Hello. Sorry its been so long, started new school and every thing. Hope this chapter is good. I've tried to make it longer because I don't want this story to get too long. Anyway Enjoy!!
Rose's POV
Just our luck. We land in a space base that has writing beyond the knowledge of the TARDIS with strange looking aliens and people that can't believe we have landed here. It strange really this is my first trip as a Timelady but really I don't feel that different. I still have the same amount of knowledge that I had when I was human. I guess that would grow when I learnt more about the universe. We stood in the control room with everyone staring at us intently. I felt like I was in some sort of museum and we seemed to be the main exhibit. I introduced us to the crew and instead of being welcomed we were thrown about in an earthquake. The captain didn't even ask us if we were alright. The crew started rattling stats off about gravity and oxygen.
"Surface caved in. I deflected it onto storage 5 though 8. We've lost it completely." It seemed to me that that was the extent of the damage done by the quake.
The roof shook. I was more concerned about the weather outside.
"Never mind the earthquake, that's… that's one hell of a storm. What is that, a hurricane?" The Doctor and I looked up worried.
The youngest woman replied shaking her head. "You need atmosphere for a hurricane. There's no air out there. It's a complete vacuum." What the hell!?
"Then what's shaking the roof?" I must be going insane. The older looking woman stared at us.
"You're not joking, you really don't know." Our faces must have told her what she wanted. "Well introductions. FYI as they said in the olden days. I'm Ida Scott, science officer." She indicated to the man sitting at the controls. "Zachary Cross Flane, Acting Captain, sir." He nodded. "You've met Mr Jefferson, he's head of security." He was the grey haired man who had found us before. "Danny Bartock, ethics committee."
"Not as boring as it sounds." I smiled at Danny. He was kind of cute.
Ida continued her introductions. "And that man who just left that was Toby Zed archaeology and this…" she walked over to the young girl. "Is Scooti Manista, trainee Maintenance. And this…" Ida wandered over to a control panel on the wall. She pulled the leaver down. "This is home."
"Brace yourselves. The sight of it sends some people mad." I gave a half smile to Zack as the roof opened up and I couldn't help think of all those sci-fi shows we had back home. This seemed just like them only a little more run down. No way! It couldn't be! I'd seen this in the encyclopaedia I was reading before.
"That's a black hole." Despite the situation I could help feeling a little proud that I knew what it was. The Doctor wasn't really interested.
"But that's impossible."
"I did warn you." That was almost as bad as saying I told you so.
"We're standing under a black hole." The Doctor couldn't believe it any more than I could. Ida seemed to be the person who knew the most or was willing to tell us what we wanted to know.
"In orbit." She told us. That's not possible.
The Doctor seemed to have the same opinion. "We can't be."
"You can see for yourself, we're in orbit." Even though she continued to defy the Doctor I was beginning to like this Ida person.
"But we can't be."
"This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole without falling in." Those were some long words.
"And that's bad yeah?" I hadn't had time to read much about black holes so I needed the Doctor to fill me in. Also I just liked to know how much danger we were in.
"Bad doesn't cover it. A black hole's a dead star. It collapses in on itself, in and in and in, until the matter's so dense and tight, it starts to pull everything else in too. Nothing in the universe can escape it. Light gravity time, everything just gets pulled inside and crushed." He turned to look back up at the black hole.
"So they can't be in orbit. We should be pulled right in." This was strange beyond my wildest dreams.
"We should be dead." Great thanks Doctor that put a real cheer in the place.
"Yet here we are. Beyond the laws of physics. Welcome on board." Ida almost seemed proud to be able to tell us all she knew about the star.
"If there's no atmosphere out there then whats that?" I love asking all the basic questions.
"Stars braking up. Gas clouds. We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above out heads, before falling into that thing."
"So a bit worse then a storm then?"
Ida gave me a grim smile. "Just a bit."
I nodded. "Just a bit yeah." The base shook as the Doctor and I continued to stare up at the hole.
"Here have a look at this." We both turned to see Zack fiddling with the controls and an image of the black hole appeared. The Doctor put his 'brainy specks' on and leaned forward to get a closer look. I smiled inwardly knowing that he never needed those glasses, he just believed they made him look smarter. I have to say he did look cute with them on. It seemed the whole crew had gathered around to give us information.
Zack spoke first. "That's the black hole, officially designated K37 Gem 5."
"In the scriptures of the Veltino, this planet is called Krop Tor, the bitter pill. And the black hole is supposed to be a mighty demon that was tricked into devouring the planet only to spit it out because it was poison." Ida seemed to have the most information about this place, I guess that's why she was the scientist.
