Programmed to Kill by the Whoniversity

PART I Clouds of thick dust rose up as the heavy boots crashed to the ground. Amanda was slowly but surely making her way through an ancient cavern; by the faded paintings on the rock – detailing an untold history – to the eerie silence, Amanda could tell this place hadn’t been disturbed for centuries. “Hello?” a voice hissed through the radio. “Amanda, are you there? Over!” the voice added. Amanda replied; “Yes, loud and clear Scott!” The radio hissed again, and Amanda halted, awaiting further instruction. Although she didn’t like being told what to do and when to do it, Amanda knew that if Scott had opened communications, it was serious. She waited in the stone cold, deathly silence, and despite being sealed inside of a bulky space-suit, Amanda shivered. The temperature outside was below -273, and the nearest sun was light-years away. If she were to remove her helmet, Amanda would freeze to death in a nanosecond. Static. The radio was hissing again, and over time Scott’s voice became more recognisable; his thick Scottish accent now as clear as day. “Amanda, you need to get back ASAP! Storm incoming, and if you’re still out there in 30 minutes –” Amanda cut him off, she knew the rest – “I’ll be as good as dead, I know! I’ll be another five minutes, that’s all! Promise!” she stated, and Scott was silent, at least for a second. Amanda could hear him sighing down the comms; “Five minutes, that’s all you get!” he caved in, and Amanda cracked a smile. “Knew I could count on you!” she replied, descending further into the darkness. “This is a one off, don’t get used to it! Over and out!” Venturing into the darkness, alone, Amanda was guided by a single blade of light from her torch that was gripped firmly in her right hand. She continued forward, or rather downward; the only sound was that of her own breath, and the rocky terrain underneath her boots. Amanda wasn’t scared easily, but walking down into an abyss of nothingness made her more and more fearful every step she took. Amanda had discovered that the only method of combating this fear was to tell herself that everything would be fine, or that it would all be worth it. Her true goal was to be the first woman to discover alien life in the outer regions of deep space, so that’s what she reminded herself of when that fear manifested. But as many had told her – even Peters, a fellow scientist on the expedition – there was no life in this region! There couldn’t be any life, and therefore no death, but that’s not what Amanda believed, not after seeing the cave paintings earlier. That was a clear sign of some sort of life, maybe only primitive, but still life! After a few minutes of exploration, Amanda still hadn’t decided that it was time to turn back. She’d come this far now, and she wasn’t going to walk away from a potentially life changing discovery. Luckily, Scott hadn’t re-opened the comms, so this was her chance. As Amanda stepped down onto a large rock, the light flickered. She looked around, taking in the changing environment. The cave system was narrower than before, and looking into the beyond, she could tell it would continue that way. The rocks beneath her boots shifted as she went, and as if things couldn’t get any worse, the torch was dying out. If her only source of light ran out, she’d be stuck in the darkness until the storm hit, then her life would be over. Deciding it was just faulty, she walked on; Amanda just had to continue further! Taking another step, Amanda noticed the torch flickered even more. Another step. The light went out. Maybe there was a fault in the torch? The batteries could be dying down like she thought? No, it was something else, she could feel it. Testing a theory, Amanda took a step back, and the torch light was emitted once more. What the hell is going on, she thought, puzzled by what she was witnessing. Amanda knew her time was running out, and if she stayed out for too much longer then there’d be nothing left of her. Making her way back, ascending through the levels, Amanda picked up on a detail that had previously gone unnoticed. As she was walking back through the cavern, back to the ship, she noticed another passage. Stalactites and stalagmites covered the entrance, giving the look of abnormally large jaws. Amanda, looked to her left, the light at the end indicating the way out. The way back to safety, but turning her attention to the passage again, Amanda couldn’t leave it unexplored. Entering the jaws of death, Amanda felt like she was being watched, and the temperature seemed to drop even lower. The torchlight, as previously, guided the way, and Amanda noticed that this passage seemed to go on for a while. It was just the usual; exactly what you’d expect to find in a cave. Until it wasn’t. Amanda got the feeling that she had reached the lowest point, and shining the light all around her revealed pods. Dozens of pods. Frozen, dormant pods! Maybe these were the indiginus plants on this planet? Or perhaps they were lifeforms, who could tell? But just as Amanda was about to find out, the hissing of the comms opening deafened her. “STORM INCOMING – TEN MINUTES UNTIL IMPACT, REPEAT; STORM INCOMING – TEN MINUTES UNTIL IMPACT!” Amanda looked back, then at the pods. The only option was to return to the ship, and return here once the storm had blown over. This could be the turning point. The first proof of alien life in the outer regions; a place thought to be too hostile in its environment to host life since the dawn of time, and Amanda might’ve just discarded that theory… With the flick of a switch, Scott had shut down the communications network, and sat back in his chair! “Ah!” he sighed, and relaxed. After years of training, he was finally in charge of his own expedition! All his life he’d worked for this moment, and now his dream was a reality. “Robot!” he called out, and within seconds the stomping of machine boots became clearer. A service robot was now at his side, awaiting orders; it’s head tilting. “Get me a drink please! Just water, thank you!” he asked, and the robot marched off. Scott was seated in the centre of the control room, known to the crew as the Bridge. Surrounding him were two semi-circular control panels on either side, and in front of him, a larger panel. This was the flight panel; in the emergency of autopilot failing, this was the means of operating the vessel. From the raised position, Scott had a perfect view of the outside. In the near distance were dark blue cliffs, and grey rocks and endless night, but beyond that, the sky was pitch black, devoid of all colour. Whenever Scott looked into the vast empty space surrounding them, he began to realise how alone they were. If anything was to go wrong during this expedition, no help would arrive. He sat up after a while, and checked one of the screens to his left, the screen that was displaying the current data on the incoming weather. Judging from the readings, Scott predicted ten minutes until the storm hit and Amanda hadn’t returned yet! He’d decided not to re-open the comms, after all Amanda already knew the consequences. She could either return to the safety of the ship or be torn to atoms by the violent oncoming storm. After five long minutes, the robot marched over to Scott, and gripped its left hand was a glass of water, in the other hand, another glass; both filled to the brim. Scott took both, and smiled at the robot; “Thanks!” he replied, and the machine exited the bridge. When it was out of earshot, Scott muttered to himself; “God I hate those things!” sipping at the water and desperately attempting not to spill the liquid onto the control panels; that would spell disaster. Once Scott had re-hydrated, he called for another robot to take the empty glass’ away, and pressed a button on the speaker, about to make an announcement! “STORM INCOMING – TEN MINUTES UNTIL IMPACT, REPEAT; STORM INCOMING – TEN MINUTES UNTIL IMPACT!” “D’you hear that? Storm incoming! Never a good sign!” Dave, the ship’s mechanic, was fixing a faulty drive plate, while also having a conversation with one of the Service Robots, M4-63. Well, to call it a conversation would be a lie: after all, he was talking to a robot. Everybody in the galaxy knew that service robots couldn’t reply. Or maybe they just chose not to. Maybe they were always listening; collecting data on us? That sounded like something Alex would say, he was always the pessimistic one. Dave on the other hand was an optimist. No matter what the problem, there would always be a solution. Dave passed one of the Robots an ordinary wrench from the 20th century, and traded it for a Quantum Flux Balancer – a complex device reassembling a screwdriver. While working on the drive plate, Alex – the military-mind of the operation walked passed. “What’ya fixing next Dave? Chicken Soup Machine? Maybe the Waste Disposal Unit?” he mocked, and Dave sarcastically laughed. “Har, har, very funny Al!” he replied, “At least I actually do fix things properly. If you had this job no doubt you’d load a magazine or two into the drive plate – maybe it’ll work after several rounds of bullets have been fired at it?” With this, Alex stormed off, trying to control the anger that was raging through his veins. Seconds later, his work was complete, and Dave re-fitted the drive plate back to its rightful place. Brushing the dust off of his shoulders and hands, Dave stood up and cleared his throat. “Right,” he said, directly at the robot holding his toolbox, “Job done!” He opened the toolbox, and placed the Quantum Flux Balancer in, before taking the toolbox and walking off with it. Before he got too far though, he pivoted round and saluted at the robot. Despite not being able to communicate, the robot lingered behind after Dave was gone, and mimicked this action, clearly confused, but saluting nonetheless. At the centre of the main console, the time rotor ascended and descended in a complex rhythm. It was the heart of the console, and the fact that it was rising and falling in this pattern meant that the TARDIS was in flight. The Doctor was piloting the machine, flicking switches and tapping keys, setting coordinates and holding down levers; really he had no idea what he was doing. He was just a mad man with a box; he’d stolen the TARDIS and fled Gallifrey years ago, and he’d regenerated several times since then. Currently, his travelling companion was Nyssa, a native of the planet Traken, and daughter of Tremas; whose body was now being used as a vessel for the renegade Time Lord the Master, one of the Doctor’s oldest friends, and greatest enemies. “Doctor!” Nyssa asked, walking into the console room to check the flight path. The Doctor looked up, and broke his concentration. “Hmm?” and Nyssa proceeded; “Where are we going, this flight path – it’s all over the place!?” she asked, and the Doctor sighed. “I’m taking you to Vetrrox 5, the most relaxing spa in the universe; despite being located near the event horizon of a supermassive black hole!” Nyssa laughed; “But that’s impossible, how does it sustain itself and resist the immense gravitational pull?” The Doctor darted round to the other side of the console in a matter of seconds and violently pulled down a lever. He then rested on the console as he explained himself – “Well, they use a sort of anti-gravity force field, which surrounds the complex. The technology there is so advanced they could probably crack the code to time travel in another million years!” he got back to work, while Nyssa searched up ‘Vetrrox 5’ in the TARDIS data-bank. “But millions of years is a long time, maybe not to you, but in general it’s a considerably long time!” Nyssa said, tapping in the final letters of ‘Vetrrox’. “Ah, did I mention they have a rejuvenation facility; it’s quite costly, but then again; if you can afford Vetrrox 5, money isn’t a problem!” The Doctor explained. Nyssa had completed the search, and white blocky letters started appearing against the orange background on the data-bank screen. “Vettrox 5; one of the most relaxing spas in the universe, located within the gravitational pull of a supermassive blackhole. Founded in the late 45th Century, and named after its creator “Professor Vetrrox”, the spa was intended to accommodate travellers and cultures of every kind. Vetrrox 5 has many unique features; it’s Zero Environment qualities makes it the perfect place to regenerate and rejuvenate…” Nyssa trailed off, as the information ended. She looked up at the Doctor; “It’s the perfect Zero Environment!” she exclaimed, and the Doctor nodded, then looked up after he’d finished plotting extra coordinates; “I know! Before the Zero Room was a part of the TARDIS, I stopped in at Vetrrox’s Zero-Environment facility. That way I could concentrate on renewing and healing. Then I had the bright idea of installing a Zero Room of my own!” with that, he dashed over to the other side of the console, and began piloting the TARDIS once more. Nyssa may have been able to navigate the TARDIS and understand most of the concepts, but she had no idea what the Doctor was doing, or why he was doing it. All he needed to do now was to press one switch and they’d arrive at their destination. “Right, Nyssa, I need you to double check the coordinates. I may have made a slight error; and if I have it’ll mean materialising inside of the black hole and being torn to shreds, and therefore not arriving in the spa!” The Doctor instructed, and Nyssa made her way to check the coordinates, while the Doctor was holding down the vortex manipulator and pressing buttons that would activate the dematerialisation sequence. Nyssa stared blankly at the coordinates, and time seemed to slow down. These numbers suddenly meant nothing to her, even though it should’ve been second nature. Instead of reading out and checking the coordinates, she ended up thinking about Adric. If he was here, this would be his job. He was so much better at calculations and numbers. If he was here, he’d probably have mastered piloting the TARDIS. “Nyssa! NYSSA!” The Doctor’s voice seemed to get louder and louder, but when Nyssa snapped back into reality, he wasn’t raising his voice at all. “Nyssa, the coordinates?” he asked, and she concentrated on the screen, erasing Adric from her mind. “Perfect!” she replied, and the Doctor grinned. “I’m often doubting myself it seems! And for no reason at all! Right, let’s stop wasting time and get on with it shall we? Vetrrox 5 –” The Doctor was cut off by the ringing of an alarm. A button on the TARDIS console lit up with crimson light! “What’s happening Doctor?” Nyssa asked, and they both looked over at the button. The Doctor was knelt down on one knee, now at eye level with the alarm! “Distress Call!” he explained, “But not any ordinary distress call – it’s marked as Mauve!” He stood back up, and the expression on his face displayed to Nyssa that he was deciding whether they should help. Of course, she already knew the answer. “Mauve?” Nyssa asked. “Universally recognised colour for danger!” The Doctor replied, “Unfortunately our plans are going on hold.” He stated, and they both looked at each other; knowing what was about to happen next. In an instant, the Doctor was resetting the coordinates; soon after, the TARDIS was dematerialising. The wheezing, dying sound of the TARDIS engines faded into existence, until it was fully materialised. The doors opened inward, and Nyssa stepped out, lingered in the doorway for a few seconds. “Well?” The distant voice of the Doctor called out. Nyssa stepped out of the TARDIS, entering their new environment. “Looks like a ship, and we’re stationary!” Nyssa explained, as the Doctor closed the TARDIS doors, joining his companion. “We’re on a 24th century transport vessel judging by the corridors!” The Doctor said, pivoting around and observing every detail of their current position. “And what makes you say that?” Nyssa asked. “Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all!” The Doctor replied, now at the far end of the corridor, “At least I assume so,” “I think we should have a look around before we make assumptions, don’t you?” Nyssa replied, and the Doctor nodded, “Exactly, Nyssa. Come on, work to do, and people to save..I just hope it’s not too late.” He said, and the two travellers walked off down the empty corridor. “It’s all a bit too calm!” Nyssa stated and the Doctor agreed. “Yes, it is. Considering the emergency was Mauve, it’s as quiet as a graveyard.” The Doctor didn’t like the sound of that. Maybe it was only this quiet because they were too late. The Doctor and Nyssa had been walking for at least half an hour; the only sound was their own footsteps connecting with the metal ground. They’d explored a laboratory and a few other rooms ranging from the kitchen to a recreational centre, but they’d not seen a single sign of life. “What do you think could’ve happened, Doctor?” Nyssa asked. They were currently walking through another set of corridors, and picking up the pace. “Because the distress call was ‘mauve’, it was obviously something extremely dangerous. So I’d presume it would range from a radiation leak, to a plague outbreak. Either that, or somebody sent it out as a sick joke.” They reached an intersection. The Doctor took a turn left, but stopped and turned around. “This way,” and they turned right, continuing where the conversation left off. “Although saying that, I doubt you’d send out a distress call just for a laugh. I’d say it’s 90% likey that the distress call was a genuine call for help.” The Doctor said. Turning another corner, they were greeted with a thick metal door. After waving his hand in front of a sensor on the