Chapter 15
Hospital Visit
Raven heard the heart monitor bleeping. It was bleeping twice as fast as a heart monitor should as it read off the Doctors double heart rhythm.
"He seems stable" said Dr. Wood, an elderly man with slicked back black hair that looked like it was greying and a full, bushy beard. "You say he's a telepath?"
"A Time Lord" Raven corrected.
"Ah, psychic shock maybe." Dr. Wood said and placed a strange object over the Doctors cranium and switched it on. Then consulted the pad in his hand. "Yes, definitely some kind of psychic shock, or mental attack, and to protect himself his mind shut down."
"Can you fix him?" Raven asked, concern in her voice.
"Sure we can." Dr. Wood said. "But it might take a few days. It's like muscle cramp. The brain has to be persuaded to relax by itself. If we try to force it, it might be dangerous for the patient."
Dr. Wood then moved to the next bed to deal with another patient. A woman with her young baby boy.
Raven looked at the Doctor as he lay peacefully. His coat was on a hanger by the bed, he was in his shirt sleeves and his shirt and waistcoat had been undone so the doctors could examine him. In the window by the Doctors bed wisps of blue, green and white sped past. This was apparently hyperspace that the Hospital ship was travelling through.
Everyone had seemed surprised that even a Gallifreyan Time Capsule could land here so precisely while the ship was in hyperspace. That's why those coordinates and time settings she'd gotten from the Doctors mind had been so precise, down to the last milli-second. They needed to land on a ship that was moving so fast that it would be in the right place only for a split second. Raven guessed that the Doctor had been here before and knew exactly where and when to land. Yet strangely no one here knew who the Doctor was, nor knew of any Gallifreyan visitors to the ship. It wasn't an important question so she let it drop.
She was lucky that out of all the pointless places Raven had pulled from the Doctors mind she got the one that was an actual hospital ship, and with the exact time and place to land within.
As soon as she'd stumbled from the TARDIS with the Doctor and called for help staff arrived immediately to help the Doctor. As they rushed him away a strange little grey creature had asked her questions. Like his name, age, whether he's allergic to anything. Stuff like that. But since she didn't know those answers exactly the creature looked irritated at the vague answers she could only give.
After all that, and it turned out the Doctor had been psychically attacked.
She wondered if it had anything to do with her. After all, she had dived into the Doctors brain. Or was it a different attack, and if so what had attacked him? Was it the Time Lords? Or something else?
Either way, the Doctor was recovering. I prefer him to stay like this, it's more peaceful. Her mind said. She was getting a little annoyed at these darker thoughts now.
"Oh dear," the woman across from her with the baby said, "Is your father going to be okay?"
Raven's face twitched, but she kept her emotions in check. "He's not my father."
"Oh, boyfriend, then?" the woman suggested.
"God no!" Raven said quickly, rolling her eyes. Why did everyone from Earth always assume romantic involvement?
"Uncle?" the nosy woman said. Sighing, Raven just nodded rather than listen to her.
"Yes. He's my uncle." she said, trying to communicate her disinterest in talking, but the woman yammered on regardless.
"Oh dear. Psychic shock, did the doctor say?" the woman asked.
"Yes" Raven replied.
"Ay, did you say you were both Time Lords?" she asked.
Raven sighed and shrugged "Yeah, why not."
"Ooh, then I won't pry into your matters" the woman said.
"That would be appreciated." Raven replied.
The baby in her arms started to cry and the woman thankfully gave it some attention. Bouncing it up and down on her knee.
"Oh, my aren't you a little attention seeker today." and the baby giggled at the attention. She turned to Raven again. "You got kids?"
"I hate kids." Raven said bluntly, hoping that would stop all discussion between them. Raven didn't care if the woman thought she was horrible. Raven didn't know her and she's hardly likely to see her again. But amazingly the woman didn't seem phased.
"Oh, you know, I used to say exactly the same thing about young Corentin here." The woman said. Raven wished she had a pair of ear plugs. "He was a right terror when he were first born." Forget ear plugs, she'd settle for knitting needles in her ears. "But a woman always has an intuition when it comes to babies and, oh..."
Raven had got up, pulled her hood over her face and walked out determined to get some peace. She walked down to reception. The TARDIS was parked there, all she had to do was get inside it and wait for the Doctor to recover.
However, when she arrived in reception, the white hall was missing that certain tall blue Police Box shape. Panic rising in her mind at losing her home and shelter she walked quickly to the reception desk.
