Okay, so these next few chapters are going to have some triggers. For this one, there are three very slight descriptions of blood.
Chapter 12- Abduction of an Alien
If you asked me last year if I knew I would wake up on the floor of a bigger-on-the-inside combination spaceship/time machine that I'd boarded to rescue my sister from her alien kidnappers, I would've asked you if that was the plot to the next Hangover movie. But now, my only thought was: What the hell did you do this time, Doctor?
I got up from the floor, where I saw the fallen Memory Display next to a red stain on the carpeting. Alarmed, I hurriedly wiped the back of my wrist across a stinging pain on my forehead, and my arm came away bloody. My head slightly ached from where my wrist had met the open wound, like a piece of metal wire being pressed into my forehead.
It's only a cut, I thought to myself. Take care of it later. Just find the Doctor, make sure he's okay, and find out what the hell happened.
Swiping my arm across my injury one last time and staining my arm further with blood, I hurried out of my room, hoping the Doctor was in the one place I always found him: the console room. The TARDIS suddenly shook again, and my side slammed into the floor, sending sparks of pain all along my body. I shakily got to my feet, running before I was properly upright again, stumbling to the landing just inside the console room where, to my horror, the Doctor lay thrown in a heap against the banister bordering the glass floor, unconscious. The TARDIS's lights were rapidly fading and returning to blazing brightness and fading again, and the controls were exploding, spraying waves of sparks in every direction. The TARDIS continued its vwoorping, signaling that we were still in flight, a thought that inspired both relief and terror. I hurried down the stairs and stumbled to the Doctor, hurting my knees as I fell to his side. Pulling him until he was face up and lying spread-eagled on the glass, I lightly slapped his cheek and shook his shoulders, trying desperately to wake him up.
"Come on, Doctor," I quietly begged. "Come on, wake up. Doctor, wake up!"
Slowly, the Doctor's green eyes blinked open. "Erica," he groaned groggily.
"Yep, I'm right here," I said, relief washing over me. Thank God—he needed to fly us out of here. I could try, but the TARDIS would probably drop me into a black hole if I did. "Come on, Doctor, you need to get us out of here."
"Right," he said, sounding like he had no idea what was going on (and I couldn't blame him). I grasped his hand and hauled him up to a sitting position. He muttered his thanks and we both began rising to our feet, moving out of the way of the showers of sparks exploding from the console.
"What's going on?" I yelled over the thunderous thumps echoing through the console room.
"Someone's trying to overpower the TARDIS!" he called back, waiting for the sparks to die down so he could get to the controls. Once they stopped, he darted to the console and hurriedly flipped a few switches, hoping to regain control of the ship.
"Are there any missiles we can fire?"
He looked at me incredulously. "It's a blue box on the outside! Where could they possibly fit?"
"I don't know how TARDISes work!" I said defensively. "You're the one who flies it, and you can't even do that right!"
"You know, in all my eleven hundred years, I've never had such an unappreciative passenger!" the Doctor spat, busily operating his ship. The TARDIS suddenly lurched again, causing the Doctor to redouble his efforts on controlling his ship, flinching exaggeratedly through the sparks. "Well, there aren't any missiles, to answer your question!" he yelled. "No weapons systems at all, so you can forget about that!"
"So no offensive abilities?"
"Absolutely none!"
"Brilliant!" I added sarcastically. The TARDIS kept jolting around, making balance a constant struggle. The Doctor tugged the computer monitor around and peered at the screen while I fought my way over to him. An image of space spanned the screen, with the most oddly-shaped spaceship I'd ever seen. It was a horizontal tube with two giant, revolving wheels at each end, and there was a piercingly bright blue tube of light coming from it, painting the whole screen in a layer of luminescence. "What the hell is that?!"
"Whatever it is, it's trying to get us inside!" the Doctor explained, tripling his efforts on the controls and fighting even harder for his TARDIS. His movements grew more and more violent, slamming a lever down so hard he almost snapped it in half.
"HEY!" I shouted. "Easy!"
"I don't have time for 'easy'!" the Doctor angrily yelled back. Suddenly, another almighty jolt rocked the TARDIS, tossing the Doctor and me to the glass floor and knocking the wind out of me. Though the Doctor must've been breathless, too, he immediately got back up and began violently slamming buttons and turning cranks. The TARDIS's vwoorping suddenly stopped, along with the powerful lurches.