wall, the doors parted, revealing a compact observation deck. “Now to find out exactly where we are!” The Doctor walked through and stopped as he came to a set of windows, looking out at the exterior, and removing his panama hat. Nyssa followed, and she too observed the outside world. Most of it was empty space, a seemingly endless barren landscape, but in the distance; huge mountains and ancient caverns. “Ah, look at that!” he said, and stared in awe through the glass separating them and the planet outside. “Stationary, like you thought, Nyssa. It was some sort of expedition, either for scientific purposes or to mine value materials! I’ve never seen a planet like this before, though! I wonder where we are,” he began, and when Nyssa didn’t respond, the Doctor looked to his left. She was being held at gunpoint. A Basic Series 4000 Service Robot was marching over to the Doctor. “Too bad you’ll never find out!” the man said, and the Doctor reached out his hand, smiling. “Hello, I’m the Doctor-” but the robot had restrained him. “Talk once more and your friend gets it,” he gestured with the gun, holding it closer to Nyssa’s head. “Got that?” he asked, and the Doctor nodded. “Scott, I’ve apprehended the intruders! Bringing them to the bridge. Over,” the man talked violently into the radio. Nyssa noticed the badge on his uniform, identifying him as Alex. “Right, you two, come with me. Any sudden movements or signs of resistance, and I won’t hesitate to kill you. Clear?” he asked, and the Doctor and Nyssa nodded, showing their understanding. “Good. Then let’s get moving. My boss wants to see you,” Alex said, through gritted teeth. Alex was dying for the opportunity to extract information through torture, but of course Scott wanted to talk to them. The Doctor and Nyssa were trapped, and they had no doubt that Alex would kill them on the spot if given the chance. There was no escape… “Where did they come from?” Scott asked, on either side of him, a service robot. Scott slammed his fist down ferociously on the control panel, with almost enough force to break the machine. “How did they get in?” he asked, rhetorically. He took a deep breath in, calming down and composing himself. He’d instructed Alex to take a service robot down with him to apprehend the intruders, and through the use of CCTV, he could see them move from screen to screen; a man in 20th century cricket attire, with a white panama hat sat on a mop of blonde hair, and a woman with thick brown hair and a purple pantomime-esq costume. Maybe they were spies? How long had they been here, and were they anything to do with the slim wooden police box that had suddenly appeared on B deck? “Who are you” he muttered, watching the stranger in the panama hat. Amanda removed her helmet after stepping into the airlock. The doors parted, and Amanda entered the decontamination chamber. The chamber wasn’t in use; Scott didn’t believe it was needed, after all if you were going outside, you’d be protected by a spacesuit anyway. Amanda took another step as the doors opened, presenting her with a corridor. She was now officially on the ship. Carrying her helmet under her right arm, Amanda marched through the labyrinth of corridors, hoping to eventually find her way to Peters in the laboratory. It didn’t take her long to find the way, and upon entering, found Peters mid-way through an experiment he’d been perfecting for days. She placed the bulky helmet on a worktop, and Peters glanced over his shoulder before quickly resuming the experiment. “Amanda! Did you discover anything within the cavern?” he said, welcomingly. “Not really, no! Same old, same old!” she replied, but her face contorted as she said it, clearly guilty for lying; it wasn’t something she was used to. “Shame!” he said, concentrating on squeezing drops of a green liquid into a cylinder containing a few rocks from the planet surface. “Yeah, it is…” she paused…”Peters?” There was no point in lying, so Amanda had decided to tell him about her potential discovery, it was better than keeping him in the dark. He looked back at her, finishing the experiment. “I lied. I did find something. I’m not sure what exactly it is yet, but what I am sure of –” she began. “Oh, come on Amanda, you know more than anyone that the planet outside cannot sustain life!” he stated, believing every word that came out of his mouth. Amanda sighed, realising convincing him otherwise would be hard work; “That’s just what you believe. I believe that life is out there, we just haven’t found it yet! Look, I was exploring the cavern before the storm, and I discovered a sort-of-passage…” Peters laughed at the wording. “No, I’m telling the truth. Every word!” Amanda began. “Unless I see it with my own eyes, life out there doesn’t exist!” “Well, if seeing it for yourself is what it takes to prove you wrong, then I’ll show you!” Amanda replied, “In a couple of hours, once the storm has well and truly finished, you and I are going into the cavern and you’ll discover that I was right!” Amanda stated, and Peters agreed. “Sounds good,” he said, and straightened the cuffs on his uniform. “But before I even think about going out, I need some rest.” He walked out of the laboratory, but lingered in the doorway until Amanda had also exited. Amanda continued down the corridor while Peters stayed behind and switched off the laboratory lights. After the scientist had left the area, a figure walked through the darkness, and it’s singular eye lit up; a heavenly bright blue. One of the Service Robots. It’s head tilted sinistery. Dave was alone in the recreational centre, sitting at a round white table, and reading a book titled; “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, an Earth classic. It was a worn out book, and it was so battered it looked like it had been through a war. The pages were yellow and falling apart, and the spine of the novel was almost non-existent. It was the only item that had been passed down through his family, and the only reminder of them. The doors opened with a hiss as they parted, and Amanda walked over to Dave, sitting on the opposite side of the table. Still wearing the bulky exosuit, it was clear she was beginning to struggle with the weight of the thing.” Why don’t you take it off? You look exhausted.” Dave said, and Amanda laughed, “Yeah, that’s because I am exhausted…” she caught her breath, “Once the storm’s died down Peters and I are taking a trip to an isolated cavern! I think I may have discovered the first signs of life in the outer regions!” Dave sighed, and closed the book, “That’s impossible! Everybody knows there’s no life out here!” “That’s exactly what Peters said,” “And he’s right. There can’t be any life,” “Why not?—” “It’s a scientifically proven fact.” Dave stated. “Only until it’s scientifically proven incorrect!” Amanda replied. Becky entered the recreational room, and the doors parted once again, however, she walked in silently, closing herself off from the rest of the world. Dave and Amanda looked over at her as she walked in, and could see she looked extremely depressed. Neither knew what to say, and sighed, awkwardly. “You alright, Becky?” Amanda asked, but Becky didn’t move. She didn’t even acknowledge them, it was like she was in a trance; staring into nothingness. “Tell you what, if there is life out there, and I am wrong, I’ll pay you…” Dave was thinking of a price; not too high, because he had to save some up for his family, but he couldn’t give her nothing at all. Dave had decided on a price: ”5000 credits?” “Deal!” Amanda said. “This’ll be the easiest 5k I’ve ever made!!” she cheered, and they shook on it, no going back now. If Amanda was right about this, Dave would have to pay up. “I’m going to head off, work to be done in Z deck; got to fix a few pipes and whatnot,” Dave explained, and he walked off. Before exiting the recreation centre, Amanda looked back over at Becky. They’d never really spoken during the expedition. In fact, Amanda often forgot Becky was around; she kept herself to herself, and never spoke a word to anybody. Nobody even knew what her job was, she was just there. A spare part. But Amanda couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Who knew what could’ve made her so depressed? Perhaps she was missing her family, or maybe stressing about nothing. Whatever it was, she knew she couldn’t help in any way, so Amanda walked out, turning left. Seconds after her departure, the doors shut, and Becky looked over her shoulder. Everybody was gone, so now was the perfect time. Becky shot out of her seat, and put her hand against the nearest wall. The wall shifted, or at least a part of it, like a hidden door, revealing an industrial corridor. Becky entered the corridor, that was known to none other, or so she thought, and the wall sealed itself off... The Doctor and Nyssa were both restrained by service robots, while also facing advanced guns that would atomise them in less than a second. The robot’s restraining them had abnormally tight grips, and it had taken Nyssa until now to feel the pain in her arms. Scott was sitting back in his chair, pointing a gun in the general direction of his prisoners. “Who are you, and why are you here?” he asked, calmly. “I’m the Doctor, and this is Nyssa! We—” The Doctor was cut off by Scott, “Who sent you?” he asked, but the Doctor refused to answer; “Put the gun down, please!” he instructed, and Scott laughed. “What?”, but the Doctor was serious. “Put the gun down, and we’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything!” he explained, and Scott decided to do so; tossing the gun to the ground, out of reach from him, as well as his prisoners. “There you go,” Scott said, “Better now?” The robots released the Doctor and Nyssa from their grip, without any orders, as if they were being controlled remotely. Scott asked the previous question again, and the Doctor struggled to articulate himself. “W-well…” Scott was gesturing with his gun; “Spit it out man, what’s wrong with you!?” The Doctor was trying to find the right words: “Well, it’s quite difficult to explain, you see, technically speaking you sent us!” The Doctor explained. “What’s that supposed to mean, I didn’t send you!” Scott replied, and turned to Alex, “Did you send for them?” and Alex shook his head, “Well there you go, we didn’t do anything, so what’s your excuse now, Doctor?” Scott asked, but the Doctor couldn’t explain, so Nyssa did; “We received a distress call and followed it here, it’s the whole truth!” she explained, and Scott was confused, “Distress Call? You expect me to believe that? Nobody on this ship has sent a distress call, and there’s no reason why they should! Everythings perfectly normal, and the expedition is running as expected!” he explained. “Expedition for what?” The Doctor asked. “Who’s asking the questions here, Doctor?” “Sorry, do continue,” he replied. “Transport?” he asked. “The TARDIS, our ship, has the appearance of a police box from the planet Earth!” Nyssa explained. “Yes, it’s bigger than it looks, and it’s never wrong. Mostly. We followed the distress call here, so that’s where it was sent from. Right place, right time” The Doctor said. “This Distress Call of yours, was it a red alert? Yellow alert?” Scott said, mocking. “Mauve!” The Doctor replied, “Universally recognised colour for danger, so whoever sent it is in serious trouble, and I don’t think this is a laughing matter!” “I’m going to ask you again...who are you and why are you here?” “We’ve already told you-” Nyssa said, desperately. “-Yes. You’ve already told me one lie, so don’t tell me another. I want the truth, and if I don’t get it now, I’ll have to extract it later, using other methods! You’re choice!” Scott said, and the Doctor sighed. “Look, Nyssa and I are just travellers, we received a cry for help; a distress call, a warning, whatever it was, I knew people were in danger, and I couldn’t just leave it. We came to help!” The Doctor explained. Scott had heard enough; “These people are clearly spies or maybe even saboteurs. They’ve invented this cover story and stupidly expect us to believe it. Fools...Lock them up, Alex, until I decide what to do with them that is!” Scott stayed seated, while the Doctor and Nyssa were violently herded out of the room by the service robots. Although it was calming down, the storm was ploughing ahead with enough force to do considerable amounts of damage. The winds would take a while to settle. The mountains were silhouettes against the shadow of the night. Amanda twisted the helmet into place, and stood in the airlock with Peters, waiting. The storm had died down, and it was now time to explore the cavern once more. It had been an hour since she saw Becky in the recreation centre, and after seeing the look on her face; devoid of emotion and no sign of life whatsoever, she couldn’t stop thinking about her and her mental health. The airlock doors opened with a hiss, and the two scientists stepped into the great outdoors. It was like a battlefield, barren and lifeless. The landscape was almost like a desert, a vast empty space of nothing. Shards of unbreakable ice were dotted throughout the wasteland, giving a little colour to the surroundings. The ground was cracked and dry, clearly no rain had fallen for centuries, maybe none had ever fallen at all on this planet. The darkness loomed ahead, and in the sky – looking into the empty vast void of space – no star was present, same as ever. They made their way to the cavern, Amanda traced her steps precisely, and they arrived at the ‘jaws’. Peters stared into the cavern and saw nothing but an endless night. It was pitch black; not even their torches could provide enough light. “This way,” Amanda instructed, and she led the way through the darkness. As he walked, Peters got the feeling they were being watched. Something was waiting in the darkness that enveloped them. Amanda stopped. She had reached the lowest point again, and shining the light all around her revealed the pods. Dozens of pods. Frozen, dormant pods! Peters was amazed. “Wow,” he exclaimed, and reached out his hand to one of the pods, but Amanda grabbed his arm; “Careful, look!” Pointing towards the pod, Amanda and Peters now saw the pod was inhaling and exhaling. It was alive. “It can’t be alive. It’s clearly a plant of some sort, so how does it photosynthesise?” he asked, and Amanda shrugged, “Don’t know, I didn’t notice it last time.” Peters looked around, just him and Amanda, and the pods. The living pods. Oh, and thick smoke, clouding everything around them, as if summoned by an evil force to lock away the two scientists. He was amazed at it all, and took it in. This expedition hadn’t been for nothing, and just as he was theorising on all sorts of topics concerning the pod, and making plans for the future, Amanda’s voice cut through the air and woke him up from his ‘trance’. “What are we going to do with it?” she asked. “Take it back,” Peters suggested, “At least one. I want to run a few experiments!” “Fine, but I get the credit!” Amanda asked, “That’s all I ask.” They had a deal, and shook on it, “Fine by me,” Peters said, but he could never let her do that. Of course he would want some of the credit, he couldn’t live without it. He wanted to be the first to discover life forms in the outer regions, and now Amanda had gotten in his way…. As she appeared from the hidden passage, the wall slid shut. All traces of its existence were gone. However, Becky had discovered a terrible secret, and she just had to confront the one responsible, and quickly before anything truly awful happened, for example a murder. She shivered with fear, and exited the recreation room with a plan. She was going to put an end to this, and reveal the truth to the rest of the crew, or at least whoever would listen to her. As she strode through the corridors, the service robots’ she passed all expressed confusion. Or at least they expressed confusion as well a machine with no true way of conveying emotions could express it. At some point, whenever Becky was out of sight, a robot would begin to emit heavenly blue light from its single eye. One after the other, every robot in the complex all looked exactly the same. Like they were possessed. She was almost at the quarters of the traitor, and when she got there, everything would be sorted out within minutes. No blood would need to be spilled and nobody would come to any sort of harm. Walking through the corridors, Becky swiftly moved through the levels. Perhaps if Becky had told everyone else she could trust first, and then proceeded with the confrontation, maybe events would’ve panned out differently. But alas, everything happens for a reason, or so she believed. Becky couldn’t have predicted what was about to unfold. Or what would occur after the unfortunate incident in her near future. Becky was destined for this moment, she was going to finally achieve something and bring a criminal to justice. Maybe after this, the company would promote her? But first the work had to be done. Becky had arrived. Outside of the traitor’s door! The Doctor and Nyssa sat on the cold, uncomfortable ground of the cell, pondering all sorts of things; what if the Doctor had decided to work for the Time Lords, what if Tremas was still alive, and currently about how to escape the cell they were imprisoned within. Nyssa was beginning to accept that she spent most of her time with the Doctor in a cell or captured and almost murdered by the enemy. Half of their recent adventures together included them being held hostage and thrown in a cell or a dungeon of some kind. But this was a cell unlike any other. The Doctor was passing the time by throwing a cricket ball into the air, catching it, and repeating, while Nyssa was losing hope. “Why can’t we just escape now Doctor,” Nyssa asked, and the Doctor caught the cricket ball in his hands. “Well, for starters, look up there!” he pointed to the corner of the cell, to a security camera, trained on them. “They’re watching our every move, Nyssa,” The Doctor waved at the camera, grinning, before turning to his companion. “The other reasons?” “Secondly,” the Doctor threw the cricket ball with enormous force but it was vaporised upon contact with an invisible force.”Force Field,” Nyssa realised, and the Doctor agreed. “One step and we’d finish up dead,” Nyssa thought for a second, “I have a plan.” “Go ahead,” the Doctor insisted, and Nyssa continued; “Well based off of what we have to work with, I think we could short-circuit the security camera by making a primitive Electromagnetic Pulse Amplifier. Then we could potentially use it to fry the power source that’s producing the force field, should the device have enough charge left.” The Doctor took in what Nyssa had just said, and began to see how it could work. “Nyssa, has anyone ever told you you’re brilliant?” the Doctor asked, and Nyssa shook her head. “Surprisingly no,”. “Well, Nyssa. You’re brilliant! