Notes: Sorry this took so long, but school has been very busy lately.
Chapter 9: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship: Part 2
The Doctor, along with River, Rory, and Brian all found themselves standing on a cold, grey beach.
"Find out... What?" the Doctor gasped as he realized that he was no longer staring at the computer screen he had been studying.
"We're outside. We're on a beach," Brian said, shocked once again to have been relocated so quickly.
"Teleport. Oh, I hate teleports. Must have activated on my voice," the Doctor cursed.
"Ah, yes, well, thank you, Arthur C Clarke. Teleport, obviously. I mean, we're on a spaceship with dinosaurs. Why wouldn't there be a teleport? In fact, why don't we just teleport now?" Brian responded mockingly.
"Is he all right?" the Doctor asked.
"No, he hates travelling. Makes him really anxious. He only goes to the paper shop and golf," Rory informed him
"What did you bring him for?" the Doctor wondered.
"I didn't! Why can't you just phone ahead like any normal person?" Rory shouted in exasperation.
"Dad, calm down. James and Rose will take care of this, they're still back where we came from," River assured her father.
"Somebody tell me where we are, now. Hang on, did she say, dad?" Brian demanded.
"Oh, not now," Rory grumbled.
The Doctor opened his mouth wide to taste the air and commented, "Well, it's not Earth. Doesn't taste right. Too metallic. And Rose and Jamie don't feel all that far away from us either."
"Is that a kestrel?" Brian asked, pointing to something flying nearby.
"I do hope so," the Doctor replied, though he had his doubts that it was anything so benign.
"The beach is humming," Rory told them.
"Is it? Oh yes. Right, well, don't just stand there, you three. Dig. I'm going to look at rocks. Love a rock," the Doctor instructed and walked up the beach towards a large rock formation nearby.
"Dig with what?" Rory shouted after him.
"Ah, well," Brian commented as he pulled a trowel out of his pocket. At the same time, River produced a similar object from her small (bigger on the inside) purse. Both of them began digging in the sand.
"Did you just have that on you?" Rory asked.
"Of course. What sort of man doesn't carry a trowel? Put it on your Christmas list," Brian told him.
"I'm an archeologist. What do you expect me to keep in my bag?" River added with a roll of her eyes.
"You could fit anything you like in that thing, River. Dad, for your information, I'm thirty one. I don't have a Christmas list any more," Rory responded grumpily.
"I do!" the Doctor shouted from nearby as he jumped up to talk to them.
Brian's trowel struck something metal and he cleared away enough sand to see that there was a flat surface beneath it all. "There's a floor under this beach!" he called out his discovery.
"Nice work, Brian!" River praised and contacted her husband, "I think we're still on the ship with you, just teleported to a different area."
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Rose and Jamie led the group through the ship, hoping to find another interface as the one that the Doctor had been working on, shorted out in a cloud of black smoke immediately after transporting the others away.
"Where are you?" Rose asked her husband, feeling that he was still relatively close.
"Working on it. Not quite sure yet," he answered, but was clearly distracted by trying to work out what had happened.
"There's clearly more than just two of these creatures," Riddell announced and took a drink from his hip flask.
"Hey, put that away. I need you sober," Amy ordered, clearly feeling like he was the one that could physically defend them for the moment.
"It's medicinal. And I don't take orders from females," Riddell answered, earning him an exasperated eye roll from Rose.
"Then learn. Any man who speaks to me that way, I execute," Nefertiti informed him haughtily.
"You're very welcome to try," Riddell responded with enough innuendo to put Jack to shame.
"Put a sock in it, Riddell," Rose snapped at him.
"Sorry, what was your name again?" Amy asked.
"Lady of the Two Lands, wife of the great King Amenhotep, Queen Nefertiti of Egypt," she replied.
"I'll be damned," Riddell whispered in awe as he stared at her.
"Oh, my god. Queen Nefertiti? I learned all about you at school. You're awesome. Big fan. High five. Yeah, bit behind on that. You're really famous," Amy gushed in a sudden fan-girl moment.
"Which somehow gives her the impression that it is acceptable to come onto my husband," Rose growled.
"The Doctor? What for?" Amy questioned, scrunching her face.
