The Doctor and Jenny stepped out of the TARDIS and found themselves in the middle of a long grey, windowless corridor, dimly lit by flickering lights along the ceiling and the edges of the floor. Jenny grimaced as she looked round. It was dirty and smelled funny, and there was a funny looking stain on the wall that looked suspiciously like blood.
"Where are we?" she whispered.
"About 10 meters away from where the girl landed."
"Ok, but where are we?"
"No idea"
The pair grinned at each other and set off hand in hand down the corridor. It was dark and twisty turney, and it wasn't long before the smiles were gone from their faces. After a while, Jenny got a bit worried. They passed several doors (automatic slidey ones, that the Doctor said meant they were on a space station) but there had been no-one in any of the rooms, only broken furniture that looked like it had been torn apart by some sort of animal.
"Dad, you know you said she was 10 meters away? 10 meters in which direction? Are you sure we're going the right way?
The Doctor paused. "Well…. Even if we're not, she can't be far away. And I'm not sure if I want to run into her again anyway. Something about her was… wasn't right."
Jenny knew exactly what he meant. The girl had made her nervous, squeamish, and other things as well. But at the same time, something about her had been almost familiar, like they had met before.
They carried on in silence for a few more minutes, until they finally reached a door at the end of the corridor. It was big and grey, with a complicated looking console next to it. And it was locked, but obviously this was no problem to the owner of a sonic screwdriver.
The room on the other side of the corridor was completely different. Actually the word "room" was an understatement; it was a huge hall, with a ridiculously high ceiling, gold and cream panelling around the walls, and tiles on the floor that were so shiny they were almost reflective (Jenny couldn't help but think that was a male idea; no woman would want to wear a skirt in a room with a mirrored floor). But it was bright and light and airy and clean, with one wall made completely of glass revealing a beautiful galaxy of stars.
"Trust you to land us in the part of the station that hasn't been used in years" Jenny said with a smile. "It's actually pretty nice here."
"Hmm" said the Doctor, for once not smiling back.
"Come on; let's go have a look round."
The Doctor looked torn for a moment. "Please?" she asked him, almost resorting to battering her eyelashes, totally melting her father's hearts.
"All right, but lets try not to be seen, okay?" He smiled at his daughter as she grasped his hand and pulled him across the room to a slidey door opposite them. On the other side was another corridor, similar to the one they had arrived in, but cleaner and brighter and nicer. There were several more slidey doors, and they approached the nearest one.
Jenny slapped the button on the right of the door, opening it to reveal, to the Doctor's dismay, what appeared to be a control room, filled with computer screens and complicated looking machinery all centred around some kind of platform in the middle of the room. Operating the machines were 4 people; an extremely tall blonde man, a woman with short black hair and a blue tint to her skin, a short dark skinned man wearing thick rimmed glasses and a muscular guy with red-brown hair. They were dressed in similar outfits to that of the girl from the TARDIS except, as Jenny had feared, they all had bulky guns in the holsters at their hips. Jenny and the Doctor stood frozen in the doorway for a moment, like a rabbit in the headlights, unsure of whether to run away, walk confidently in, or just let themselves be spotted and deal with the consequences.
They didn't have time to decide; before they had chance to think never mind move, the room had gone silent, as each of the jumpsuit-wearing people turned to look at the strangers. The tall blonde man leapt into action and pointed his bulky gun at the time-lords.
"Who are you?" he asked in a voice full of authority and danger. The Doctor and Jenny put their hands up to show they were unarmed, and stepped forward out of the doorway so they could be seen clearly. They had done it so many times that it was instinctive, but for some reason, no less scary.
"I'm-"the Doctor had been about to introduce himself, but suddenly wasn't sure whether he should. Jumpsuit-girl had told him not to follow her; was it because the people here would harm him and Jenny? He would risk his own life for information, but he wasn't about to risk his daughter's. "I'm John Smith, and this is my daughter. We're a bit lost; could you tell us where we are please?"