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that!” The Doctor hit his head with the palm of his hand, as if to get his brain into gear. “Right, we’re going to have to build it quickly before they realise what we’re making!” The Doctor said, and Nyssa agreed, “Doctor, ” she said. He turned to look at Nyssa, confused. “What about patience being a virtue?” “Ah, well.. “ he began. At least five minutes had passed, and nobody had interrupted the making of the Electromagnetic Pulse Amplifier, yet. Nyssa had almost perfected the device, and the Doctor was pacing from left to right, looking up at the security camera every so often. He was beginning to feel like whoever was watching knew exactly what they were doing, and were allowing them to do so to gather intelligence. To see how clever these captures were. “Nearly done?” The Doctor asked, and Nyssa was still working; “Not yet. I need two more minutes,” she replied, not breaking concentration. The device had to work perfectly, they only got one shot at this. If they failed then they’d never escape. “Two more minutes and we could be dead, here let me see it!” The Doctor urged, and Nyssa passed up the unfinished product. The Time Lord held the device and nodded. “Should do. It’s in better condition than the TARDIS, and the TARDIS works perfectly fine,” The Doctor said, blowing some dust off the machine. Nyssa knew that was a lie, the Doctor couldn’t control the thing. That and the fact the Doctor had admitted to stealing it from the repairs unit; he stole a faulty TARDIS. “Right,” Nyssa said, with a hint of sarcasm. The Doctor passed Nyssa the device, “You do it, after all, it is your invention! The Doctor said, and Nyssa took the device, and placed it on the wall housing the security camera. “Three, two…” the moment was arriving! “One,” The Doctor and Nyssa were plunged into darkness. “What was that?” Nyssa asked, and the EMP Amplifier broke down, shooting out smoke and setting alight. “It wasn’t the EMP!” Nyssa added. “No, somebody’s shut down the power supply for the entire ship, meaning!” The Doctor stepped from one side to the other, “No more force field!” Nyssa said with joy, and they both stood for a second amazed. That was until they heard the deathly scream of a woman, a scream that echoed throughout the entire ship, and died down quickly. The Doctor was quick on his feet, and ran off like a bolt of lightning in the general direction of the cry. Nyssa followed after him, and although she could run perfectly, she couldn’t keep up with the Doctor. They were running towards the danger. Not something new for Nyssa. And certainly not unexpected for the Doctor. PART II When they arrived, the body was on the ground. The name tag on her uniform identified her as Becky. She was dead. Her face was pale, almost grey, and she’d been like this for at least a few minutes. The Doctor was crouched beside the body, “Dead,” he said, as Nyssa caught up, and stopped, out of breath. “That’s horrible! Who would do such a thing?” The Doctor looked up; “I have no idea. But I intend to find out!” he replied, and noticed an important detail. “She was strangled. Oxygen supply was cut off, and by the marking around the neck, I’d say someone or something with immense power would’ve done this!” The Doctor stood up, and thought for a second. “Can’t we cover her up, we can’t just leave her like this!” Nyssa asked, but the Doctor was moving at a million miles an hour, not literally, but as usual he was extremely energetic, but inside part of him was dying. “Yes, you can, later. But if we’re seen with the body when the cameras are back online, we’re going to be the prime suspects, hmm?” he said, and Nyssa agreed. “So what’s our first move? How can we possibly find the killer?” Nyssa asked. “Well, firstly look at the markings on her neck. What could’ve done that? Maybe once we’ve solved that, everything else might fall into place!” he said. Nyssa realised exactly what the cause of death was, and with shock, said; “Doctor. You said immense force. Well, no human, even the strongest, couldn’t inflict damage like that!” “So what did cause it?” The Doctor stood there, trying to crack the code. A service robot, eye-piece still glowing bright, marched around the corner, entering the corridor which the Doctor and Nyssa were currently occupying. Nyssa tapped the Doctor on the shoulder, and they both looked at the robot. “I think that’s what did it!” Nyssa said. They stared at the robot. And the robot stared back. Scott was panicking, and urged Dave to carry on. “Hurry up man! Hurry up I tell you!” he pleaded. The power had shut down. All of it. The engines, the lights, the electricity, the heating. Everything. Absolutely everything. Scott was shivering, and if the power wasn’t resorted soon, they’d all freeze to death and never leave this planet. It would become their tomb for eternity. “I’m going as quickly as I can, Scott. I promise ‘ya.” Dave replied, genuinely trying his hardest to get the power online once more. “Well, you’d better be. If I found out you caused this…” his hands were clenched into fists, and he waved them in the air, suggesting...well, it’s obvious what he was suggesting. “Do you really think I would’ve caused this? No way, I would never!” Dave defended, but Scott wasn’t so sure. Not yet, it would take more than just that to convince him otherwise. “It could’ve been the intruders!” Scott said to himself, and Dave overheard. “Intruders? How’d they get in; intruder window?” Dave laughed. “There’s a time and a place you know! If you don’t hurry up and fix the damn thing we’ll all be dead!” Scott said, rushing the mechanic. Sometimes he wished he had a better crew. “That should do it,” Dave said, and just like that, the power was restored. He threw the screwdriver into the air and caught it in one hand, without even looking. “What did I tell you?” he said. “Best in the business.” Scott sighed; “You never said that, but well done anyway!” “Sure I did.” Dave said, but Scott had heard enough. “Well, I’d better get back to the bridge, and check on the prisoners. If they’re still there!” he said, and stormed off with haste. He had a hunch that whatever was going on – these two travellers had caused it. The CCTV showed nothing. Well, at least the working units didn’t. One of the camera’s on C deck was static, and no picture could be displayed; probably a fault that’d fix itself. Scott was desperately searching for his escaped prisoners, the spies going by the codenames; The Doctor, and Nyssa. While Scott was on the bridge, Alex was on the ground (as in searching the actual corridors himself). Nothing had been found so far, only that the two had created an EMP amplifier, which they believed to be the cause of the blackout. “Where are you, Doctor?” he asked, speaking to himself. He desperately wanted them caught before they interfered with anything important, or did anything dangerous. Scott pressed a button, opening the communications network; he was about to make an announcement; “IF ANYBODY HAS SEEN TWO STRANGERS, A MALE AND FEMALE IN INFORMAL ATTIRE, PLEASE HAND THEM IN! THEY ARE A DANGER TO OUR MISSION! AGAIN, IF YOU HAVE SEEN TWO STRANGERS, A MALE AND FEMALE IN INFORMAL ATTIRE, PLEASE HAND THEM IN! I REPEAT, THEY ARE A DANGER TO OUR MISSION!” he ended the announcement, not wanting to make it too long. His voice was heard throughout the vessel, and he was confident it wouldn’t be long before the enemy agents were handed in. “Robot!” he called out, and the metal machinery marched over, awaiting orders. “During his interrogation, The Doctor and his companion mentioned a blue box which they referred to as the TARDIS. Locate it for me, and bring it here.” He ordered, and the robot obeyed, towards the TARDIS. As if knowing the machine would take multiple robots to carry it, three other service robots followed after the other. Scott was going to discover the truth. It had been at least half an hour since the venture back into the isolated cavern on the isolated planet in which they were trapped, but at last, Peters finally had a living organism to experiment on. He’d set up all sorts of experiments, and he even tried injecting the pod with all sorts of chemicals, some of which would kill a regular plant. But then again, this wasn’t an ordinary plant. The pod was lighter than it looked, but it was stronger than it looked. The leaves were as hard as iron, and Peters had broken multiple scalpels trying to cut into the pod and dissect it. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t prize open the thing. What on Earth, or rather Space, was it? He’d told Amanda to give him time to experiment on his own, while she got some rest. The ship was entering night-mode soon anyway, so while the crew rested, Peters could have hours to himself. Hours to discover the mystery of the pod before Amanda got involved. Currently, Peters had moved on to making notes, and as he jotted down all sorts of theories and recent discoveries he’d made, as well as facts about the pod, there was a sort of cracking noise. He looked around. Nothing. Back to writing, but there it was again. Peters looked up at the pod, and there it was, right in front of him – the pod was breaking before his eyes. “Finally!” he called out, speaking to himself. He had to discover what had caused this sudden change. His first thought was to sit it under more UV light, like he had done a few minutes ago, and as if by magic, the process began to slowly speed up. Of course, it would take time to ‘hatch’ and break open completely, but sooner rather than later, Peters was going to make the investigation of a lifetime. “What are we going to do?” Nyssa whispered, as her and the Doctor walked through the maze of identical corridors. “I don’t know, Nyssa. I simply don’t know,” he said calmly. “But we’ve got to discover the truth before anyone else ends up dead!” he added, and they continued to walk. “Who’ll end up dead?” a voice said, and the two travellers stopped in their tracks. “Sorry, are you part of the crew?” she asked, and the Doctor and Nyssa were both standing there awkwardly, unsure of what to say. “No, not quite. I’m Nyssa, and this is the Doctor.” Nyssa introduced, “Amanda. Scientist. Qualified in almost everything. What about you Doctor, what are you a doctor of?” she asked. “Generally speaking...everything,” he smiled, “Really, we must be on our way!” he started, but Amanda kept them talking. “No, you mustn’t, otherwise I’ll radio the captain, then you’ll just be locked up,” she said. “Not again,” Nyssa sighed. Amanda was confused; “Again?” “Yes, a cell, locked up, that’s where we were before the power shut down!” The Doctor explained, and with that, the lights switched on one by one, life was restored to the vessel. “Oh, speaking of,” he said. Amanda was unsure of these two, they were mad. Very eccentric and all over the place. She had to know more; “Doctor, if you don’t mind, could I have a chat with you and Nyssa?” she asked. “Why not,” Nyssa replied, “Just in here,” Amanda gestured, and Nyssa walked into the quarters. The Doctor was still hesitant. “After you Doctor,” Amanda said, but the Doctor politely smiled, “No, I insist, after you,” Amanda proceeded into her own quarters, followed by the Doctor, who was weary this could all be a trap. But maybe it would be an opportunity to investigate what was really going on here. Nyssa was surprised at how one person could live in a room as compact as this. It seemed to be smaller on the inside; the complete opposite of the TARDIS. There was barely enough room to even walk around. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but it was at least the size of the cell she’d been trapped in previously. Amanda sat on the bed, which was basically just a rectangular gap in the wall. The Doctor sat down at the dining table, a white round table similar to the one in the recreational room, only more compact. “So, you have a lot of questions to answer,” Amanda began and the Doctor sighed; “I suppose we have. Like we said, The Doctor, Nyssa. We’re travellers.” Amanda nodded, “Yes I know, but how did you get here?” The Doctor was about to explain the concept of the TARDIS, but decided to go with the dumbed down version. “TARDIS. My ship, it travels in the fifth dimension.” He said. Amanda was amazed, but also lost for words. They had to be making it up, “You mean you’re time travellers?” she said with joy, “So it’s possible?” Nyssa nodded, “Yep. It’s true. I don’t fully understand it, but neither does the Doctor,” “Moving on from the TARDIS and my apparent lack of knowledge, do you know anyone who’d want to murder a woman called Becky?” The Doctor said. Amanda was frozen with shock! She couldn’t believe it; “Becky? She’s dead? So that’s what you meant?” she asked, coming to a realisation. The Doctor nodded solemnly, “Unfortunately yes, and you have to believe it wasn’t us. We’re here to help. Somebody sent us a distress call, a warning of danger ahead, and I have the strangest feeling that the distress call and this murder are connected,” The Doctor explained. “How can I trust you?” she asked, but surprisingly, she sort of already did? “You just have to! We’re not criminals, or stowaways or whatever the captain thinks we are!” Nyssa pleaded. “Scott? He’d make up any story to lock you away. Then if you don’t tell him what he wants to hear, he sends you to Alex!” Amanda said. “How do you know this?” Nyssa asked. “Rumours from previous expeditions, before Scott was allowed to command his own. Him and Alex have known each other for years. Scott is the calculating one, always one step ahead of everybody, and Alex is the brute. Military trained, and any excuse to extract information through torture – he’s on it!” The Doctor didn’t like the sound of that, and neither did Nyssa. One slip up and they’d be potentially excused. “Right. Would those two have any reason to murder Becky?” The Doctor asked. Amanda shook her head; “Not that I’m aware of. As far as I’m aware, the only people that know each other are Alex and Scott. Everybody else is new. We’ve never met before.” She said. The Doctor was preparing to leave. