AN: YOU GUYS GOT A DOUBLE UPDATE TODAY SINCE I MANAGED TO FORGET TO POST LAST WEEK! I hope you had a good Valentine's Day! Many important things in this chapter...
Rachel found a window. At first, she walked right past it, but once she realized what it was, she wouldn't move away.
"Rachel! Let me see!" Kat screeched, jumping up and down. She couldn't see over Rachel.
Numbly, Rachel moved away from the window, her mouth agape. Kat stepped forward, as did Dr. Rosen. Kat gasped.
"It's...it's beautiful!" She breathed.
"This is amazing!" Dr. Rosen said, awestruck.
Through the window they could see billions of stars surrounded by a blue and green gaseous cloud. Bits of yellow poked through in some places and to the right, a huge green planet floated. Kat could make out mountain ranges and huge rivers.
"Guys, move, I want to see!" Bill grumbled. "Oh...wow..." He was struck dumb from the sight. He had seen pictures of outer space from the Hubble telescope, but they didn't compare to the real thing.
"Where are we, Doctor?" Clara asked quietly.
"Um..." The Doctor peaked through a small gap made from Kat, Dr. Rosen, and Bill's craning heads. "I'd say somewhere in Delta Quadrant Five. Which would make that planet there, The Sixth Assembly of Codroc of Nebula Eleven. Most people just call it Codroc, though. If you go that way," the Doctor pointed behind him. "And keep going for eleven light years, you'll reach Earth. Actually, what's left of Earth, because it exploded about a thousand years ago. That's what the green and blue gases are, the very last remnants of Earth."
They all stood there in silence, pontificating the universe. Suddenly, Kat frowned.
"Did you say that the Earth exploded a thousand years ago?" Kat cried. "How is that possible? The Earth is still there! We were just on it! I can even see it, just down the hallway!"
Clara coughed, trying to cover up her laughter. She knew what was going to be said next.
"Oh, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, spacey-wacey! It's very difficult to understand, even for a Time Lord! You see, most people think time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually-" the Doctor was about to launch into a long speech about time and how it's a big ball of stuff, but Clara stopped him.
"Don't we need to find Gary and Hicks and Nina? Wouldn't you say that's more important than learning about how time works?" Clara said.
"Excellent point, Clara! Geronimo!" They slowly marched forward, reluctant to leave the new world outside of the window.
Kat lingered behind the rest, and was surprised when she saw something streak towards Codroc and create a huge explosion on the planet. It had appeared to have come from the spaceship they were on. Shrugging it off as some strange phenomena common to this area, she joined the rest of the group.
They passed several more windows, but didn't stop to look. Finding their missing members was more important. Suddenly, the hallway was full of different doors. Before the walls had been bare of anything except windows.
"Should we try one?" Rachel asked. "There's no way to know which door Hector took Gary through. Or that alien that I saw."
"I don't think it was any of the ones down here. Hector wasn't that muscular, he wouldn't have been able to drag Gary all the way here without us catching up. I suspect there was a hidden isomorphic door that he went through. I also think that Hector can change his form and that he's actually one of the aliens that inhabit Codroc and run this ship." The Doctor mused.
"Why didn't you tell us that before?" Asked Bill, outraged. "You could have broken the iso-whatever controls again and gotten Gary!"
"And have all of us walk into a trap? I know one when I see one, and I saw one." The Doctor retorted.
"We could have used out Alpha abilities! You aren't the only one with fancy powers, you know!" Kat said, also annoyed that the Doctor hadn't told them about Gary.
"But you know nothing about aliens! What you do if there was...Vashta Nerada behind that door? Or Slitheen? How about Weeping Angels? Or worse yet, Daleks! I'm not trying to offend you, I'm just stating the truth." The Doctor said sharply. Sometimes humans frustrated him so much.
Kat fell silent, still fuming, as did Bill. Clara decided to take over as tour guide before a fight broke out.