The blonde man didn't look impressed and Jenny could see that he didn't believe a word of her dad's story. She wanted to say something or do something that would help, but she couldn't think of anything that wouldn't end with them being shot. Jenny defiantly didn't want to get shot; she had been there before and knew that it wasn't fun.
Suddenly there was another, more familiar voice filling the room. "Put away the gun Braxton, it's him." The other people started whispering and muttering among themselves as jumpsuit-girl herself stepped out from behind one of the machines. The blonde man, Braxton, hesitated and lowered his gun slightly but did not put it away.
"But… are you sure?" he asked. The girl gave him a withering look.
"Of course I'm sure, do you think I wouldn't recognise him? Holster your weapon." The man didn't move. "NOW!" the girl yelled, and in a sudden burst of terror, Braxton shoved the gun back into its holster. Even though this girl was at least a foot shorter than him, unarmed and at least 5 years his junior, he looked scared. Jenny didn't blame him either; the girl radiated authority in such a way that she could make an expert second guess himself if her opinion was different. Just like the Doctor she found herself thinking.
The girl wasn't done yet. "You" she said in a threatening voice, turning to the Doctor. "You were told not to follow me. You were meant to be going to Barcelona."
The Doctor relaxed and put his hands into his coat pockets; he was a lot happier now that there were o guns pointed in his direction.
"Well, you know me, or at least you say you do; since when did I ever follow orders?" The girl looked annoyed, but the blue skinned woman laughed.
"He's got you there hon." She told the girl.
"Anyway" the Doctor continued "I have a bone to pick with you. How did you get on board my TARDIS without setting off the alarms?"
"How did you get on board my space station?" the girl replied.
"That's easy" Jenny said, feeling a little left out of the showdown. "We came by TARDIS."
"And that answers your father's question" the girl told them with a small smile. "You used your time machine and I used mine."
Jenny was slightly shocked. She had never seen a time machine before, apart from the TARDIS of course, but that was special so didn't really count.
"You have a time machine? Where?" she asked the girl, who was now quietly discussing something with one of her colleagues.
"Look around Jenny dear. This is my time machine."
Jenny looked around and had to admit that there were defiantly enough buttons and switches for it to be. Jenny was about to ask more questions, but was stopped by an alarm sounding from one of the computer screens. The man in the glasses sat down in front of it and started typing.
"What is it Sorrell?" the girl asked, Doctor-like urgency in her voice.
"Erm… I… I can't explain it, they just… they just went."
"Went where?"
I don't know, we just… we lost them."
"What?!" The girl rushed over and stared at the screen over Sorrell's shoulder. "How is that even possible?"
"I don't know" Sorrell whispered "Unless…" His voice trailed off and he looked up at the Doctor and Jenny. The girl looked between the screen and the Doctor a few times before her eyes widened, showing she had understood what her colleague had meant. She straightened up and took a step towards the Doctor. She looked scared.
"Doctor, where did you park? Where did you leave the TARDIS?" Jenny and the Doctor looked at each other. When the Doctor didn't answer, Jenny did. The fact that the girl was so scared was a bit freaky.
"At the end of a corridor on the other side of the big room with the huge window."
The girl thought for a moment, then closed her eyes. The man with the red-brown hair looked up suddenly. "But that's… that's Corridor 49!" he exclaimed. The girl nodded and opened her eyes, taking another step forward. She was almost shaking now, and it showed in her eyes and in her voice.
"Doctor, Jenny, listen to me, this is extremely important, this is… this is life or death; did you lock the door behind you when you got into the room with the huge window?"
Jenny thought about it. She had to admit it didn't seem likely. In theory it sounded like the sort of thing the Doctor would do, leaving everything as they found it so that everything happened as it should, but in reality she knew that it was unlikely they had even closed the big door, never mind locking it behind them. They had been so caught up in the excitement of the moment that they had never even given it a thought. She shook her head.