She tried to push to the front of a line to find out where the TARDIS had gone. But a bunch of aggressive aliens forced her out and made her go to the back of the line. She could activate her powers and get her own way, it would be so easy, and as the creatures shouted at her, her eyes had begun to glow white. But they looked intimidated and shrank back from her.
Sighing she told herself. Try to be nice. And walked to the back of the line. She was standing there for hours until the line went down. This was irritating. She was waiting for what felt like hours just to get information that would take reception a couple of minutes to tell her. She really got irritated when the person just in front of her just kept asking more, and more, and more questions of the receptionist. She so wanted to push this person away but she kept in control of herself.
When finally at reception Raven asked the robot receptionist where the TARDIS was. After a little clarification that she meant the 'Gallifreyan Time Capsule' it mentioned they had it transported down to the shuttle bay.
Raven descended to it using the lift. She opted not to use her powers because this ship was apparently travelling at super light speeds. At this speed if she tried to teleport then there was no guarantee when she arrived the hospital ship would be where she wanted to be. She could come out in deep space and be stuck there to die.
Upon arriving she had quickly found the TARDIS by its void signature. But it was being loaded into a small shuttle craft by some unsightly looking characters all the way in the corner of the bay were security was lighter.
She didn't know if they were stealing the TARDIS or loading it by mistake. But she would sort it out and get it back.
"HEY!" Raven shouted when she approached, "Where are you taking that?"
One of the crew, a slimy looking creature, straddled up to her like he was in charge. He was easily twice her height.
"Hey, hey, little missy." He said towering over her. "What's a girly like you doing in a place like this?"
"Retrieving my property," Raven said looking at the TARDIS as it was half in, half out of the shuttle. "That is my home."
"Oh, so you're a Time Lord, are ya?" He asked. She got the sense that the crew were going to become nasty as they gathered around her. "Well, see a ship like that is worth a lot of credits. Bigger on the inside dimensional technology, very sought after."
"I don't care, put it back or else." Raven said, her voice calm and steady.
"I hear Time Lords regenerate" the man said nodding to his crew, "I'd like to see what happens." and he cracked his knuckles. "There are a lot of races out there that would love to get their hands on a Time Lord too, dead or alive."
Raven closed her eyes, crossed her arms and arranged her hands and fingers to cast a spell. She opened her eyes, they were bright white, and she said, "I am no Time Lord, I am a monster."
"You can't take that up here!" said one of the security guards pointing at the TARDIS. Raven didn't want to leave it down here in case it got stolen again, but the guards wouldn't let her take it back to the Doctors ward. "That thing causes too much of an obstruction. The wards are for patients, not for space craft."
Raven had been holding the Police Box in the air with her power, a big, black cube of energy surrounding it. She lowered her hand and the box fell down with a thud. She crossed her arms and drummed her fingers on her arms one at a time trying to figure out how to keep the TARDIS safe. She could pass it into an alternative dimension. But with this hospital ship at hyperspace she wasn't sure if she'd be able to get it back, whether in hyperspace or real space.
If the guy said it was too big then Raven would have to fix that. This was a very simple spell. It used to work on rats and fruit back on Azarath, so it should work on the TARDIS. She cast a black shroud of energy over the machine, and let her arms adopt the correct positions. She said her chimes and cast her spell.
It sounded like the TARDIS groaned in protest a few times like it wanted to takeoff and get away from her. But her powers held it in place as it felt like the machine resisted her powers. Sadly for it, there would only be one winner today. Suddenly the TARDIS vanished, but it hadn't taken off. A small object fell from the centre of where the TARDIS stood and it clattered to the floor.
Raven walked up to the object, picked it up and held the small Police Box, no bigger than a box of matches in her hand. Raven could sense that the machine was very annoyed with her for doing this, but at least she couldn't lose it now.
The guards looked at her as if she was a demon to be wary of. "Can I pass now?" she asked, "Or should I turn you into toads?"
The guards cleared her path and let her get onto the lift. As the door closed she glanced over at the ship that tried to steal the TARDIS.
They'll be fine. She thought darkly. It'll wear off, in an hour or six.
When she returned to the ward she placed the TARDIS in the Doctors coat pocket. She wanted to carry it with her but her clothes had the disadvantage of having no pockets, so the Doctors coat was the safest place to keep it.
Unfortunately by shrinking the TARDIS it meant she couldn't get in. A fact she realised quickly when the woman in the next bed started talking to her again.
