Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who – Martha and Ten The Inbetweens and Backstories ❯ Chapter Sixteen ( Chapter 16 )

In the Halloween Carnival showground, the Doctor tore open his borrowed rucksack and lifted out the arcane Necris book. It was a source of power for the aliens ship, and he'd restrained it with a band of iron.

With one blast of the sonic the iron band securing it broke into two pieces and fell to the ground. The Doctor held the Necris above his head.

`This stops now!' he yelled, pressing the still-active sonic against the Necris's cover. The fleshy material began to ripple and shudder as though in pain. `Show yourselves, Hervoken, or your precious book gets it.'

There was a bubbling and a boiling from the centre of the vortex swirling above the showground, and suddenly there they were, a dozen or more Hervoken, materialising out of thin air. They hovered ten metres above the ground, in a wide circle around the Doctor, tall and spindly, like great black carrion crows.

The Doctor had said that residual psychic energy emanating from the dormant aliens had worked its way into the subconscious minds of the town's folk, transforming the aliens into Halloween folklore. Martha wondered if Tim Burton had ever stayed in the town; it would certainly explain why Jack Skellington in "The Nightmare Before Christmas" looked like the Hervoken.

Hair still blowing around his head, arms raised aloft, the Doctor shouted, `Right, this is the deal. Listen carefully. I'm not open to negotiation. You put an end to this slaughter now or I'll destroy the Necris. And don't think I can't or I won't, because I can and I will. I've broken through everyone of its defences, and all I have to do is increase the sonic frequency by another few levels, and your indispensable little starter motor will be dust. And don't think you can snatch it away with your spells either. The sonic field has been configured to deflect any rescue attempt. You try to transmat this beauty and your energy will bounce right back atcha. As long as my sonic is in contact with your Necris, you can't do a thing, you can only listen.'

He paused briefly and looked around the circle of Hervoken, his expression steely. Then he said, `OK, what's going to happen is this. The people of Blackwood Falls want you out of their town and off their planet. So you put an end to this now and I'll find you another source of fuel - one that doesn't involve killing people. I can do it, easy. I'm good with engines. Soon as the ship's ready, we'll clear the town and you can vamoose. All right, you'll wreck a few houses, but so what? Houses are just things, aren't they? They're not important - like people, like lives. This way you get your Necris back and you get to keep your ship. Course, you'll have to keep an eye out for the Eternals whilst you're up there, but that's your problem. Once you're off this planet, our association ends.'

Despite the continuing screams and cries and roars, not to mention the still-blaring music, the echoes of the Doctor's voice seemed to ring out around the showground. The Hervoken regarded him impassively, not responding.

`Well, come on,' the Doctor shouted, `I haven't got all -'

Something swooped from the sky, seeming to appear from nowhere. Martha ducked, thinking it was a huge bird, an eagle perhaps. The flying creature snatched the book from the Doctor's hand before he had a chance to alter the frequency of the sonic. Martha saw that it was some kind of sprite or evil fairy - doubtless another of the transformed children. She looked back at the Doctor, still not entirely sure what had happened, and saw an expression of horror on his face.

`No!' he shouted.

The Hervoken leader gave a triumphant hiss and performed a magician-like flourish whose meaning was patently obvious: You lose. The Doctor and Martha could do nothing but watch as the sprite delivered the Necris into the Hervoken leader's hands. The alien opened its mouth wide in what Martha could only think of as a gloating grin and muttered a quick incantation. A fizzing green light enveloped the Necris, and it faded away . . .

. . . to reappear seconds later in the hollow on top of the central dais in the main chamber of the Hervoken ship. Instantly the mass of claw like roots fringing the hollow clamped into place over the book, like the jaws of a Venus fly trap closing on an unsuspecting insect.

Martha felt numb. They had lost. The Doctor had made the silliest, most fundamental mistake by not looking behind him, and suddenly it was all over.

She looked up at him. His face was sombre, almost wistful. `You really shouldn't have done that,' he murmured to the Hervoken. Then he held up his sonic screwdriver.