"The bitter pill, I like that." I was having fun despite the fact that we could die any second. The name had a nice ring to it.
"We're so far out." The Doctor sounded like he was in awe. "Lost in the drifts of the universe. How'd you even get here?"
"We flew in. You see…" Zack change the screen to show an image of the planet with a light funnel heading away. "This planet is generating a gravity felid. We don't know how, we've got no idea, but it's kept in constant balance against the black hole. And the field extends out there as a funnel a distinct gravity funnel reaching out into clear space. That was our way in."
My eyes widened in surprise. "You flew down that thing? Like a rollercoaster." I smiled, that was brilliant.
Zack didn't seem to see my amazement. "By rights, the ship should've been torn apart. We lost the captain which is what put me in charge." He didn't seem to think he was doing a good job. Danny and Scooti joined the discussion.
"But if that gravity funnel closes, there's no way out."
Scooti gave a sarcastic remark. "Yeah we have fun speculating about that."
"Oh yeah. That's the word, 'fun.'" Danny didn't seem too happy about the prospect of falling into a black hole and I couldn't blame him.
"But that field would take phenomenal amounts of power, I mean, not just big but off the scale." The Doctor was talking to himself now. He noticed that Ida had a calculator thing. "Can I…?" She gave it to him and I knew that he was doing things way beyond my knowledge. He would call when he needed me.
I wandered around the room thinking about all the information I had just gained. I was amazed that my brain could recall each conversation word for word. If only I had this brain when I was at school, I would have been top of the class. One of the alien things approached me.
"Your refreshment." He said holding out a small white cup. I'd forgotten I'd ordered something.
"Oh yeah thanks. Thank you." The Ood turned to go. "I'm sorry, what was your name?"
The thing held out the white ball in his hand. It flashed as he talked. "We have no titles. We are as one." Alright I can swing with that but surely they have some kind of name. I turned to Danny who was the closest to me.
"Erm, what are they called?"
"Oh come on, where have you been living. Everyone's got one."
"Well not me. So what are they?" I hated it when people just assumed you knew what everything was.
"They're the Ood."
My eyebrows rose. "The Ood?" Danny nodded. "Well that's Ood." I won't deny it, I was flirting with him. Something about him made him very easy to talk to.
"Very Ood. But handy. They work the mine shaft, all the drilling and stuff, supervision and maintenance. They're born for it. Basic slave race."
I stopped flirting. "You've got slaves?"
Scooti joined in. "Oh don't start. She's like on of that lot. 'Friends of the Ood.'" I was offended.
"Yeah, well maybe I am. Since when did humans need slaves?"
Danny tried to save the conversation and my opinion of him. "But the Ood offer themselves. If you don't give them orders they just pine away and die."
This was new. I'd never heard of slaves who wanted to be slaves. Maybe it was something the humans made up. An Ood passed and I stopped it.
"Seriously? You like being ordered about?"
"It is all we crave." Something must be up.
"Why is that then?"
"We have nothing else in life."
"Yeah well I used to think like that. Long time ago." And it has been a long time since I thought my life was worthless. For a long time it wasn't anything important even with the Doctor, it was exciting but not very important. Now I'm one of the only Timelords in existence and that is something very important.
Suddenly the Doctor jumped to his feet. "There we go. Do you see? To generate that gravity field and the funnel, you'd need a power source with an inverted self-extrapolating reflex of 6 to the power of 6 every 6 seconds."
I walked over to him. "That's a lot of sixes." Back home three sixes meant the devil but that couldn't be it.
"And that's impossible." The Doctor placed the calculator on the control desk as the crew looked at him in disbelief.
"It took us two years to work that out." Zack was amazed that he had managed to work that out in 10 minutes.
"I'm very good." For the Doctor that was being modest. I've heard him call himself a genius.
The crew began talking about the readings they had gathered from the funnel. They believed they could revolutionise modern science and fuel the empire or as the Doctor put it, start a war. It turns out that the writing on the wall in Hab 3 was done by Toby who copied it from things they had found in the drilling. It turns out he couldn't translate it either. The language that defies translation.
"So when it comes right down to it, why did you come here? Why did you do that? Why? I'll tell you why. Because it was there, brilliant." The Doctor was beaming from ear to ear. It made me smile to see him this happy. I had a vague feeling about what he was going to do. "Excuse me Zack, wasn't it?"
"That's me."
"Just stand there because I'm gonna hug you. Is that all right?" I couldn't believe the Doctor sometimes. He had to be the craziest man alive. Zack agreed.