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He said, headed for the door. “Where are you going so soon? We’ve barely sat down? Nowhere is safe anyway, they’ll be looking for us now,” Nyssa asked. “That’s a chance I’ll have to take. Amanda, do you have a night cycle?” The Doctor asked. “Yes, night mode should be activated any minute now.” The Doctor sighed with relief; “Good, then I’ll go under the cover of darkness. I’m going to have a look around the ship, see if I can find anything that’’ll link the murder to anyone on the crew.” “But she was strangled. By a robot! Unless the robots are being controlled,” Nyssa realised, “Of course!” “Ninety percent of the time if robots are doing the killing, they’re used as puppets for a higher power. Or should I say evil power,” The Doctor exited the room, without even giving his goodbyes; the Doctor didn’t like goodbyes anyway. He was confident that he’d return to Nyssa safely, or rather he hoped. Night mode was active, and most of the crew were sleeping, or relaxing at least; Scott and Alex were on the hunt for their fugitives, while Amanda was awake, and hiding Nyssa. Despite his plans to work through the night with no interruption, Peters had fallen asleep, head on desk; the desk which was housing the alien pod. It had almost cracked open entirely, and whatever was inside was now breaking free. The lights began to flicker, but Peters was none the wiser, still in deep sleep. The pod cracked and fell open, and a long vine-like root shot out. Wrapping itself around Peters’ hand, the pod began to infect the scientist. It was already too late. Instead of becoming pitch black, or even darker, night mode changed the colour of lighting from bright white, to an ocean blue. During night mode, all unnecessary units were shut off to conserve power, such as security cameras, but during this cycle, the cameras were most definitely still active. The Doctor was weary of this, and made his way through the ship as silently as he could. Sticking to the shadows was the only way of avoiding detection, but he had no doubt either Alex or the robots would be searching for him on foot, so the Doctor had to tread carefully. The doors to the recreation room opened with a hiss, automatically parting for the Doctor. He stepped in, and took his iconic panama hat out of his pocket, placing it on his head after unravelling it. Looking around, it reminded him of the usual space-ship area, white polished tables, complex architecture, but also some items from Earth, so as it wasn’t too drastically different and unusual. There was a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the table, all battered, like an old Bible. Moving over to a wall after getting the idea it wasn’t what it seemed, the Doctor ran his hand over the metal. “Interesting!” he said, and searched for a button, but failing to find one, the Doctor bashed the wall with his fist. The wall moved the right; he’d discovered a hidden passage of some kind. Entering the passage, the ‘door’ closed behind him, clicking back into place. The corridor was claustrophobic, there was barely enough room to walk, it was almost as if it had been designed so that anyone using the passage would have to walk side-on. He continued down the plain corridor. Smoke rose from the ground, he must be above the engine room, or at least close to it. For minutes, it was nothingness, but the time lord came to a quick turn, and found a flight of stairs. He descended down the industrial steps, and as he ventured further, the heat became more and more intense. It was like standing meters away from a sun. Smoke concealed the time lord, and he eventually jumped from the final step, onto the hard ground, causing an echo to bounce about the place. He’d entered the engine room, as you’d imagine for a ship as big as this, the engines were immense, and must’ve had to convert massive amounts of power. Instead of one giant converter sitting at the heart of the place, there were dozens of them. The Doctor was standing on a sort of a gantry. A platform that allowed him to oversee the whole engine room. And because of his expert knowledge, the Doctor knew something wasn’t right. He examined the engines as much as he could from the distance, and realised the exact model; a 32nd century fission converter. But something was wrong, and it wasn’t just a regular fault. The engines had been damaged. Damaged beyond repair. “This ship is going nowhere! We’re trapped”. There was a saboteur onboard, and this expedition was doomed to fail. Nobody was leaving the planet alive. Alex hated everybody on this expedition. Literally everybody. Especially the intruders, who he couldn’t find anywhere on the ship. He’d searched far and wide, every inch of the ship had been checked and double checked, but still no sign of the fugitives. He had the suspicion that one of the crew members was hiding and protecting them, so he was currently on his way to Amanda’s quarters. He stormed through the corridors, seconds away from arriving at his destination. Turning left, Alex had made it, Amanda’s private quarters. He stopped and took a deep breath, sort-of calming down, but his temper wouldn’t be suppressed. He could still snap at any moment, as he did most of the time, but first he had to manipulate Amanda. Gain her trust before he accused her of harbouring criminals, or asking her questions on them, should the criminals not be concealed by Amanda. He knocked on the doors, “Amanda? It’s Alex. May I enter. Please?” he added, cringing, but it had to be done. There was no reply, so he gave it two seconds, hoping she just didn’t hear the first time. “Hello, is anyone there?” he repeated. “Yes, come in!” Amanda’s voice was muffled through the thick metal materials that lined the walls, but it was hers nonetheless, and he’d been invited in. The door opened with the expected hum of a space-ship door, and Alex took the step in, smiling as he entered. “Just wanted to check up on everyone. How are you?” he asked, through gritted teeth. “Fine thanks Alex. What about you, it’s very out of character for you to say something like that,” Amanda replied, and Alex forced a laugh. He hated this woman, almost as much as he hated Dave. Well, he detested Becky the most, but she wasn’t anywhere to be found. “Oh, you know. I thought I owe you an apology; I’m a bit too harsh sometimes. Just doing my job that’s all. Really, I’m not as bad as I seem. I’m certainly not as evil as you think I am,” he explained, lying extremely well. “Who said I hate you or think you’re evil?” Amanda asked. “I’m not stupid you know, I can tell that nobody on this expedition likes me.” He replied, playing the victim. “That’s not true! Don’t be silly, everybody likes you. Yes, you may be too harsh sometimes etcetera etcetera, but I’m sure nobody hates you,” said Amanda, appearing to be falling into the trap. Alex sighed, “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Scott’s tasked me with locating the fugitives. They go by the names the Doctor and Nyssa. I’ve searched the ship time after time and still no sign of them!” he replied, hoping his trap had worked. “I’m sorry. I haven’t seen whoever you’re looking for. If I’d seen any intruders—” Amanda said. “—That’s fine. Honestly, I just need to find them as quickly as possible before they cause any trouble!” Alex cut in, and went to leave, but stopped in his tracks. Alex felt like shouting, and tearing the room apart to search for the fugitives, but he decided against it. During the short conversation, Alex had determined that it would be better to keep up the act for longer, because if Amada was being truthful, perhaps when she did encounter them, she’d update him. “I’ll be on my way. Going to search the entire ship again,” he said, trying to make a joke out of it. Amanda stopped him one final time before he left, so it didn’t seem awkward or suspicious. “Oh, Alex.” He turned to face her. “If I’d seen the intruders, you’d be the first person I’d inform!” Alex nodded, acknowledging and giving her his thanks without saying another word. And with that, he was gone. It had been some time since Scott had ordered the robots to locate the Doctors’ ship, and bring it directly to him, and the captain was beginning to get anxious. “What on Earth is keeping them so long?” he asked rhetorically, and decided to locate the robots using the trackers that were installed within them. Once he’d found them, Scott would have to go down himself, ‘if you want something doing’, he thought. Tapping in letters and numbers and codes of every kind, the tracking devices suddenly became visible in the forms of fading red dots. Each singular red dot indicated a different unit. (Scott had only searched for the robots that he’d sent off, so that the screen wasn’t clogged with unnecessary data). “Ah, that’s where you are,” he said, and got up out of his chair, leaving his desk. Scott had no idea what he was about to stumble upon, and therefore walked through the corridors as if nothing was wrong. There was no rush, after all the robots were stationary, and he doubted they were going to move any time soon. He wasn’t too far away now, after walking for a few minutes, and was ready to turn the corner and shout at the robots; maybe even disassemble them for being damaged and redundant. “Right, what on Earth is—” he said, entering the corridor in which the robots were stationed. He stopped in his tracks, and was in shock. Frozen with shock. Although he’d found the Doctors’ TARDIS, a thin blue capsule reading; “Police Public Call Box”, Scott didn’t pay any attention to it. For something far worse was presented before him. The robots were gathered around a body, all in a circle and all looking down, almost as if they were expressing sorrow. The robots had discovered the body of the second technician – Becky. She was dead. Stone dead. Lifeless. Her eyes were emotionless, yet still displayed pain. There were marks around her neck, so she’s been choked to death. Horrific. Utterly horrific. And now Scott had people to blame it on. Why else would the body be laying next to the machine? The Doctor and Nyssa had done this, and whenever they turned up, Scott would shoot on sight. Amanda waited until she was sure Alex had left, and was out of earshot before she called out Nyssa. Nyssa appeared from out of a cupboard, and sat down at the table; “That was close,” she said, but Amanda disagreed; “No, that was weird. Alex isn’t usually like that. So either he was drugged, or he’s trying to gain my trust.” Six hours had passed since the night cycle had been activated, and day-mode was now commencing. The deep ocean blue lights were altered, and swapped out for a more optimistic and bright colour; white. Gleaming white light, almost blinding. Nyssa had decided now was a great time to gather more information on the expedition, all of the crew members, including the recently deceased Becky, because it could mean piecing everything together and discovering the murderer. “So, what was the purpose of this expedition, if you don’t mind me asking!” Nyssa started, and Amanda sat down at the table, and handed Nyssa a protein cube, as well as a sachet of coffee. “No, it’s perfectly fine...Well, where do I start?” she began, and Nyssa interrupted, “The beginning?” they both found this amusing, and Nyssa had hoped this would defuse any tension. After all, she was hoped to be questioning everyone, even Amanda. Although she sort of trusted the scientist, Nyssa couldn’t rule her out. “We arrived a few weeks ago, almost a month now. The sole purpose was to venture to the outer regions, and discover life, if there was any. We got some funding from various companies, but the backing isn’t’ too great. After all, it’s believed that no life could ever survive out here. Nothing. So nobody wanted to put massive sums of money into the project, because they’d potentially never see it again. That’s why everyone is so inexperienced. Peters and I, the only scientists on the ship, are also inexperienced. If anybody really cared about this project, we could’ve had the best scientists around. But alas, nobody believed in it,” Amanda said, solemnly. “However,” she said, with joy, “I think I might’ve proved that theory wrong. You see, I think I’ve found indigenous plant life,” she explained. “Not harmful though? You don’t want to bring any parasites onboard,” Nyssa said. “Not sure yet, but I’d like to hope not. I’ve not had time to experiment on it, that’s what Peters has been doing all night. I should probably check on him!” Nyssa had to keep her talking; “Not yet, I want to know more about the crew, and about Becky. We need to find out who could’ve been controlling the robots, and why they’d want to murder her. I can’t exactly ask anybody else, because they’d just throw me in a cell!” Nyssa explained, and it was enough. Amanda nodded, “Ok, I obviously don’t know exactly everything, but I think I’m a good judge of character. I’ll tell you what I know…” Alex was isolated, alone. He was sure of that. Using this time wisely, he pulled up his arm and tapped in a series of numbers on a device attached to his wrist. A device that would begin a voice conference with another power... An unknown power.. Nyssa was taking in everything that she’d just heard. Amanda had finished speaking, and Nyssa had no words. “So…” Amanda said, awkwardly, and Nyssa shrugged. Their silence was broken suddenly, as the doors to Amanda’s quarters opened. They saw the shadow on the ground before the person, and had a moment in fear. Nyssa could be found and executed. However, the Doctor entered, Amanda and Nyssa sighed with relief. “For a second, I thought you were Alex,” Amanda said. “Luckily, I’m not!” The Doctor said, with a beaming smile. “Doctor!” Nyssa exclaimed. “You’re alive! What did you find?” Nyssa asked, and the Doctor sat down at the white table. He looked to the left, out of the window, into the black void of space, and the rocky, mountainous planet below. “Well,” he said, and as he looked outside, he was thinking of how they’d never leave the planet alive. And he had to tell Amanda. “During my ventures, I’ve discovered a series of passages. It leads the engine room,” he began. “What about it?” Nyssa asked, expecting something extremely devastating or ground breaking. “Sabotage, we’re not getting off this planet. Any of us, and if there’s a murderer about as well, our chances of leaving alive are even lower,” he explained. “Excuse me for a second,” Amanda said, needing some fresh air; well, the corridor outside. She stormed outside, possibly crying, and the door shut automatically. This was the perfect chance to talk; “Any news Nyssa?” the Doctor asked, hoping Nyssa had more interesting and less gloomy news. “Amanda just told me everything she knows about the crew. Obviously, there’s a chance she could be lying, but I don’t believe she could be behind this all,” Nyssa started. “Alex and Scott have known each other for years, and everyone else were picked at random, and are expendable according to Amanda. It’s a doomed mission; nobody believed in it, so the company dumped the least qualified people for the job. I don’t think anyone really likes each other, but none of them have a reason to murder. According to Amanda, Scott has always wanted the role of captain, and from what I’ve heard, the power has gone to his head. At the beginning of the expedition, almost a month ago, Amanda said he was a regular guy, cool, calm, collected. Rational. But now the power has gotten to his head, he thinks he can stroll about and do what he likes. He’s been worse than Alex, annoying everyone, and mocking them. Making them feel inferior, that sort of thing. Amanda didn’t know exactly what he’s said to everyone, but apparently this gives everyone a reason to hate him, even Alex.” She said. “Amanda knows nothing about Dave, except that he’s a mechanic, and one rank above Becky. Peters is her co-worker, but he doesn’t like working together one bit, he’s selfish, and massively greedy. Now, Alex served in the military, but got kicked out for reasons unknown. He doesn’t like to talk about it, and he has a rough past. I think we should try and gain his trust, and find out what this was,” Nyssa said, and the Doctor agreed; “Well, it should be easy unless he’s the murderer!” The Doctor remarked. “Right, let’s get back to the TARDIS!” he stated, and jumped up off the seat. “Why?” asked Nyssa, “We can’t just leave them! It’s all very sudden!” she announced. The Doctor turned back, “I need to retrieve some equipment,” he explained, oddly optimistic, with a hint of urgency and sorrow, “Now come on,” he said, and the Doctor and Nyssa began their journey to the TARDIS. Peters’ was staring at his hand, shaking with fear. It was almost unrecognisable; thin green vines were wrapped around his hand, cutting off all circulation. He felt like a monster, an abomination, and he couldn’t tell anyone. One look at him and they’d shoot on sight. Right now, Peters wished he hadn’t tried to experiment on the pod, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Of course it had to happen to him! Having a nervous breakdown, Peters ran his arm violently down his desk, knocking everything off the table, and all glass items crashing and breaking. He proceeded to flip over the table, and cause carnage around the laboratory in anger; he was emitting a sound that was half crying with pain, and half maniacal laughter. What was happening to him? Peters ran out of the laboratory, and entered the maze of identical corridors in the ship. Peters was suffering; his whole body was changing before his eyes. The transformation from human – to-whatever-came-next was almost complete. At least fifty percent of his body was human, the rest, alien. But what was it? What was happening to him, and what did it want. Did it even want anything? He hobbled through the corridors, gripping the sides to stay on his feet. He needed to avoid contact with anyone, except maybe Amanda. He’d changed his mind, and decided the only person to turn to was Amanda, after all she was a scientist. Who knew, he could persuade her to concoct an antidote. If there was one. He’d have to get to her quickly, before the transformation was complete, and after hearing other stories and watching Intergalactic movies based on virus’, Peters had realised he could lose his mind. He could lose everything that made him human, and turn into a mindless monster. He turned to enter another corridor, and that’s when he was met by Scott, who was tightly gripping a gun. “Scott!” he cried, and limped towards the captain, but he was seen as a threat, and a single bolt was fired into his chest, and he fell to the ground, dead. The captain watched as the body of his former-crewmate fell to the ground. Scott had realised that the Doctor and Nyssa would need to return to their mode of transport sooner rather than later, so had decided to stay put. What he didn’t expect was to find an infected crewmate. He hated firing the shot, but in the heat of the moment, Scott had seen it as a threat, and after Becky’s death, he didn’t need a murderer AND a virus spreading through the ship, otherwise it’d spell disaster! The Doctor and Nyssa strolled without worry. That was a lie, they were worried, but not much. After all this was how they lived their lives. The only fear they had was that they’d be shot and killed, meaning the murderer would continue to murder, and not being able to save the innocent people on the ship. The Doctor rolled out his Panama hat, and placed it on the golden mop of hair on his head, while Nyssa started to gain more and more anxiety the longer they went without being apprehended. Maybe they’d already been spotted, or maybe there was a trap waiting for them? The Doctor took the lead, and remembering the way to the TARDIS, he knew they were just a few paces away. “Doctor?” asked Nyssa, but the Doctor continued