Two chapters ago, Donna came home to find Martha, and the TARDIS, gone from the back garden! We know that Martha went in there to sleep in the Doctor's bed in his absence, so...
Enjoy!
SIXTEEN
Martha Jones must have been engaged in some manner of slumber, because when her phone rang, it startled her out of a dream about ice cream and Winnie the Pooh.
The number was mostly scrambled, with a few characters that she didn't recognise coming up on the screen. In the past, this had meant that the Doctor was calling her from the TARDIS console. Given that she was currently inside the TARDIS, and the Doctor was imprisoned, she had no idea what it meant now.
"Hello?"
"Dr. Jones?" a voice said.
"Yes."
"Dr. Martha Jones?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"This is Agent Pym, from the Galactic Council. We met, about twenty-one Earth hours ago."
"You're early," she said. She and Donna had learned from the Council's outgoing recording that it would be at least another thirty-six hours before they would hear anything from them.
"Pardon?"
She sat up. "You're contacting me early, at least according to what your switchboard message said, when I tried to get in touch."
"Oh," the agent said, and Martha detected just a hint of oh, bollocks in his tone. "Well, occasionally, the process moves a bit faster."
"Is the Doctor all right?" she asked.
"He's fine," Pym assured her. "We're not in the business of harming people. Unless their companion tries to interfere with official business."
"What's the charge?"
"Murder."
"Murder?" she shrieked. "Are you bloody kidding me?"
"According to our sources, Dr. Jones, you were present on the island when the Epidromeas was lured into an invisible forcefield and killed."
"Mm. Are you going to charge me too?"
"No. I just wanted to… no. Apologies, Dr. Jones," said Pym. He seemed to clear his throat and regroup just then. "I contacted you to let you know that you may visit him."
"I… what?"
Pym sighed. She wasn't sure if it was because he was reluctant to give a prisoner his due, or if it was because Martha was being, apparently, so obtuse. "According to the Galactic Constitution, Paragraph 7, and in accordance with the Rights of the Living Treaty as signed by the Shadow Proclamation, prisoners must be allowed access to at least one personal acquaintance or next-of-kin. We are limiting it to one. It's a question of due process, and anti-cruelty measures."
"Really?" Martha asked, sceptically.
"Yes, really," Pym answered, with no expression. Then, he cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Paragraph 7 also provides the prisoner a conjugal visit, if eligible."
"A conjugal visit," she mused. "That's quite generous of you. You know, we're not, like, married or anything."
"What does that mean?" Pym asked. "Never mind. You were witnessed in intimate quarters with the prisoner, and he has identified you as his companion. You are being categorised as eligible for conjugal allowances. Can you just accept it, please, so I can stop explaining it?"
"Fine. Can I speak to him now?"
"He's indisposed at the moment."
"Of course he is," she grumbled at him.
Pym sighed again. "He's in a meeting, okay? Don't be so suspicious."
"A meeting with whom?"
"Why would I tell you that?""
"Fine," Martha snapped. "Just tell me how I can talk to him."
"Just after his processing, the Doctor gave me contact information and instructions to impart to you, so that you can meet an emissary on the Sandring Metlos Space Station, and our transport will bring you the rest of the way. Standard procedure."
"Why can't you just come and collect me?"
"Okay, so we'll land a Galactic cruiser in your back garden, in the middle of London, shall we?"
"Wouldn't be the first time."
"Look, the Doctor gave instructions. Aren't you companion types supposed to follow them?"
She paused. "If I can't speak to the Doctor now, how do I know you're on the up-and-up? How do I know you won't put me in a space capsule and imprison me, as well? Or drop me on a deserted planet or something? Or use this whole song-and-dance as a ruse to steal the TARDIS?"
Flatly, Pym said, "The Doctor thought you might ask that. He insisted upon making specially-programmed security protocols a part of the instructions. You will stay tethered to the TARDIS, wherever you are."
"How?"
"Well, the first instruction is to find his sonic screwdriver."
Martha contemplated very briefly. The fact that Agent Pym didn't seem to have been fully aware of the Galactic Council's procedure regarding contacting prisoners' next of kin, this had not escaped her. It made her suspicious. The direct quoting of articles from the Galactic Constitution and the Shadow Treaty, or whatever it was, this all seemed a bit stilted and contrived to her, as well. She had a terrible feeling that the Doctor had not been "arrested," but rather, captured. By whom, of course, there was no way for her to know. And, of course, if she had worked that out, he had as well. Long since.
Should she go forward with this very risky business?
If only she could talk to him!
If she could, though, he would probably tell her to stay put, stay safe.
Which made this whole thing even more suspicious… the Doctor had sent instructions for her to participate in a dodgy plan, be transported across space by unknown quantities, just for a "conjugal" visit?
Well, she reckoned she could wait for something to happen… like what, she had no idea. For the Doctor to get in touch on his own? For the Galactic Council to call? For news of his death or permanent incarceration?