"Shush. Listen," Riddell interrupted. They all noticed the sound of heavy breathing from another dinosaur nearby and spotted a relatively small Tyrannosaurus sleeping nearby.
"Suddenly very glad that my wife is not here," James commented.
"Okay. At a guess, T Rex, not yet full size. We're in the middle of a dinosaur nest," Amy announced, pointing out the unhatched eggs surrounding them.
"Astute observations, Amy," James told her.
"I propose a retreat," Riddell suggested, until they noticed the shadows of more carnivores arriving from that side.
"Too late for that, I'm afraid. Onwards, everyone," Rose instructed.
"Agreed. Just don't wake the baby," Amy added.
They were all extremely careful in stepping around the sleeping dinosaurs and eggs. Managing not to draw unwanted attention to themselves, the group eventually made it to another clear area.
"Who are you, anyway?" Amy asked the unknown man.
"John Riddell, big game hunter on the African plains. I'm sure you've heard of me, too," he replied, his voice dripping with masculine pride.
"No," Amy scoffed.
"Mum, what are you and dad doing travelling with a hunter?" James gasped.
"Certainly not my choice. Blame your father," Rose assured him.
"You clearly have some alarming gaps in your education," Riddell told Amy, irritated by everyone's sudden dislike of him.
"Or men who hunt defenceless creatures just don't impact on history. Face it, she's way cooler than you," Amy responded with more praise for the Egyptian Queen.
"The Doctor insists that his Rose is a Goddess. What about you, Amy? Are you also a Queen?" Nefertiti asked.
"Yes. Yes, I am," she answered, feeling slightly inferior after having heard the stories about Rose and agreeing with at least moderate Goddess status for her.
"My mother is indeed a Goddess, known by many names. The Bad Wolf, and Fortuna for example. You'll not question that again," James interrupted in defence of his mother, especially having heard her complaints that the woman had been hitting on his father. He decided that the change of topic would be enough to keep her from further questioning Amy and forcing her to make up some kind of royal status.
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"See? Metal floors, screens in rocks. It was just a matter of a short range teleport. We're still on the ship," the Doctor told the others.
"I had gathered that based on the metal floor under the beach," River informed him.
"No, we're outside on a beach," Brian insisted, looking up at the grey sky.
"It's part of the ship, dad," Rory replied.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Well, it is quite ridiculous. Also brilliant. That's why the system teleported us here. I wanted the engines," the Doctor reasoned. "This is the engine room! Hydrogenerators! Ha!"
"I have literally no idea what he's saying," Brian announced.
"A spaceship powered by waves," Rory translated for his father.
"Fabulously impossible. Oh, think of the things we could learn from this ship if we manage to stop it being blown to pieces," the Doctor told them excitedly. "The ship is powered by Hydrogenerators!" he added to his wife.
"Plus not dying," Rory pointed out.
"The trouble with that is, we can't just shut it off. We need to find the brakes instead," River told them worriedly.
"Yes, that would be the bad news, can't shut the wave system down in time. Takes, way too long," the Doctor admitted and looked a bit nervously toward the sky behind the others.
"If these are the engines, there must be a control room," Rory reasoned.
"Exactly. That's what we need to find. Now, what do we do about the things that aren't kestrals?" he added and they all turned to see what he was staring at. A flock of large, flying dinosaurs was gathering nearby and beginning to swoop in their direction.
"Oh my lord. Are those pterodactyls?" Brian cried fearfully.
"Yes. On any other occasion, I'd be thrilled. Exposed on a beach, less thrilled. We should be going," the Doctor told them, scanning the area for cover.
"Where?" Brian questioned.
"Er, definitely away from them," the Doctor replied, not having spotted anywhere safe just yet.
"That's the plan?" Rory asked.
"You expected more from the Doctor?" River snarked as she started heading towards an opening in the cliffs ahead of them.
"That's the plan. Amendments welcome. Move away from the pterodactyls," the Doctor told them.
The creatures started swooping closer to them as they retreated and Rory announced, "I think they might be noticing."
"Amendment one, run!" the Doctor shouted as they all started sprinting faster.
"Why don't we just teleport or something?" Rory wondered.
"There should have been some controls for it at that screen you found in the rocks," River added.
"I did check that. Local teleport burnt out on arrival," he replied.
"Then we'd best get to that opening over there quickly," River recommended with another burst of speed.
