Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Donna and Ten - The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Fifteen ( Chapter 15 )

Donna was rudely awoken from a really nice dream where she was snogging Paul from accounts, at the Nice 'n' Bright Double Glazing Christmas party. There was a God awful racket coming from the direction of the console room.

 

'Now what?' she asked herself as she threw the duvet off her and quickly got dressed.

 

As she stepped out of her room, the noise abruptly ceased, and the gentle, throbbing hum of the TARDIS returned. When she arrived at the console room, the Doctor was running around the console in his usual, manic style.

 

'So, what was that noise then?' she asked crossing her arms, still slightly annoyed at being dragged away from Paul in accounts.

 

'Eh, what noise?' he said distractedly, still fiddling with the controls.

 

'The sound like a bag full of cats being taken to the vets to be neutered.'

 

'Oh, that noise. It's good and bad news.' He stopped, frowned in thought, and then gave her an enormous grin. 'What a brilliant description.'

 

'Good and bad news?' Donna asked sceptically, knowing that the Doctor thought it was good to run into a bad situation to try and make it better.

 

`The good news: Earth,' said the Doctor.

 

Donna winced as the klaxon started up again. The TARDIS rang with the sound. A tooth-drilling, ear drum shattering siren guaranteed to send the listener clinically insane after ten seconds. She gripped the console to stop the sound sweeping her away.

 

`And?' she growled.

 

The Doctor beamed a great big smile. `That's a distress signal! We get to help, again.' He pulled on a great woolly coat. `It's weird. Your lot shouldn't be able to send a distress signal like that. Not in this time frame. Not this kind of distress signal.'

 

`What kind of distress signal?'

 

`The loud annoying distress signal.' He consulted a reading on the TARDIS console, whistling as if he couldn't hear a thing.

 

Donna nodded. `Turn it off!'

 

The Doctor frowned. `What did you say?'

 

`Turn. It. Off!'

 

`Eh?'

 

Donna bared her teeth. `I said: Turn—'

 

`Hold on. I'll turn it off.' He stabbed a button and the noise stopped. `What did you say?'

 

The console room startled Donna with its sudden silence. She shouted anyway. `Doctor! I'll kill you!'

 

`What? What did I do?' He stood half and half out of his bulky coat, a picture of bruised innocence. Donna thumped the door controls and stormed out. The Doctor listened. There was an expectant pause. The Doctor tried to hide his smile as he heard Donna scream.

 

`Oh yeah,' he shouted. `The bad news: Antarctica.'

 

`Snow!' said Donna. `You did this to me on that Ood planet. We've done snow. What is it you've got against tropical? My nose is turning red.'

 

The Doctor bounded over the snow. `Donna, your nose turns red at the drop of a cat. Going red is your nose's first and greatest talent.'

 

`Some people would tire of being so rude. They would run out of steam, get bored, but don't you give in to them. You crack on.'

 

He seemed fascinated by the snow. `They say the Inuit have fifty words for this.'

 

`I've got a few myself,' Donna muttered. Then she saw it. She scrabbled over a drift and there it was. Down a gentle snowy slope about a mile ahead: a vast ice sheet spread out to the horizon like a gigantic skating rink. Two tracked vehicles were parked over a particularly dark patch of ice.

 

Men, nothing but smudges in the distance, stood in a ring, their arms outstretched. They had planted flags, marking the boundaries of the dark patch.

 

`What is that?' asked Donna. `That's a buried spaceship, isn't it?'

 

`They found something,' said the Doctor. `Under the ice.'

Excited, he put one hand over his mouth and pointed with the other. White powder puffed up around him as he stamped his feet with excitement. `Look. Snow-Cats. Tracked vehicles. Oh, brilliant. I love Snow-Cats.'

 

`You love everything. So it's a mission to dig up a crashed flying saucer.'

 

`I love missions to dig up a crashed flying saucer!'

 

`I thought you might.'

 

The Doctor jumped up and down. `Let's get involved.'

 

The TARDIS waited, as it had waited so many times before. It hummed to itself, feeling the cold Antarctic snow dropping and settling onto its casing. The TARDIS was very good at waiting. This time, however, it didn't wait as long as it might have expected.

