Dead on Arrival

Eleven

On the outskirts of the Fowl Pocket, a hollow, metal husk floated, silent, through space. It was one of maybe a hundred similar wrecks, ships of all different shapes and sizes; some enormous expeditionary fleets which hadn't been able to escape the gravity belt, tiny escape pods sucked in by accident, vessels catapulted into the Fowl Pocket's oblivion by stray asteroids. From the outside, the Comet looked skeletal. Long body, huge rear thrusters, atmospheric generators protruding along the chassis like steel ribs. They were still generating a translucent, amber-coloured forcefield. Within, it was empty and dark, metallic noises echoing through the deserted, cold cavities, all the lights off save for the bright, holographic door locks.

When the TARDIS materialised, it was like an orchestra, flooding the halls with a distorted cacophony of noise. It thrummed and appeared out of nowhere in a cramped maintenance access shaft, three figures stepping out into the dark interior. Until they switched on the torches attached to their spacesuits, the only source of light was a dim orange in the centre of the mechanical door declaring it to be locked tight.

More than anything in the world at that moment, the Doctor appreciated his daughter actually allowing him to have her company. It was funny, because a week ago he hardly would have cared (which he was ashamed of to no end, truthfully, and it was a damn good thing she'd given him that wake-up call on Messaline.) The thing he didn't appreciate was Amelia Pond inviting herself to tag along. That left him disgruntled. Oh, and the spacesuits. He didn't appreciate the spacesuits*.

"Is this definitely mine? Are we sure?" he asked. He wasn't liking his minimal range of movement in the thing, which reminded him of a morph suit. It wasn't really the type of attire he was used to. It was a fancy-looking, white and silver creation that stuck to his skin with some thick, airtight fabric, synthesised in Oswin's laboratory, no doubt. It wasn't that he wasn't a fan of his sister-in-law's engineering, it was just that… well, no. It was exactly that. He wasn't a fan of his sister-in-law's engineering. Especially when it felt like he was in an all-in-one made of cellophane.

"Oh, get over it," Amy said, her voice fuzzy and playing right in his ears through a speaker in the base of the helmet, a bit of the suit that reminded him unnervingly of a shock collar. They needed the audio links because they had the helmets on. Alright, the helmets he liked. Admittedly, they looked like fishbowls, a bit like the whole design scheme had been plucked out of The Jetsons. Or, worse, Mars Attacks, that ghastly piece of cinema his wife had made him watched so that she could laugh at his reactions. They did offer the full range of peripheral vision, though. If he could attach the helmets onto the old suits, he would be happy. But they didn't work like that, the glass separated and retreated into those metal collars the same way some Sontaran helmets did.

"I just mean, it's awfully… tight," he said.

"That's the point," Jenny said. When she spoke to him, she spoke monotonously and dryly. He knew that she was judging him, and that she was trying to keep her opinions of him out of her tone of voice. Perhaps that would change, though – for the better, of course. If it changed because she started shouting at him again, he would not be happy. "It's a second layer of skin, for greater mobility."

"And it's not in a stupid colour," Amy said, "Like those orange ones."

"I hate the orange ones," Jenny agreed with Amy. Those damned collars were the most complicated part of the whole suit, he knew, looking at the duplicates on his two companions that day. They had compressed air tanks on the back in case of a sudden vacuum, they had torches built into the front for handless, convenient light, speakers and radios and probably a dozen more complicated interfaces Oswin had buried inside of them. And there, on the back, were names. AMELIA and JENNY in emblazoned white paint on the silver; on the back of his all he had was the number 11.

"I can't help but feel vulnerable though," he complained, "As though somebody behind me might be… you know, watching."

"Out of your married best friend and your own daughter?" Amy asked.

"It's mostly my married best friend I'm worried about," he said, seeing Amy roll her eyes in the illuminated, spherical helmet. Still, though, it was better to be safe than sorry. A wrecked spaceship could have all sorts of problems – namely the oxygen recyclers breaking down. Lucky they had their own oxygen recyclers – ingenious, he hated to admit – built into the suits, giving them a constant supply of clean air from filtered carbon dioxide. A very complicated process that usually required machines much, much larger devices to carry it out. Of course, though, the people who designed those machines were not Oswin Oswald.

"Whatever. Where are we?" Amy asked Jenny, who was already over at the door in the tiny room, the TARDIS sitting there and humming. Jenny had her pink-lighted, sonic screwdriver out and was scanning the door with it, examining it rather than merely unlocking it. He ought to have brought that device from yesterday out with him, he thought, that new tracker he had kept, see if it could detect life signs. It was in pieces on his coffee table, though, because he'd been modifying it during the night.

"It's just an access duct for maintenance," Jenny answered, "There's a ladder behind the TARDIS that goes down to the auxiliary engines, but there's no point going down there. The engines will have been switched off as soon as they got into the Fowl Pocket. There's a secondary system lockdown in effect. Everything except life support and gravity. Someone's done a number on these door controls."

"What do you mean?" Amy asked.

