CHAPTER 41
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As Donna's TARDIS materialized on Ice World, she got out of it while talking on her cell phone. She was right in the middle of a conversation with her mother.
"No, I'm not on Earth. I'm on Ice World. That's right. It's called Ice World. I imagine it's called that because of all of the ice here. It's always pretty cold here all of the time too. How should I know? I didn't name the bloody place. It's a huge spaceship in orbit around the Earth," Donna said with a sigh.
Donna looked up from her phone for a moment to see a young woman with red hair smiling at her. The woman had a sympathetic look on her face as if she somehow knew just how annoyed Donna was getting from her mother's barrage of silly questions. Donna smiled back at her. She liked the woman instantly but wouldn't have been able to tell anyone why exactly. It was just a feeling that she got about her. She instantly felt that she could trust her for some reason.
As Donna finished talking to her mother and hung up, she said, "That's my mother. She gets on my nerves sometimes. She's always wanting to know everything that I do and prying into my business."
"My mother's exactly the same. She can drive me up the wall sometimes. Don't get me wrong. I love her more than anyone, but she can push my buttons like nobody else," the young woman said.
"Yeah, I guess all mothers are like that," Donna said as she suddenly became sad.
"Are you alright?" the woman asked her with concern on her face.
"Yeah, I just wish I could be a mother. I'd really like to have a child someday. Of course it would help if I found a man first. That's always a necessary first step," Donna said.
"Don't worry about it. You will," the woman said with a warm smile.
"How do you know that? Do you have a crystal ball on you somewhere?" Donna asked with a grin.
"Let's just say that I get feelings about people sometimes. I have a feeling that your life is about to get a lot better soon. Which would you prefer? A boy or a girl?" the woman asked.
"Either one would be nice. I would love them no matter what they were. I have to admit that I'd prefer a girl though. I've always loved the idea of having a little girl. Oi! What's with all of the questions anyway, and why am I being so open and honest with you?" Donna asked as she suddenly got a suspicious look on her face.
The woman suddenly became nervous and stuttered a little as she said, "I – I – I just have one of those faces I guess. Everyone trusts me automatically. I'm too nosy sometimes I guess. I'm sorry. I won't bother you anymore."
The woman turned to leave, but Donna stopped her by putting her hand on her shoulder as she said with a smile, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bite your head off."
"It's okay. Maybe I'll see you around sometime. My name's Lauren," the woman said as she started to leave.
"Donna. Donna Noble," Donna said as she smiled at her.
As the young woman walked away from her, Donna turned to see Dorothy standing next to her with an enigmatic smile on her face. Donna silently wondered what she was so happy about.
"Penny for your thoughts, Dorothy," Donna said.
"Oh, I was just thinking about the future or in my case the past," Dorothy said with a grin.
"You just love being all dark and mysterious, don't you?" Donna asked with a chuckle.
"Yeah I do. I used to hate it when the Professor did that to me, but now I can almost understand why he did it. It's kind of fun to know something that no one else does," Dorothy admitted.
"Care to let me in on what it is that you know that's making you so happy, Future Girl?" Donna asked.
"Spoilers!" Dorothy said with a grin.
Donna groaned as she said, "Now, why did you have to go and say that for? Now I'm going to be dying of curiosity. Besides, I really hate that word!"
"Some things are worth waiting for, Donna. You'll find out just what Dorothy's smiling about someday, and you'll thank her for not telling you now," Lilith said.
"How do you know about the future?" Donna asked in surprise.
"I don't but I can tell certain things about a person just by looking at them like their name," Lilith said.
"Yeah, you never did tell me how you do that, Witch Girl. How do you know the name of someone that you've never met?" Donna asked.
"It's magic, Donna. I can't tell you any more than that. A good Carrionite never tells her secrets," Lilith said with a good-natured smile.
Donna smiled back at her and thought about how different this Lilith was from the woman that the others said that they had first met. It seemed that her team had become a magnet for reformed bad girls. Not that that was a bad thing. She believed in giving people second chances. She just wondered why they all seemed to be coming to her. Maybe it was because she was so sweet. Yeah, that must be it.
"Oi! What's taking you all so long? We're keeping K'anpo waiting! Come on out already! You bunch of dumbos!" Donna shouted back in the direction of her TARDIS in an impatient tone.
As the rest of the Wolves finally started coming out of the TARDIS, Donna saw Lauren nearby again for a brief moment struggling not to laugh at her. She quickly left when she saw that Donna had noticed her. What was going on with that girl? Was she a stalker? Donna began to wonder if she might be a fan of hers.
Donna smiled at the idea that she might have a fan club like LINDA following her around.
"Donna Noble, it looks like you've hit the big time. I've got my first obsessive fan," Donna said to herself.