"No," the Doctor said, in denial. "Come on, old girl, you can pull through!" He fruitlessly began flinging his controls up and down, but the great crystal pump in the console, like the rest of the ship, stayed silent and still.
I climbed back to my feet, rubbing my shoulder where it had struck the floor. "Doctor, what's going on?"
"They have us," the Doctor answered, gazing at his silent TARDIS. "They have us trapped in their trans-mat beam, and they're bringing us inside."
"Should we fight?" I suggested. I know it's not his style, but we'd just been abducted. That's what I would do. That's what Naomi did.
"No use," he replied. "Ship that size, we'd be grossly outnumbered," he added, turning around. His spin, I noted, had lost its usual zest. He leaned against the console, his eyes flitting up to my forehead and the brows drawing together in worry. "You're hurt."
I touched the slice in my forehead with a light finger. I'd almost forgotten about the injury in all the excitement. "Just a cut," I reassured. "I hit my head on the dresser in my room. Don't worry about it."
The Doctor opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, but the TARDIS suddenly lurched one final time, causing a resounding thump to echo from its depths. We both reached out to grab something to hold on to: the Doctor, his console; me, the banister. My stomach felt like it had flown into my chest cavity, like the feeling you always get when going down a hill in a car. Our grips still tight upon our holds, the Doctor and I exchanged a glance.
"We're inside the ship," I said. Something in the Doctor's gaze told me that, but even now I can't say what.
The Doctor nodded in nervous affirmation.
"What do we do?" I asked.
He released the console and straightened up, and I did the same. "We go out and hope for the best," he replied, adjusting his bowtie.
Frowning, I reached up to his coat, tugging the green lapels until they were straight and smoothing down the shoulders until they lay flat. "If we're marching into the unknown, at least look presentable," I said fussily.
The Doctor smiled down at me, in a thank-you-for-being-you sort of smile. "Thanks, Erica," he said, slurring the letter A in my name like he always did. "Thanks for everything."
"The pleasure was all mine," I replied sincerely. He took my hand, squeezed it reassuringly, and led us out of the TARDIS.
The Doctor and I emerged into what looked like a large loading bay on a cargo boat, one that had apparently seen the horrors of war. The whole bay was banged up, like the war had taken place inside it. Exposed wires hung from the ceiling; the metal paneling was dented, scratched, and sometimes completely ripped away; and the lighting was only just enough for us to see all this, leaving the corners in shadow. The most conspicuous thing about the loading bay was the fact that no one was in it.
The Doctor took his hand from mine and withdrew the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, holding it at the ready.
"Hello?" he called out, unexpectedly genially. "Anyone there?" He sounded like he'd gone over to a friend's place, but it was empty when he got there. Profoundly not like he was trying to intimidate anyone. And someone had to pick up the slack.
"Whoever brought us here, show yourself!" I ordered, advancing forward intimidatingly.
"Oi, stop!" the Doctor shushed while my firm voice echoed around the room, pulling me back to his side.
"They need to know we can't be messed with!"
"Don't provoke them!"
"Hold on!" a voice called out from one of the darkened corners, interrupting our bickering. A short, round man soon stepped into the light, holding up his hands in surrender. He was oddly dressed, wearing a heavy, gray, smocklike shirt and rather similar pants, which were messily tucked into a pair of black combat boots.
My shoulders squared—something seemed off about him, but that might just be my general attitude toward strangers ("Get away from the people I care about."). "Who're you?" I interrogated, not minding the fact that we were brought onto his ship, and so were at his mercy. Forget mercy, I told myself.
"P-please, ma'am," he stuttered, his eyes never meeting mine. "W-we're not going to hurt you."
"Then why did you force us into your ship?" I questioned, still suspicious and more than a bit venomous.
"Please forgive us for that," the man answered. "We would've asked you to come aboard, but our communication systems are broken. We couldn't get you inside unless we pulled you in ourselves. We're terribly sorry for that, but we needed your help."
"How do you know we can give it?" the Doctor asked. He sounded suspicious, but also like he was willing to give our abductors a chance.