The Necris convulsed, sending a shock wave through the Hervoken ship. Then, like a giant sponge, it began to absorb energy, to suck the already thin life-blood from the veins of the vessel at an incredible speed. Ripples of energy flowed from the thrashing vines. The central dais pulsed and shimmered as the ship's entire stock of reserve power converged on it.

Like a heart engorged with blood, the Necris began to swell and rupture. As it absorbed more power than it was designed to hold, it started to glow fiercely, like a reactor core reaching critical mass. A high-pitched whine filled the Hervoken ship - a whine that escalated rapidly into what sounded like a scream of unbearable pain . . .

A ring of green eyed children, transformed into the Halloween monsters they were dressed as, closed in on the Doctor, Martha, and the young brothers Rick and Chris Pirelli. The children had been transformed by the Hervoken, a group of aliens that had lain dormant under the town for centuries.

The monster children suddenly stopped. Some of the creatures stood stock still, like soldiers awaiting orders, whilst others began to sway and stagger about in confusion.

One child, which had become a hulking Frankenstein's monster with a scarred, patchwork face and clomping lead boots, raised its hands to its head and dropped to its knees with a groan. As Martha watched, she saw the greenish lustre fade from the children's eyes, and then a ripple of energy leave each of their bodies and spiral upwards into the vortex of mist above.

The image made her think of a mass of souls vacating the bodies of the dead. However, these children were not dying; instead, they were being given back their lives.

The instant the energy left them, each of the kids reverted to how they had been before the Hervoken spell had consumed them. As they became themselves again, they looked around, dazed and shocked, as if waking from a collective nightmare. A few burst into tears; some cried out for their parents. Martha watched the Frankenstein's monster peel the mask from its face and realised it was Rick's friend, Scott.

Meanwhile, something was happening to the Hervoken. They were beginning to thrash about like black sheets in a strong wind, to wail in their thin, childlike voices. The Doctor watched them unblinkingly, his face like thunder, sonic still held out before him, its piercing warble splicing the air.

The thrashing of the Hervoken became increasingly more frenzied. Martha thought of animals caught in traps, struggling desperately to escape. She saw their huge pale heads beginning to blacken and shrivel, their eyes sinking into their sockets, their many-jointed fingers curling up like burning twigs.

Finally, their bodies began to crumble away, like vampires in sunlight, and within seconds they were nothing but ribbons of black ash, streaming into the centre of the vortex.

With the Hervoken gone, the green mist, which had shrouded Blackwood Falls since the Necris had been unearthed over twenty four hours earlier, began rapidly to disperse. It too drained into the vortex, the radiance at the centre of which gradually faded and shrank until there was nothing left but darkness.

Once the mist had cleared, the vortex itself dwindled and died, simply petering out like a spent tornado. Suddenly Martha realised that for the first time since they had arrived she could see stars twinkling in the night sky. She took a deep breath, relishing the cold, clean sharpness of the air.

She turned to the Doctor and was about to speak when she heard and felt a deep, subterranean rumble. Almost immediately the night sky some distance away was illuminated by a harsh white glow, which surged upwards before disintegrating into a million greenish sparks that winked out as they fell slowly back to earth.

`What was that?' asked Rick in a small, shocked voice.

Martha began to shake her head, and then all at once it came to her. `It was the Hervoken ship, wasn't it, Doctor? The tree. You did something to the book, didn't you? Drained off their energy.'

The Doctor, his face grim, turned off his sonic and pocketed it before giving her a curt nod. `Never underestimate the power of the printed word,' he said. `End of story.'

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The Doctor and Martha stood with the Pirelli family, staring into the ash-filled crater at the bottom of the garden. There was no trace whatsoever of the black tree. Not a single twig had survived.

`I don't believe this,' Tony Pirelli kept saying, shining his torch down into the hole. `I just don't believe it.'

The Doctor said nothing. His face was expressionless, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Now the Hervoken had gone, there was something in the town that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It was Martha who had insisted on taking the boys home.

It was as though the horror of the Hervoken had been replaced by a hunger, a slavering, feral hunger. Back in the Halloween Carnival showground, he could have sworn that some of the townsfolk were sniffing the air, almost as if they could smell his Artron energy.

