Author's note:
Footnotes are marked by (number).
Standard disclaimers, BBC owns the Doctor.
The Third Doctor: Courage isn't just a matter of not being afraid. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway.
-Planet of the Daleks
The Doctor stepped from his TARDIS door, closing it behind him. He had exchanged his blood-stained ensemble for a green coat and black trousers, with deep green leather gloves.
He held Drax's multi-phasic drill in one hand, regarding it with trepidation.
"One push of this button, and his TARDIS should show up," he said. "But which one? Will it be this future Drax's ship? Or will I be faced with having to explain this to his present incarnation?"
He frowned.
"A promise is a promise."
He ran his hand down the side of the drill, and pressed the gleaming yellow-green button.
VARP VUARP VUARP VUARP
He looked about him in some surprise.
"So it triangulated on the drill's position? I suppose I should have triggered it remotely. Ah, well."
Filmy walls began to appear in the air on every side, growing more opaque by the second. Another TARDIS was arriving - around him!
He spun in place, looking back at his own ship as the new arrival cut off his sight of it with a final, solid tshhTHUD.
He turned back around, surveying the area he had ended up in.
It was a TARDIS main console room.
The walls were a gleaming, liquid amber-gold, with several ebon flat screens inset. The floor was clad in shining cobalt-veined marble.
The central console... well, it was amazing. Cutting edge, even by jaded Gallifreyan standards. Liquid conduits pulsed like glowing arteries through several sections, while buttons, knobs and various-other-dimensioned controls(1) adorned the surface, and other-positioned points, of it.
There were several readouts going across and down the screens, as to where and when the ship was, present mission (which screen flared out with the words TEMPORAL SECURITY LOCKOUT when the Doctor approached) and various engine and device function readouts.
The Doctor began to peruse one of these with great interest.
"Ah, wonderful! You've upgraded dimensional feed, converted the Hasaron crystals to level five! How did you ever manage to do that, you old devil?" His finger traced down the readouts. " Vortex manipulators, antimatter conversion units..."
He gasped.
"Tachyon pulse ship-to-ship, ship-to-planet blast emitters? Stellar fusion cluster torpedoes?!" He read down the rest of the list, then hurredly stepped back.
"Jehoshaphat!"
Suddenly, as one, all of the screens flickered. All data readouts, pictures, were replaced by a computer-simulated young woman with burning scarlet hair, silvery-blue skin, and eyes that gleamed to the furthest reaches with a molten gold.
"Master code key detected," it intoned. "Insert key into indicated console slot." There was a whirring, and a panel slid aside.
The Doctor stepped forward, inserted the drill, and stepped back.
"Perhaps now I'll get some answers," he muttered.
A holographic Drax flickered to life. He looked quite unsteady, rocking a little from side to side and making occasional steps off- camera in attempt to stay upright.
"Well, Thete, you kept your part of the bargain," he said.
He seemed to have finished the flask in-between recordings, as it was no-where in sight... yet Drax himself was quite red in the face, and looked... well, no way around it; he looked extremely drunk.
"Shorry for my present state, but ya really don'... don't have time to messh about. Oh, yes, she's been battle-converted - you'll find out why later," he continued with an impatient wave. "Now, to get my stuff to your ship fash... fash... now."
The hologram 'walked' over to the console and began to 'work' the controls. Before the doctor's eyes, two buttons depressed, a slide moved, and the computerized voice said, "Ship-to-ship transmat initiated."
The holographic Drax grinned.
"Didn' think I would make you lug it all yourself, did you?"
The Doctor shook his head.
"I suppose-"
"One last thing. I'm setting the ship to auto-destruct."
The Doctor's eyes widened. "What?!"
"Just to be clear on this, Thete, we can't afford to let them get their hands on a working TARDIS. Ain't gonna bother telling you who 'they' are, but rest assured; they're gonna desh- deserve the bang we'll be givin' em!"
His eyes suddenly bright, his moves sure, the holo-Drax's hand came down again and punched in a series of codes. He threw a lever, pressed a knob into the panel, and another, more fresh-faced Drax hologram appeared.
It began to speak.
"TARDIS auto-destruct countdown initiated. Evacuation is advised. You can stay on anyway and sight see, if you don't mind being crushed into the Vortex. Fifty rels(2), and counting..."
The Doctor looked about. The door was nowhere to be seen!
"Fourty-seven rels."
He began to feel his way along the walls, looking for a seam, a switch, anything.
"Thirty."
He pulled his sonic screwdriver, and began to play it along the walls, the cracks, every viewscreen. His teeth ground.
"If I'm such a good friend, if you're depending on my help," he said, in an irritated tone, "why are you trying to add me to your funeral pyre?"
He glanced back at the solemn face, counting down.
"Twenty-six."
He pounded a fist against the wall, then turned back toward the console.
"Blast you, Drax, I want no part of your fight, or your ship's suicide run! Now let me out!"
The older hologram flickered alive once more. "Oh, yes- almost forgot. Sonic screwdriver to setting 66543alpha on the northernmost panel will get you out."
"Twenty-one."
The Doctor ran to the northern wall, thumbing in the settings. He dove out as the door slid open and hit the forest floor rolling.
He sprang up, screwdriver already to a new setting, and pointed it at what right now appeared to be a rather scrawny pine tree.
The screwdriver hummed, and the tree was soon matching its frequency. It started pulsating at a familiar rate, and began to dematerialize.
VUARP VUARP VUOrrARRrr-
As the TARDIS grew more indistinct, its shape shifted from pine tree to that of a large American-made 'muscle car' from the nineteen-fifties. It seemed to begin to streeetch...
The Doctor held his breath.
-ARP bing
The TARDIS vanished.
The Doctor let his breath out slowly, and began to turn-
The air rippled.
"No!"
The Doctor blanched, and tried to brace himself-
Ba-WHOOMP
A wall of force slammed into him, picking him up and hurling him out of the clearing!
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1 A Time Lord has about thirty or forty more senses available than your average human. Some TARDIS controls are simply imperceptible to many races.
2 A standard Gallifreyan time unit, although its exact length seems to lesser species to be entirely random and capricious. Much like the Time Lords themselves.
