"You didn't have to do that," the Doctor said.
"Hey, all you said was, 'If I tell you to, find a way to get everyone standing together'. You didn't give me any directions so I took my own initiative."
"Well you certainly had them convinced," he said, nodding over towards Robert and Sanders, both of whom looked stunned.
"Where are we?" Robert asked.
"On board the TARDIS," the Doctor replied. "It's time we all took a fresh look at things, don't you think?"
"The TARDIS?" Robert asked, confused. "You said that blue thing was the TARDIS."
"Yeah, it is," the Doctor told him.
"No, but, we're on a ship. You... transmatted us or something."
"No transmat here. That didn't become standard until the Type 100."
"That doesn't make any sense," Robert said. "We were right there in the lounge, and then we were here. Where did you-"
Suddenly, he was silent, sensing something behind him. He turned to the crowd of people they'd taken out of the would-be prison. There was a soft, quiet shuffling in the group and then a small body pushed its way through the forest of legs that were standing around in a circle next to the console. "Dad?"
Robert's eyes went wide and he knelt down, closer to eye level with the boy. "Shek?" he asked, disbelieving.
The boy ran to his father. "Dad!"
Robert scooped him up into a hug. "I missed you, I missed you so much," he said, burying his nose in the boy's hair and holding him close to his chest, like he would never let him go again as long as he lived. "I missed you so, so much son," he said. The rest of the people, the console room, everything else may as well not have been there as far as they were concerned. Quinn looked away from the reunion, trying not to let anyone see the tear it brought to her eye, and she unconsciously placed a hand on her stomach as she cursed her damn hormones making her soft. The Doctor noticed, though, always the perceptive sort, and he gave her a quick, encouraging smile. Then as if he hadn't moved at all he looked back to the King's right hand man. Sanders was less impressed with the situation he found himself in - facing down a mob of people he'd imprisoned, the cast and crew of the propaganda-laced play who were starting to think that they could get the upper hand in the situation - and truth be told, they would probably be right - and the Doctor. The Doctor, who was glaring at him.
"So what's the plan now, Doctor?" Sanders said. "You freed the prisoners, giving almost no regard to the safety of the citizens here. I told you people would die and you don't seem to believe me. What do I have to do to prove it to you?"
"I think it's time for a new perspective on the matter," the Doctor said. "So I'm taking us up."
Sanders hadn't seemed to take this whole situation seriously any of the time that he'd been here. He had a wisecrack for everything, as if he was trying to remind everyone else that he didn't have to expend the mental effort to even rebut their arguments. He was in charge, he was powerful, and he was to be feared wherever he went. But now his veneer of calm, smug confidence cracked. "You're taking us... up?"
"That's right," the Doctor said, "up. I'm sure you've heard of it. Opposite of down? Ringing any bells?"
Sanders seemed to tense, but then he relaxed and his smile returned. "You wouldn't do that, though," he said. "You've seen the shield generator. You know how strong it is. You take this ship up there, it'll collide with the shield and kill everyone inside."
The crowd standing next to the console started to whisper and murmur at the mention of this. Quinn rolled her eyes. She was tired of having an audience for everything today.
"If we were going straight up, sure," the Doctor said. "That shield's nearly impenitrable from either direction. We'd barely have a chance to break through. But I think a shortcut is in order."
"Shortcut?"
"That's the beauty of traveling TARDIS airways," he said. "It disappears here and reappears there, without all that tedious mucking about in the ionosphere. When I say we're going up, I mean right up to the top. Outside the influence of the shield."
Sanders face paled, and for once, he seemed to be completely serious when he said, "No! Doctor, no, you can't!"
"I'm pretty sure I can," the Doctor said. "Not pretty sure, actually. Actually sure. I am definitely 100% positively sure. I got in, didn't I?"
"Okay, alright, okay," Sanders said. "You can. But you shouldn't."
"Why not? Afraid of me getting a glimpse of what's out there, of what life is like beyond this little planet?"
"No, it's not that, it-"
"No, it's not, is it? No, you're afraid I'll figure out the frequency, neutralize the shield completely from orbit. And do you know, I just might? Your planet is a prison, Telbok, and you and the king are its jailers. Maybe I'll just set the captives free... after all, the real psychos are already running the asylum."
"Don't do it, Doctor, please," Sanders said.
"It's a bit late for that," the Doctor replied. "I think it's time to show you what freedom is all about. You might be surprised."