walking, in a world of his own and not paying the slightest bit of attention to Nyssa. “Doctor, don’t you think it’s weird –” she began, before entering another corridor and being threatened with a gun. They were face to face with Scott, who was surrounded by robots, who were surrounding both the TARDIS, and Becky’s body. This looked awful, now the captain had a reason to kill the Doctor, but if considering they weren’t the killers, to the Doctor and Nyssa, it could show that Scott was the murder. No matter who believed what, Scott was going to shoot. “Ah, my old friend,” The Doctor said, reaching out a hand. He was always overly optimistic and cocky at the most inconvenient times. One day, he’d annoy the wrong person and end up shot! “Doctor, Nyssa.” Scott said, through gritted teeth; Scott was beyond angry. “Yes, that’s us,” The Doctor began. “-Doctor,” Nyssa said, nudging him and shutting him up. “Firstly, you kill Becky, then you infect Peters with a virus, and then you sabotage the engines!” he was bursting with rage, and about to pull the trigger. The Doctor held out his hands, and tried to defuse the situation. “Woah! Don’t do this! You know it’s not true, we didn’t murder Becky, and we certainly didn’t infect Peters!” The Doctor explained. “I. Want. You. Dead. And that’s what I’m going to have! I’m going to kill you Doctor!” he shouted, and fired a bolt, missing the target by a hair. Literally. The bolt fired from the weapon destroyed the Doctor’s hat, rather than his head. The hat blew off with amazing force, and crumbled to ashes within seconds. “When I say run….RUN!” The Doctor declared, and the two time travellers legged it. Scott followed, not far behind! While Scott was chasing down his two suspects, Amanda was nowhere to be found, Dave was doing repairs, Alex was also searching for the Doctor and Nyssa, Becky was still dead, but Peters wasn’t. He was revived from the brink of death. Brought back into reality, but not as a human, not as Peters. As a monster. A virus. A living creature. He was a dead man walking. The metamorphosis was complete. Dave was going about fixing the ship, minding his own business, and still hoping to win the bet he’d made with Amanda. The robots weren’t trailing far behind, and despite the events occurring throughout the ship, Dave was blissfully unaware. He took his time walking through the corridors, and because of this, he didn’t even bat an eyelid at the robots. The slow pace allowed the robots to appear like they were mimicking his actions, but instead, they were walking this slow because they had no reason to run. Their next target was Dave, well, he was the target of the individual controlling the service machines. While fixing a drink dispenser, the Robots amassed, tilting their heads in unison, eyes glowing blue. He didn’t even turn around, didn’t even hear them advance. The leading machine reached out its arms, hands in position to grip the man’s neck. The last thing Dave saw was the very dispenser he was repairing, as the cold iron grip of a service robot strangled him to death, crushing his windpipe. The death was slow and painful, but right before it was impossible to take another breath, the mechanic managed to scream. A scream of terror, and a scream that echoed through the walls of the ship. The Doctor and Nyssa stopped in their tracks, stopping in the centre of a corridor that lasted an eternity. They listened to the scream, lasting only a second, before it faded. “Another murder!” Nyssa said, in a low voice, and the Doctor nodded, “Unfortunately, and I don’t think our friend Scott is going to see that as proof we’re not the killers,” he said, as the power shut off. “What now,” Nyssa said, looking around, the lights in the corridor faded one by one, and they were plunged into darkness. “The power has been deactivated again, which means only one thing!” The Doctor nervously. He ran through the corridors, and Nyssa followed blindly. They ran through a couple of corridors before reaching a metal door, opened completely. The Doctor ran through; it was the entrance to the stairs. Stairs that ran from the top of the ship, right down to Z deck. The Doctor began his descend, towards the only place an individual would be able to hack the systems. They reached the engine room within seconds, an alarm was sounding within the complex. The fission reactors towered over them, and up in the distance, the Doctor could see the gantry from which he first observed the faulty reactors. “Stop!” a voice shouted, and the two travellers came to a sudden halt. Scott stood behind them, a rifle in his hand, locked and loaded and ready to fire in the direction of the Doctor and Nyssa. This time, he wouldn’t miss, couldn’t miss. This rifle was a 32nd century heat seeker rifle, meaning Scott would only have to press the trigger, and aim in the general direction of the Doctor and Nyssa, and the weapon would do the rest; locking onto their unique heat signatures. “It’s not what it looks like, we want to help!” The Doctor shouted over to him. “That’s what they all say. It’s over for you two.” Scott retorted. The reactors were dying down. Therefore the exterior shields were lowering; the second the shields fractured, the below freezing temperature would spill into the ship and freeze them to death. Another crew member was dead and a virus was about to make its way through the ship in the form of its host; Peters. They were doomed to die. PART III Amanda had been returning to her quarters after composing herself, when she had found the lifeless corpse on the ground; she was hunched over Dave, down on one knee, with a tear down her face. His face had already been drained of colour, grey and pale as a ghost. She didn’t even know the man that well, yet she still felt the pain of grief. There were marks around his neck, black marks, where circulation to his blood had been cut off; whoever had strangled him had to have immense power. That’s when she realised what the Doctor and Nyssa had said after the murder of Becky. They’d said Becky had to have been strangled by a service robot due to the markings on her neck – they said no woman or man could possess such strength. She stood up, after closing the man’s eyelids; which while open encompassed all of the fear and pain he felt during his final moments. Amanda tapped her communications device, and spoke into it. “Hello, Scott? Alex, is anyone there?” she asked, and awaited a reply. The radio hissed, but there was no reply. “Hello?” she repeated, again and again, but still no reply. Amanda was beginning to feel the cold; the heat shields around the exterior of the ship was beginning to fall due to the power being cut. It was almost as if somebody had deliberately shut down the power. Of course! Amanda rushed down to the engine room. “Look, you don’t have to do this, Scott, please!” The Doctor said, gesturing with his hands for the captain to lower the weapon. “You murdered our second technician, Becky, and infected our scientist Peters with an alien virus, and you expect me not to shoot?” he asked, jolting the gun forward violently. “Yes!” Nyssa exclaimed, hands behind her head, “You have to see, we didn’t do anything! We haven’t murdered or infected anyone, we just want to help!” she said in a final desperate attempt to stay alive, and hopefully change Scott’s mind. The captain wasn’t convinced; “You don’t have proof. All you claim is to have answered a distress call. A distress call that doesn’t exist!” he shouted. “Well it might do in the future if we don’t sort of the power,” the Doctor interrupted, nodding to the fission reactors all around them. They were all dying down one by one, and once they’d dying down completely all power would be revoked from the ship. There’d be no fuel, no lights, no exterior shields, and without the shields, the crew would be exposed to the harsh below freezing environment outside, and humans weren’t built to withstand those temperatures. Scott was still thinking it over, when Amanda came running down the steps into the engine room. “SCOTT! DON’T SHOOT!” she exclaimed, and ran in the way of the two strangers. “Why not?” he asked, “They’re murderers, Amanda!” he shouted. “No, no they’re not! They aren’t the murderers,” Amanda pleaded. “I don’t believe you, you can’t prove a single word of it!” Scott said, pushing the gun out. “Now get out of the way. This has to be done.” The Doctor interrupted; “No it doesn’t!” “I can’t exactly prove it right now, but you have to believe me! First, we have to get the power back online, and we could use all the help we can get,” she said, and Scott lowered the weapon. The ships tannoy, dying down, stated; “HEAT SHIELDS LOWERING….YOU Will be exposed to EXTERIOR TEMPERATURES IN Approximately 2 minutes----” “Did you hear that?” Amanda said, urgently, “Two minutes!” Scott threw the weapon completely to the ground, and panicked, “What do we do?” he asked, and the Doctor was thinking, “Well, I’ve never actually fixed fission reactors before,” he said, “And the only person who could have a chance of fixing it is dead,” Amanda added, solemnly. “Right!” the Doctor said clasping his hands together, with a plan, “This might not work, but it’s worth a try!” he declared, darting over to a control panel. He started tapping in random numbers on the adjacent keypad, not breaking concentration for a second. Alex was in the bridge, sitting in the captain’s chair and observing the readings, or was he? Pulling up a separate interface, Alex began to speak into the microphone on the control panel. “It’s done. Heat shields are decaying as we speak. We’ve got two dead bodies, courtesy of the service units.” He explained, calm – the exact opposite to his usual behaviour and demeanor. “Good.” A muffled voice said, sounding as though it was a faulty machine. “And the engines?” the voice asked. “Beyond repair,” Alex stated. “There’s no escape off this planet. It’s looking Iike everything is panning out the way we thought it would,” he said. “Excellent. This, Doctor, you were informing me of – is he a threat?” asked the voice. “No, actually, he couldn’t be further from it,” Alex said. “You’ve done well. We’ll speak again soon,” the voice cut off, but Alex wasn’t ready. However, the second the conversation was over, he climbed into an exo-suit, so that when the shields had decayed, he’d be protected from the temperatures of the planet outside. “There!” The Doctor said, tapping in a final digit. The alarm came to a halt, and the tannoy announced; “EXTERIOR SHIELDS RISING!” Despite the announcement, the tannoy was on the verge of shutting down. “That should do it!” he said, and turned to face the others. Amanda was amazed; “You’re a genius!” she exclaimed, and the Doctor smiled, “You restored reserve power to the base and then converted it all—” she began. “—So that all remaining power would go towards keeping the shields intact; but now’s not the time to thank me! It’ll give us about thirty minutes maximum. Now we’ve got to go and find Alex, the only living crew member not here. That’s if I take your words for it!” The Doctor said, pushing past them, Nyssa ran after, followed by Amanda, and finally by Scott, who before joining them picked up the weapon off the cold metal ground. Peters stumbled through the corridors of the base, now fully transformed. He had no emotions, nothing to make him human. As he looked around, all he saw was evil. Pure hatred was flowing through his veins, and with the mind and aspirations of a parasite now infecting his entire mind, Peters only dreamed of one thing; to find a new host. “What exactly did he look like?” The Doctor asked, and Scott began to stutter, unsure of how to describe how Peters had looked when he’d shot him. “All green, with veins running up to his face. His eyes were red, and bloodshot. When I saw him, there was still something human about him, he wasn’t pleading for my help! But I couldn’t take it, in the heat of the moment…” he trailed off and the Doctor nodded; “I know, there was nothing you could do, and if it really was a virus, you could’ve saved us all from contracting it!” The Doctor said. “There’s so much going on; but how is it all connected!” Scott asked and the Doctor replied in a way that made it seem as though he knew the exact answer. “A virus, two murders, and sabotage. It could be simpler than it seems; the mission was doomed from the start, you have a saboteur within your ranks, who releases a virus and damages the ship. That way there’s two options to fall back on if the other fails. The murders could be the result of them discovering the truth,” he said, before adding; “But that’s just my initial theory,” Walking through the corridors sent a chill up her spine; Amanda had ventured into an ancient cavern, into the unknown and the darkness, but nothing compared to the fear she was experiencing now. Now was different, she was headed to find Alex, along with the Doctor and Nyssa, and Scott; one of them could be the murderer. She sort of trusted the two strangers, but couldn’t rule them out, and she definitely couldn’t rule out Scott – when she’d arrived in the engine room, he was holding them at gunpoint. Who knew how that event had played out. As they continued down the maze of corridors, and there was still no sign of Alex, Amanda began to lose hope. After all, they only had at least thirty minutes, and that number was decreasing with every passing second. They had to hurry up so Amanda took charge and picked up the pace, eventually catching up to, and matching the pace of the Doctor. “Amanda,” the Doctor said, welcoming, although not quite paying attention. “Doctor,” she returned. “What is it?” The madman asked. “Well, I just thought we’re wasting our time; we still haven’t found Scott. If we continue at our current pace – we’ll never cover the entire ship before the exterior shields drop!” she stated. The Doctor nodded, “Good point, Nyssa!” he called, and his companion ran up to his side. “What is it?” she asked. Amanda could see in her eyes that she clearly trusted him with her life. “I want you to analyse Peter’s blood samples, but be careful, the virus Scott describes could be very lethal if it’s what I think it is.” The Doctor said, and Nyssa agreed. “I’ll see if I can synthesise an antidote, if it’s not too late” she said, running off, almost like she knew exactly where to look. Most of the robots on the ship were standing in rows, as if in the military, while Alex paced up and down, almost angrily – although he was oddly calm. “What on Earth could’ve happened! The shields should be down by now!” he was speaking rhetorically, but he just wanted an audience. Alex wasn’t used to failure, and he couldn’t afford such a thing now. This was the most important job of his life, and he couldn’t let this go downhill. It was his only hope. His last hope. M4-63, one of the service robots, titled its head to the left as Alex continued to speak, as if trying to understand what the man was saying. “I bet it’s that Doctor,” he said, sighing, and looking outside, saw the vast desolate planet below. As if on cue, the doors parted, and Alex pivoted around to face the doors, which were being pushed open by Amanda and Scott. “Amanda! Scott! You’re both ok!” he said, deciding to once again put up an act. “Barely! Someone’s sabotaged the engines, and cut the power, that was until the Doctor intervened!” Scott said, his face displayed extreme stress. Alex walked over to the raised up position of the captain’s deck, and sat in the chair, sinking into it, letting go of all worries. “The Doctor? You let a criminal – For all you know, he could’ve sabotaged them in the first place!” Alex said, trying to appear as paranoid as possible. “Why would he do that?” Amanda asked. “To gain your trust, to appear like a hero!” he said. “Not my sort of thing, I’m afraid!” The Doctor’s voice carried through the bridge, and soon after, he had entered through the door, which was half blocking the entrance. “But I do have some questions for you,” he said, not trusting the military-mind of the operation. “Go ahead. You’re not gonna find anything!” he said, sounding as confident as he could. Nyssa was beginning to wonder why the TARDIS always threw them into danger; they could never go anywhere danger-free. Never! Even Castrovalva had been a trap; a planet that appeared to be peaceful on the surface, but had been built on lies, and ultimately turned out to be a psychic world created by Adric. If Adric were here, he’d probably be able to repair the fission reactors easily, but Nyssa couldn’t dwell on the past, Adric wouldn’t want that. She decided to carry on, and stormed through the corridors, making a good pace. As she walked, she knew she was up against the clock, thirty minutes until the shields decayed. She turned a corner, and stopped, looking down on the ground, Nyssa could see the body of Dave, face grey and drained of colour. She ran over to him, and she saw the black marks around his neck. The robots again; whoever had control of the machines were twisted, as were most of the madmen she met on her travels with the Doctor. Standing back up, deciding to continue with her search for Peters’, she was met with five robot units. All of their eyes were lit up; blue. All of them expressed no emotion, yet Nyssa had the impression they were examining her with sinister intent. They marched towards her, backing her up against a wall; it was a dead end, and the robots were closing in. These must be the robots that had murdered Dave, the mechanic. And now they were going to kill her. Arms reaching towards her, Nyssa was preparing to face death. The robots fell to the ground; the moment