"Right, there we go." The Doctor finished sonic-ing Molly's mobile phone and tossed it back to her. "Universal roaming. Never have to worry about a signal again."
The pathologist turned the phone over in her hand, disbelief mixed with wonder. "No way. You're saying this can call anywhere in time and space? How does it work? Do I have to specify a time or something?"
"Nah, it's pretty good at figuring that out for you," he explained cheerfully. "Just as long as you know the area code, you're good." He gave her a quick, friendly grin. "Frequent flier's privilege. Go on, try it."
Molly toyed with the phone in her hand, thinking. Who would she really want to call? She certainly wasn't ready to talk to Sherlock again after what happened, and Jim really wasn't an option anymore. Maybe someone from work who'd been transported to the moon? But deep down she knew there was no one back home who would understand what she'd gone through, the life she was living now. There was no one worth calling, and no life to go back to. She'd made her choice.
As she tried to make her decision, the TARDIS suddenly gave a sharp jerk. Molly grabbed automatically onto console, skillfully saving herself from a bad fall – she was getting far too used to turbulence from the ship. An alarm began blaring through the ship. The Doctor checked the monitor, hands busy with switches and dials. "Distress signal, locking on." Looking slightly manic, he swung his leg up, using his foot to throw a lever. "Might be a bit of - "
He was cut off as the TARDIS gave an even more violent shudder. Molly wasn't quick enough this time, and soon found herself thrown to the ground. " - turbulence." the Doctor finished ruefully. He too had been thrown-off balance. His spiky hair was even more ruffled now, and he had a slightly wild look of anticipation as he bounced back to his feet. "Come on Molly, let's take a look!" He headed to the door, leaving Molly to clamber back to her feet.
Shaking her head and laughing at the Doctor's excitement, she followed him out through the doors of the TARDIS. They had landed in what looked like some sort of engine room. From the start, Molly could tell something was wrong. Thick smoke filled the room, a strange yellow light cast everything in a sickly glow, and it felt like walking into the inside of an oven. An automated voice sounded from a nearby speaker. "Distress signal transmitted."
"Whoa, now that is hot," the Doctor remarked as he started looking around. Molly bet he was glad he hadn't worn his long coat that day – he only had on the blue suit he normally wore underneath the coat. She herself was wearing a jean jacket with a pale green v-neck long-sleeve shirt underneath and a white tank top under that. Moments after stepping outside she was dying to shed a layer, but jean jackets didn't exactly lend themselves to the tie-around-the-waist trick. Instead, she settled for sweeping her hair back off her shoulders, eyes narrowed as she tried to peer through the smoke. "Feels like an oven in here," she commented lightly.
The Doctor wandered a few paces, gaze flitting around the room. "Venting systems," he explained to her distractedly. "Working at full pelt, trying to cool down wherever it is we are." He paused as he noticed a door on the nearby wall. "Well, if you can't stand the heat."
He and Molly headed over. It took a bit of work to get the door open, but they finally managed it, pushing past into a hallway. It looked like part of some kind of ship, with a narrow metal hallway. She wasn't sure what time period they were in – it could've been a regular ship or a futuristic spaceship. There wasn't enough to go on yet.
"Oi, you two!"
"Get out of there!"
They turned to see three people sprinting towards them – or rather, towards the room they'd just come out of. The two men hurried to shut and bolt the door, while the woman confronted the Doctor and his companion. "Who are you? What are you doing on my ship?"
The younger of the two men asked in a less hostile tone, "Are you the police?"
"Why would we be the police?" the Doctor asked in confusion.
"We picked up your distress call," Molly explained. "Is there a problem with the ship?"
The Doctor had tilted his head slightly, listening. "If this is a ship," he asked thoughtfully, "why can't I hear any engines?"
The woman still seemed suspicious, but after a moment of silent glaring, she admitted, "It went dead four minutes ago."
The older man by the door cut in with a sharp, "So maybe we should stop chatting and get to Engineering." The woman shot him a quick glare, and he softened his tone as he added, "Captain."
Before she could reply, the same computerized voice from before sounded over the speakers. "Secure closure active."
The captain's eyes widened in horror. "What?"
The older man shook his head. "The ship's gone mad."
Before either Molly or the Doctor could ask what was going on, another woman came bolting down the hall towards them. Behind her, doors were automatically sliding shut, the bulky doors locking with an ominous thud.
She finally reached the small group, panting but annoyed. "Who activated secure closure?" she demanded. "I nearly got locked into Area Twenty-Seven." Her gaze flicked over to the two newcomers, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Who are you?"
"Molly Hooper and the Doctor," Molly introduced them. "We came about the distress signal."
The computerized voice sounded again. "Impact projection forty two minutes twenty seven seconds." Molly tensed. Impact? Impact with what? Noticing a porthole on the wall, she headed over to take a look out. What she saw rendered her silent in shock.
The captain looked overwhelmed, but she told her crew as confidently as she could manage, "We'll get out of this, I promise."
"Er, Doctor?" Molly finally managed.
The Doctor didn't seem to hear her. Still looking baffled, he questioned the captain, "Forty minutes until what?"
