smiled a little and started to walk.