was over as quick as it had begun. Nyssa looked down the corridor, and standing behind the robots, was a man. A creature. It was humanoid in appearance, but alien in its features. The creature was covered by vine-like tendrils and huge green boils which reassembled buboes. Its face was dark green in colour and sunken, resembling a skull. Vines were gripping to one side of the face, the other was bare. It was only just identifiable as Peters; his facial features were somewhat present, although his skin was tight to his face, as if life had been sucked out of him. His eyes were black in colour, and she could tell there wasn’t a single cell in his body that was human anymore. “Peters? I’m here to help!” she said, knowing he wouldn’t understand. She was scared; she was told he’d been shot – he should be dead right now. She’d avoided being murdered by machines, but instead been saved by an alien parasite that had completely infected and taken over Peters’ body, who would no doubt want to murder her, or spread the contagion. The host began to walk towards her, but this time she could move around him, and attempted to run around the creature to the other side of the corridor. The creature slowly turned and grabbed her by the arms as she tried to pass. “Let go of me!” she cried, and using her free hand, hit the creature in the neck with the palm of her hand. It fell to the ground, unconscious, or so she hoped. Brushing off any dirt, Nyssa straightened her cuffs, and examined her hands. The back and palms of her hands were now green, and she could tell from her travels with the Doctor that whatever this was, it was guaranteed to be deadly. The Doctor was pacing up and down, “Where were you during Becky’s murder? Why was her body outside of your quarters? And why have you got a gun?” he asked, and Alex looked down at the gun in his holster. Alex stood up, but the Doctor started again; “Ah, looks like you were hoping I didn’t notice that. You also probably don’t like the questions I’ve just asked, well.” He said, holding his hands out in front of him, hoping Alex would put down the weapon. “You’re correct, Doctor. I didn’t exactly want you to see the gun, nor did I like the questions.” He said, calm, but in such a way that made Amanda and Scott realise the terrible truth. “Why would you do this?” Scott asked? “After everything we’ve been through!” he asked. Alex shrugged, “Did you really think you meant that much to me?” he asked, and shot the captain in the leg. Scott cried out in pain, and Amanda started to run over, but Alex shot further along her path, causing her to stop out of fear. “One more move, and I’ll kill him,” he instructed, and Amanda stood still as if she’d been turned to stone. The Doctor was speechless; “Well, I thought we’d have to wait longer to find out who was behind it all,” he joked, but immediately became serious as ever the second after, “But you obviously couldn’t wait to reveal yourself,” he said, and Alex turned to him, “Restrain them,” he said, almost whispering. Nobody moved; The Doctor and Amanda remained rooted to the ground, and Scott was holding his leg, writhing in pain. “I SAID RESTRAIN THEM!” he demanded, raising his voice as loud as he could. The service robots began to march over, and herded them together, before carrying out his order. Alex sighed, “You know, I don’t really care anymore,” he threw the weapon to the ground. “About life?” Amanda asked, and Alex nodded, “Unfortunately for you.” He replied; “Do you know why I don’t care..” he asked, rhetorically. He was going to tell them anyway. He sighed deeply before speaking another word; “Life is just pointless because everything is out to get us. Everything. Everything in the entire universe is designed to act against us and everything in the universe is designed to kill us. The only thing we all share in common is death, we’re all going to drop dead one day. So why not quicken the process. Not like you lot have much to live for; you’re the worst of the worst. The absolute dregs of society. Ever wondered why nobody was invested in the project, it’s because they knew it was pointless.” He started, and the three of them in his audience, well, against their will, knew he was going to break into a speech. “I learnt the truth, so in the final moments of your life, I thought I’d share with you my findings….” He began. Nyssa had managed to drag Peters, who was still stunned, all the way to the laboratory. Here she was concocting various chemicals in the hope that one of them would act as an antidote, or some sort of drug to slow down the process. She’d been experimenting for a few minutes, so Nyssa was conscious Peters could reanimate any second. She had to be quick. Especially now she’d been infected; this information allowed her to come to the conclusion that this was highly contagious. Judging by the state of the monster/former scientist, and her own hand, she’d transform into the same creature within an hour. That gave her exactly an hour to find a cure. But that was impossible; that was of course considering she retained complete intelligence until the transformation was completed. But assuming she wouldn’t, Nyssa reckoned she had about half an hour to discover a cure. As well as that, they only had thirty minutes before the exterior shields died down. While the vine-covered plant-like corpse lay on the ground, Nyssa took a blood sample, injecting the needle in a part of his arm in which the flesh wasn’t covered by the parasitic growth. After about five minutes of experimenting, Peters reanimated, and sat up, getting to his feet quickly. Nyssa hadn’t noticed yet, and didn’t have a clue until she heard the sound of glass smash against the metal ground. She shot a look over at the corpse, and moved away from the desk in which she was working. The vine-covered corpse shot out a vine from its hand, like a rope; the tendril wrapped around Nyss’s throat, and she tried to pull it loose, hands gripped tight around the vine. It was slowly beginning to suffocate her. Nyssa reached out with her hands, looking for an instrument to cut the connection. First she gripped a scalpel, but upon contact, the metal surgical knife shattered. She then grabbed a metal device, resembling the basic structure of a saw. Running from end to end of the structure was a beam of blinding light. She plunged her newfound weapon towards the vine, which was slowly killing her, and managed to cut the connection. The second the vine was released Nyssa began taking deep breaths, composing herself. Nyssa looked at her hands; the infection was spreading. Peters collapsed, as if cutting the vein had in some way been like severing a connection to the brain. Using the time she had left, Nyssa continued with her experiment, and examined samples of Peters’ blood. “The population was increasing too rapidly. Planets were overpopulated, burning or being invaded, and as a result, new ones had to be found. But the amount of Earth-like habitable planets were decreasing so the government of the Human Race, “Humanity Intergalactic”, decided to send expeditions to the far reaches of the galaxy. They’d populate these expeditions with the worthless. The working class and the unintelligent. They didn’t want wasted space, and decided anyone with a high intelligence or an “important” job, such as doctors, nurses, politicians, mathematicians and engineers had highest priority. This was called “The Purge”, or “Society Purification”. They sent billions of expeditions out as part of this programme. This was one of them. Everybody knows there’s no life in the Outer regions. Did you honestly think you’d discover something? “ he asked rhetorically. “Everything has been a lie.” Amanda was horrified, “How could they do that to people?” she asked. “Once we started expanding outwards, do you really think anybody actually cared about anyone? No. The political side of our worlds became corrupt, and they began treating the rest of humanity like cattle.” The Doctor was taking it all in. Similar things had happened in other galaxies to other civilisations. “You seem to know an awful lot about this considering that according to your logic, you’re a lower classed citizen.” The Doctor said. Alex laughed, “That’s because I found out. Blackmail is surprisingly useful, Doctor.” He explained. “Well..Not really,” the Doctor replied, “Because if you blackmail the wrong person, you could end up like Becky and Dave. Dead.” Alex thought about this, and laughed, “You think that was clever?” he asked, menacingly. He gave a subtle nod to the robots, and the machines tightened their grips on the prisoners, nearly crushing their ribs. They all cried in agony to some extent; The Doctor was silent, but his face showed the pain of the moment, Amanda and Scott were both literally struggling to breath and at the same time in agony. Alex gave yet another nod, and the robots loosened their grip. The three prisoners all sighed and captured their breath. “That’s what you get for being clever, yes?” Alex said, in a tone that was both sort of ‘asking’, but also ‘stating’. “So I suggest you don’t say or do anything clever. Just a suggestion, but unless you want my machines to murder another three humans, ontop of the mechanic and second technician, I strongly advise you adhere to it.” Under the magnification of the highly advanced microscope, Nyssa could see a mixture of regular human blood cells and an unidentifiable, new bacteria. No, it was a virus. The cells were multiplying at an alarming rate, and although Peter’s transformation had technically been complete, since he no longer thought like a human (his mind had been taken over by the parasite), this phase might not be the last; who knew what would happen when all of his original blood cells had been infected and taken over by the virus. She could go and find the Doctor, and inform him of this discovery, but it might take a large amount of time to reach him, and she couldn’t risk spreading the infection. It was up to her to synthesise a cure, or at least any sort of chemical that would prevent the spread. The Doctor decided not to try anything Alex would deem as clever, so instead opted to ask basic questions. “So, after you blackmailed presumably one person, maybe an entire party, maybe even the entire government – where next? And what on Earth possessed you to do such a thing?” The Time Lord asked. “Well, I was low ranking, yes I was in the military and I’d been on other expeditions with the likes of Scott before, but I was demoted for recklessness. I couldn’t live with it, so when i eventually found out about this new scheme, I persuaded them to fulfil a couple of tasks to ensure I didn’t let out their secret. I requested a top position: they have this role they assign to men and women they can trust, a Purge Guard. On every expedition, there’s one of these guards. In this particular scenario, I’m the guard. It’s my job, thanks to blackmailing. I have to make sure you all either die on the ship via brute force, or mess up the engines enough so that it can’t be repaired.” Alex explained, calm and calculating. He was wondering what to do with the prisoners. “So I figured; why not do both?” he laughed, but it was a sort of laugh that sounded like a sigh, and lasted about a second. “I thought I could trust you,” Scott said, with more than just hints of despair. Watching his friends’ true nature unfold before him felt like everything had been taken away from him. Alex was one of the only men in the galaxy that he trusted. Or at least he used to be. “Yeah well, I thought I could trust our government. But unfortunately, you can’t trust anyone in this universe. Except for, of course, machines like these service Robots,” Out of nowhere, Alex shouted a command, and the robots obeyed “I’m bored of them now, take Amanda and Scott and throw them out of an airlock. Leave the Doctor with me…” the robots began walking out with their prisoners. Alex turned to another batch of robots,.. “You lot, find his companion and kill her!” again the batch of robots marched out on their orders, while the Doctor was restrained, and watched as the half-army of machines advanced towards their target, until they were all out of sight. Nyssa was making progress, despite studying a viral strain that didn’t exist until now. Anywhere. She’d not seen anything like it before, yet she was trying to find a cure nonetheless. Peters hadn’t reanimated, not yet anyway, he lay on the cold hard metal ground, unconscious. It better stay that way until Nyssa had finished the experiments: perhaps she could even administer him the drug and save his life, that was of course if his cells hadn’t been taken over by the time it had been found… if it was found.. Scott and Amanda were struggling to escape the iron grip of the Robots, which was also symbolic to them – they weren’t just trying to escape the Robots, but the entire government. The system. They wanted to be free of them: the people that had sent them to death and lied without remorse. How could a government do that? There must’ve been some other way: Amanda recalled watching the news months before she left for this falsified expedition. It had been reported that millions, maybe even billions of vessels had left for the far reaches of the galaxy. Some had drifted into black holes. The news Channel that was broadcasting this news then switched from footage of the dying crew, to the party leader of Humanity Intergalactic expressing grief and acting as though they’d lost part of their soul with every dying expedition. When really it was all part of their plan. They weren’t depressed or upset in the slightest. Behind the scenes, they were cheering and celebrating; their plan to reduce the population was working with every lost expedition. It was no use, the grip seemed to become harder and harder every time more force was added and when they struggled more, eventually they’d taken away mountains of energy from them; reducing the two crew members to panting for breath and becoming useless. They were ever nearing the airlock, and they were still trapped. “If it’s the last time we see each other, I want you to know…” Scott said, before being cut off, he’d looked ahead and saw the airlock only a few paces away. Panicking, he couldn’t finish the sentence and started trying to escape once more. Three seconds. Two. One. The Robots were reaching for the airlock, and the two finally gathered strength to overpower the machines. Darting away, Amanda and Scott began their journey through a maze of corridors, in the hope they’d find Nyssa before the service Robots did. Their first stop; the laboratory. Time was running out. The shields would only last another fifteen minutes. A storm was brewing outside, a storm with more force than the previous. Nyssa hadn’t long left to discover a cure, but a breakthrough was a long way off. The cells kept dividing, and it seems that any chemicals or medicines that would usually treat and cure an infection only increased the rate of division. The hundreds of cells became thousands. The thousands became millions. But Nyssa believed she could do it. She’d done hundreds of impossible things over the course of her travels with the Doctor. Nyssa was too focused on her experiments to realise the corpse reanimated. And as well as that, she didn’t even hear the stomping of metal boots on the ground until it was far too late. An army of service Robots marched into the laboratory, smashing cylinders of flammable liquids, microscopes and any sort of expensive scientific equipment as they advanced. Nyssa grabbed the glass slide (the slide in which Peters blood stained), and ran to the other side of the laboratory. Nyssa knew she couldn’t make an EMP or an amplifier at this time, so she had to create a short but powerful and not-to-violent, contained explosion within the space of a few seconds. She made her way towards a worktop, on which were two flammable liquids and some sort of crushed metal. Instinctively, Nyssa threw down the jar containing the crushed metal-like substance and then created a flame using the liquid…The explosion went off with huge force. Alex and the Doctor were alone. Once the doors had locked shut, Alex had instructed the robot to release the Doctor from its grip, obviously sure that the Time Lord wouldn’t escape. How would he? There was no way out, no way in, Alex had a gun: the Doctor didn’t. But what the Doctor did have was his wits. His intelligence. “Any questions?” Alex said, deciding he wanted to explain everything he’d missed out, after all there was nothing to lose. The Doctor was going to die anyway, and he couldn’t be threatened with murder, the Doctor didn’t care if he died. “What was your plan? You clearly didn’t think this through. It seems logical to me that these guards are sent to ensure the failure of falsified expeditions, so they also must be willing to die, otherwise there’d be one person from every expedition that makes it out alive, and people would begin to suspect a plot. What makes this any different?” The Doctor asked, strolling from left to right, pacing up and down and thinking of a plan, as he always does. “Well, you see. That’s where you’re wrong. The purge guards see to it that a mission is completed. No survivors. No way out. Then we’re sent coordinates. There, all purge guards receive new identities. Facial reconstruction, passports, everything is forged, and we become new people, free to go anywhere with the money we earn from completing our assignment.” He explained and as if on cue, a static sound echoed through a comms device. Alex knew what this meant and ordered the remaining twenty Robots in the