Or, she could do something, even if what she was doing was meant to trap her. She could move the TARDIS, throw herself into this thing, use her wits, and work toward ultimately saving the Doctor.
"Sonic screwdriver," she said. "Gotcha. Hang on, would you?"
"Yeah. Hurry."
"Don't you dare cut me off!"
"I'm not going to cut you off! Just go find the damn thing, I'm a busy man!"
She jumped out of bed, put her shorts back on, and then ran down the TARDIS' corridors, through the console room, across her garden, through the mudroom and foyer, up the stairs and into the bedroom. She found the sonic in the breast pocket of the pinstriped jacket hanging on the back of a desk chair.
"Got the sonic. Now what?"
She returned to the console room, and Agent Pym then read off a set of directions that the Doctor had written down. Martha followed them scrupulously, moving toggles and dials, setting coordinates with painstaking care. She did this, knowing that any imprecision could result in a misfire, that would land her in the wrong galaxy, or even the wrong millennium.
"Okay, almost done," said Pym. Then he explained to her how to programme the sonic screwdriver to stay tied to the TARDIS, and to alert the vessel if it became separated from Martha's energy signature. This would launch a security protocol that would mean an intergalactic hunt-down of Martha Jones, including intervention from the Shadow Proclamation, the British government, and four different mercenary organisations that owed the Doctor a favour. For this, she had to insert the sonic into a port on the console, as well as both of her hands.
"So, I will remind you, Dr. Jones: don't lose the screwdriver," Pym advised her, sensibly. "It could cause an intergalactic incident."
The very last direction was to use the sonic to activate the "hard shell" around the TARDIS, once she was on the space station. As this was the very tool he had used in the "murder" of which he was being accused, she wondered if it was perhaps a bit risky to activate it right in front of these agents. But she reckoned, as usual, that the Doctor knew what he was doing. (In this case, she could see, he was trying to protect the TARDIS. Perhaps he'd thought that this imperative outweighed the need for discretion. And, she thought it was more than possible that the "murder" was a cover for something, that these guys weren't really interested in the Epidromeas situation at all.)
"Everything should be set now. In theory, all you have to do is deactivate the handbrake, which he says you know how to do anyway, and the TARDIS will materialise on the space station shortly after that. The emissary is already there."
She cut off the call, and ran back to her old bedroom. She remembered having left a pair of purple flip-flops here when she'd decided to vacate this life, in favour of her sanity… what seemed like a lifetime ago. She'd come down to the TARDIS to retire tonight without any shoes on, so she was hoping the flip-flops were there, and she wouldn't have to go back into her flat.
She found that the room smelled of Donna's perfume, and the place had been rearranged, and filled with Donna's personal effects. Martha found her flip-flops in the closet, on the end of a row of Donna's shoes. This made her smile. Of course, Donna, wouldn't have just chucked them.
And then, Martha thought of Donna. She really should be included in all of this madness, but Agent Pym had been clear that the Doctor was allowed only one visitor, and anyway, she didn't want to wait until Donna came home from her date. She reminded herself, Donna's return could be any time between now, and tomorrow afternoon. The emissary was there, on the space station, now. Who knew how long he would wait?
She decided to keep her phone on her. If she wasn't back by the time Donna came home, she figured Donna would ring – they both had universal roaming. At that point, she could bring Donna in… or try stealthily to enlist her help, if the situation called for it.
She was going to need a place to store the phone and the sonic, where they couldn't be lost, and couldn't be easily taken. She looked at Donna's clothing and knew without trying anything on, her jeans and trousers (things with pockets) would be far too long in the legs, and a bit too wide in the waist. So she ran back to the Doctor's bedroom and climbed back into her bra. She was able to stow the sonic inside the garment underneath her left breast, and the phone against the right… while the Doctor's burgundy tee-shirt hung loosely off of her, leaving no-one the wiser.
Before she left the room, though, she looked inside the wardrobe, still standing open. She found several clean, pressed suits, shirts and ties. She chose a combination that she liked (blue suit, always the blue suit), and laid them out on the bed, with the tie slung around the neck of the hanger. Next, she extracted a pair of red Converse, still in the box, and searched the vast array of drawers in the room for a pair of clean socks and underpants, which she found, and stuffed into the box.
She carried all of these things to the console room, took a deep breath, and disabled the handbrake.
The emissary in an environmental suit was indeed waiting on the Sandring Metlos Space Station for Martha when she exited the TARDIS. She could see now that this particular station was like a carpark, that the coordinates given to her by the Doctor had landed the TARDIS in a particular, numbered spot. All around her, there myriad different space crafts of different shapes and sizes. Seeing that leaving one's transport here seemed to be a perfectly normal thing, she relaxed a bit. About one aspect of this whole operation.
"Dr. Jones, I presume."
"Yes."
"I'm Agent Cru. I'll be conducting you the rest of the way, to the Inner Sanctum of the Galactic Council."
"Okay," she said. "Just a moment."