Taking Jenny's gesture as her answer, the girl started yelling orders, and the team followed them, without question or hesitation. "Braxton, Ray, go and see if you can see where they went. Arm yourselves, and don't let them see you; with any luck they'll still be in the Great Hall and we can heard them back in. Celia, secure exit routes, just in case. Sorrell, I want those power relays back online now, I have a feeling we're going to need them."
The Doctor was confused. Things were happening around him, and he didn't really understand what was going on. He had and inkling that this was what his companions felt like all the time. He didn't like it; he wondered how they did it. He grasped the girl's arm as she was about to check another computer monitor, and looked her straight in the eye.
"What is going in?" he asked.
"Tharl." The girl whispered.
Jenny didn't know what a Tharl was but her father suddenly shared the same look of intense fear as the girl.
"What?" he whispered, hoping he had miss-heard her.
"Tharl, Doctor. We have seven of them on board."
"Seven? Are you mad? Are you suicidal?"
"They all live on Corridor 49, confined to one area of the station. We have CCTV on them, and monitor them around the clock, and we have a resident zoologist! We took all the necessary precautions, until someone decided to go and open the door!"
"Hang on!" yelled the Doctor, letting go of the girl's arm, almost in disgust. "Are you blaming this on me?"
"Oh no!" the girl yelled back, her voice loaded with sarcasm. "How could I ever blame anything on you, the saintly Doctor? Always helping people, never harming a single soul in the process! Never doing a single thing wrong! How could I be so insolent as to blame anything on you?"
The atmosphere in the room was as thick as custard as Sorrell and Jenny watched the Doctor to see what his response would be to this outburst. He looked like he was trying to suppress his rage, but he didn't seem to be doing it very well. Jenny was scared. She almost wished the men with the guns would come back.
"You think you know about my life do you?" the Doctor almost whispered, stepping towards the girl. "You know nothing at all!"
"Oh I know more than you think. I know about your past, your present and your future. And I wish I didn't, I wish with both of both of my hearts that I didn't but I do."
The doctor was about to respond, but stopped; she had said… but she couldn't have… she couldn't be… could she? But he never got the chance to ask her, because at that moment the two men, Ray and Braxton, came running through the main door, heaving it shut behind them.
"They saw us!" Ray announced, "Some are in pursuit."
The girl hurriedly wiped a tear from her cheek. "Sorrell!" she yelled.
"Locking doors Commander, already on it!" he replied, frantically typing commands into a different computer.
"How many?" she asked, turning back to Ray and Braxton, who were both out of breath.
"I don't know exactly, erm…"
"Four, I think, four of them."
"Four?! Right. Okay then."
The blue woman walked into the room, and the girl turned and looked at her expectantly.
"Exit routs secured." She announced to the room.
"Good, cos we're going to need them. Take the Doctor and Jenny down there and keep them safe. Ray, go with them, and take a big gun. Sorrell, power up. Brax, log on and locate the other three."
Again the room was a flurry of activity; Sorrell started running round flicking switches and monitoring readouts, Braxton sat at a computer, and Ray went to a cupboard and took out the biggest gun Jenny had ever seen, and she had seen a fair few. The Doctor only realized these people were serious about him leaving when Celia grasped Jenny's hand and Ray nudged his shoulder with the big gun, herding them towards the back exit.
"Hang on!" he cried "You're not serious about me running and hiding are you?" he asked the girl, who appeared to be helping Sorrell.
"You're not meant to be here. If you get hurt here it could create a paradox of ridiculous proportions. You might be willing to take that chance but I'm not, and as it's me in charge here today, you're going with Ray and Celia. Go!"
The doctor stood deadly still for a minute. He couldn't remember anyone speaking to him like that in a long time. There had been people like Donna who had shouted at him, but no-body had managed to convey enough authority to actually make him think about doing what they said. This girl reminded him of, well, of himself. A strange thought crossed his mind. Was it possible that she was him? She seemed to know everything about him, and no-body had mentioned a name, and she had made veiled references to the fact that she had known him in her past; was it possible that she had been him in her past? He stopped. He was being daft; he wasn't going to become a woman, he refused.