"Oh, please! Your ego is getting as big as the Doctor's now," Ileana said with a giggle.
"Is my head so big that it doesn't fit in the bloody room? I don't think so. My ego is just fine. Thank you very much," Donna said indignantly.
"I wonder if that girl really is a fan of Donna's. She does keep staring at her a lot," Michelle noticed.
"Will all of you quit staring at the woman with the incredibly good taste and follow me? K'anpo wanted to see us about something. Martha said that he was having some kind of problem that he wanted us to help him with. Hurry up!" Donna said.
"I OBEY!" Ileana joked in a terrible imitation of a Dalek voice.
"Are you comparing me to a Dalek, Fang Girl?" Donna asked in a threatening voice.
"Oh, no! Never!" Ileana said with a chuckle.
"You are a little pushy though sometimes," Victoria said to Donna.
"A LITTLE pushy! You've got to be kidding me!" Dorothy said with a laugh.
"Oi! Don't you two start in on me too! I've had enough of everyone's lip today. Come on. Let's see what K'anpo's been up to lately," Donna said.
"I wonder if he ever got together with Mel?" Michelle asked.
"I hope so. I think that they would make a great couple," Victoria said.
"K'anpo was so scared to talk to her the last time that we were here that I really doubt that he even asked her much less got together with her. I bet he's still keeping his feelings a complete secret from her," Donna said confidently.
As the Wolves made their way towards the bar where they had agreed to meet at, they found K'anpo and Mel kissing passionately right outside of the bar's front door. Donna looked at the scene in shock with her mouth hanging open.
"It looks like he told her to me. Apparently Amy's advice to him worked," Ileana said with a grin.
"Either that or she tripped and fell on his face," Amanda said with a giggle.
"That was an old joke even in our time, Amanda," Katherine said with a groan.
"The old jokes are still the best jokes sometimes. I remember quite a few good jokes that I learned from a sailor that I met once in the 1700s," Alina said.
"Really? Can you tell them to me sometime?" Amanda asked.
"Oh, yes. I'd be glad to," Alina said.
"They're clean jokes, right?" Katherine asked concerned.
"Of course they are. I'll leave it to Ileana to teach her the bad ones," Alina said with a grin.
"What happened to the sailor?" Amanda asked.
Alina looked away from her with a guilty look on her face, and Amanda knew not to ask her any more questions. She put an arm around her as she said, "It wasn't you, Lina."
"I'd so like to believe that," Alina said softly.
Donna cleared her throat loudly as K'anpo and Mel hadn't even looked up at them yet despite the fact that they had been talking right next to them for several minutes now. That didn't seem to work so Donna decided to try some tact and subtlety.
"Oi! Will you two dumbos quit sucking face long enough to notice that we're all standing here?!" Donna screamed impatiently.
K'anpo and Mel pulled away from each other with embarrassed looks on their faces as Glitz came walking up to everyone from inside of the bar. He was inwardly amused at how quickly and strongly his two friends had taken to each other. Then again they did have years of pent up emotion spilling out now that they had finally told each other how they felt. He was surprised that they hadn't exploded if they had been holding all of that inside of them for so long. He would have laughed at the sight of it if he wasn't so worried about the current situation onboard this ship.
"I catch them doing that all of the time now. It's best just to ignore them and let them go once they get started. Even if you break them up they'll be right back at it all over again ten minutes later if not sooner," Glitz said with a smirk.
"Shut up, Glitz!" Mel said as her face became even redder.
"I'm not here to discuss your love life, Scream Queen. I've come to see what K'anpo called us here about. I would like to say congratulations to both of you though," Donna said.
"Scream Queen? Just because I scream sometimes when I'm scared that doesn't make me a scream queen," Mel muttered to herself.
"Sometimes? You scream all of the time when you're scared, Doughnut. Very, very loud. As in breaking a wine glass loud," Dorothy said with a giggle.
"Let's get to the point, girls. What's going on, Wise Man?" Donna asked.
K'anpo winced at Donna's little nickname for him as he said, "Well, you're not going to believe me, Donna. I'm not even sure I believe it myself. It goes against everything that I believe in as a Time Lord."
"Come on, K'anpo. It wasn't just me. Everyone else in the bar saw it too. They saw it with their own eyes," Glitz said.
"Saw what? What's going on here?" Donna asked impatiently.
"Glitz thinks that this ship is haunted," K'anpo said reluctantly.
"Are you kidding me?" Donna asked with a skeptical look on her face.
"I don't want to believe it either, but I don't know how else to describe what we all saw," Glitz said.
"It can't be a ghost, Glitz. Ghosts don't exist. It must be some kind of leftover psychic residue or a temporal disturbance of some kind," K'anpo insisted.
"Have you found any evidence of any of those kinds of things?" Glitz asked in an irritated voice.