"Well, they've broken them, linked them all to the command terminal in the captain's quarters and then… deleted all the programming, it looks like. Impossible to open," she said, and then the orange, hologramatic circle shining in the centre of the door span around and turned blue. "Unless you have a sonic screwdriver, of course." Jenny touched the blue circle floating just a centimetre above the surface of the door and it separated, then the door hummed and opened jerkily.

Jenny had a gun slung over her back, an enormous, rusty thing, the barrel of which was over a foot long just on its own. She had dragged that thing out from Ravenwood's cellar earlier that morning, and before he could make any kind of comment she said that Ten had already had an argument with her about 'Emmett,' as she called it, and had lost. He didn't think trying his luck would work. Besides, he had decided to trust in Jenny that she wouldn't go around unnecessarily shooting people, even if he did disapprove of her gun. Along with that, she had some fancy sidearm from a distant future holstered around her waist. Armed to the teeth.

They stepped out into an empty, low-ceilinged corridor, almost too short for he and Amy to walk in. Jenny, of course, was plenty comfortable. It was all empty, though. Not a soul or a light in sight, just bleak shadows and one another.

"Are you back on the TARDIS, then?" Amy asked Jenny, who faltered.

"I'm uh… well, I haven't… if I were coming back to the TARDIS, I'd have to tell Clara, so I don't really want to say anything before I… talk to her…" she lied. It wasn't anything to do with Clara, the Doctor was sure. Jenny started to lead them off in one direction, towards more doors, but the one they approached was lit up blue rather than orange.

"I thought you said all the doors were locked?" he questioned.

"They were all locked. I couldn't unlock one without unlocking all of them, which… might be bad. Might not be," Jenny said.

"How might the ship going into complete lockdown not be bad?" Amy asked incredulously, "And what is this ship? What kind of distress call are we answering?"

"Her name," Eleven said, nodding at Jenny, who was in front of he and Amy, "Just 'Jenny' over and over."

"How do you know it's for you? You don't really have an uncommon name," Amy said.

"Because it is," Jenny answered shortly.

"Right... but we're all on this possibly-dangerous spaceship, so maybe you shouldn't hold out on us? Tell us how this lockdown might be a good thing?"

"I didn't say it would be a good thing," Jenny said, checking around the corner they came up to carefully. It was very cold, and it gave the Doctor dreadful goosebumps when coupled with the skin-tight bodysuit he was stuck wearing. "I just said it might not be a bad thing. More of a… neutral thing."

"Not really doing too well on that 'don't-hold-out-on-us' front, to be honest…" Amy said uneasily, looking around, as though she were scared something might jump out. Jenny really was incredibly evasive about her past. Did she or did she not want to be asked about it? He thought she ought to make up her mind. "At least tell us why the distress call is for you."

"It's my name. That's why."

Amy nudged Eleven.

"What?" he asked.

"She gets that from you."

"What?" both he and Jenny said.

"All the secrets. You people really need to learn to share. By which I mean Time Lords."

"What a charming analysis of an entire species based on two individuals," Eleven said dryly. He couldn't tell if Jenny was pleased or displeased at being likened to him. He supposed, though, Amy would know. Clara would know, as well, but were it Clara there at that moment, she wouldn't point it out. She would just boil in the awkwardness. "What sort of ship is this?"

"It's a, uh… frigate…" she said, pausing for a long while between her words. Such a long time, he was convinced she was lying.

"So, if this ship might not be in that bad of a way, why have you got a massive gun?" Amy questioned.

"As a precaution."

"A precaution? You have that huge gun, and a blaster, for a precaution?"

A noise interrupted them. Not the sort of noise they wanted to hear. It came from above, sounded like something clattering around in the ceiling, and the three of them looked up and paused, all silent. The noises paused, too, for a second, then they banged away quickly down the corridor in the same direction they were headed, like something was scuttling around. Jenny's hand (the left one, of course, the right one was still bunged up in that enormous cast, and she'd had quite a time of it trying to force the glove to fit over the top earlier) went instinctively to her gun. The sounds faded away.

"Okay. What was that?" Amy looked between Eleven and Jenny. Jenny glanced at the Doctor though, like he might know, betraying the fact that she didn't know, either.

"Probably the sort of thing my precautions are against," Jenny answered finally.

"It sounded like a thing. Where are you going? Don't go that way – that's the way whatever it is went," Amy said, staying rigidly still when Jenny started walking again.

"It could have been a person," the Doctor suggested, meeting Jenny's eyes.

"Yeah," Jenny backed him up, "Just a person. Maybe whoever called for help." It was clear, though, that Jenny, like the Doctor, didn't believe it was 'just a person.' People didn't move so quickly through what he presumed were maintenance vents running above them. "Or even a nice friendly alien who really likes ventilation systems."

"Nothing good has ever hidden in a ventilation system," Amy said firmly, "Nothing."

"Well, in the probably highly unlikely and ridiculous case that that creepy noise was made by something hostile," Jenny began, "I have this massive gun. And I never miss."

"I see, and do you never miss with or without a broken thumb?" Amy asked her sarcastically.

"I'm not sure the pessimism is entirely helpful," Eleven said.

"Exactly. Now hurry up."

