Disclaimer: I in no way, shape, or form own the Doctor Who series and the characters therein.
A/N- I strongly suggest reading the first book, "My TARDIS", before starting the second installment of Series 1. Please favorite/follow the story and me. Reviews are strongly needed to insure a better experience for the reader.
Thanks for reading and enjoy!
Chapter Three- Lost in Translation
"Each step towards her pained him. Her smiling face only made the deed he was ready to commit more unjust. Nevertheless, he continued to walk forward until he stood face-to-face with his daughter."
The regular crowd of The Burning Rose was well into their usually drinking session until the front door busted open. Morpheus rushed past the assembled throng of armed crew members and towards the bar. One of the patrons, being a doctor, had already started clearing the counter. Wanting no part of the trouble, the rest of the space captains and crew ran out and back to their rigs.
"What happened to her," the doctor who called himself 'K' asked. Morpheus said nothing for a moment as he spread her on the table. K began applying a gel substance to the gaping wound in her lower abdomen. He stared at Morpheus intensely as he began spraying the wound with chemical mist.
"She just lost it." Morpheus told K, choosing his words cautiously. "I rescued her from a 50,000+ feet free fall off of a mining platform on New Petra only for her to attack me on my vessel. I tried to subdue her without force, but she activated the Alcubierre Drive right when I kicked her. The force of the transition sent her flying into an exposed metal pole."
K put the cap back on the spray. He was prepared to say something to Morpheus when he was interrupted. "We have company,' Greg the Ood said calmly as he threw a rifle to K. K took the rifle and handed it Morpheus. "I heal, not hurt," he told him, "I'll get her to my ship."
Minutes later, an Inquisitor with a seal-embossed holopad walked up to the counter. "Are you the leader of this establishment," the Inquisitor asked.
"Yes I am," Morpheus answered, "and what are you doing in my place of business?" The Inquisitor stayed silent and instead handed him the holopad.
"You make a good offer," Morpheus muttered as he skimmed over the contents of the pad, "but Galactic Law…"
"We are the law," the Inquisitor yelled as if the line was rehearsed millions of times over. "Stand aside, sir." The Inquisitorial troops raised their rifles; a high-pitched whining could be heard as each individual rifle powered up to fire.
Unbeknownst to them, Morpheus had silently thrust his laser screwdriver into his hand. With his fingers, he made adjustments on the o-ring type cylinders until he found the setting he wanted.
"Then by order of…" the Inquisitor rambled on just as Morpheus fired the screwdriver.
The other Inquisitors stood stunned as they watched the man in front of them age before their very eyes. The smoothness of his face was soon reduced to wrinkles; he literally began shrinking before their eyes. As they began firing, the lasers harmlessly reflected off the bar's shield generator.
"Who's next?" Morpheus yelled defiantly as the dust that had once been the man's skin fell to the floor.
As the last Inquisitor turned to ashes, Morpheus reluctantly rigged the Oblivion Continuum in the Burning Rose's power room to exploded as soon as he got off planet. He proceeded to program each of the robots in the establishment to take his gear and send it to his safe houses.
"Orion to Reaper," a voice blared over one of the headsets, "report!" Morpheus ignored the transmission as he tried to leave in the next five minutes until a familiar voice came through the speakers.
"Mayday…Mayday. This is Celestial177." Morpheus picked up the headset and connected it to his coat as readied to fight his way out. He picked up his own rifle and began returning fire as the doors opened.
"We're *static* in the *static* desert and require immediate *static* to repel *static*. Crew *static*. I repeat *static*. Code is 17 *static* Bravo Charlie Epsilon." The robotic voice soon broke into that of a female followed by the explosion of an unknown device.
A sonic whine stunned Morpheus as a blast destroyed the buildings behind him. In a dead sprint, he jumped over the side railings and into one of the Lazarus Enterprise hangars. Morpheus closed one of the doors behind him with his screwdriver and ran to meet K.
"We need to go to my laboratory," K began as he pushed the vessel containing Jenny into Morpheus's ship. "She's losing blood and who knows what at a faster rate than I expected. She'll need at least a full container of somatic nanobots to repair the…"
K was interrupted by a single laser that came from the ceiling. Picking up his doctor's bag, K loudly commented on the intrusion. "You Inquisitor dogs," he railed. "It's been a few years and you still don't listen." With his other hand, he pulled Morpheus inside and closed the door.
"You start-up the flight protocols while I take care of her," K said as the outside noises got louder. Morpheus had already begun strapping himself in.