"Come on!" Rory called to his father who was having trouble keeping up.
"I'm trying!" Brian countered.
Rory and Brian stumbled through the opening, the pterodactyls snapping behind them loudly. Rory clutched at a scratch on his shoulder, but decided that it would be alright for the moment.
"Are you alright?" Brian asked worriedly.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he insisted, rolling his eyes when River pulled some kind of spray out of her purse to clean him up. "Right, what do we do now? There's no way back out there."
"Through the cave. Come on," the Doctor told them, confidently leading them deeper into the cave. They all stopped in their tracks, however, when they heard a loud thumping noise ahead of them. "That suggestion was a work in progress."
"We're trapped," Brian gasped.
"Yes, thanks for spelling it out," the Doctor commented.
"Doctor, whatever's down there is coming this way," Rory added.
"Spelling it out is hereditary. Wonderful," the Doctor sighed.
"I take after mum," River grumbled.
"That sound's getting nearer," Brian announced as if the rest of them couldn't tell that for themselves.
The four of them watched as two large robots approached ominously.
"We're very cross with you," one of them informed the group.
"I think we're about to be taken to the person in charge, love," the Doctor informed his wife.
"Inconvenient, but usually informative," she replied.
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Rose, Jamie, Amy, Nefertiti, and Riddell had safely made their way further through the ship and seemed to have found a laboratory of some kind. Rose squealed with delight when she spotted a computer terminal and ran over to try and access the teleport controls or some way to put on the brakes.
"Bit of weed killer wouldn't go amiss in here," Amy commented, looking around the abandoned room.
"Whoever was running this vessel left in a hurry," Riddell added.
"Maybe a plague came and took them," Nefertiti suggested based on the knowledge from her time.
"No, there'd be corpses and bones," Riddell argued.
"Unless the animals ate them," Nefertiti countered.
"Whoa, Chuckle Brothers. Lighten up, would you?" Amy interrupted.
Rose ignored all of them as she restored power to the room and turned up the lights as well as accessing the computer systems. Jamie was looking over her shoulder, surprised at how well his mother was managing with the computer.
"How'd you know how to do that?" Nefertiti questioned.
"Actually, I was wondering the same thing, mum," Jamie added.
"Sweetheart, I'm now a few centuries older than you. You may have the Time Lord brain in there, but I have learned a few things over the years. A Silurian computer system is no problem, thank you," Rose informed her son.
"Centuries? Which Goddess are you? I've not heard of this Fortuna he mentioned," Nefertiti asked, suddenly believing their previous claims.
"Your closest equivalent would be Ma'at in Egypt," Jamie told her.
"Which would make your husband, Thoth? The god of wisdom?" she asked.
"Sounds about right," Rose replied proudly and slipped a nearby data disk into the computer. A video log from one of the scientists began to play.
"One hundred and seventeen years," a voice sounded from the recording.
"Data records," Amy commented.
"The ship's owners?" Riddell asked.
"Yes. Well, as mum mentioned, we know that this technology is Silurian from the language. It would also explain the dinosaurs. They lived on Earth around the same time," James informed them.
"Mainly cryogenic," the recording continued, but the degradation meant that there was only static where the image should be and the audio was choppy at best. "I will continue to work."
"I can't seem to boost it any further," Rose admitted. "Care to give it a try, Jamie?"
The young Time Lord took her place at the interface and made a few adjustments to the playback, clearing up the picture and the audio tracks.
"Look. Oh, it's beautiful," Nefertiti commented as she got her first view of the Silurian scientist.
"I can't tell how far we have come. Far enough to avoid the destructive impact forecast for our planet. Far enough for me to feel a profound sense of loss," the Silurian continued.
"What is that?" Riddell questioned as he stared at the green figure on the screen.
"That was the dominant species on Earth before humans came along," Rose informed him.
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"You're going straight on the naughty step," the large robot informed them with its gun pointed in their direction.
"What's the escape plan?" Brian whispered to the Doctor.
"Why do we want to escape?" the Doctor whispered back.
"They have us hostage," Brian replied.
"They're taking us somewhere. We might learn from it," Rory explained, having caught onto this particular method of information gathering over his time with the Doctor and Rose.