The feeling may have been there before, masked or sated by the Hervoken psychic energy. He had wanted to slope off without saying goodbye, leaving the Blackwood Falls townsfolk to pick up the pieces of their lives.

`Believe me,' he had said to Martha, `it's easier that way.'

`For who?' she had demanded, and he had just sighed.

In the end, he had agreed to stay a bit longer. He might be the one who usually called the shots, but when she dug her heels in, when she made it known that something was important to her, he was usually OK about it.

People had died tonight. Wherever they went, people always died. And Martha thought part of the reason the Doctor never wanted to stick around afterwards was so that he didn't have to come to terms with that. Maybe he thought that death followed him around, that when people died it was his fault. He had saved countless lives even in the short time she had been with him, but he never failed to be haunted by the ones he didn't save.

Rick looked up at the Doctor now with something like awe. `What did you do?' he asked.

`I subverted the kinetic flow of the energy generated by the Necris,' the Doctor replied. `It caused the ship to implode.' He sounded almost ashamed.

`Huh?' said Rick.

`He made their spells run backwards,' said Martha, knowing she was massively oversimplifying what in reality was no doubt a very convoluted and technical explanation. `He undid everything the Hervoken had done.' Suddenly a thought struck her. `Hey, does this mean Mr Clayton will have got his mouth back?'

`S'pose,' muttered the Doctor.

`Well, that's good, isn't it?' she said, trying to cheer him up.

`Hmm,' he replied.

`So this Necris thing?' said Chris. `You changed it with your little torch? When you were hanging out in my room this afternoon?'

`It wasn't hard,' said the Doctor almost apologetically. `It was just a bit of basic tinkering.'

`The hard bit was convincing the Hervoken they'd beaten you,' said Martha. `You certainly fooled me.'

The Doctor shrugged. `They'd have been suspicious if I'd just given the Necris back to them, even if I'd made it sound like an exchange for the lives of the townspeople. They'd have checked it over and found out what I'd done. I knew our only chance was to make them think they'd outsmarted me. They were hoist with their own petard.'

`But what if they'd agreed to your terms?' said Martha. `Would you have fixed the Necris for them and let them destroy the town?'

The Doctor frowned. `I knew they wouldn't.'

`But what if they had?'

He looked at her, and his eyes suddenly seemed as black and depthless as space. `I gave them their chance,' he said evenly. `They didn't take it.'

Martha saw Tony and Amanda Pirelli looking at the Doctor almost warily, and knew what they were thinking: Is this the kind of person we want our boys hanging around with?

`Excuse me, mister,' Tony said almost hesitantly, `but who exactly are you again?'

`I'm just a traveller, passing through,' the Doctor said.

`What's that supposed to mean?' asked Amanda.

The Doctor shot Martha a look: "See? I told you it was easier to just leave".

A voice came floating out of the darkness, beyond the crater. `Sounds like we might be in for a spot of subsidence, thanks to you, Doctor.'

`Etta!' said the Doctor delightedly. `In the nick of time, as always.'

Tony shone his torch into Etta's face.

`Do you mind?' she said, raising a hand.

`Sorry,' he said, and lowered the beam, lighting the way ahead for her.

`My, what a big hole,' she said. `My garden fence is down there somewhere. Mind you, I think I prefer it without the tree. Much more neighbourly, don't you think?'

`Er . . . yes,' said Tony.

Etta was carrying a large plate, which she held out towards the group. `Who's for a Halloween cookie?'

The cookies were in the shape of bats, coated with black icing, with red dots for eyes.

`I think I'll pass if you don't mind,' Martha said with a shudder.

`Me too,' said Rick, then caught a warning look from his parents.

`Then again, maybe not.'

`Lovely,' said the Doctor, shoving most of a cookie into his mouth. He made exaggerated yum-yum noises, and grabbed another from the plate, then, after a moment's hesitation, a third, which he dropped into his pocket.

He looked around nervously, as though expecting to see some Halloween ghoul sneak up on him. `Right,' he said, `well, better go. Things to do, people to see. Goodbye all. Come on, Martha.'

