Heart of Ice
Chapter 1: The Message
A peal of laughter reverberated through the console room, its sound bouncing off of the metal walls and echoing down the corridors. The joyful noise seemed to make the whole place brighter, more alive.
The doors clicked shut behind the two occupants as they ran into the console room of the Tardis.
"Admit it, Doctor, you totally thought that I couldn't negotiate like that!" Clara giggled, pointing at him from across the central panels.
"I don't know if that counted as negotiation, Clara," the Doctor chuckled, unable to stop smiling.
"Ok, but it worked, didn't it?" Clara preened. "I'd like to see you try that."
"Not in your wildest dreams, Clara Oswald," he chuffed, typing commands into the colorful keyboard and launching them into the Time Vortex. "I'll leave that…technique up to you."
Suddenly, the Doctor stopped laughing. Something pricked at the corner of his mind. He furrowed his eyebrows, intrigued.
Clara noticed, mirroring his expression. "What's wrong?" she asked, confused.
"It's just…" the Doctor reached into his pocket, pulling out the leather wallet of psychic paper, "something–someone is calling to me, I think."
Clara cocked her head in curiosity. "Who?"
The Doctor opened the wallet, quickly reading the message scrawled inside. "I dunno, it just says 'Help' and some coordinates."
"Oooh, tempting," Clara trilled, grinning excitedly. "Sounds like another adventure."
The Doctor stuffed the paper back into his coat pocket, shaking his head. "Isn't it time you got back to your boring human life? Don't you have miniature puddling brains to teach?"
"Time machine," Clara threw her hands up, gesturing broadly. "That can wait. Besides, I can't have you go off investigating without me."
The Doctor sighed, knowing he would never win this argument. "Yes, boss," he relented. He quickly punched in the coordinates and pulled the master lever. The ship wheezed to life, rotors spinning and central column pumping.
"Ha!" Clara exclaimed triumphantly. "Knew you'd give in."
"For you?" he teased, a twinkle in his eye. "Always."
Within moments, the ship landed with a metallic thud, arriving wherever the mysterious message had led them. Steam hissed up from the floor vents. The orange and blue roundels pulsed gently.
But something in the back of the Doctor's brain tugged at him. A still small voice, pulling insistently as if to say 'don't go.'
Ignoring it, as usual, he clapped his hands together, whirling around to stand in front of the exit, eager to meet whatever laid beyond. He extended a hand out towards the doors invitingly. "After you, Miss Oswald."
"Ever the gentleman," she smiled, offering an elbow.
He linked his arm with hers, pushing open the door with the other. "Shall we?"
Together, they stepped out into what looked like a laboratory. Gray walls consisted of brushed steel, broken up by the occasional plexiglass window. The air was cool, sterile. Not a speck of grime or dust was to be seen in the pristine cleanroom.
"Hello?" the Doctor called out, seeing and hearing nobody. The lab was eerily silent, save for the droning of the HEPA air filtration system. Centrifuges, fume hoods, and glass-paned industrial refrigerators lined the walls, dark and idle. Disposable full-body gowns hung from pegs on the wall. Blue nitrile gloves littered the floor underneath an overflowing red biohazard bin.
"Doctor, what happened here?" Clara clung to his arm. There was something unsettling about the place, as if something terrible had happened here. Whatever scientists had manned this lab seemed to have left in a hurry.
The Doctor scanned his sonic screwdriver over the biohazard bin. His eyes widened. "Clara, get back into the Tardis," he warned in a gravelly voice.
"Doctor, tell me what it is!" she demanded, concerned.
"Andorian flu," he explained. "A deadly virus capable of wiping out entire planets. I don't know if it's capable of infecting us, but I don't want to find out."
He traced the whirring device over the entire room. "Wait," he held out a palm. "It's dead. The virus, it's sterile here."
Warily, Clara shut the Tardis door she had walked halfway-through, stepping back onto the waxed floors. "Doctor, where is everybody?" she asked shakily, afraid of the answer.
The Doctor turned to a computer terminal dormant in the corner. He turned it on with a buzz of his screwdriver. The screen booted up, humming as it powered on. He sat at the desk, delving deep into the saved files. A news article came up, large red letters ominous like a warning.
"Planet Ergellian Ravaged by Virus: Evacuation Orders Now Mandatory."
"Evacuation," Clara mused hopefully. "Maybe they escaped."
As much as the Doctor wanted to believe that, he was not optimistic. He compared the written date under the headline with the date the computer displayed in the corner of the taskbar. Two weeks difference, mid-43rd century.
His stomach dropped. At this time, Ergellian was still relatively new to space travel, comparable to late 20th century Earth. They had only just barely ventured into the stars. There was no way they could have coordinated a mass planetary evacuation.