 

About ten metres from the front door, the dropping snow suddenly shot apart in all directions, leaving a man-shaped hole in the air. A figure filled that hole, and it was a figure the TARDIS would have recognised: handsome angular face, dark friendly eyes, straight hair.

 

The man shivered in his shabby suit. He danced up and down to pump warmth into his plimsolled feet. He watched the Doctor and Donna trudging through drifts towards the doomed expedition. Smiling, he thought of what waited for them there. Bit scary, if truth be told.

 

Next, he held up a large metal key and kissed it. He was ever so excited. `The TARDIS! I can't believe it!' He punched air then clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his giggles. He cast wild glances towards the Doctor and Donna to check they weren't looking back.

 

He held up the key. `Moment of truth,' he told it.

 

The man walked to the TARDIS, unlocked the door and

stepped inside. The door closed. Despite the howl of the polar wind, the voice was still just about audible from outside. It was the voice of the happiest man on the planet.

 

`Oh. My. God. I'm actually standing in the console

room. Yes!' Sixty seconds later, the TARDIS disappeared.

 

 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 

 

`The heart of Planet 1,' said the robot Butler, looking down into the purple glow of the chasm in the laboratory floor. `Ready for you, Doctor. You and Planet 1; together for ever.' The robot chuckled. `At last: no more errors; no more decadence, just purpose.'

 

The Doctor did not react.

 

`Why so glum?' The Butler was in a chatty mood. `You're about to become a god!'

 

The Doctor said nothing.

 

`All the experience, imagination and wonder locked up inside you will keep Planet 1 occupied for millennia. We're all very excited. Who knows, perhaps eventually we will find a way of moving through the universe together. Imagine that? Planet 1, mobile. We might even learn to create a new universe, whole dimensions, just for us.'

 

The giant cables that had emerged from the chasm writhed in anticipation, like restless fingers. Sebastiene, the now deposed former ruler of Planet 1 wriggled in his restraining energy bubble. `Traitor,' he said tonelessly.

 

The Doctor looked sad. `All that energy, all those resources, and you don't know what to do with yourselves.'

 

The Butler pulled up an air-screen. `Excuse me,' he said. `Before you start trying to talk me out of this, I need to perform a bio-check. So we know you are who you say you are. You remember.'

 

Sebastiene had recruited the Doctor's number one fan Baris, and surgically altered him to be an exact copy of the Doctor to use as a lure and a decoy. Molecular scanning lights flashed up and down the Doctor's floating body. Operator robots read information.

 

`Jolly good,' the Butler said. `Now. This will take only a few seconds. And then we'll have you.' The giant cables reared and pounced. An alarm sounded. The Butler froze. The cables retreated. Operator robots looked up in horror.

 

`I'm not the Doctor,' said the person who looked like the Doctor, sounded like the Doctor, and acted like the Doctor. `I'm a robot bomb. And you've just armed me.' The robot Doctor jumped into the chasm that was the central control of operations for Planet 1.

 

The Butler and the rest of the operator robots looked up to see the real Doctor and Sebastiene attaching a device to the floating body of the Doctor look-alike Baris. All three disappeared. There came a great mechanical roar of pain and anger and fear from the depths of Planet 1 as the Doctor robot detonated.

 

The Sebastiene and Donna robots smiled in their restraining energy bubbles. Sebastiene gave the Butler a little wave . . . and promptly exploded.

 

The Doctor, Sebastiene and Baris shimmered and dropped onto the snow. The air shimmered again, and Donna appeared. Along with a familiar blue box. Donna gave the Doctor a thumbs-up.

 

`Intelligent Molecular Technology,' said the Doctor brightly, relieved that he had been able to use the planets transmat devices to escape. `What a marvellous concept.'

 

Somehow, this made them all giggle. They couldn't help themselves. For a good minute, all they did was choke. Not the most obvious sign of a good time but a good time nevertheless.

 

`With the amount of explosive in those robots, we've obliterated half the northern hemisphere,' said Sebastiene. He looked pleased with his statement.

 

`Does that mean Planet 1 is dead?' asked Donna.

 

The Doctor inspected the TARDIS. `Oh I doubt that. We gave it a little sting; a headache. Enough of a distraction to get away.'