"Here we go. Coming in." The Doctor gave Zack a hug. "Human beings. You are amazing. Ha!" He released Zack. "Thank you."
Zack didn't seem to mind at all. "Not at all."
"But apart from that, you're completely mad. You should pack your bags get back on that ship and fly for your lives." Yes there I could agree with the Doctor. I was kind of hoping that's what we would do soon. Well as soon as we had found out what was generating the power source.
Ida looked surprised. "You can talk. How the hell did you get here?" The Doctor stepped back so we were shoulder to shoulder.
"Oh well I've got this… this ship… It's had to explain, it just sort of appears." The Doctor looked at me. It was a slightly awkward moment.
"We can show you we parked down the corridor from…. What was it called? Habitation area 3?" I don't know if I was allowed to say that they could see it but the Doctor didn't interrupt so I think I was all good.
Zack looked concerned. "You mean storage 6?"
"Well it was a bit of a cupboard yeah. Storage 6 but you said… storage 5 to 8…" the Doctor suddenly turned on his heels and ran out the door. I followed without a second thought.
"What is it? Doctor, what's wrong?" he wouldn't answer me but we retraced our steps back to the TARDIS. The Doctor tried to open the last door. This door is out of commission. What? The Doctor looked through the small window in the door.
"What's wrong? What is it? Doctor the TARDIS is in there. What happened?"
He turned slowly to me. "The TARDIS is gone. The earthquake, this section collapsed."
I couldn't, wouldn't believe his words so I had a look myself. "But its got to be out there somewhere."
"Look down." I looked. There was nothing but a great big hole. Nothing was left. Everything was gone. The Doctor was right, the TARDIS had gone.
"It didn't fall into the black hole did it Doctor?" I turned back to look at the Doctor. His face was grim. Slowly he shook his head.
"No, the TARDIS is programmed to lock onto the nearest gravitation which happens to be this planet. If we're lucky it's fallen to the heart of the planet." I looked back outside. At least there was a possibility that we would get home after all.
We made our way back to the control room. The crew wouldn't look at us in the eye; it was like they were ashamed of what had happened. I wanted to blame them for everything but I knew it wasn't there fault. The Doctor walked straight up to Zack who was moving around the controls not looking at the Doctor.
"The ground gave way. My Tardis must have fallen down into the heart of the planet. You've got robot drilling heading the same way."
"We can't divert the drilling."
The Doctor followed Zack around the controls. "But I need my ship. It's all I've got. Literally the only thing." I wanted to tell him that it wasn't the only thing he had left, he had me but now wasn't the time to say it. He was pleading so I knew it was serious. He hardly ever pleaded and if the situation wasn't that bad I would've joked with him about it. Zack finally turned to look at the Doctor.
"Doctor, we've only got the resources to dig one central shaft down to the power source and that's it. No diversions, no distractions, no exceptions. Your machine is lost. All I can do it offer you a lit if we ever get to leave this place and that is the end of it." He left the room. Ida was following him.
"I'll put you on the duty roster. We need someone in the laundry." Great, I wasn't keen to do laundry. It was just us left in the control room. The Doctor turned to me.
"I've trapped you here." He looked so sad.
"Na, don't worry about me." I was trying to be carefree but the base shook. "Okay we're on a planet that shouldn't exist underneath a black hole with no way out. Yeah I've changed my mind start worrying about me." The Doctor opened his arms and I stepped forward into them automatically. I felt him kiss the top of my head. I wouldn't let this situation get me down. We have been in more difficult situations than this and still lived to tell the tale. This would be no different. The Doctor would get us out, I hoped.
We found ourselves in Habitation 3 again. I had tired some food they offered that was served by the Ood. One said something very strange to me but I ignored it. I was sitting with the Doctor at one of the tables. He was busying studying the letters he had copied down from the wall as if they would magically translate for him. I was beginning to get a little worried about the letters though I had no idea why. Suddenly the base shakes and Ida brings her wrist to her mouth. She had a communication device on it.
"Zack, we got a problem?" She sounded worried.
I heard Zack's voice through the comms. "No more than usual. Got the Scarlet System burning up, might be worth a look." Ida turned her comm off and turned to us.
"You might want to see this. Moment in history." I watched as she made her way over to the wall and pull down a leaver like the one in the control room. Above the roof opened up again and there was the black hole. It wasn't like we could forget about it but it was a little more frightening when you saw it. Around it was a bright red cloud that was twisting its way inside the black hole. "There on the edge. That red cloud, that used to be the scarlet system. Home to the Paullshi, a mighty civilisation spanning a billion years, disappearing forever. Their planets and suns consumed. Ladies and gentleman we have witnessed its passing." We all sat in silence for a few moments as we watched it disappear into the hole. I felt so small watching it go; one person is so insignificant compared with a whole civilisation. Ida moved to pull the leaver again to close the roof.