The Doctor beamed at Rory happily as he pinched the man's cheek. "Oh, you see? He's so clever. I've missed you, Rory."
"Don't do that," Rory grumbled.
"What if they kill us?" Brian asked, not particularly happy with the plan of being taken prisoner.
"They wouldn't do that. You're not going to kill us, are you, Rusty?" the Doctor asked.
"Who are you calling Rusty?" the robot argued.
"Have you seen yourselves lately?" the Doctor countered.
"You try being on this ship for two millennia. See how your paintwork does," the robot responded petulantly.
"Don't listen to him. He's just being mean because we captured him," the other robot commented.
It was at that moment, that a large triceratops wandered over to the group and began sniffing everyone. The creature seemed quite friendly and curious about the visitors.
"Oh, my goodness," Brian gasped nervously.
"It's beautiful!" River cooed.
"Whoa!" Rory cried when the dinosaur bumped against him a little harder than he expected.
"Ooo!" the Doctor said excitedly as he reached to pet the beast affectionately. "Herbivore. Don't panic. Triceratops. Ha! Beautiful."
"Shall I shoot it?" one of the robots asked the other.
"We're not supposed to shoot the creatures, stupid," the other answered.
"Stop calling me stupid," the first protested.
The triceratops groaned contentedly as the Doctor patted its head. "Roar yourself. Hello, cutie. Good boy. Who's a lovely Tricy then? Yes, you are. Yes, you are."
Brian became more nervous as the creature sniffed him intently and started nudging at him. "What do I do? What do I do? What're you doing? What're you doing?" he whined as the dinosaur wouldn't leave him alone.
"You don't have any vegetable matter in your trousers, do you, Brian?" the Doctor asked, not sure why it was so interested in Brian.
"Only my balls," Brian replied.
"I'm sorry?" the Doctor questioned, wide eyed.
"Golf balls. Grassy residue," he answered as he pulled a couple of golf balls from his pocket.
River couldn't contain her laughter.
"What are you carrying those around for?" Rory asked incredulously.
Brian merely shrugged before he found himself being licked affectionately by a very large and smelly dinosaur. He grunted, clearly disgusted by the slimy residue left behind.
"Oh, bless," the Doctor commented.
"Get it away from me!" Brian pleaded.
"Oh, give me that," River interrupted and grabbed one of the golf balls from his hand. She held it up in front of the curious triceratops and acted as if playing fetch with a large puppy. "Is this what you want? Want the ball? Go get it!" she called and threw the ball down the wide corridor. The excited creature bounded after it happily.
"Nicely done, and breath out," the Doctor told his companions, then returned his attention to their captors. "Right, take us to your leader."
"Really?" Rory questioned as River scoffed.
"Too good to resist," he replied.
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The information provided by the Silurian scientist, who identified himself as Bleytal, told them that the ship had been designed as an Ark. They were escaping the predicted catastrophe that had sent the others underground, and hoping to save some of the dinosaurs as well. The plan was to have them repopulate wherever they landed.
Riddell argued that the idea was nonsense, but was quickly out voted by all of the others.
"The question now is, where are all the Silurians? 'Cause I'm not seeing anyone about to take care of these guys and the Doctor just told me that they're being taken somewhere," Rose wondered.
"Well, let's have a look then," James acknowledged and began searching the internal scanners. "Display life signs for Homo Reptilia," he requested but was met with a response of 'No Life Signs Detected.'
"But where have they gone?" Amy asked.
"Perhaps they found another world, left the ship," Nefertiti suggested.
"They wouldn't have left all the dinosaurs here. They're more compassionate than that," Rose insisted.
"And why is the ship coming back to Earth? It doesn't make sense," Amy added.
"Well, dad will find out soon who's in charge around here, but I'm willing to bet that whoever it is, wasn't particularly friendly to the Silurians," James commented. He continued to check the ship's logs and scanners, ultimately finding another ship docked in the centre of the large web of sections that made up the spherical design. "Bingo," he said as he zoomed in on that section.
"What is it?" Riddell asked.
"Another spacecraft. This ship's been boarded before," Amy deducted.
"The Silurians are gone and I'm willing to bet that you're headed towards the small spaceship that is docked with this one. The ship was meant to be an Ark so they could repopulate the dinosaurs," Rose informed her husband.