room to guard the Doctor while he took the call. “It’s all done. The engines are damaged, as I said before, Amanda and Scott are both dead…” The Doctor looked around the room, desperately trying to find a way out. He didn’t have many options, although he could run for the door, or maybe… He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cricket ball, dusting it off on his lapel. “The Doctor is with me; he only has a few minutes left… “ There was a pause, the voice was speaking but the Doctor couldn’t quite hear yet; he was focused on escaping, and as a result almost drowned out all other noise.. ‘’Yes, the Robots are on their way to killing his friend.” The commander/purge guard stopped, allowing the voice to speak. “The coordinates are being sent over to you as we speak.” The voice instructed. “We look forward to meeting you.” It said before cutting off. Alex turned round to face the Doctor, only to be met with a cricket ball headed straight for him. Dodging out of the way, Alex essentially allowed the centuries-old cricket ball to hit a series of controls on the panel, and the doors flung open violently. The Time Lord ran for the doors and Alex screamed for the robots to follow him; it was less of a scream, but it was said in haste, and in a raised tone. Nyssa had a ringing in her ears that wouldn’t just go away. All she could hear was that ringing. Looking up, and grabbing her ears in pain, Nyssa could see the explosion had worked. The Robots were deactivating; the liquid and the metal-like substance created a reaction that thankfully assisted the situation. But it could’ve easily killed her; luckily she was only leaving with mild tinnitus and a shard of shrapnel in her left arm. Running in at exactly the right time, Amanda and Scott burst through the entrance to the laboratory, and sighed with relief when they found Nyssa alive and sort-of well. “Nyssa!!” they exclaimed, as they ran over to her and helped her off the ground. “Any news?” they asked, and Nyssa nodded; “I’ve tried all of the usual chemicals and medicines available and discovered none of them slow down the process, instead they’re the exact opposite. I believe we should try the opposite effect!” Nyssa explained. Scott was lost, but Amanda knew exactly what she was talking about. “You mean using dead viral strains and toxic chemicals?” Amanda asked. “Yes, but do you have any!?” The two searched for any toxic chemical compound or strain of a previous virus, while Scott stood there being useless; he had no idea what he’d be looking for. The coordinates were set and Alex was ready to go – to teleport to a new life; a life full of hope. A life spoilt with riches. He could buy anything he wanted and be a new man. His previous self would be but a dream. The Doctor had run out into a series of corridors but had no idea where he was going; his path was restricted anyway, as an army of robots advanced from one corridor, blocking off that section. He was forced into one corridor, but led to the laboratory; it seemed like either all of the robots were blocking him off, or were headed towards the laboratory for some reason. He ran down the corridor until he reached the entrance to the lab, and darted in, only to find Scott standing around, and Amanda and Nyssa tearing the place apart. “You’re all alive!” he exclaimed, and they were just as excited to see him. “We thought Scott was going to kill you!” Amanda said, almost demanding the Doctor to explain. As if he could read her thoughts; “He just wanted a chat. That’s all. But a call interrupted that unfortunately, but I have learnt an awful lot.” He went on, “But there’s no time to explain this all now. First we need to focus on surviving the shields falling!” he said, but Nyssa turned to him. “First we need to find a cure,” and she showed her arm, half infected, but getting worse by the second. “Any luck!?” The Doctor asked, running to the microscope and peering into the lens, observing the cells. “Well, we think we need to use another virus or toxic chemical to stop the division of this strain!” Nyssa explained, “Nothing else works,” The Doctor nodded, “Ah, yes, I see what you mean. That could work – this particular virus appears to resemble a genetic disorder caused by contact with a Krynoid.” He explained, “Krynoid are sentient planet life that can infect a host and take over whole planets. This resembles that in a way.” He added. “But is it a Krynoid?” Nyssa asked. “No.” The Doctor said bluntly. “No, I’d need to see the pod or plant in which the original organism came.” He stated, and Amanda picked up the nearby shell of the hostile alien plant. “Ah, yes,” The Doctor said as Amanda handed him the shell. The time lord examined the shell, and came to a horrific conclusion. “This is like nothing I’ve ever seen. I don’t think this can be cured.” He said, and Nyssa looked down at her arm, accepting her fate. PART IV The Doctor, Nyssa, Amanda and Scott were the only organic lifeforms left on the ship, but time was running out. After realising there was no cure for the infection that had begun taking over Nyssa, the four of them decided to review the situation. “Right, how are we going to get out of this: all of the suits are damaged, the Robots are malfunctioning and programmed to kill, Nyssa has contracted an incurable virus.. We’ve got quite the problem to solve!” The Doctor began. Scott was about to answer, but no words could leave his mouth. He began to notice the cold. Scott estimated they had about ten minutes before the exterior shields had completely decayed. While Nyssa and Amanda were still searching for a toxin or viral strain to test on the alien virus infecting Nyssa, the Doctor examined the original sample of blood after taking the glass slide. He put it under the only remaining microscope in the laboratory and began his observation; the marching of metal against metal edging ever nearer. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we,” Scott managed. The Doctor didn’t break concentration, didn’t even look up for a single second. “Not if I can help it,” the Time Lord replied, hoping this was true. In reality he had no plan and no way of solving this problem, but his life revolved around situations like these. He was used to being under this sort of life or death pressure, and usually he was quite good at preventing deaths and saving as many lives as possible. Scott didn’t believe this man, after all, up until Amanda had pleaded for him to spare the travellers, Scott was hell bent on killing them. That was until he’d found out Alex had been behind it, but that didn’t change the fact he didn’t trust this man with his life, despite him being their best hope; “But like you said, it’s quite the problem to solve, and you forgot to mention the service Robots that are literally a few corridors down!” he sighed. The Doctor finally looked up, and straightened his creased cricket jacket. “Ah, yes, well. That bit I had forgotten about!” he said, in a worried tone. The Doctor ran to the door and stopped, looking down the adjacent corridor. No Robots were in sight, but the machines were undoubtedly gaining on them. The metal racket off their machine footsteps ascending. The Service Robots marched in unison, programmed to kill the remaining lifeforms aboard the vessel. The machines had no need to run, and regularly halted for short periods, staring into nothingness. There was no explanation for these movements, however the only logical reason was because they were somehow confident – although it is impossible for machines to have emotions – that they’d reach their designated targets in time. Confident that their targets had no means of escape. Nyssa and Amanda had failed to find anything useful. It turned out the vessel didn’t contain any extremely lethal chemicals or viruses on board. The Doctor was still examining the sample of blood. After a few seconds, he called out; “At first, I didn’t believe I’d be able to cure this, but I think all we need is a large quantity of Clopyralid, Iron, Imazapic, Copper, Linuron, and a dash of methyl-chlorophenoxyacetic acid.” He said, pronouncing the unique and complex words without difficulty. The Doctor had a beaming smile on his face – infectious – obviously proud of himself for figuring out the exact chemicals to prevent the spread of this alien virus. Most of the chemicals were synthetic herbicides, Amanda realised, and got to work with locating the listed compounds. Nyssa was now at the door, along with Scott, both waiting for the Robots to enter the adjacent corridor. The longer they waited, the more anxious they became, the anticipation was killing them, along with the virus Nyssa contracted. “Do you do this a lot?” Scott asked, shivering. He was feeling the cold more than anyone. But that would soon change as the shields began to deteriorate. “What, encounter near death situations?” Nyssa replied, assuming that’s what he’d meant, and she was right. “Yeah. Is it like, in your job description?” “If I had a job, that’d be the description,” “I don’t know how you do it,” “I have the Doctor. He’s saved my life more times than I can count, although I’ve saved his many times as well. We have to trust each other, and I trust him with my life. He finds a way he always does.” She said, looking over at the Doctor with confidence, although she knew that her chances of survival were still slim. “So it’s just you two? Travelling places and answering distress calls?” Scott asked. “We used to travel with an air stewardess, Teegan, an Earth woman, from the earth year 1980, but she departed along time ago,” “I’m sorry for your loss-” “Oh, no, she’s not dead. At least I hope she’s not. The Doctor just hasn’t gotten around to arriving at Heathrow Airport yet. The TARDIS is always taking us to strange places. Places we need to be, but not necessarily where we aim to be.” “You lot are mad. Why on Earth would you want to travel towards danger? Towards certain death?” he was beginning to look grey. Like a corpse. His shivering had only increased and the cold would soon cause the death of him. “I don’t really know. I’ve never really bothered to ask,” Nyssa replied but she knew the reason. It was to answer calls for help, like the very distress call that led them here. It was to help people, because if they don’t, nobody else will. “There,” Amanda said with a mound of different jars and containers. The ingredients were now displayed on the desk, and Amanda looked at the weird combination in disbelief. The Doctor, however, nodded. “Perfect. I need to mix them all together and drop a sample of Peter’s blood into the mixture. When that’s done, we should see whether the solution kills the virus or only irritates it.” The Doctor instructed, and Amanda followed the process. “Any news on the Robots?” The Doctor asked, walking over to Nyssa and Scott, who was slowly but surely freezing to death. “They’re advancing. As ever. But they’re at least another two minutes away.” Scott replied. The Doctor took in the information, and instead opted to address Scott’s current situation. “The shields are falling, and you look terrible, ” he said, removing his cricket jacket, leaving the man in his custom Edwardian jumper, which was patterned with question marks. Despite this, the Doctor wasn’t showing any signs of freezing or even being aware of the cold. “You need this more than me,” he said, handing Scott the coat. Scott clearly didn’t want anyone to notice his constant shaking, but he accepted the coat without hesitation. It wasn’t enough to warm him completely, but it was better than nothing. “Thank you,” he said, his face now a pale shade of grey. Amanda interrupted and called the Doctor over to witness the results of the experiment; combining the herbicides, as well as Iron and Copper wasn’t quite enough to prevent the parasites’ cells from dividing, however, it was slowing down the process. Filled with pride the Doctor said with hope: “I think we can save you, Nyssa. Amanda, find as much of the ingredients as you can, we’re going to need an awful lot more than what we’re currently working with,” he said. Amanda once again went back to locating more of the same chemicals. After entering the coordinates, Alex had arrived in an alien world. A hub of life. Alex was taking in his new surroundings; an alien planet obviously, this fact was so obviously given away by the two moons hanging in the sky, thousands of miles away. The actual sky was a mixture of deep blue and green, and Alex was currently situated in a sort of marketplace. The street was packed with customers queuing at stalls filled with the strangest items. There was a stall specifically for the purchase of scrap metal, another stall selling vials of isotopes, but the strangest stall was run by a Draconian, who was selling artefacts that he claimed were cursed. In reality, the items weren’t in fact cursed, they were just from the ancient times. One of these items included the VHS of an episode of TV called “Marco Polo”, a black and white historical episode involving time travellers. Alex looked down at the device on his wrist and the coordinates were clear. Directly north, a few miles walk from his current position. Alex was questioning why he couldn’t just be transported to the exact location, but he continued to walk nonetheless. Towards a symbol. A mountain that towered over the market-city; it’s presence instilled fear within all who gazed upon it. This was where his new life would be forged. The Service Robots were closing in on the remaining survivors. Seconds away, and Nyssa and Scott could now physically see the machines marching down the corridor. “Doctor!” Nyssa turned to him. “They’re here,” she said and the Doctor rushed to the door to look for himself. His face contorted in a series of worried expressions, and he rushed back over to Amanda, still bursting with energy. “Progress?” he asked, and Amanda nodded. “Only thing I can’t find more of is methyl-chlorophenoxyacetic acid,” she started, but the Doctor stopped her; “That’ll do, we only really need a small amount of that, as long as we have an abundance of the rest of it,” he explained. “Right, we’re going to need to escape.” He said, sounding optimistic. “How are we getting out. How? Look, the Robots are headed straight towards us!” Amanda said, just noticing the army of machines. “I’ll focus on that bit. We need to get to the TARDIS, and luckily I can remember the whereabouts.. ish.” He said, and ran towards Nyssa and Scott. Amanda, carrying the concoction of herbicides, iron and copper, joined them seconds later. They were watching as certain death approached, but the Doctor wasn’t phased. Scott was shaking, Amanda was anxious, and Nyssa was trying to stay hopeful; she looked down at her hand, the infection had now covered her entire forearm. “When I say run, run..” The Doctor began, relying on his more basic form of a plan. But Amanda was struck with horror; “Run where? Where are we meant to run? We’re blocked off!” she said, losing hope. Nyssa also realised how stupid the plan was, and was about to ask the same thing, but before she could speak, the Doctor had already shouted – “RUN” – And they all ran. The Doctor led them towards their grave and they all followed blindly. The Robots didn’t quicken their pace, instead it seemed as though they slowed down. This moment seemed to last forever. The Doctor seemed to have no plan, until the final seconds. While moving closer to their deaths, the Doctor pressed a button on a device. A device which materialised from one of his trouser pockets. It was a compact EMP amplifier, a refined version of the one Nyssa had constructed during their time in the cell. A shock wave rippled through the crowd of machines, and row by row the mechanical murderers shut down. Their heads dropped, but they weren’t completely offline. The effect of the EMP would only last for a few seconds. But a few seconds was all that was required. The four of them rushed through the maze of corridors at speeds unknown to them. Obviously it wasn’t lightspeed, but Nyssa was aware this was the fastest she’d ever run. Her life depended on it! Their lives depended on it. The tannoy announced the shields were decaying, and would reach breaking point within another two minutes. Luckily it wouldn’t take two minutes to reach the TARDIS. Until it would. They reached an intersection that had been sealed off by quantum locked doors, restricting their movement. They had to work around this and continued at an amazing pace. Other obstacles didn’t hinder them too greatly, as they knew what was at stake. The TARDIS was their final hope. As they ventured through the maze, they noticed the corridors were beginning to sport a decore consisting of ice and snow. Stalactites had already formed. The tannoy announced the shields would break within another minute, and with this, Nyssa and Amanda heard the relentless marching off metal. The Robots had reactivated after the short EMP blast, and despite their pace, the Robots soon caught up. Scott dared to look back and saw a cluster of evil machines – eyes glowing a sinister blue – gaining on them, and decided not to look back again. The shields wouldn’t last much longer and the cold was beginning to irritate Amanda. She began to slow down, her muscles weakening due to the cold. But Scott and Nyssa motivated her. Along with the Robot army not far behind them. Amanda didn’t particularly enjoy the thought of being strangled to death by a mindless machine. Turning through a series of corridors, the TARDIS finally came into view, and the Doctor managed a short burst of extra energy and reached his home seconds before the rest of them, he