"No could you leave it open? Just for a bit. I won't go mad I promise." Ida looked at the Doctor surprised.
"How will you know?" He gave a half laugh but didn't say anything. Ida turned to the rest of the crew giving them orders to carry out. "Check the lockdown, Jefferson sign off the airlock seals for me." Once again the crew left us alone. They had a good idea of when we wanted to be left alone. It was like they were able to monitor our moods and ideas. I looked up at the black hole again. It cast a orange glow to the room.
"I've seen films and things yeah? They say that black holes are gateways to another universe." This was my knowledge on black holes apart from the things the Doctor said. I hoped that maybe the films had got something right and if we did happen to fall through it wouldn't be the end of the world. The Doctor shattered that hope.
"Not that one. It just eats." This was not good at all. I suddenly thought of mum and the earth wondering whether I would ever see them again.
"A long way from home." The Doctor looked at me sympathetically. He tried to brighten the mood.
"Go that way; turn right, keep going for, erm… about 500 years and you'll reach the earth." It wasn't working. I pulled out my cell my thoughts on mum.
"No signal. That's the first time we've gone out of range. Mind you even if I could….what would I tell her?" I paused as a thought popped into my head. I put on a fake smile that was my shimmer of hope. "Can you build another TARDIS?"
The Doctor looked down. "They were grown not built. And with my home planet gone, we're kind of stuck." It was my turn to try and brighten the mood.
"Well it could be worse. This lot said they'd give us a lift."
"And then what?"
"I don't know. Find a planet. Get a job. You live your life same as the rest of the universe." That was the best I could come up with. The Doctor always asked the difficult questions.
"I'd have to settle down." We were getting somewhere. "Get a house or something. A proper house with…doors and thins. Carpets. Me, living in a house!" I laughed as I imagined him confined to a small house. The thought of him actually living inside a house was hilarious. "now that… that… that is terrifying." I have to agree that did sound pretty terrifying.
"You'd have to get a mortgage." That would set him over the egged.
"No."
I was grinning from ear to ear now. "Oh yes." He shook his head.
"I'm dying. That's it I'm dying. It's all over." Now he didn't have to be that dramatic.
"What about me? I'd have to get one too. I don't know, could be the same one. We could both…I don't know, share." He didn't say anything but pulled his gaze to the table. "Or not. Whatever. I don't know. All sorts of…"
"Anyway."
"We'll see." That was our first awkward moment in a long time. I wonder what was wrong with him. I was all keen to share a house with him but I guess it still hurt that the TARDIS was gone. I stared back up at the black hole blaming it for all of this.
"I promised Jackie I would always take you home."
My hearts squeezed at the thought of mum. "Everyone leaves home in the end." The Doctor looked sad. "Not to end up stuck here."
"Yeah but stuck with you, that's not that bad."
"Yeah?" He was looking quite smug about the whole thing.
"Yes." I wasn't about to deny it though I would've loved to have wiped the smirk off his face. Suddenly my phone rang which was absurd because I didn't have any coverage. I answered a littler curious.
"He has awoken." The voice was deep and it scared the living daylights out of me. I chucked the phone to the floor while the Doctor looked at me confused. I told him about what the Ood had told me and what the voice had said. Immediately he was concerned and we left to find the Ood habitation.
Doctor's POV
The things Rose had told me worried me a little. Something was defiantly fishy and I had felt that way since we had stepped out of the TARDIS. We made our way to the Ood habitation. Rose followed me as we jumped down the stairs which lead into the habitation. Danny was at the controls.
"Evening."
"Only us." We were always polite where ever we went.
Danny looked at us surprised. He greeted but I just went straight to the point. I wanted to know how the Ood communicated with each other.
"Oh, just empaths. There's a low-level telepathic field connecting them. Not that that does then much good. They're basically a herd race, like cattle." Danny seemed like a good guy, answered questions fully.
"This telepathic field, can it pick up messages?"
Rose began to tell Danny about her cell phone and the Ood at dinner. "Cause I was having dinner and one of the Ood said something…well odd." Danny thought this was quite amusing. "And then I got something else on my…" Rose looked at me; she was wondering what to call her cell phone. I nodded my head a little to keep her continuing. "communicator thing." I guess that's one way of putting it.