"No but I know that it has to be something logical. There are no such things as ghosts," K'anpo said.
"That's absolutely right. Believing in the supernatural is just absurd," Mel said.
As Ileana cleared her throat loudly, Mel smiled and said, "Yes, I'm aware that I'm talking to a group with three vampires, a werewolf, and a witch on it, but none of you are supernatural in origin. You're all explainable. You're not hocus pocus and nonsense."
"I tell you that what we saw was a ghost. It has to be. It's the ghost of Kane! We all saw him in the bar, and he told us all to get out. He said that he would destroy this ship if we didn't get off of it," Glitz said as he looked around him nervously.
"Kane is dead. I know that from the Doctor's memories," Donna said.
"Are you sure about that? Maybe he had some kind of weird alien powers that brought him back somehow. You don't know," Glitz said.
"Can someone explain to the rest of us who Kane is?" Michelle asked with a confused look on her face.
Dorothy raised her hand as she said, "I'll take this one. Kane was a major scumbag from the planet Proamon. He used to run Ice World before Glitz got it. He wound up on Ice World after being exiled to the planet Svartos, where Ice World was at the time, by his own people because he was a criminal. He bought and sold people like they were furniture and turned them into his slaves. He would even freeze some of them after wiping their memories so that he could use them later as a loyal, mindless army to go back and attack his home with someday for revenge. He was a real winner all right. He even tried to make me into one of his minions once, but I was too smart for him. He had one weakness though. He had a very low body temperature which made him able to kill people just by touching them, but it also meant that he would die if exposed to direct sunlight or extreme heat. When the Professor told him that his home world had been destroyed when its sun went supernova, he realized that he had nothing left to keep him going anymore since there was no one around to get his revenge on. He then committed suicide by exposing himself to sunlight. Good riddance I say."
"Well, apparently he decided that he didn't want to die just yet because now he's back, and he wants this ship. That's why I begged K'anpo to bring you lot in. I want you to exorcise him or bust him or whatever it is you do and get rid of him. I'll pay you good money for the job so you don't have to worry about that," Glitz said.
"We don't bust ghosts. We've never actually encountered any ghosts before," Donna said.
"That's because they don't exist," Mel insisted.
"So you say. I say we let the Wolves find out and don't leave anything to chance," Glitz said nervously.
'Well, if it'll make you feel better and convince you that whatever happened was the result of something else then go for it, Glitz," Mel said.
"Well, I guess we're going ghost busting," Donna said with an amused look on her face.
"Shouldn't we get some proton packs first?" Dorothy joked.
"Proton packs?" Amanda asked.
"Oh, that's right. You've never seen Ghostbusters, have you? I'm going to have to fix that once this is over," Ileana said to her with a mischievous grin.
"Are you trying to corrupt my daughter again, Ileana?" Katherine asked with a frown.
"Would I do a thing like that? No, of course not. It's a wonderful movie. She'll love it," Ileana said.
"Will you people stop talking about some old movie? This is real! You need to start taking it seriously!" Glitz said in an irritated voice.
"Okay, okay, Beard Boy. Don't have a heart attack. We'll find out what's going on and put a stop to it. I promise," Donna said.
"Whatever it is has a perfectly logical explanation to it I'm sure. If it's even real in the first place," Mel said skeptically.
Then they all started hearing screams coming from the bar and saw a man dressed in an all-white military outfit standing in the center of it. He looked at them with a sneer as he said, "I assure you that I am very real, Melanie. If everyone doesn't leave this ship in twenty-four hours, I will trigger a hidden self-destruct program that I left behind on it and destroy it and everyone else on board! This ship was once mine, and it will be again. This is your last warning. Leave or you will all die!"
"Kane!" Glitz shouted in fear.
"Well, he looks pretty real to me," Amanda said as she began to shake in fear.
"He's probably a very sophisticated hologram," K'anpo said skeptically.
"Can a hologram do this, Time Lord?" Kane said as he grabbed a fleeing woman by the arm.
The woman began to instantly freeze at his touch and was covered with ice. She then became limp and fell to the ground seemingly dead as soon as Kane let go of her.
"Twenty-four hours," Kane said as he vanished right in front of them.
"You see?!" Glitz said.
Donna ran to the fallen woman and scanned her with her sonic screwdriver. Her face was filled with sadness as she said, "She's dead. She's been frozen to death."
Nearby Lauren McAvoy watched as Donna began to realize that this was not just a game for the first time. She was starting to wish that she had picked a different point in time for her first visit to her mother's past. Suddenly this was not as much fun as she had thought that it would be.
Next: Is Kane really a ghost or something else? Why does he want everyone to leave Ice World? Next time we find out what's really going on along with a little more information about Donna's future daughter.