Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who – Martha and Ten The Inbetweens and Backstories ❯ Chapter Twenty Five ( Chapter 25 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

After resetting the Beacon on Agelaos to transmit a signal which advised passers by that the planet was a site of special scientific interest and not to be disturbed, the Doctor sent the TARDIS back into the Vortex and on to their next adventure.

'Hmmm, that's interesting,' the Doctor said as he studied the monitor hanging over the console.

'What is?' asked Martha, knowing that tone of voice he used when he'd found something to investigate.

'There's a ship hurtling between the stars, apparently on autopilot, with fluctuating power reserves and about to go into catastrophic failure . . . but there's no distress signal. Doesn't that strike you as odd?'

'I don't know about odd, it seems to happen a lot out here. I mean, there was the Castor, the SS Pentallian, then the Brilliant . . .'

'Wellll, there is a lot space out here to get into trouble in; and lots of ships to get into trouble. Not all ships are as robust and reliable as the TARDIS you know.'

Martha managed to stifle the laugh that was forming in her throat. She was sure the Doctor and the TARDIS would be offended by her derision. 'So are we going to be good neighbours and see if they need any help?'

He gave her his enthusiastic smile. 'Thought you'd never ask.' He commenced his usual dance around the console as the Time Rotor started to pump up and down, taking them inside the limping ship.

As it turned out though, the people on board the ailing ship weren't right neighbourly.

There were six of them - no, seven, Martha realised. She was just able to make out the seventh man, in the gloom behind the others. The passage was too narrow for them to stand more than three abreast and the lighting strips set into the low ceiling were only putting out a weak, flickering luminescence.

The men were armed with an assortment of crude weapons: metal bars, strips of metal sharpened into ragged-looking knives. One of them, Martha noticed, was brandishing a large spanner, as if he had raided a toolbox before joining the others.

`Let her go,' one of them said. He was tall and powerfully built, his hair cropped short. He wore a plain grey coverall that had been patched in a couple of places. From what Martha could make out in the poor light, the others in the group were equally well built and wore similar coveralls, each bearing their own pattern of stains and repairs.

The man behind Martha said nothing, but took a step back. The painful way he held Martha's arms twisted up into the middle of her back meant that she had no choice but to take a step back, too. On the floor between Martha and the armed men, the Doctor eased himself up off his knees. As he straightened, he gingerly pressed his hand against the base of his skull.

`Well, now that was unexpected,' he said. He had been standing with his back to Martha, facing the armed men who had come pounding along the corridor, shouting for someone called `Breed' not to move.

The only other person in the corridor was the lone, unarmed figure who had half-run, half-stumbled into them a moment or two earlier; this, Martha assumed, must be

Breed.

Seeing the weapons in their hands, the Doctor had stepped forward, smiling. He'd spread his arms and his long coat formed a curtain between the armed group and their quarry.

`Hello! I'm the Doctor. Maybe I could—' That was when Breed had hit him - a single punch, hard, at the base of his skull. Martha didn't need her medical training to know that punch could cause some serious damage. The Doctor had dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

The next thing Martha knew was that someone was behind her and had hold of her arms and, if she tried to move them, they hurt. A lot.

`You think that's going to stop us?' The leader of the armed group spoke again. The grip on Martha's arms shifted, eased for a moment, then tightened, just as an arm slid across her throat. It suddenly became much less comfortable to take a breath.

`OK, that's enough. Hold it right there!' the Doctor said. He was on his feet and his voice had taken on a harder edge. `Before anyone gets hurt and I have to do something I might regret.'

Everything seemed to happen at once. The armed men

lunged forward as if they were a single animal, teeth

bared, weapons poised to strike. Martha felt the arm

clamp more tightly across her throat. She choked,

struggling for breath as she was dragged backwards, away from the Doctor and the armed men who now seemed to be having trouble getting past him.

The Doctor seemed to have tripped and stumbled into the path of the armed men and, however much they shouted at him and whichever way they tried to get around him, they just couldn't get past. As she was hauled along the corridor, now moving so quickly that she was running backwards on tip-toe, held up by the same arm that was choking her, the scene receded into the gloom.

Grey mist edged her vision. For a heartbeat she felt as if she was floating, held up by the bubble of her last breath. Then the bubble burst and she was falling.