"Doctor!" Molly tried again. The Time Lord heard her this time and headed over to the porthole beside her. He froze at what he saw, eyes widening in horror.
The captain sighed and confirmed what their eyes were telling them. "Forty minutes until we crash into the sun."
Molly could say with certainty now that they were in the future. Firstly, the view outside was of space rather than the ocean. Second, and more importantly, they were currently in a spaceship that was free-falling towards an enormous, fiery sun.
The Doctor turned back to the captain, far more urgent now. "How many crew members on board?"
"Seven, including us," she answered promptly. She still didn't seem to trust the Doctor, but she was willing to answer him.
The older man explained, "We transport cargo across the galaxy. Everything's automated. We just keep the ship spaceworthy."
The Doctor nodded decisively, the turned back to the door they'd come out of, labeled Area Thirty. "Call the others," he ordered briefly. "I'll get you out."
"No, don't!" the captain warned, but it was too late. The Doctor pulled open the door and was promptly thrown back by a blast of fire and heat. The younger woman pulled down the welder's mask on her head and hurried to slam the door shut, bolting and locking it. The Doctor scrambled back to his feet, eyes wide. "But my ship's in there!" he protested.
"In the vent chamber?" the young man asked incredulously.
The Doctor tried to get past the others to get back to the door. "It's our lifeboat," he explained.
"It's lava," the older man told him bluntly.
The younger woman explained grimly, "The temperature's going mad in there. Up three thousand degrees in ten seconds, and still rising."
"Channeling the air," the younger man continued. "The closer we get to the sun, the hotter that room's going to get."
Molly looked at the door in horror. She could all too easily imagine flames devouring the wooden outside of the TARDIS, reducing the blue box to charred ashes. "Is the TARDIS going to be okay?" she asked worriedly. Beyond being their mode of transport, she'd become fond of the ship in her own right, especially after her gesture with the room.
The Doctor ran a distracted hand through his wild hair, disheveling it even further. "She can stand a lot, that old girl, but let's worry about that later." She could tell he was worried about the ship, but his bigger concern was the lives of the crew. "So, we fix the engines, we steer the ship away from the sun. Simple." He looked around a bit, eventually picking a hallway and starting down it. "Engineering down here, is it?"
Time to find out what was going on.
SCENEBREAK
When they reached the engine room, they found the whole place in shambles. Wires were torn, cables unhooked, machines smoking. The Doctor's eyebrows shot up. "Blimey, do you always leave things in such a mess?"
The captain stared at the engine room in horrified shock. "Oh my god."
"What the hell happened?" the older man demanded.
The younger man stared at the engines with wide eyes. "Oh, it's wrecked."
"Pretty efficiently too," the Doctor observed. "Someone knew what they were doing."
Molly turned to him with surprise. "You're saying someone did this on purpose?" she asked. "Why? It would have had to be someone on board, and they'd just get fried with everyone else, wouldn't they?"
The captain jogged over to a working computer. She slammed the intercom button and spoke into it. "Korwin, Ashton? Where are you?" No answer came, so she tried again. "Korwin, can you answer?" Still nothing. She turned away with a frustrated growl. "Where the hell is he? He should be up here."
The Doctor had made his way over to one of the still-functioning monitors. For a moment, the solemn mood was lifted as the goofy grin returned. "Oh, we're in the Torajii system. Lovely. You're a long way from home, Molly. Half a universe away."
Molly just shrugged in response. Earth wasn't home anymore, not really, but she was too embarrassed to say that.
The Time Lord turned back to the captain. "And you're still using energy scoops for fusion? Hasn't that been outlawed yet?"
The captain looked annoyed at the question. "We're due to upgrade next docking," she explained dismissively. She turned to the older man, who was examining the engines. "Scannell, engine report."
The man, Scannell, shook his head with frustration. "No response."
The captain blinked in shock. "What?"
"They're burnt out," he explained, seeming slightly stunned by the wrecked state of the machinery. "The controls are wrecked. I can't get them back online."
"Oh, come on," the Doctor prompted. "Auxiliary engines. Every craft's got auxiliaries."
The captain shook her head. "We don't have access from here. The auxiliary controls are in the front of the ship."
"Yeah, with twenty nine password sealed doors between us and them," Scannell added dejectedly. "You'll never get there in time."
"Is there any way to get them all open at once?" Molly questioned.
Scannell shook his head. "No. Sealed closure means what it says. They're all dead-lock sealed."
"So, a sonic screwdriver's no use," the Doctor realized aloud.
"Nothing's any use," Scannell countered. "We've got no engines, no time, and no chance."
The Doctor and Molly stared at the crew incredulously. They were all covered in sweat from the heat of the approaching sun, and they all wore the same expression of fear and resignation. "Oh, listen to you," the Doctor scoffed, "defeated before you've even started. Where's your Dunkirk spirit?" No one responded, but they seemed to draw a bit of hope from his words. He turned to the captain. "Who's got the door passwords?"
Before the captain could reply, the young man spoke up. "They're randomly generated. Reckon I know most of them." He stuck out a hand, which the Doctor shook quickly. "Sorry, Riley Vashti," he introduced himself.