Oh my God, she thought, I should've let those guys take the TARDIS with me in it.
She closed off her mind and pretended to be sleepy. Surely if she did that the woman would know to shut up and let her rest.
"Oh dear, the little poppet is worn out." She said and went back to playing with her baby.
Finally, some peace. Raven thought. It wasn't the best position to meditate in but she fell into her trance immediately, and she reached out to sense the whole ship.
The first thing she sensed was the TARDIS screaming at her in anger at what she'd done to it. Raven got a feeling the TARDIS was going to make her pay for doing that. Well, it should've put up more of a fight while being stolen. Shrinking it wasn't as bad as some of the things she could've done. The TARDIS outer shell was very malleable after all. She could've crushed it down and turned it into something else she could carry, and 'that' would've hurt it greatly. Raven made sure to tell the TARDIS this via telepathy.
Oh great, now I'm talking to the mute match box sized box of bolts too.
The rest of the ship was fairly busy and quite large. Everyone was rushing here and there, from place to place. It was always busy.
There was one thing she could sense that was curious. In the cargo hold there appeared to be some signs of life, but the hold didn't have an atmosphere. She guessed to save on the life support. But something was alive down there and it didn't need oxygen to survive. Maybe it was some kind of after image caused by the ship travelling through Hyperspace, she wondered.
Something was moving and it's life signs were small. Whether that meant they were actually small she didn't know. What was this creature? No, creatures, because there were a number of them. Perhaps they were a kind of rat, a rat that didn't need oxygen to survive.
They were moving to the back of the ship, and in formation? She could sense that people were walking past them or over them so they weren't large enough to be seen.
As she sensed the rats Raven was aware someone had put something next to her. Her concentration broke, and she realised that the woman who couldn't shut up had put a cup of tea next to her. She'd gotten Raven a cup of tea? Was everyone in the universe this British? Raven actually appreciated the tea, though the action clashed with what her own personal experiences told her. She's just trying to be nice, her mind told herself, she has no alternative agenda.
Her attention returned to the life signs she could sense. But they appeared to be gone. She released a big sigh and actually found herself falling asleep.
She was woken up by a disturbance as the ship dropped from hyperspace suddenly. Something had echoed in the ether and she reached out to check it. There had been an explosion in the lower levels. Something was damaged, badly damaged and she guessed that whatever it was, was either the hyper-drive or whatever was connected to it.
She opened her eyes, the cup of tea still warm beside her. The window now showed deep space with a few wisps of a green nebula here and there.
"Oh, have we arrived already?" the woman asked looking around. She was feeding her baby.
As Raven took in the sight she found it weirdly beautiful. The wisps of all the different colours in the darkness, glowing purple, green, red, and the smattering of stars around it.
"This is your captain speaking." Came an intercom message. "We are experiencing technical difficulties. Don't panic and we shall be on our way in a matter of moments." Suddenly the shutters on the windows dropped.
Raven could feel something was wrong.
"Oh blimey," the woman said, "Have we lost pressure?"
"No," Raven said suspiciously. There was something out there. A life, she could sense it. Not just one. Millions of them. Surrounding the ship. But they felt dormant, asleep, in fact not really alive.
Using her powers Raven took the shutter and forced it open. She'd prefer to want to see the thing that was potentially attacking them.
A man floated there, directly in front of the window. He was in some kind of protective silver suit. There was an apparatus around his shoulders with pipes that pumped liquid. The helmet had two dark eye holes, a straight mouth and appeared to have handlebars on either side of its head making it look like it was a big lamp.
The woman looked worried. "Don't worry, it's dead." Raven lied.
But the two women jumped and shrieked as its hand reached up and pressed its palm onto the glass, it was certainly alive. Raven got the uneasy feeling that those empty, black holes in its head were staring directly at her, into her soul.
To Be Continued...
Authors notes: If the description wasn't clear enough. The creature Raven has just seen is a Cyberman. I thought it might be interesting to show Raven a truly emotionless creature to creep her out.
I knew if I'd left the TARDIS as it was, Raven, as she currently is as a character, would just want to slink back inside it and wait for the Doctor, and while inside she wouldn't be able to sense what was about to go on around her. So I had to keep her from getting back into the TARDIS. Plus I thought it was a good reference to the episode Flatline and Logopolis where the TARDIS outer shell shrinks.
What Raven did to the crew I think is a lot more powerful if I leave unclear, for now at least.