"I should've stayed on the TARDIS…" Amy grumbled. Yes, the Doctor thought, perhaps you should have. Let him have some quality time alone with his daughter. Even if that quality time did consist of wandering around a dark, spooky spaceship following mysterious, scurrying ceiling-dwellers.

Every narrow, tight corridor of the ship looked the same in the darkness, with only the doors to go by. Whatever ship it was, though, Jenny was obviously incredibly familiar with it for her to be leading them around the way she was. She might as well be blindfolded. She led them right up to another door which, thankfully, opened into a proper room. A well-lit room. Even if the light did come from a large, viewing window built into one wall rather than the interior of the ship itself. But it didn't illuminate anything good. No, contrary to what Jenny kept saying, that it 'might not be anything bad,' it was definitely bad. It was blood and bodies, some in pieces, torn apart, all over the enormous room.

Jenny went to cover her mouth with her hand, and her glove bumped against the helmet. The three of them had wide eyes, staring out at a massacre – it was impossible to tell how many peoples' remains they were looking at.

"I knew these people," she said, "And now I can't… I can't even recognise who…" Eleven wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know how.

"Won't you tell us what's going on now?" Amy asked her.

"Look at that," Jenny pointed at a piece of paper stuck to the wall, blood spatters on it now, "I made that. It's a chore rota." Amy and Eleven were at a loss. "This is, um… the ship is called the Comet. I named it that. When I stole it. It's… a pirate ship. These people are pirates."

"Pirates!?" Eleven exclaimed.

"Yes, pirates, and you reacting like that is exactly why I didn't want to mention it was a pirate ship," she said pointedly. Amy walked over to the paper on the wall and squinted at it. Whatever had killed all these people wasn't there anymore, at least. Not in the room. "My pirate ship. Until eight months ago, when they all mutinied."

"Do you think the reason they mutinied is because you devised a chore rota?" she asked incredulously. It bothered Eleven how unperturbed by the bodies Amy was. They were all like that on the TARDIS, though. That was, after all, the reason Esther Drummond had left. Such a shame, because he liked Esther.

"No, they mutinied because I wasn't violent enough," she explained, "I was more Robin Hood than Blackbeard."

"Funny, Robin Hood is one of Clara's favourite books," Eleven commented. Amy and Jenny both gave him looks at that, and he realised that was a terrible thing to have pointed out, and resolved to shut up. Resolved to just stay away from all mention of Clara, of both Claras, for definite.

"Anyway," Jenny said, eyes wandering to the view outside. There was blood on the window as well, though, "This used to be the canteen… god, this is worse than I thought…" Outside the sky was a mint green sort of colour. The whole Fowl Pocket was burned green. He could see silhouettes of other ghost ships, too, out there in space. He wondered if anybody was alive on the others. Maybe this, whatever 'this' was, was the real reason nobody ever left. The view, though – it was almost pretty.

"They mutinied? Eight months ago?" Eleven asked her.

"Yes. They dumped me on Trancha II with that piece of junk shuttle from Messaline I left behind on Tungtrun for nearly a hundred and fifty years, thinking the Vashta Nerada would finish a Time Lord off properly. Then you came along. Finally," she remarked. "They wanted to go on a wild goose chase for some kind of cursed-"

A barely human scream tore the air apart and they turned their gazes and their lights towards the corner of the grisly canteen. A maintenance duct on the wall was ripped right through and some creature threw itself onto the floor. It moved quickly, and he could hardly make it out. All he saw was it had shreds of clothes hanging off it, was flesh-coloured, and had bone-like appendages sticking out of its body like blades.

"This would be a really big time for you to use that massive gun you keep talking about!" Amy shouted at Jenny, the gruesome biped wailing and coming straight towards them. By shouting, she attracted its attention. And whatever it was, he was sure, was going to tear them apart just like everyone else had been torn apart. Jenny got out of its way, pulling the gun off her shoulder, and the Doctor dragged Amy right out of its path at the last minute, in time for his daughter – who was fumbling a little with her damaged thumb – to cock her gun and fire at the monster. Was he prepared for seeing the thing get pinned by its head against the wall? No. He didn't know what he thought Jenny's gun, Emmett, fired, but he hadn't been expecting it to be six-inch spikes.

"What the hell is that!?" Amy demanded. The thing was still only for a second, then it started twitching and trying to pull itself free, making strangled, hissing noises and flailing. Nothing could survive getting shot through the head like that, which just led him to believe it was already dead before getting its brain impaled. Jenny shot it again, this time in its abdomen, making sure it was fixed to the wall. Only then did it seem to stop for good. There was steam pouring out of Jenny's gun.

"Is it alien?" Jenny asked the Doctor.

"I don't know," he said, taking his own sonic screwdriver out. He didn't really want to go near it. He held the sonic up from where he was standing and tried to scan from a distance.

"I think you pinned it to your chore rota," Amy joked. She didn't sound like she found it very funny, though. She sounded harrowed.

"Odd," Eleven said, listening to the sonic, "Apparently, it's human."

"It's human? Look at it – what could do this to a human?" Jenny asked, "I shot it in the head and it was still moving. It could still be alive now."

"I don't know. But I think we've found the reason for your distress call…"

*chapter 764