`Oops. So sorry. Clumsy old me.' The Doctor lurched suddenly across the corridor. The armed gang tried to push past him, but somehow he was always in their way, arms out, pushing them back as he righted himself, only to lose his footing yet again and flounder back into their path.

The gang's leader swore and jabbed his makeshift blade at the Doctor but found himself clutching air. The weapon had vanished.

`Is this yours?' the Doctor asked innocently as he offered the knife to another member of the group - who hardly had time to shake his head before he was holding the knife and the metal bar he had been carrying found its

way into the hand of one of his companions.

`If you hold this and I give this to you, then I can take that and give it to you to look after . . ..' Words cascaded from the Doctor as the men's weapons moved from hand to fist - at one point, a particularly thin and wicked looking blade seemed to be plucked from behind its erstwhile owner's ear - apparently under some mysterious power of their own.

Like the captive audience of an insanely gifted illusionist, they were unable to keep a firm grasp on their weapons until Breed was . . . Gone.

The Doctor glanced down the now-empty corridor and stopped, back on exactly the spot he had been standing when the men first lunged forward.

`So,' he said, hands now jammed in his pockets. `Which one of you is going to take me to your leader?'

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The sounds of struggle filled the room. Wherever she looked, Martha saw bodies locked in conflict. Ragged blades stabbed and slashed.

`Stop!' she found herself shouting. `Stop this!'

A colonist and a clone called an Artificial, grappling for control of the colonist's jagged blade, collided with Martha, slamming her into the wall. Stars flashed across her vision.

`Martha!' Romea ran towards her . . . until she was grabbed by the collar of her coverall and jerked backwards, into the arms of a colonist. Martha shook away the stars and looked up. A colonist stood over her. In his raised fist he held a large spanner.

`Have we met?' Martha asked. The spanner began its descent. Martha's attacker was slammed aside by an Artificial - was that the one who called himself Edison? All around her, colonists and Artificials struggled with one another, but suddenly Martha had clear space on every side.

`Stop this!' she shouted again. `This is bigger than love. Or rules. This is about survival!'

As if in reaction to her words, those fighting all around her stumbled, pressing their hands to their temples or over their ears, shaking their heads, while from above her came a familiar voice:

`Quite right, Martha. Now listen, all of you - Stop. Right now!' The Doctor's last words brought some of the colonists and Artificials to their knees, hands now firmly clamped over their ears.

On the faces of those nearest to her, Martha could see incomprehension and the beginnings of fear. Looking up, she saw the Doctor, standing on the same walkway from which the colonists had launched their attack. He smiled down at her, then lifted what looked like a microphone to his lips and spoke again.

`Thought that might get your attention. Ladies and Gentlemen, Colonists and . . . others. I have taken control of the ship.'

An Artificial turned his face towards Martha. A livid bruise covered one half of his forehead and blood ran freely from a lip split in two or three places.

`Your friend . . .' Martha assumed it must be Edison. The Artificial spoke too loudly, as if shouting to be heard over a noise that Martha couldn't hear. `He's . . . in my head. How?'

With a crow-like flapping of his long coat, the Doctor vaulted the walkway rail and landed lightly on his rubber soled feet a short way from Martha.

`That's a very good question,' he flashed a grin. `Fortunately, I know the answer.'

From the corner of her eye, Martha caught sight of sudden movement. A colonist staggered to his feet and swung a blunt tool of some sort at the nearest Artificial. Two long strides brought the Doctor within range.

Reaching down with his free hand he plucked the tool from the colonist's grasp. Something in the gentle-yet irresistible nature of the movement reminded her of the way he had prevented the gang of colonists from pursuing Edison down the corridor.

`I said this ends NOW!' the Doctor shouted into the microphone . . . and every colonist and Artificial in the room clutched at their heads. Some moaned, others cried out. `In a moment I'm going to turn down the volume. If anyone tries anything nasty, I'll be turning it all the way up to eleven. I can't promise that won't cause permanent damage.'

Even in the middle of all the aggression around her, Martha couldn't help snorting a laugh. `Eleven? Please don't tell me you're a fan of Spinal Tap.'

The Doctor gave her a puzzled frown, as though he didn't know what she was talking about. But he couldn't keep up the ruse, giving her a big grin and a wink. Martha gave a single laugh. Of course he'd be a fan of an irreverent, satirical parody.