"Come on," he urged, abandoning the computer. "Let's find some answers. It should be safe. The viral remnants are weeks old, the Andorian flu dies within 24 hours without a host."
Pressing a red button, the pressurized door hissed open into a buffer room full of lockers, in just as much disarray as the previous section. The juxtaposition between pure cleanliness and messiness left an ominous impression in their minds.
Leaving the cleanroom, they made their way into a long dimly-lit corridor. Motion sensors detected their movements, triggering the overhead lights to flicker on as they progressed down the hall.
The Doctor retrieved the psychic paper from his pocket, waving it in the air. "This message is not from weeks ago, Clara. It's from today. There must be someone alive here."
Rounding the corner, the Doctor and Clara halted in their tracks. Rows of tall metal tubes with frosted glass windows stood erect against the walls. Machines of unknown origin thrummed at the bases, blinking with alternating green and yellow lights. This room was noticeably colder than the rest of the facility, enough for their breaths to become visible in the air.
"Doctor, what are they?" Clara shivered, hugging herself for warmth. She regretted wearing only one layer today. The thin scarlet blouse did nothing to keep her from freezing. Goosebumps trailed up her flesh.
Perceptive, for once, the Doctor shrugged off his outer red-lined Crombie, wordlessly draping it over her shoulders. Dressed in a black hoodie and two graphic t-shirts underneath, he could afford to shed a layer.
Clara accepted the heavy wool coat, his lingering body heat had her warming up in no time. The red lining was silky against her skin. She crooked her lip in gratitude. The sweet gesture made her feel tingly inside. They were hard to come by with this Doctor. "Thanks," she murmured, pulling the lapels around her chest tightly.
The Doctor walked up to one of the pods, cupping his hands against the dark glass in an attempt to see inside. Unable to see anything, he pointed his screwdriver at the device. Instantly, a light came on inside. The frost melted away, clearing the glass.
The Doctor staggered backwards, a mixture of shock and horror on his face. A frozen humanoid creature stared back at him through fixed dead eyes. The feathered Ergellian was nearly unrecognizable as such, icicle-encased feathers sticking up everywhere like a cactus. He pointed his sonic at the base, activating the lights inside each of the other chambers. One by one, they clicked on.
"Doctor, talk to me." Clara's voice wavered nervously.
"The Ergellians," he gestured to the pods, "these are cryotubes. They must have frozen themselves to escape the virus."
He ran the screwdriver over the pod from top to bottom. His face darkened. "Except that the process went horribly wrong," he whispered in horror. "Their cells, every one of them, have lysed. Burst open."
"Ice expands, Clara, forming sharp little crystals," he explained without being asked. "What do you think happens when the water inside a cell freezes?"
Clara raised her eyebrows. "It shreds them."
"That's right," he breathed, brushing his hand over the frigid metal. "The sonic doesn't know what to make of them. They are both alive and dead at the same time."
Clara walked up to one of the pods, resting a hand against the glass. "But how can that be?"
"Imagine you have a ziplock bag full of water," he began. "Freeze the water and then cut a hole in the bag. It doesn't leak. But thaw the water…"
Clara nodded solemnly, catching on quickly. "If they try to thaw themselves out, their cell contents leak out and they die. They're trapped."
"Precisely," the Doctor returned the screwdriver to his hoodie pocket.
Suddenly, an apparition appeared in front of them. One of the Ergellians, a feathered humanoid with scaly clawed hands, orange beaks, and long fan-like tails. The figure in front of them was colorful, red and blue not unlike the scarlet macaws of the Amazon rainforest. More figures appeared behind the leader, staring at them through large pleading eyes.
Clara reached forwards, attempting to touch the closest one but was met with thin air. She recoiled, frightened and confused.
"Psychic projection," the Doctor concluded, studying the shimmering vision. "Ergellians are telepathic. Their image is only in your mind."
"But I thought you said they were dead," she shuddered at the thought of dead people speaking to her.
"They are." The Doctor rubbed his hands together pensively. "And not. It's complicated."
"Doctor, I'm scared," Clara admitted in a small voice. There was something incredibly upsetting about seeing the faces of the damned, knowing their fates.
"You should be," he reassured. "They're ghosts."
Clara reached beside her, wiggling her fingers. "Hold my hand?"
The Doctor looked down at her outstretched hand. She must be really afraid to admit it. This whole place, this whole situation, was uncomfortably eerie. Tentatively, he accepted the tiny hand, intertwining his long fingers with hers. "With pleasure," his deep voice rumbled. He smiled in a way he hoped was comforting, barely concealing his own fear.
"They should be able to communicate with us," he stated. "Open your mind. Let's hear what they have to say."
A/N: New story! This one will be fairly short, around 10k words or less. Commissioned by danysdrgon. Don't forget to leave a review! They're very encouraging!