"Behind door one, we have..." She gestured to the door and opened it, which required putting her hand on a semi-sphere that had little electrical sparks moving around on the inside. Kat momentarily forgot her anger and stared in awe as the door swung inward and revealed a room full of what looked like medical equipment.
The group shuffled inside. The Doctor immediately took charge again. "Don't touch anything sharp or that looks like it could move. Or anything that's colorful or any liquids. We don't know what they do."
"Wow, you managed to describe everything in the room. Except for this," Kat held up a wicked looking black gun. "This isn't sharp, colorful, a liquid, and I don't see any moving parts."
The Doctor's eyes widened. "Put that down! Okay, new rule. Don't touch ANYTHING!" He took out his sonic screwdriver and started scanning everything.
As the Doctor was sonicking everything in sight and the Alpha team were casually observing, Clara noticed a computer on the wall. Being a computer genius, she decided to find out some information about the aliens whose ship they were on. Or, she wanted to show off her computer skills to the Doctor. Probably a mixture of both, she thought.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Clara move to the computer. He smiled. He was really glad she was here with him. He didn't know how he would handle these stubborn humans without her. She really was brilliant. And pretty. And a Time Lady. Making an effort to keep a straight face, the Doctor tried very hard to concentrate on the job at hand and not Clara's wavy brown hair.
Rachel was busy looking deeply at everything. Upon inspection of a lethal-looking surgical instrument similar to a bone saw, she found something of interest. "Doctor, come look at this," she called.
The Doctor hurried over to where Rachel was standing, by a white counter top expertly organized with surgical tool of all shapes and sizes, which fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
"What did you find?" He asked. Rachel's ability was the only one that seemed helpful to him. Sure, it would be handy to learn things on the spot, but everything can be learned if given enough time, and the Doctor had plenty. And being able to force people into doing things by just speaking to them? Useless! Persuasion works every time! Except those few times when it doesn't, and things go horribly wrong. Plus, who needs super strength or hyperkinesis anyway?
"There's a logo or something scratched into this tool," she said, pointing to a spot on its otherwise smooth chrome surface.
"What does it look like? I can't see what your pointing at, it's too small," the Doctor said.
"It's like...a circle that doesn't close all the way, with a symbol that's similar to a peace sign, with more lines coming out of the middle inside. There's one big line cutting through all of that." Rachel said, standing up straight again. She had had to bend over to see the logo.
The Doctor frowned. "That sounds like the Ardivvik Sign. But the Ardives can't be here, can they?"
"The what sign?" Rachel asked.
Right then, Clara came running over. "Doctor! I was just looking at that computer! This ship belongs to the-"
"Ardives, yes, I know." The Doctor finished for her.
Clara's face fell slightly. "I also learned that they have a medical room with three non-Ardivvic patients! They're human."
"Nina, Hicks, and Gary!" Rachel cried. "But what are Ardives?"
"They're an alien race from one of Codroc's sister planets, Nathea. They're on good terms with the Codroccians, but they don't often sit in orbit around each other's planets. Oh..." The Doctor paused.
"What?" Clara asked.
"This is the year Seventy-Six Slash Apple Slash Twenty-Three Point Four. A thousand years after the Earth explodes." The Doctor said quietly.
"Doctor, you told us that already." Rachel said.
The Doctor exhaled loudly. "This is the year that the Tunect War began. The second bloodiest war in history, after the Time War. It happened between the Ardives, the Codroccians, and the Lodnads, who live on the the other sister planet, Shorrin."
"What do the Ardives have to do with the Cybermen and Stanton Parish?" Rachel asked.
"The Ardives are trying to get ahead in a war that they lose." The Doctor said grimly.
AN: I made up anything you don't recognize from Doctor Who or Alphas (namely the new alien races and their home planets). I also made up the year that came a thousand years after the Earth exploded. I hope the part where Bill and Kat got mad at the Doctor was okay, I didn't know if that seemed realistic. And I hope you use your imaginations to picture the Ardivvic symbol. More to come next Saturday!