Danny seemed a little annoyed. "Well be fair. We've got whole star systems burning up around us, there's all sorts of stray transmissions. Probably nothing. Look if there was something wrong, it would show. We monitor the telepathic field. It's the only way to look after them. They're so stupid. They don't even tell us when they're ill."
"Monitor the field that's this thing." I moved over to the computer desk to check out the stats.
"Yeah. But like I said, low-level telepathy. They only register Basic 5."
Danny was wrong. "Well that's not Basic 5." I watched the numbers increase. "10, 20. They've gone up to Basic 30."
"But they can't." Rose was looking down at the Ood.
"Doctor the Ood." I moved over to Rose. The Ood were all standing up in lines staring at us. Not moving just staring at us. Rose turned to Danny. "What does Basic 30 mean?" Danny was flustered.
"Well it means that they're shouting, screaming inside their heads."
"Or something is shouting at them."
Danny turned to Rose. "What did it say to you? On your communicator?"
Rose was quiet. "He is awake."
"And you will worship him." The Ood had all spoken together in unison. It scared the living day lights out of me but I didn't show it. Danny wasn't as experienced at controlling his emotions.
"What the hell?" what happened if I said it again?
"He is awake."
The Ood replied as they did before, all in unison.
"Worship who? Who is it? Who's talking to you?" The Ood said nothing more but they all sat down again and looked quite peaceful. We watched them in silence for a few moments. They didn't move at all.
"I'm going to down to inspect them." I wanted to find the source of the problem. Danny looked at me as if I had just told him I loved him. "You can't be serious. What if something happens?!"
"Nothing will happen. Trust me I can look after myself. Coming Rose?" I made my way down the stairs with Rose following me. We sat in front of each Ood but they didn't move. We asked them questions but they wouldn't answer. It was if they had all gone to sleep. The base started shaking violently.
Emergency hull breach. Emergency hull breach.
Danny was screaming into the comms. "Which section!?" I heard Zack's voice as Rose and I ran back up the stairs.
"Everyone evacuate 11 to 13. We've got a breach. The base is open. Repeat the base is open." That was us. The three of us ran like mad. We met up with the others. Toby looked exhausted and the others were out of breath.
"What happened? What was it?" it was Jefferson who answered me.
"Hull breach. We were open to the elements. Another couple of minutes and we'd have been inspecting that black hole at close quarters." Something wasn't right here.
"But that wasn't a quake. What caused it?" No one answered me because Zack called over the comms.
"We've lost sections 11 to 13. Everyone alright?"
Jefferson reported back to the captain. Everyone was here except for the young one, Scooti. I had a bad feeling about her missing that I didn't want to confront. Zack said he had found her biochip in Habitation 3. The rest of the crew made their way to Habitation 3 while Rose moved next to Toby. I crouched down in front of him.
"What happened?"
Toby was breathing fast. "I don't know, I was working and then I can't remember. All the noise. The room was falling apart. There was no air." I could see that I wasn't going to get anything out of him that would make much sense. Rose could sense that too. She heaved Toby off the floor.
"Come on, up you get. Come and have some protein one." My eyebrows lifted at Rose's words.
"You've gone native."
"Oh don't knock it, it's nice. Protein one with just a dash of three." I smiled at Rose's words. Only she would be able to see something good in a situation like this.
We made our way to Habitation 3 where everyone else was. It seemed that my feeling about Scooti had been confirmed. She was still missing. Zack was insistent that her biochip said she was in Habitation 3 but there was no sign of her. Something pulled my gaze skywards and I wished that I hadn't looked.
"I've found her." Everyone followed my gaze and gasped. Scooti was floating in space heading towards the black hole. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I wish there was more that I could do than just say I'm sorry but there was nothing I could do. Jefferson spoke to Zack over the comms.
"Captain, report Officer Scootori Manista, PKD, deceased. 43K 2.1."
Ida moved towards the leaver. "She was 20. 20 years old." She pulled the leaver down and roof closed blocking our view of the black hole and Scooti floating towards it.
Jefferson began quoting something. I can't quite remember what it was. "For how should man die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his father, and the temple of his Gods?" I turned to him. I was about to say that that wasn't possible the best words for the moment but the ground beneath us stilled. It seemed deathly quite. Rose moved over towards me.
"What was that?"
"The drill." Everyone looked amazed.
"We've stopped drilling. We've made it. Point zero." Now things would get interesting because what ever was going on in the space ship had something to do with what was down there. This was only just the beginning.
So what did you think? Please review and i will try to update faster this time. Might change the end of this episode a little just because i can. YOu will have to wait and see.
xox