"Ship Zero Two Niner, you do not have clearance to leave," Morpheus disregarded this message as an Inquisitor's face appeared on the screen. With all the lights green, Morpheus powered the ship down the launch rail. A host of Inquisitorial shuttles tried blocking the runway with liquid metal rails.
"Shields are going up doc," Morpheus yelled into his headset, "'cause it's about to get bumpy." The Enforcer Class cruiser smashed the barrier and continued past the landing bay doors. Swarms of Inquisitor drones descended upon the ships, trying to take it apart from the outside as they sped away from the planet.
The commotion made by the alarms and noises from the controls made Jenny break away from unconsciousness.
To her left was a man she didn't recognize shooting oddly shaped robots that had breached the hull. From the back window, Jenny a bright explosion of blue light seemed to illuminate all of space. She could feel herself and everything around suddenly move towards the light until the planet had completely disappeared into a pinpoint of energy…energy that came spilling forth from the hole.
"Brace for impact," Morpheus roared over the speakers as the blast from the Continuum released energy in all directions. Everything around Jenny slowed to a crawl as she watched the shockwave strike the side of the ship. In her last moments, the only word that came to her mind was "Doctor."
High above Victorian London, the clouds had once again darkened for the eleventh day in a row. The masses of people milling around the market were already accustomed to the dreary, rainy days of hopeless existence. The new Inspector did his best to keep crime down, though his past was unknown to even his superiors.
The Doctor could not remember when he had retreated back to Victorian London. Out of all time periods, this one had intrigued him the most. The main reason he liked London was because he was anonymous among the crowds; he blended in simply by being a justice of the peace. Yet, as with many of his isolation episodes, Madame Vastra tried to talk some sense into him.
"You can't continue to masquerade as someone you aren't," she told him as he stared off into the distance holding a cup of tea in his hand. He didn't acknowledge her remark. "Scotland Yard is getting ready to figure out that 'Inspector Smith' isn't real. I can't continue to hide your identity without destroying my own credibility."
"I done!" he yelled flinging the cup across the room. He got up and began stalking back and forth across the room, yelling. "I have lost everything…things that you could never…ever…comprehend! People have suffered and died at my hands! Their blood is on my hands…her blood Vastra, her blood!
Jenny, Vastra's assistant, quietly removed the shattered pieces of china off the floor. As she walked away, Vastra got up from her chair and slowly walked to the Doctor's side. "Her death wasn't your fault," she whispered to him as she put her hand on his shoulder. His breathing was calm, but only for a moment.
"Do you know whom these belong to?" he asked producing a pair of reading glasses from his pocket. Madam Vastra slowly took them from his hand and examined them. "These are her glasses."
"I watched her die in my arms, unable to do anything. I had to send her back to Rory on a bench." The Doctor, with shaking hands, put the glasses back into his pocket.
"Our decisions…" she began slowly, "make us who we are. They may be the toughest to make, but they shape us into the people we were meant to become. Time Lord or not, we all have a…"
"Did you hear that," the Doctor murmured, suddenly at his senses. He cocked his head towards the ceiling. "No, I didn't," she answered, " but as I was saying we all have a…"
"No, listen!" he shouted, "I hear a voice." He ran over to one of the exits and walked outside. Jenny handed Vastra an umbrella before they both stepped outside. In their garden, the Doctor stood still, staring up at the clouds. He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned his surrounding.
"Doctor," Jenny said slowly, "there is nothing out here. Now come back inside before the Mistress and I have to cure you of a cold."
Madame Vastra suddenly put her finger over Jenny's lips. A quiet rumbling could be heard. One moment the Doctor was standing still in front of them with his hands on his sides...the next he was blown to the ground as all the glass on the property exploded.
"Are we being invaded?" Strax yelled as he came running with rife in hand. Jenny ran over to Strax while Vastra checked on the Doctor.
"Doctor, what happened?" Vastra hefted the Doctor up to his feet. She paused when she saw he had a shocked look on her face.
"I heard my name," he whispered quietly. "That voice…it's unmistakable." Vastra got in front of the Doctor's face. "Who was it?"
"It was my daughter," he uttered. "I've got to save her." He politely moved Vastra aside and made his way down the street.
"What…why…come back here!" Vastra shouted. The Doctor turned on his heel and walked back to her. "I have to save her because of this," he said revealing his psychic paper. "I did this to her," he explained to Vastra pointing at the thousands of lines of text and diagrams disappearing and reappearing on the paper. "I had no choice then, but now I can undo it. Goodbye Madame Vastra." He tipped his hat off to her and disappeared into the night fog.
Vastra stood in the street for a moment. "Good luck Doctor," she whispered looking up at clearing crowds.