She had stepped out of the TARDIS with a blue pinstriped suit, a shirt and a tie slung over her arm, and a shoebox in her right hand.
"Would you mind holding this for a moment?" she asked the agent, handing him the box. He took it without a word.
Gingerly, she turned away from him and extracted the sonic screwdriver from its hiding place. As instructed, she adjusted its settings, aimed it at the blue box, and activated the hard shell. In theory, this should keep the vessel safe from… well, everything.
She then offered to take the shoebox back, but Agent Cru volunteered to carry everything that was in her arms onto his cruiser, parked nearby. This bit of courtesy surprised her, considering she had half-expected to be told that she could not bring the clothing with her at all.
She let him carry the garments, followed him, and boarded the vessel. He stowed the Doctor's clothing in a compartment behind them, pressurised the cabin, and the thing took off. Her stomach lurched. She had been in space plenty of times before, but never had she voluntarily got into a ship with someone who was not the Doctor, and left the TARDIS behind. At least not when there wasn't something chasing her.
She knew that she'd had her reasons for jumping into this plan, and she stood by them. But one concession she'd made to herself was that she would use her wits. Just now, she wasn't sure that she had any.
It was, surprisingly, about fifteen minutes to their destination, and Agent Cru helped her out of the cruiser, including holding the Doctor's clothing for her again.
She was led through the complex, asked a few questions about her identity, planet of origin, reason for visiting, etc. and was brought to a metal door. Cru heaved the door open and conducted her inside, handing her the Doctor's clothes at last.
Being in this room, Martha thought, must be what it's like being inside a toaster.
The outer walls and ceiling seemed to be made of something like chrome. In the centre of the ceiling, there was a raised window – a skylight, perhaps, though Martha wasn't sure if the thing ever let in any light. Was it simply night-time here, or did the window always reveal only black sky, and stars? The window was covered with a metal grid which Martha thought befitting a prison setting.
That the same metal grid went from floor to ceiling, all the way round the room, and stood about twelve inches away from all four walls. The overall effect was more than a bit severe.
But, the absolute most incongruous bit was that, with all of this roughness, there was a light-brown rug in the centre of the room, and on it, there was a large, perfectly-made bed. It had a cream-coloured bedspread, brown pillows, and a light-coloured wooden headboard.
"This is the conjugal room," Cru said.
"I see that."
"You may place the clothing on the bed."
"Thanks," she said, though she didn't know why. She laid the suit, shirt, tie and shoebox over the left side of the bed – the Doctor's side.
"According to Paragraph 7 of the Galactic Constitution, in conjunction with the Rights of the Living Treaty, the prisoner is allowed periodic conjugal visits, without surveillance," Agent Cru said to her, quite loudly.
"Without surveillance?"
"That is correct. Surveilling such a meeting would be considered invasive, and registers on Orlingus' Cruelty Scale at level 1."
"Whoa. So, there are no cameras or recording equipment in this room?" she asked, mostly because she found this assertion very, very difficult to believe.
"None whatsoever. But, all of the grids that you see around you are electrified. The voltage has been calibrated for the Time Lord's constitution, and will render him unconscious at the slightest touch. You are human, and you are smaller, so I don't know what it would do to you, if you touched it, but… maybe don't find out, eh?"
"I won't plan on it."
"The Doctor will be brought to you momentarily. After that, the door behind me will be deadlock sealed, and a gridded gate will fall in front of it. Once that happens, you and the Doctor will have nineteen galactic minutes before someone returns to collect him. At that point, the visit is concluded, and you will both submit to a bodily search for clandestine information or items. Understood?"
"How do you search for clandestine information?"
"That is confidential, I'm sorry," he said. Then, "Make yourself comfortable."
With that, he turned, and walked through the door. It slammed hard, startling Martha, and she could hear electronic locks and safeguards falling into place. Next, the same process was repeated with the electrified gate, falling in front of the door.
She stood in the centre of the room, eyes and mouth open wide.
For a while, she just sat on the bed and waited, trying to be patient and calm... but sensible.
But eventually, panic began to set in, as the silence became oppressive, and her own heart began to thump hard in her chest. She began to pace. She walked in concentric circles around the bed, thinking of her situation.
She extracted her mobile phone from her bra, and looked at the time. It was about half-past nine when she'd retired to the TARDIS to sleep. The display now showed that three hours had passed. Which meant, she'd been waiting here for about an hour. She'd been told that the Doctor would be brought to her momentarily… she was starting to lose hope.
And, the longer she thought about it, the more she became convinced of two things: 1) there was no way she wasn't being watched and recorded here, and 2) no-one had any intention of letting her see the Doctor.
She was startled yet again by the ringing of her phone, right there in her hand.
"Donna!" she cried out, answering the call.
"Martha! Where the hell are you? Where's the TARDIS?"
"Donna, I'm in a cage," Martha reported, her voice breaking. "I've walked straight into a trap!"
Poor Martha! But, don't despair... things aren't as bad as all that.
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