"Then what are you waiting for, Riley Vashti?" the Doctor asked. "Get on it."
The young man shook his head. "Well, it's a two person job," he explained. Riley turned to grab a backpack stashed nearby. "One, a technish for the questions, and the other to carry this." He held up a rather heavy-looking metal device that looked like a sort of crank handle. "The oldest and cheapest security system around, eh Captain?"
The woman chuckled, dropping the serious mood for a moment. "Reliable and simple, just like you, eh Riley?"
Riley shook his head, mockingly insulted. "Try and be helpful, get abused," he joked. "Nice."
Molly had been eying the crank he'd produced. The pathologist wasn't being very helpful in the engine room, and though it looked heavy, she reckoned she could carry it. She'd gotten stronger since that first exhausting adventure. "I'll help you get the doors open," she offered.
Riley nodded, accepting. He showed how the backpack held a portable computer and keyboard. "It's remotely controlled by the computer panel," he explained. "That's why it needs two."
He started off immediately, heading back out the way they came. Molly started to follow, but the Doctor stopped her briefly. "Be careful," he cautioned her.
Molly smiled. "You too," she told him. She knew they were minutes away from a painful, fiery death, but she also knew that they could get everyone through this alive. They'd been in worse scrapes, and she knew they could get out of this one too. They always did.
SCENEBREAK
Molly followed Riley out to the first of the bulkhead doors they needed to get through. He paused in front of the door and began tapping away at the monitor on the portable computer. After a few moments, he gave a short nod. "Alright," he told Molly, "Fix the clamp on."
She lifted the device and fixed it to the door, looking over briefly at him typing on the screen. "What are you doing?"
"Each door's trip code is the answer to a random question set by the crew," he explained as he worked. "Nine tours back, we got drunk, thought them up. Reckoning was, if we're highjacked, we're the only ones who know all the answers."
She nodded in understanding. "So you're typing in the answer, and that activates this handle?"
"Yep, it sends an unlock pulse to the clamp. But we only get one chance per door. Get it wrong, the whole system freezes."
She sucked in a sharp breath. One wrong answer, and the whole thing was over. "Better be sure before we put in an answer then."
Riley's gaze ran across the screen. "Okay. Date of the SS Pentallian's first flight." He quickly typed in the date. A green light lit up on the screen, and Molly felt the clamp vibrate slightly. "That's all right, go!" They were able to pull the door open.
Molly grinned triumphantly. "That wasn't so bad."
He grinned back. "Yeah, only twenty eight more to go," he joked.
SCENEBREAK
A few minutes later, the Doctor's voice came from the intercom on the portable computer. "Molly? Riley? How're you doing?"
"We're in area twenty nine," Molly replied shortly. She was holding the clamp up again while Riley tapped away at the monitor. "At the door to twenty eight."
"Yeah, you've got to move faster."
"We're working on it," Molly promised.
Riley finally pulled up the question. "Find the next number in the sequence three one three, three three one, three six seven." His brow crinkled in confusion. "What?"
Molly looked at him in alarm. "I thought you said the crew knew all the answers," she said uneasily.
He shook his head. "The crew's changed since we set the question."
Her eyes widened. "Right. And we've only got the one guess. Brilliant."
Suddenly, the Doctor's voice came again. "Three seven nine."
Molly was surprised at the swift answer. "What?"
"It's a sequence of happy primes," the Doctor explained briefly. "Three seven nine."
"Are you sure?" Riley asked anxiously. "We only get one chance."
Voice sharp with annoyance, the Doctor launched into a rapid-fire explanation. "Any number that reduces to one when you take the sum of the square of its digits and you continue iterating until it yields one is a happy number. Any number that doesn't isn't. A happy prime is a number that is both happy and prime. Now type it in! I don't know, talk about dumbing down! Don't they teach recreational mathematics anymore?"
Looking slightly chastised, Riley typed in the answer the Doctor had given him. The green light flashed and the door unlocked. Molly relaxed slightly with relief. "You were right, it opened."
"Keep moving, fast as you can," the Doctor ordered. "And Molly? Be careful. There may be something else on board this ship."
She and Riley shared a mystified, nervous glance. "What do you mean?" the pathologist asked. "Something alien?"
"Not sure yet," came the Doctor's vague answer. "Just keep moving and let me know if you see something strange." With that the connection ended.
Molly tried to ignore the shiver of fear his words had inspired. Something had sent this ship hurtling towards a fiery doom, and whatever it was, the Doctor seemed to think it was still on board.
Well then, she thought to herself, There's no time to waste. She turned back to Riley. "Let's go." Together they got the door open, them pushed past, ready for the next question.
The beginning of 42 for all my lovely readers. As I already warned, not straying too far from canon here, and this episode's pretty short. I think I might get this episode done in two parts, since I'm sticking with only Molly's POV throughout the story.
As I already told you guys, as of tomorrow I am off to the wonderful world of Disney, and I will have very little if any time to write, though I may be able to churn out a chapter or two on the plane rides up and back. Besides, as I said, the chapters after this take a pretty heavy departure from canon, so I'll need some time to plan and research accordingly.