EXT. FROZEN ARCTIC – EARTH – DAY
SUPER: EARTH: THE ARCTIC – 2054
White ice splits apart from below as giant crevices in the earth snake their way across vast frozen plains. The ground shudders and shakes, guttural thunder echoes loudly, as if the land itself is shrieking in agony.
It's an earthquake, and in the center of it all is the oil drilling station Marlowe-1. A giant plume of thick black smoke rises from a drill rig that's toppled over. Crude oil spits up from a hole in the center, constantly feeding the ravenous out of control flames. RIG WORKERS abandon their posts and equipment and run to get inside. They stumble and fall, shaken off balance by the tremors. Some of the more desperate of them try crawling along the ground on their hands and knees. Many are too slow and are eaten by the expanding crevices in the ice.
Above the hysteria, a rectangular blue warship flies down from the sky above. Its engines make the ethereal whooshing sound of the Doctor's Tardis, but the fierce mounted canons on the front portend something sinister.
The Tardis warship swings around and locks weapons on a pipeline juncture point fed by all six rigs. Crackling balls of concentrated energy burst forth from the Tardis canons and the resulting explosion decimates the pipeline. Crude oils spills out over the ice, quickly creating an expanding black lake of oil.
INT. COMMAND CENTER - MARLOWE-1
The outpost's commander, TARIN FARHAD, watches helplessly as red light after red light pops up on his command screen, indicating catastrophic failures all over the facility.
TARIN
Oh my god. We've lost containment! Shutdown the pumps!
Across the command center, DESMOND throws a series of switches.
DESMOND
Emergency switches thrown, but the drills are all still active. I don't understand it.
TARIN
Where are they getting the power?
BOOOOOOOM!
A huge explosion blows apart the entire east wall of the command center, exposing everyone inside to the harsh arctic cold. Tarin, Desmond, and a few workers take cover behind equipment.
Outside, the Tardis warship lands. A ramp lowers from the front and the cockpit door slides open, revealing two mysterious figures. They are each dressed in black battle armor, breather masks that obscure their faces and ears, and long capes that flap in the wind. The shorter of the two has long blonde hair on the right side of her head and is bald on the other side. There's a tattoo of a chicken on the bald spot. The taller figure carries a three foot long energy blade that resembles an ice pick.
The two figures descend the ramp together and enter the command center. Desmond grabs a large wrench he finds on the ground and charges them. The blonde intercepts Desmond, grabs his wrist and twists it, forcing him to drop the wrench. She catches it as it falls, then uses it to whack him on the back of his leg. He falls to one knee. She then moves behind him and kicks him with her high stiletto-heel boots right in the center of his back. The momentum pushes him face first into a file cabinet.
Tarin stands and thinks about rushing the blonde from behind. He takes two steps towards her, but stops when she spins around and points the wrench at his face. He raises his hands in the air as if it were a gun.
TARIN
Who are you people?
The blonde removes her mask. It's Rose! But not like we've ever seen her before. She wears thick purple eyeliner, pink lipstick on her top lip and purple lipstick on the bottom one. Her ears are pierced about a thousand times. She's positively badass... maybe minus the chicken tattoo.
Her partner also removes his mask and we see that it is none other than the Doctor. His lips are also pink and purple, but with the colors reversed. There's a jagged scar on his right cheek. He's also positively badass.
ROSE BADASS
I'm Rose, and this bloke o'er here's the Doctor, he is. And we're here to save the planet.
DOCTOR BADASS
If possible. It's more of a secondary objective, really.
Someone laughs heartily, but no one reacts to it.
K'RENN (V.O.)
Freeze playback and miniaturize.
Everyone freezes. The entire scene shrinks down to nothing, revealing that we were really watching a holo-simulation in...
INT. COURTROOM – FULTON
K'Renn holds the miniaturized simulation on pause in his hand. He glowers at the Doctor, who is the source of the laughter.
K'RENN
You find this amusing?
DOCTOR
You don't? "I'm Rose, and this bloke o'er here's the Doctor, he is." What the hell was that? She doesn't talk like that. Nobody talks like that. And what's with the scar? I don't have a scar. See?
He points to his cheek.
DOCTOR
Still beautiful.
K'RENN
Your honors, this simulation has been meticulously reconstructed based on records we have from human history, including the eyewitness testimony of Tarin Farhad; the manager of drilling station Marlowe-1, before it was completely destroyed.
Rat the Mic stands.
RAT THE MIC
Your honors, that record is tens of thousands of years old. We can't be sure of its authenticity. Tarin Farhad is dead and can't testify as to its accuracy, nor can I cross-examine him. It's prejudicial. Furthermore, this still doesn't answer the question of how Rose Taylor, a human, could live for so many years.
K'RENN
The defendant is welcome to dispute the claims made in this account by testifying himself, not through unsolicited and deliberately disruptive outbursts during its playback.