He adjusted something on the stem of the microphone, which Martha thought looked like it had been put together on the run. With a chorus of relieved sighs and groans, the colonists and Artificials eased themselves off the floor and fell back into two opposing groups, staring warily at each other across the narrow strip of neutral space in which the Doctor and Martha stood. Romea, Martha noticed, stood with the Artificials.

`That's much better. This is for those in the loading bays and anywhere else on board. Just because I'm not there doesn't mean I won't know if you try anything violent, sneaky or otherwise really, really stupid. I am on very good terms with your ship's Pilot System and she is keeping an eye on all of you.'

The Doctor cleared his throat. `I am speaking to everyone on board the generation ship 374926-slash-GN66 - and by the way, you really should consider coming up with a better name than that - because I want to stop you making the biggest mistake any of you are ever liable to make. To be honest, if you made this mistake it would have to be the biggest because none of you would live to make another one.'

`This is our ship! This is our mission!' Treve, the Chief Planetary Surveyor and ad hoc head of the Steering Council was standing at the walkway rail. His deputy, Laine stood beside him as he shouted down at the Doctor. They must have been closer behind him than he'd thought.

`Artificials are created to serve and when their purpose is done, to submit and be rendered down for future generations. The purity of the human gene-type must be preserved.' There was a murmur among the colonists. Some shuffled forward.

`Oh, things have gone much, much too far for that.' The Doctor shook his head, then pointed a finger at the feet of the advancing colonists. `Eleven,' he said, his tone deceptively light as he jiggled the makeshift microphone loosely.

Martha smirked as the colonists withdrew.

`You're rational people: scientists, planetary engineers, world-builders. You all know that purity's not how life works. Life, evolution, creativity - they all thrive on variety, diversity, finding new combinations and seeing what happens. Half of you know that's already happened.' The Doctor shot a significant look at the Artificials.

Romea turned to Edison. `What does he mean?'

Edison seemed unsure how to answer. He exchanged uncertain glances with the other Artificials.

`I . . . I know!' Romea gasped, eyes suddenly wide. `I know what happened - and I'm seeing parts of it, flashes. Memories!' She looked at Edison. `Your memories?'

The Artificial nodded.

`That's a girl!' the Doctor shouted. `The connection's been there all along. All you have to do is recognise it!'

`I was . . . I was dying!' Romea stared across at the other colonists. `We all were!'

A colonist cried out, his face wearing the same wide eyed expression as Romea. `I . . . I see it too!'

There was another cry, then a gasp. Another colonist fell to her knees, sobbing, while another held his hands in front of his face and gazed at them as if they belonged to someone else.

Whatever was affecting the colonists was moving fast, jumping from one to another like a high-voltage charge. There was more weeping. Some of them just stood and shook their heads. Their faces were pictures of despair and wonder.

Martha shot the Doctor a puzzled look.

`The Pilot System explained things,' the Doctor began. `I ran into her by accident, really. I was on my way here but must have taken a wrong turn around the atmospheric scrubbers. Anyway, I came across a system node and introduced myself.'

`Never mind that I was about to get my head bashed in,' Martha scolded him. But she was smiling.

The Doctor shrugged and returned her smile. `One look at the surveillance system feed showed me things were getting bad down here. I had to come up with something that would stop everybody killing everybody else. That's when I caught sight of the Pilot's log.

`The Artificials are linked to the Pilot System. Cybernetic grafts performed in vitro.' The Doctor tapped the side of his head. `It's how she wakes them up when it's time for a spot of housekeeping, or if there's a problem on board.'

`Like the cryo-system failing?'

`Exactly. Well, it turns out that the failure was catastrophic. Fatal.'

`We know that. Romea told me the rest. Half the colonists died.'

The Doctor shook his head. `Not half. All of them.'

There was a sudden clatter from the metal ladder that led to the walkway. Treve had slid from about halfway up. He now clung grimly to the handrail, having regained his balance, but the look in his eyes was wild. Romea ran to him.

`Dad!' she cried softly. `Oh, Dad.'

`Impossible!' Treve muttered, barely noticing his daughter. `Impossible!'

`Some people are going to have a hard time getting used to this,' said the Doctor.

`Getting used to what?' Martha asked.