The man's hands slowly fell back to his side. "Your box, of course!" he exclaimed, gesturing behind us to the TARDIS. "The blue box that's been spotted throughout all of time and space? One of you is the Doctor—which is it, actually?"
After a moment where I was sure he was wondering if he could trust this man, the Doctor stepped forward. "That'd be me," he said. It almost sounded like he was trying to downplay it, like he didn't want the man to know he was the Doctor. No, actually; it was like he didn't want to be known as the Doctor at all. But before I could ponder his thought process, the man across from us spoke up again.
"You're the Prisoner of the Pandorica," he said, approaching us. I rejoined the Doctor's side and shouldered myself a little bit in front of him, defensive. I still didn't trust this guy—can you tell? "Historians have all these theories that you once restarted the whole of creation. All of your enemies imprisoned you, and yet you defied them. You can manage to save the universe from destruction with a rubber band and a paper clip. You're a genius, the genius above all geniuses—"
"Genii," the Doctor and I corrected at the same time. We exchanged a quick glance, both of us surprised.
The man nodded hurriedly. "Yes, whatever you said. My point is: you're smart. You're great. You're kind. And we need your help."
"Why?" the Doctor and I asked, again in unison. We again glanced at each other; this was starting to get spooky.
The man raised his arms, gesturing around the cargo bay. "You see the state of this ship," he said. "You can see that it's about to fall apart." The man stepped closer. "We need you to fix it. If anyone can, it's you!"
"Why should he?" I asked. This man had no business asking us to fix his space boat out of the blue. Apparently, he understood my caution.
"Fair question," he said. "You see, this ship is filled with refugees. We used to live on a planet called Earth, and as you might've heard, the Great Dust Storm is getting worse."
"Dust Storm?" I repeated. "What Dust Storm?"
"The Great Dust Storm began in the year 170,283," the Doctor explained. "Covers nearly the whole of the eastern hemisphere. The dust spread through the air to the western one and now the entire atmosphere is contaminated."
The man nodded. "They began sending people off of Earth, hoping for a better, cleaner planet to call home."
"But the Human Empire's expanded by now," the Doctor rebutted. "You've already colonized other planets. Surely you have multiple refuge opportunities."
"That—that's nice to know," the man stuttered. "Have we really survived? No one's heard back from the Space Expeditions yet—no one's been able to communicate back."
"So you're stuck in space," the Doctor clarified.
The man nodded. "Yes. Our ship was in good condition when we took off, but we've run into more than one territory scuffle, and the ship's taken the toll. Can you fix it?"
The Doctor chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully, glancing around the cargo bay as if evaluating it. A smile suddenly blossomed on his face. "I'll do it," he answered. "Might take a while, but we'll get her fixed up, I promise you that."
The man smiled. "Thank you, Doctor!" he exclaimed, reaching a hand out. The Doctor shook it, and the man added, "I'm captain of the ship, Captain Leonard Briggs. Call me Lenny, if you like. Welcome aboard the Star Ariel!" Lenny- nope, too chummy, I'll call him Briggs, I thought- extended his hand to me, but his grip became limp when his eyes alit on my forehead.
"Dear lord, you're hurt," he said, his eyebrows drawing together. "We'll find someone to take care of that. What's your name, then?"
"Emily," I said before the Doctor could properly introduce me. "Emily Smith."
I could tell the Doctor was surprised by my lie, but he said nothing for the time being. Fortunately, the ruse went undetected by Briggs. "Thank you for joining us, Doctor and Mrs. Smith."
"We're not married," the Doctor and I said, again at the exact same time. Why does this keep happening?
"Forgive me," Briggs said. "Would you like to start working now, or would you rather a night of rest?"
"Nope! I'll start now," the Doctor piped up. "Nothing like diving straight into something, I say. Can you take me to the bridge? I'll try to get your communications up first."
"Very well!" Briggs exclaimed genially, gesturing behind him. "Follow me. It's quite a long walk, but this way you can see what has to be repaired on the ship, and we can take Ms. Smith to the infirmary. Coming?"
Briggs turned on his heel and began leading us out of the cargo bay of the Star Ariel, his walk rather bouncy. As soon as his back was turned, the Doctor and I glanced at each other; we both had questions for each other that we'd answer as soon as we're alone.