 

He looked at a small opening in the frozen ground. Down below, large blocks of grey machinery throbbed and clunked. Pipes hissed with releasing steam as the robot shaping devices cooled. Automatic cables detached and went dormant.

 

`I don't get it. What the hell just happened?' asked Baris.

 

`Like I told Donna,' said the Doctor, `you're never more than a kilometre away from a robot workshop. Even Planet 1 can't think of everything.'

 

`The Doctor Trap,' said Donna, referring to the Doctor's double bluff, triple bluff and quadruple bluff he'd used to confound the logic circuits of all the robots trying to catch him. She pulled her parka tight around herself. `Can we go?'

 

`Eh?'

 

Sebastiene was suddenly gloomy. He seemed disappointed. `Without someone to organise its systems, Planet 1 is nothing but a lifeless machine. Once I was kicked out, there was no creative mind behind its reasoning. Until it could claim the Doctor, Planet 1 had to think for itself. And we out-thought it.'

 

`Sebastiene knew there was a robot factory here, so we went underground and built some robots . . .' said Donna.

 

`Disguised them as us and gave them up to Planet 1. To blow up the Chateau,' continued the Doctor. `We gambled that Planet 1 would instinctively want full power and rush to get the Intelligent Molecular Technology back up and running. Once it did that, we were able to transmat in and rescue you and the TARDIS.'

 

Sebastiene sneered. `Dumb. Very dumb. If Planet 1 had trusted me more, we would never have succeeded.'

 

`A machine is a machine . . .' The Doctor patted the

TARDIS. `No offence.'

 

They stood in the snow of the fake Antarctica and looked at each other. The Doctor, Donna, Sebastiene, Baris. The blizzard, artificially generated though it may have been, howled round them. The distant sun was setting.

 

`Well,' said Donna, `nice meeting you.'

 

They stayed looking. `You know I'm coming with you,' said Sebastiene.

 

`No,' the Doctor replied. `Baris, but not you . . .'

 

Baris was rubbing his arms. The end of his nose was dripping ice; otherwise he still looked like the Doctor. `You can't just leave him,' he said. `Once Planet 1 is recovered it's going to come hunting.'

 

`Good,' said Donna.

 

Sebastiene smiled at the Doctor. `You misunderstand.' He opened his coat and produced a short, gleaming sword. `Rustled it up in the lab when you were fussing over the robots. Thought it might come in handy. And, yes, I am an expert.'

 

The Doctor laughed. `You misunderstand me, Sebastiene. When I say not you, I don't mean I won't take you. I mean I can't.'

 

Sebastiene twitched. `No more games.'

 

`You're a construct. A product of Planet 1. You can't leave; you physically can't. Whoever you once were, now you are joined to Planet 1. It's what feeds you; what powers you. It's the price you pay for all your gadgets and long life and indestructibility.'

 

Donna began to back-pedal. She felt for the reassuring door of the TARDIS. `That's all settled, then,' she said. `Personally, I'd leave you here anyway.'

 

Sebastiene flashed the sword up. Its tip hovered a centimetre in front of the Doctor's nose. `You're lying,' he

said. The doubt in his voice was clear. `I'm not a robot. I'm not!' He recovered himself. `Anyway, there's no harm in trying. Move.'

 

Something was breathing on Donna's neck. Something that smelled like overripe fruit. Dusty cloth tickled her hair. She saw Baris react in shock at whatever was crawling down the TARDIS behind her.

 

`Doctor . . .' he said. `Doctor!'

 

They looked at Donna and gasped. She felt talons clasp

her shoulder and the sticky breath waft over her cheek.

 

`The Carpalian Witch,' said Sebastiene, a vibrant smile returning to his face. `Oh, very good.' It was the last surviving member of the Endangered Dangerous Species Society, who Sebastiene had brought to Planet 1 to hunt the Doctor.

 

Donna glanced sideways to see a grotesque jaw stretching out from beneath a black hood. The jaw contained what appeared to be a cross between an insect's mandibles and human teeth. A voice like dry twigs spoke in Donna's ear.

 

`Did you really think to end the hunt so easily?'

 

Claws clasped Donna's face. `Give yourself to me or the girl dies.'

 

Donna waited for the Doctor to say something. He didn't.