"Jenny" he said finally "Go with Ray and Celia."
"What?" Jenny and the girl cried at the same time.
"I'm not going anywhere without you." Jenny told him stubbornly
"And you're not staying up here." The girl added.
"Actually, you're both wrong. I can be helpful up here, and Jenny, sorry but Jumpsuit Girl is right, it's too dangerous up here." The Doctor announced to the room."
The girls both looked ready to argue, but were stopped by a loud clang on the door to the hallway. Everyone stopped and looked at the door. There was already a dent in it. As they watched, there was another clang, this one slightly louder, deepening the dent.
"Alright, you can stay!" the girl cried. "Celia, Ray, Jenny, go. No arguments Jenny." Jenny wanted to argue anyway, but the look on her father's face and the clanging on the door, along with the scary gun in Ray's hands made her think again. She hesitated, wanting to say goodbye, to give her dad a hug, but Celia, the blue woman grabbed her hand and pulled her out of a door at the back of the room and down a dimly lit hallway.
There was another clang on the door, this time leaving a crack in the metal.
"That door's solid rhenium diboride, it should slow them down, right?" Braxton whispered uncertainly.
"Slow them down but not stop them. It's already cracked." Sorrell whispered back. "Commander, what do we do?"
All eyes were suddenly on the girl. And she looked worried. She doesn't have a plan the Doctor found himself thinking. She never prepared any emergency protocols. We're all going to die here… and I can't even get to the TARDIS to get us out of here.
No sooner had he thought this, the girl sprung into action. She ran to a console with a sudden burst of energy, and started pushing puttons.
"HA!" she cried suddenly turning to the three men, triumph on her face.
"You have a plan?" the Doctor asked.
"Oh yes."
"Are you going to tell us?" Braxton asked anxiously looking at the widening crack in the door.
"Sort of." She replied. "Brax, I need you to transfer the controls of that console to that computer over there; Sorrell, Doctor, I need you to construct the highest level energy wall you can across the room." The men would normally have questioned her, but the urgency of the situation was mounting and if this girl had a plan that could save them, who were they to quiz her about it? They got on with their appointed jobs, and within 5 minutes, they were ready, stood opposite the door just behind where the energy ewall was going to be generated.
"Commander, we're ready." Sorrell said pointedly.
"Then power up." The girl replied, looking up from the console she had been working at. The three men looked at each other.
"You need to come to this side of the wall" Braxton pointed out.
"No I don't" the girl told them. "Activate it."
"I can't" Sorrell objected.
The girl sighed and pushed a series of buttons on a computer. Instantly the energy wall fizzled into action, seperating the three men from her.
"What are you doing?!" the Doctor cried out. The girl was being stupid, suicidal. She had just effetivley trapped herself in a room in which four angry tharl were about to gain access to; the crack in the door was quickly turning into a rip that the creatures would soon burst through.
"Don't worry, I have a plan." She informed them, pushing buttons on another console.
"Get out of there! Turn off the wall!" the Doctor cried, both angry and terrified for this stupid girl and the mess that she had got herself and her doting colleuges into. He reached into his pocket and grabbed his sonic screwdriver, turning it on the control pannel, desperatly trying to turn off the energy wall. Nothing happened.
"Don't bother, she has the whole place deadlocked." Sorrell told him quietly. The doctor lowered the sonic and looked out at the girl, his face wracked with despair and angst.
"I have a plan!" she assured him again.
A second later their time was up, as the creatures finally won their battle with the door. As the first one stepped through, time seemed to freeze; no body dared to breathe, not even the Doctor. He had never actually seen a tharl before, and their reputation was enough that he had never wanted to. The animal rezembled a sort of cross between the werewolf he had seen when visiting Queen Victoria, and the Lazarus creature he had defeated with the help of Martha. It was bald, with leathery brown skin, a long nose, a long tail, and incredably sharp teeth and claws. In short it was as terrifying as he had heard it was.
It walked towards the girl, and the Doctor knew that there was nothing that he could do...