"If you take this ship up there, you'll be the one to get a surprise!" Sanders exclaimed. "And it won't be a good one!"
"Too late," the Doctor said, throwing a switch. "We've arrived."
The central column stopped moving, and the grinding noise stopped, leaving it eerily quiet in the console room. Quinn could almost hear her own heart beating, that's now palpable the tension was in the room. The members of the theater company seemed overwhelmed with a sense of freedom and openness, their families not only getting to have them back but also getting further away from the solid ground of their planet - the only thing they'd ever known - than they'd ever been before.
There was almost a minute of pure silence as they all stood there, most of them breathing the whole sensation and situation in so as not to lose the memory, and Telbok Sanders standing there looking like he was waiting to die.
"There, you see?" the Doctor said. "Nobody's started a riot or tried to overthrow you or anything like that," the Doctor said. "Why, it's almost as if you can let people be themselves and they don't turn into violent savages any-"
He was cut short as the TARDIS shook, slightly at first but then, a few moments later, more intensely. The whole floor pitched underneath them, and just as she was about to stumble, the Doctor reached an arm out and snagged Quinn around the shoulders, helping to make sure she wouldn't fall.
"Take us back down!" Sanders said as the Doctor made sure Quinn got to the seat in the console room. "We've got to get back inside the shield, please!"
"I don't understand," the Doctor said. "What's going on?"
"There isn't time to explain," Sanders yelled, and the TARDIS shook again, "just get us inside the bounds of that shield! Now!"
"I can't do that," the Doctor replied.
"Well if you don't, this ship will be torn to ribbons!" he said.
"The TARDIS?" he said as the ship shook and shuddered again. "Not likely..." but he didn't sound as certain as he might have been under any other circumstances.
"What's out there?" Quinn asked. "What are they?"
Sanders rolled his eyes. "If you won't believe me, I'll show you," he said, and running towards the doors, he pulled them wide open, leaving a view out into space. They could see the planet below them, and out there, above it, circling, were a huge number of tiny black specks. No, not specks, Quinn realized, looking at them more closely. They were moving, and they were very far away, but they seemed to be alive. Some were in packs, flying in formation, others, seemed to be lonewolves doing their own thing as they flitted about the blackness of space.
She, the Doctor, Robert - still cradling his son - and Josh approached the door, looking out into space at the creatures. "What are they?" the Doctor didn't answer Quinn's question, just stared at them, open-mouthed, like he was seeing an impossible thing beyond the doors. "Doctor?" she asked again. "What are they?"
"I'm not sure, I can't be certain at this range but..." The ship shuddered again, and one of the creatures flew over the top of the Police Box, presenting a close and unobstructed view of the creature. "No!" the Doctor said. "No, it can't be..."
"What is it? Robert was asking now, and his son looked out at the giant winged lizard and declared them 'cool!'.
"Vortisaurs!" the Doctor said.
"Vortiwhats?" Quinn asked.
"Vortisaurs. They're a native life form of the Time Vortex. I've had run-ins with them a few times."
"What do they want?"
"They don't want anything," he said. "They're just beasts. I used to have one during my days at the academy on Gallifrey. I've run into a couple of them since then."
"You don't look happy to see them," Quinn observed.
"They feed on time energy," the Doctor said. "They can smell it a light year away. I once lured one to me over the south of France just by letting it get a little sniff of my blood. A Time Lord is like a canapé to them. The TARDIS would be a five course meal."
"Then what have they been eating all these years?"
"Good question," the Doctor said. "They shouldn't even be able to survive this long in realspace. They should have died out quite some time ago if they were just living on a few meager scraps of temporal instability this place is serving up."
"Where's that one going?" Howard said, pointing.
"And that one," Joel continued. "That whole pack is going someplace."
"Worth taking a look," the Doctor said, and he turned back to the console. The TARDIS turned on its axis, the view through the doors sweeping across to a huge... hole. That was the best way Quinn could describe it. Like out in the blackness of space someone had slashed a giant hole in the sky, which the sun and clouds were peeking through. It was like a firestorm in space, which the creatures were pouring in and out of. The Doctor looked panic stricken. "It's a hole," he said. "It's like something punched a hole in the universe."
"What could do something like that?"
He shook his head. "Not even the Daleks could do something like that. The Time Lords could have but those kinds of secrets were kept in the Black Archives... nobody would know how to do it."
"Then how did it get here?"
The Doctor shook his head. "That wasn't the right phrase," the Doctor said. "It's more like a burst aneurism, right from the heart of time itself."