GRAND JUDGE
The defendant will refrain from making disruptive sounds and statements or he will be muted.
DOCTOR
Is that "legal-ese" for "shut up"?
They ignore him.
K'RENN
As per the defense's second point, the prosecution stipulates to the fact that time travel exists, that it was invented and mastered by the Time Lords, and that the Doctor is himself a Time Lord, and for a significant period of time was in possession of a functional time travel machine.
RAT THE MIC
I... wait... what?
GRAND JUDGE
So stipulated.
RAT THE MIC
What?!
GRAND JUDGE
Please resume playback.
K'Renn nods and throws the simulation back into the air. It expands...
INT. COMMAND CENTER - MARLOWE 1
Doctor Badass pushes Tarin out of the way and moves over to Desmond's station. He resets all of the pumps to full capacity, then uses his blade to chop off all the levers so they can't ever be shut off again.
TARIN
What are you doing? With the pipeline destroyed, those pumps will just pour crude oil out all over the ice.
DOCTOR BADASS
That's exactly what we want to happen.
TARIN
The damage to the environment will be irreparable!
Doctor Badass and Rose Badass share a look. They burst out laughing.
DOCTOR BADASS
You humans are so simple-minded.
ROSE BADASS
Woe, I was ever so daft. Thank heaven you found me, my Doctor, and rescued me from my ignorance.
DOCTOR BADASS
(to Tarin)
You fool. There's been a Brygosan ark ship dormant under the ice for thousands of years. My people and the Brygosan's once fought a war, but we defeated them. They hoped to hide here, on your backwater planet, until we stopped looking for them, so they could one day rise again with Earth as their new homeworld. You feel those tremors?
TARIN
The earthquake. It is your doing!
DOCTOR BADASS
No! It is the Brygosans, waking from their long slumber. My Tardis warship locked onto their beacon. I followed them here, and now I will destroy them by pouring all of your oil over their ark as it comes out of the ice. Then, I will ignite the oil, destroying the ship and ending our war and the Brygosan race once and for all!
He laughs maniacally. Rose Badass laughs with him. She admires him like a love-struck teenager.
EXT. FROZEN ARCTIC – EARTH – DAY
An enormous flying saucer rises up out of the cracking ice. The top is covered in crude oil.
Meanwhile, the Tardis warship lifts off from outside Marlowe-1 just before the entire facility is swallowed up whole. The Tardis fires its energy canons on the saucer, which immediately bursts into flames. It struggles to maintain altitude and eventually careens out of control back toward the ground. It explodes as the Tardis warship flies away.
INT. COURTROOM – FULTON
The simulation cuts out.
DOCTOR
Woe?
K'RENN
Tell me, Doctor, do you recall your battle with the Brygosans on Earth?
DOCTOR
Hard to tell. What was the exact date of this supposed encounter, again?
K'RENN
Earth date, March 13th, 2054.
DOCTOR
I see. I see. Hmm. Ark ship, ark ship, ark ship hidden under the ice... Nope, that's a new one on me.
K'RENN
Your honors, we have evidence from the human historical archives from at least thirteen separate Earth governing bodies of the time period that corroborate Tarin Farhad's account of one of the single worst environmental disasters in human history. It is our charge that the Doctor was directly responsible for this disaster. If not for the Time Lords' war with the Brygosans, the Brygosan ship never would have hidden itself on Earth. Following that, the Doctor pursued the refugees like a crazed dog, bringing his war to an undeveloped world incapable of defending itself. He then slaughtered the last remaining Brygosans in the universe by firing on an unarmed ark ship, with total disregard for the consequences it would have on the humans.
GRAND JUDGE
Does the defense wish to object?
In his chair, Rat the Mic is lost in thought. Trigette elbows him to get his attention.
RAT THE MIC
What?
GRAND JUDGE
Does defense wish to object?
RAT THE MIC
I'm sorry, I'm still hung up on the part where everyone's okay with time travel being a real thing.
DOCTOR
Oh, catch up, will you?
K'Renn steps forward.
K'RENN
This is just the first example of many we intend to put forth as evidence that it was the Doctor's near constant, typically violent, incursions on Earth which greatly affected the course of its history and influenced the development of their xenophobic paranoia towards other species.
DOCTOR
Come on. You're kidding.
K'RENN
No, Doctor, I'm not. It was just two years following the events in the arctic that a secret conference was held in an Earth city called Paris between the leaders of most of the Earth's strongest governments. It was during that conference that the Doctor was officially designated an enemy of the planet, not to be trusted. They called it "The Torchwood Conference".
DOCTOR
Aw, they had a meeting all about me? I'm touched.
GRAND JUDGE
The defendant will be muted.
The Grand Judge presses a button and the pink force field around the Doctor's throne turns red. Inside, his lips move, but we can't hear him.