`Being Artificial,' the Doctor told her. `When the cryosystem crashed, the shock killed a lot of the colonists outright. Others died more slowly. The Pilot System woke all available Artificials to revive the rest, but it was too late. So they did the next best thing: they downloaded the colonists' personality imprints and kicked the Artificial production line into high gear. They used up every last drop of raw material to create bodies for as many of the colonists as they could save. Even used DNA from the colonists' bodies to make sure they looked pretty much as they looked when they went into storage.'

`They grew new bodies for the colonists?' Martha looked from colonists to Artificials and back. Suddenly she was seeing how alike they looked, behind their superficial differences. `Why didn't they tell them?'

`Thought it might freak them out, so soon after the shock of losing so many of their loved ones. Then, as tensions grew between them, they thought it might provoke violence. Much better that they discover it for themselves.'

`These new bodies have the same cybernetic link as the Artificials?' Martha asked. `So that's why they could hear you in their heads, too?'

`They didn't know it was there. Your friend Romea was probably more in tune with it. That could be why she was attracted to an Artificial. As for the others, all they needed was a catalyst to get the process started.'

Martha was watching the colonists. They moved slowly, like people waking from a dream. The Artificials moved towards them cautiously, offering support and words of comfort.

`They were about to kill everyone to stop the Artificials acting like people,' she said. `But everybody's artificial now.'

`Everybody's artificial now,' the Doctor said. `But love is real.'

`I've been meaning to ask you,' Martha said. There was a distant look in the Doctor's eyes which made her anxious to change the subject. `Back in the corridor you made some weird-looking moves. And you did it on the guy who tried to kick things off again. Time Lord kung fu?'

`Amtorian jiu-jitsu.' The faraway look became a smile, as if the Doctor was grateful to have the subject changed. `Masters of the art vow never to use it in public. Just watching it can do spectators a mischief - headaches, nosebleeds and much worse.'

The Doctor guided Martha away, and they weaved their way towards the door, making their apologies and passing between the groups of Artificials and colonists - though,

Martha realised, that distinction had lost all meaning.

`Come on, let's see if I can't give the energy cells an upgrade, make the reserves last long enough to get them where they're going - provided they don't go starting up the fabricator prematurely.' His smile broadened and he spun his sonic screwdriver around one finger, gunslinger style.

`This Amtorian jiu-jitsu,' Martha said as they reached the door. `You any good at it?'

`Not bad, actually. I always meant to take my final rank grading - very fetching belt: purple and puce . . .'

The travellers stepped into the dimly lit corridor. It would be the last time any of the generation ship's passengers would remember seeing them.

` . . . I just never got around to it. Takes ages, you see, and takes place any time, anywhere. You can be taking a bath, shopping or just walking down the street when one of the masters jumps out and attacks you . . .'

`He wouldn't happen to be called Kato would he?' she asked with a cheeky smile.

`Who?'

`The jiu-jitsu master . . . Kato? Like the manservant who used to attack Inspector Clouseau?'

They laughed together as they made their way back to the TARDIS, standing in a huge empty cargo space that, Martha hoped, would one day be full of fabricator-made equipment with which the colonists would begin to build a new world - for themselves and for those they once considered merely Artificial.

The Doctor was about to open the TARDIS door when he hesitated, key raised. `Did you hear . . . ?' he said. His eyes darted this way and that, checking the shadows.

`You did tell the Amtorians you weren't taking that grading, didn't you?' Martha asked.

`Yes! Absolutely. Probably.' The Doctor slotted home the key and pushed the door open a little too urgently for Martha's liking. `Perhaps . . . we should be going!'

He hurried up the ramp to the console and started the Time Rotor grinding up and down, before moving around to the monitor and dancing his fingers over the keyboard like a demented spider.

He straightened up and breathed a sigh of relief. `Phew, that's a relief. The Amtorians registered my withdrawal from the course after I explained that I might not even be in any one place at any one time. A bit difficult for someone to surprise you when you're standing behind them knowing what they're about to do.'

`So you'll never get the purple and puce belt then,' Martha said with a chuckle.

`Au contraire. They awarded me an honorary belt when I surprised the surpriser as he was about to attack me.'

`What? You mean you used the TARDIS to cheat?'

`It wasn't cheating . . . I was using my initiative,' he whined like a child who had been found out.

She waggled her finger at him teasingly. `You cheated.'

`Did not!'

`Did too,' she laughed as the TARDIS wound its way through the Vortex.