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and strode away, leaving Martha smiling sheepishly round at the group.

`Sorry,' she said. `He doesn't like goodbyes. Well, I'd better . . .' She wafted a hand vaguely in the Doctor's direction.

Etta smiled. `Go on, dear. You catch up with your spaceman. And tell him . . . thank you. On behalf of us all. Tell him thank you for saving our town.'

`I will,' said Martha, and raised a hand. `Well, bye everyone. Maybe I'll see you again some time.' She doubted she would, though. That was what life with the Doctor was like. Meet people, share extraordinary times, move on.

`Wait up, Doctor,' she shouted, jogging after his gangly silhouette. And although she wanted to, she didn't look back. Not once, which turned out to be a good thing as it happened.

She fell in step next to him, and he grabbed her hand urgently, quickening his step. 'Martha, do you trust me?'

She frowned. 'Well yeah, of course,' she replied.

'We have to get to the TARDIS right now. Don't look behind you because we are being followed.'

'Followed?' Martha said, about to do that very human thing of turning to look.

'Don't turn around,' the Doctor hissed. 'If they see your face, we're done for. When I said we're being followed, what I meant to say was, we're being hunted.'

They reached the TARDIS at a run, and the key entered the lock with unerring accuracy. He twisted the key, and with a reassuring click, the door swung open; just as a bolt of green energy exploded on the unopened door.

'Get down!' he shouted, and a bolt of green energy passed over their heads and hit the console. He slammed the door shut, and they climbed up off the floor.

'Did they see you?' he asked her urgently, holding her shoulders.

'I don't know!' she replied, almost crying.

'Did they see you?'

'I don't know, I was too busy running!'

'Martha, it's important, did they see your face?'

She'd had her back to who ever it was who was chasing them. 'No, they couldn't have!'

He ran around the console and started up the time rotor. 'Off we go!'

Martha came and stood by him as he watched the time rotor pump up and down. A warning beep alerted him to a message on the monitor in Gallifreyan script.

'Arrrghhh!' He grabbed the monitor and read the warning. 'They're following us.'

'How can they do that?' Martha asked as he went back to the controls. 'You've got a time machine.'

'Stolen technology, they've got a Time Agent's vortex manipulator. They can follow us wherever we go . . . right across the universe.' He ran his fingers through his hair, looking into the distance. 'They're never going to stop.'

He held the back of his neck, deep in thought. 'Unless . . . I'll have to do it . . .'

He turned to Martha and gave her an intense look that went right into her soul. 'Martha, you trust me don't you?'

'Of course I do,' she said without hesitation.

'Because it all depends on you,' he said, as he rummaged under the console.

'What does, what am I supposed to do?'

He came from under the console, holding a fob watch. 'Take this watch, 'cos my life depends on it. The watch, Martha, this watch is me.'

She took the watch and nodded 'Right, okay, gotcha.' The Doctor ran around the console. 'No, hold on, completely lost,' she said, running after him.

'Those creatures are hunters. They can sniff out anyone, and me being a Time Lord, well, I'm unique. They can track me down across the whole of time and space.'

'Hah! And the good news is?'

'They can smell me, they haven't seen me. And their life span'll be running out, so we hide. Wait for them to die.'

'But they can track us down.'

He stopped working the console, and looked at her. 'That's why I've got to do it. I have to stop being a Time Lord. I'm going to become human.' He looked up to the domed ceiling, and watched a headset descend. 'Never thought I'd use this. All the times I've wondered.'

'What does it do?'

'Chameleon Arch . . . rewrites my biology. Literally changes every single cell in my body. I've set it to human.'

He put the fob watch into a receptacle on the front of the headset. 'Now, the TARDIS will take care of everything. Invent a life story for me, find me a setting, and integrate me.' He turned to look at her standing behind him. 'Can't do the same for you, you'll just have to improvise. I should have just enough residual awareness to let you in.'

'But, hold on. If you're going to rewrite every single cell, isn't it going to hurt?'

'Oh, yeah, it hurts.'