K'RENN
It was during that conference that "The Torchwood Pact" was conceived of and signed. I have a copy of that agreement.
K'Renn throws a holo-image copy of the agreement up to the judges.
K'RENN
In it, the nine great super powers of Earth vowed to share any and all intelligence they had on the alien fugitive known as the Doctor in a joint effort to apprehend him at all costs, dead or alive.
Inside the red force field, the Doctor stretches out sideways across the throne and yawns.
INT. RAT THE MIC'S OFFICE – FULTON
Rat the Mic paces back and forth behind his desk. Trigette and the Doctor are sitting on the opposite side of the desk. The Doctor's arms and legs are bound and he's again wearing a sec-ballooner girdle around his waist.
DOCTOR
You need to relax, buddy. You're doing a wonderful job. I think it's all going very well.
RAT THE MIC
How can you say that? They are completely railroading you.
DOCTOR
"Railroading"? You know, sometimes I wish I could turn the translator off. I'd love to know what that metaphor is in your language.
TRIGETTE
You seem to be taking this very well, Doctor. You do realize that K'Renn is arguing you are to blame for all the crimes of humanity?
DOCTOR
Let me ask you something. What's the punishment for consorting with humans?
TRIGETTE
Death.
DOCTOR
You said it yourself, Mr. "the Mic"-
RAT THE MIC
Rat. You can call me Rat. Will you please call me Rat?
The Doctor stands up and triumphantly declares for all to hear...
DOCTOR
Never!
They look at him like he's nuts. He sits back down.
DOCTOR
Anyway, you said it yourself, I'm guilty of consorting with humans. They were always going to find me guilty. That was always going to be the verdict. So, what are they going to do? Kill me twice? I'm having fun. Let them have theirs. What's the difference if they hang all that other nonsense on me, too?
RAT THE MIC
The difference is I'm the one defending you. Yes, you are guilty. You're guilty of one of the most heinous crimes imaginable and it was perfectly acceptable to me when I thought they would kill you over it, but this... this is a farce. It's a complete joke, and my name's attached to it, which means I'm a joke.
Rat the Mic collapses into his chair. He holds his head in his hands, unsure of himself. He looks over at the Doctor, who seems completely calm, and it pisses him off. He throws a stylus at him, then a balled up piece of paper.
RAT THE MIC
And you're not even upset. How can you be so calm? They're going to kill you!
DOCTOR
Because they're giving me everything I want. As long as they cooperate with me, I'll cooperate with them.
Rat the Mic and Trigette share a look, both equally confused.
RAT THE MIC
What are you talking about? Did you make some kind of side deal with them?
DOCTOR
No. They don't even know they're helping me. That's the best part. Just keep doing what you're doing and trust your Doctor.
He sits back and smiles.
DOCTOR
I told you Lieutenant Valor would help you get your hands on the military masters that proved Rose and I were together in the past, didn't I?
RAT THE MIC
Yeah.
TRIGETTE
(sarcasm)
And it's not strange at all that a man who hates you and tortured you to within an inch of your life suddenly wants to help you at trial.
DOCTOR
Enemies and allies. You find them both in the strangest of places. You can pin labels on anyone, but the truth is that everyone, even the people standing directly in your way, can be the people at your side if you just learn to turn ninety degrees.
He demonstrates by standing. He faces Trigette, then turns his body ninety degrees so that she's now technically on his side. They're unimpressed.
A 'ping' at the door. A GUARD enters.
GUARD
You've used up your consultation allotment. I have to take the prisoner back.
They nod.
DOCTOR
(to Rat the Mic)
Just do your job. You told me you're supposed to argue the evidence. So, argue the evidence.
The Guard takes the Doctor out.
TRIGETTE
I don't know about you, but I get the distinct impression we're being played.
RAT THE MIC
I hate not being in control. I feel like... like a gesser fish at the mercy of the river current. It could get me all the way to the mating ground or steer me right into the open maw of a bear.
TRIGETTE
So, what do you want to do?
Rat the Mic thinks.
RAT THE MIC
K'Renn and the judges are trying to make this trial about the past, while I'm worried about my future. Meanwhile, the one person whose life is on the line isn't worried about the past or the future... which means he knows something about the present that we don't know.
TRIGETTE
We could ask him. He is our client.
RAT THE MIC
Let's assume he would have told us if he wanted us to know.
He thinks.
RAT THE MIC
"Keep an open mind."
TRIGETTE
What?
RAT THE MIC
The first rule when dealing with the Doctor, he said, was to "keep an open mind".
He stands and grabs a jacket from a coat stand near the door.
TRIGETTE
Where are you going? We're due back in court in ten minutes.
RAT THE MIC
I need you to take first position for the next round.
TRIGETTE
You're leaving?
RAT THE MIC
I'll be at the clinic. Just do me a favor and don't let them kill him until I get back.
Rat the Mic leaves.
-To be Continued...-