`Doctor . . .' she reminded him. `A little rescuing here, please.'

 

Instead, he folded his arms and regarded the pair of them as if they were an interesting puzzle to be solved.

 

`The real question is,' he said, `who are you after? The Doctor? In which case there's a choice of two. Sebastiene? Bit difficult to know which one of us is supposed to give ourselves up? Strangely enough, the only one you definitely don't want is Donna.'

 

Donna tried to stay calm. `Doctor, stop talking and do something.'

 

`I'm the Doctor,' said Baris. `Here . . .'

 

He took a step forward. The real Doctor held him back.

`No he isn't. Listen, you're between me and my TARDIS and that won't do. If you want Sebastiene, you go get him; otherwise, we're going to have words, and I'll finish you like I finished the rest of your stupid Endangered Dangerous Species Society. So make up your mind and act like you mean it.'

 

That did the trick. There was a pause as the Carpalian Witch drew in an insulted breath, bellowed an insect screech, then launched its black-hooded body at the group. Specifically at Sebastiene. He whooped for joy and brandished his newly forged sword. The Doctor and Baris stumbled backwards as the creature pounced.

 

Sebastiene stood his ground. He slashed at the Carpalian Witch, who howled and fell. A thickly furred limb lay thrashing in the snow.

 

`It's not dead!' Baris yelled as the Witch leaped up again. Claws extended, mandibles spitting, it launched itself at Sebastiene. He dodged as its talons raked his chest. Beating the creature back, he looked at the blood spilling down his tailored black coat.

 

`I-I'm hurt . . .' he whispered in disbelief. `Why you . . .!' He took a step backwards, ready to launch a full-on attack, and fell through the hole into the robotics workshop. The Carpalian Witch squatted then sprang down after him.

 

`Run, Sebastiene!' the Doctor yelled. `Run!'

 

He made to follow, but Baris held him back. `I'll go,' he said. `You've done enough. You need to get away from Planet 1. Now.'

 

The Doctor pushed him aside. `After everything he's done, even if he escapes the Witch, every part of this whole planet is going to be after him. I have to try . . .'

 

With a surprising, new-found strength, Baris shoved him over. The Doctor fell onto a bed of snow.

 

`I'm the Doctor today, mush,' said Baris. `Look, I do owe him. He made me the man you are today. So in a way, you will be trying.' He looked down at the hole and yelled. `The Doctor to the rescue!' And he jumped.

 

They returned to the TARDIS and Donna was never going to leave it again; not until she knew for absolutely definite that the sunshine level outside was nothing less than Tenerife. Inside, it was lovely and warm. Really, really lovely and warm.

 

The Doctor was brooding over the console. He wasn't his usual self. Donna stopped there and told herself off. Don't talk about `usual selves'. We've had enough trouble as it is.

 

`Sebastiene?' she asked instead.

 

The Doctor shrugged.

 

`You liked him, didn't you? A little bit? Eensy-teensy?'

 

He seemed to be talking to himself. `Oh, he'll probably be all right. Deep down, he's a resourceful bloke. Even without the toys. Probably end up running Planet 1 again. Especially with Baris looking after him.'

 

`He couldn't leave the planet, you said so yourself. So don't worry about it.'

 

The Doctor looked up, as if suddenly remembering she was there. `What do you mean?'

 

`He was a robot, wasn't he? You said he was reliant on Planet 1. You couldn't take him even if you wanted to.'

 

The Doctor gave her a look. A look that told her she should know better. `Donna . . .'

 

She stopped. `You mean . . . he wasn't? You mean . . . You lied?'

 

He didn't react. Not in any way whatsoever. Donna held a hand over her mouth. She began to giggle.

 

`Oh my God. You know what, if he ever susses, he's going to be really annoyed with you.'

 

The Doctor began to play with the TARDIS controls. A new energy coursed through him. `Too complicated!' he announced. `I'm done with complicated. I want explosions and spectacle and chases again.' He looked up at her, smoothed his wild hair back and gave her his widest grin. `Let's do something simple.'

 

`Warm,' said Donna. `That's all I want. Warm.'

 

`All right. Warm.' And with a laugh, he yanked the lever. 'I know just the place.'