opened the box, and entered, leaving the door open for the others to come through as quickly as possible. Nyssa was second through the doors which lead to a strange new dimension, followed by Amanda. Scott was dragging behind and the sound of thudding metal boots against the ground was off-putting, along with the biting cold. He felt as though he’d collapse any second, clearly displaying every sign of hypothermia. His face was colourless. The Doctor’s coat no longer had any effect. He tried to make it through the doors at the last second. An arm grabbed him and pulled him backwards with immense force. He screamed in terror, and hearing this, Amanda came rushing out of the door, and managed to grab hold of his arm. “Hold on!” she demanded, not wanting to lose her captain. A few hours ago, Amanda could’ve sworn she hated this man. He didn’t care about anyone but himself, but during this event meeting with the Doctor, he’d changed. She’d changed as well, and learnt the terrible truths of their society. Scott couldn’t hold on much longer, but he managed to slip off the Doctor’s coat, and escape the iron grasp. Amanda and Scott fell back into the TARDIS, through the doors and slammed with a thud onto the ground. The doors slammed shut after the flick of a switch and the Doctor began dancing around the console. “Where’s my jacket?” he asked, the first thing he noticed when he looked up from one of the control panels. It appeared he was being deadly serious. “Well… you’re not going to like this. The Robots have it!” Scott replied, beginning to warm up. Colour had been restored to his previously lifeless face. “Shame, I rather liked that jacket.” Nyssa couldn’t tell whether he was joking around. “I’ll just have to get another from the wardrobe!” he said, and this is the moment Nyssa realised he meant it as a joke. “So, what next?” Nyssa asked. “I overheard Alex being sent coordinates. Before you ask, no I didn’t overhear the exact coordinate numbers, however, I assume he didn’t leave too long ago, so the TARDIS should be able to follow his slipstream and give us a rough location.” The Doctor said, sounding clever. He pulled a series of levers and pressed in a couple of numbers on a device that resembled a typewriter, and suddenly they’re off. The time rotor begins moving in a rhythm. Ascending and descending and creating a wheezing sound like nails on a chalkboard. The TARDIS arrived in the centre of a street packed with customers. The racket was immense, as Humans, Draconians, Multiforms and other native species were roaming about the sort-of-alien-shopping market. This market was the size of a city, with stalls ranging from scrap metal stands, to fruits and vegetables from specific planets and minerals from distant moons. The Doctor and Nyssa could see this through the scanner; Scott had decided to warm up and rest in the Zero room, while Amanda had opted to head for a science lab to test out the concoction. “What is this place and what does it have to do with Alex?” Nyssa asked. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Yet. That’s what I’ll have to explore. While I’m out there, you join Amanda and help her synthesise an antidote for the virus.” He said, noticing how quickly the virus had spread through her body. Green vines-like tendrils had now vaguely reached her face, although they hadn’t fully manifested yet, they were just outlines of what would soon come to fruition. “Right,” Nyssa agreed, as the Doctor slipped into another variation of the same cricket jacket, “Oh—and Doctor?” she added before The Doctor headed out of the door. “—be careful!” she said, and he sighed, “I’ll certainly try!” he said, with his usual charisma. Alex was making progress, beginning to speed up. He knew that Amanda and Scott had been thrown out of an airlock, he also knew that the Doctor and his companion would also be dead. He’d sent Robots after Nyssa and the Doctor had escaped, but by this time the shields would be fully destroyed, therefore the Doctor would’ve frozen to death. However, he continued to increase his pace every so often just to get this whole process over and done with. He wanted his new life. A life of luxury. He wanted to leave his old self as quickly as possible, and claim his rewards for succeeding with his mission. When Nyssa walked into the TARDIS’ science lab, she saw Amanda working hard for a cure, and went over to try and assist the process. However, upon reaching the desk in which Amanda was carrying out the experiment, Nyssa collapsed. Amanda rushed over to her but Nyssa told her to back off. Amanda now realised how badly the infection was beginning to spread. “Nyssa!” she gasped; a single tendril had reached her forehead. It must now be affecting her brain; now knowing how seriously things had escalated, Amanda got on with the experiment, working at twice the speed that was humanly possible. While Nyssa was slowly but surely dying in pain. The Doctor was among the crowd. It was like being trapped; it was difficult just to move forward by the smallest distance. It was like the crowd had amassed in this location to deliberately hinder the time lord. He was looking around, trying to figure out where Alex could’ve possibly gone. When the crowd finally moved forward slightly, the Doctor rushed through and arrived at a stall. The shopkeeper, a Krillitane, began trying to sell his products. “Aye, so you’re interested in buying a hyperdrive? Maybe a quantum dimension canon? No, perhaps I can interest you in the latest model of the –” But the Doctor interrupted, “I’m really not interested in buying anything at this moment! I’m looking for a man, in a bulky Space Corp space suit,” he began, “Have you seen him?” The Doctor asked and the Krillitane thought for a second. “Well, there was a strange bloke who teleported right where you’re standing a couple minutes ago! He was wearing a spacesuit!” the shopkeeper began. “Have you any idea where he went?” the Doctor asked, and the Krillitane pointed into the distance, towards a towering mountain. It’s silhouette was menacing and its size equal to four times the size of Earth’s Mount Everest. “Many have ventured up there. No-one has ever returned….” Alex was following the coordinates so accurately it was almost inhuman. He had only a few more steps to go, and he was in the thick of it. A storm was raging, and Alex had to grip to the sides of the mountain to stay alive. The path was unstable, and if he let go of this support, he’d fall to his death. He finally made it to somewhat flat ground, after taking a couple of steps, and activated the device on his wrist; “I’m here. The exact location!” he shouted into it, the violent rain – that seemed to only be present on the mountain – as loud as it could possibly get. All he could hear was the falling relentless rain, so his voice was being drowned out, hence the reason for shouting. “Good,” the voice said, the connection patchy. It was glitching and the connection was breaking but Alex could make out what the man was saying; “Press the button to your left!” the voice instructed, and Alex turned to look for a button, failing to find it; “Where is it?” he asked! “WHAT BUTTON?” But he soon found it without the voice needing to state the position of the hidden mechanism. Upon pressing the button – which had the appearance of weathered rock, meaning it was perfectly camouflage with the mountain itself – a whole section of the mountain shifted to one side, revealing a passage. Alex entered, and found himself on a gantry. He was overlooking a whole system. He’d seen this type of system before, they’d used it on a planet called New Earth, centuries ago, in one of the many hospitals run by the Catkind. Presented before him, reaching from the highest peak of the mountain and stretching down to the core of the earth, was millions, maybe even billions of stasis chambers. Each of these were big enough to fit an upright humanoid. It was a tomb. He tried to turn back but the mountain entrance was guarded by two service robots, identical in design to the ones present on their falsified expeditions, were marching towards him. “NOOOO!” he began screaming as they restrained him. The Doctor came running through the mountain entrance, drenched due to the heavy rainfall. “Alex!” he exclaimed, shocked at what was happening! “DOCTOR! HELP!!” he shouted, taking out his anger! The Doctor was confused; “It’s a tomb. The resting place of every guard that took part in this programme. Why else do you think they granted you your wish? They knew you were going to die anyway!” The Doctor realised. He ran over to the robots, to try and free Alex, but a robotic fist met his face, and the time lord was knocked to the metal ground. The alien virus found on the planet with no name was beginning to affect Nyssa more as time went on, obviously, but Amanda was conscious of the little time she had left. Close to the end of the experiment, Amanda wasn’t going to break concentration even for a second. Nyssa’s head was aching, and thoughts began to invade her mind. The same had happened to Peter’s back on the ship, which was now being torn apart by the violent storm that had brewed outside and exposed to below freezing temperatures. The parasite was slowly taking over, and she didn’t have long under her entire mind would succumb to the effects of the virus. Nyssa – now almost fully consumed by the creature – began to rise, but Amanda didn’t hear this, occupied with finding the cure. The left side of Nyssa’s face was completely covered in an alien plant-like substance. The host reached out her hands and limbed towards her target, who was unaware of her fate. That was until Nyssa shouted; “LOOK OUT!” and Amanda turned around at the last second, facing her enemy. Part of Nyssa was still active, so she still had time to perfect a cure, but the parasite had mostly gained control. Amanda couldn’t do anything. If she moved out of the way, Nyssa could potentially damage the experiment, so she guarded it with her life. “Nyssa, I know you can hear me! NYSSA!” she cried out, as the creature lunged for her neck, and held her in the air. Amanda was being choked to death, and within seconds her windpipe would be crushed. There was a loud THUD as Nyssa was tackled to the ground. Scott had come to save her life at precisely the right time, and Amanda was given enough time to finish the experiment. She got to her feet and began to test the solution! “Have you got enough time?” Scott asked, standing up and brushing off any debris. Nyssa was unconscious, obviously the force of falling to the hard ground had damaged the parasite’s hold on her brain. For now. Amanda looked over to him; “I think I’ve done it! This should do the trick!” She said, and watched through a highly advanced microscope as the solution killed off the parasitic cells. “Oh and thank you,” she said, as she drew up the solution into a syringe and administered the cure to Nyssa. “No. Thank you! If you hadn’t stopped me back in the engine room, we’d all be dead right now!” he said, repaying the thanks. The Doctor got up off the ground, seconds after his face had been knocked by the immense force of a robotic fist. It took a while to regather where he was, but was soon revitalised, and followed the sound of a shouting man as he was being dragged to his death. The Doctor looked over the rails and saw that a few levels down, Alex was being dragged to his allocated cell. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t get to the cell and save him in time. Alex was a dead man walking. Turning around, solemnly, he thought of all the other people that had suffered at the hands of these guards. He looked to the ground and saw a device, small enough to fit around his wrist – the very device Alex had used to communicate with an unknown benefactor. He activated it, and began speaking; “Who do I have the unfortunate pleasure of addressing?” he said. “And who is this?” the voice replied. “I’m the Doctor, one of the four that managed to survive Alex’s attempts at sabatauge and murder. Now, can you answer my question?” he asked, and the voice said – through terrible connection – “My identity is not important, however – I’ve heard so much about you Doctor,” he replied, clearly knowing he must avoid any question that’d reveal his identity. “I’d hope not.” The Doctor retorted, hoping this man didn’t know about the TARDIS. “Not too much, I was told you weren’t that much of a threat, although clearly you are. The expedition you survived has been the only one of it’s kind. On every other mission, there have been no survivors.” The man said, proud of this achievement. “Not even the ones who see through you’re morbid schemes!” The Doctor said; “Not even they see the light of day, you just stick them in stasis – left there to rot for eternity.” The Doctor added, not defending them, just stating the fact. “Why should they live on, they’re murderers!” “Carrying out your orders!” The Doctor protested; “So what does that make you?” “I don’t see what your rage can hope to accomplish, Doctor. Because you can’t stop this. It’s a factor of our lives now. Without this, the human race would come to an end!” the voice defended. “The human race may as well end if this is what it comes to! I’m a man of my word, so believe me when I say this regime is ending today!” The Doctor said. “Oh, is it now? Or is it your life that is ending instead?” the voice said, and the robots began to activate, as if this phrase had been another way of saying ‘kill the Doctor’. As the Doctor ended the call, he could hear the marching of relentless metal boots. The robots were obeying the orders, and he didn’t have long. A solo robot had reached him already, but a fatal blow to the neck shut down the robot. The Doctor was surprised at how obvious their weakness was; although he assumed it was only because this robot was rusted and slow. The Doctor looked around and headed over to a computer screen in the wall. Once there, he saw a slot in which a data-chip could be inserted, and looked back over to the robot. Taking a faulty data-chip out of the robot, he dashed over to the control panel in the wall. He used his expert skills to hack into the entire database, and using a harddrive he’d taken from the service robot, downloaded all of the data. The structure of this contraption, the nature of the expeditions, all of it. When the download had completed, the Doctor looked all around him, the robots were closing in on him and he hadn’t much time left. He suddenly noticed the computer screen was displaying a self destruction warning. The voice the Doctor has just spoken with could’ve done this remotely, as a backup precaution. However, the Doctor already had all the information that he needed. The only way was out, luckily; he ran to the exit, now on the face of the mountain and exposed to the elements. The robots continued to follow him, until the Doctor smashed the button on the mountain, hurtling a rock at it; shorcircuting the mechanism. He continued to run, knowing the effects would be catastrophic and only got so far before the mountain began to explode. Huge parts of rock exploded outwards and the force caused multiple landslides, that luckily didn’t cause any casualties. Despite such an immense mountain with an equally immense contraption hidden within, the outward explosion didn’t cause too much havoc; another mechanism had activated due to the self destruction of the Tomb. An implosion, which incinerated all of the contents of the mountain. The force propelled the Doctor forward and he came crashing to the ground with a large amount of debris. Standing up and looking behind him after recovering, in the distance, the Doctor saw the mountain had ceased to exist. Obviously it had been a way of hiding the fact it ever existed. But the truth was contained on the data-chip. The Doctor continued to walk briskly down the way he came, headed for the TARDIS and hoping Nyssa had been cured. ... The effects of the parasite had died down, and it all seemed like a dream. Nyssa knew she was waking up, and it also occurred to her that she’d been cured. She was still alive! Her eyes opened, but she wasn’t completely awake, and the colours of the TARDIS console room melted into one. All she could hear was muffled sounds. Nyssa was sitting down when she woke, and the Doctor, Amanda and Scott were standing over her. Her eyes had finally adjusted, and now she could hear again. “Doctor, she’s awake!” Amanda announced, and the Doctor stepped back from piloting the console to stand over his companion. “How do you feel?” he asked, and Nyssa looked up at him. She could see in his eyes that he was relieved she was alive. “Why? I – I feel fine!” she asked, standing up. “What happened?” The Doctor stepped back; “I’ll let Scott do the talking!” he insisted and Scott took over. “You’d almost been fully consumed by the virus, but Amanda found the cure, and administered it to you while you were unconscious,” he explained, skipping over the detail that he’d violently tackled her to the ground. “What about Alex?” she asked, looking over to the Doctor. “Dead.” He said as concisely as he could. “What?” Amanda was shocked, she hadn’t been told before now. “How did he die?” “Stasis! Technically he was frozen in time, but upon my arrival, the place went up. You see, not even the guards get off free. They carry out the orders of the government and in return get to essentially live forever.” He said. “Where do we go from here? And can we prove this all?” Amanda asked, and the Doctor tossed her the data-chip containing all of the information. “What’s that?” Scott asked, confused as to why they’d been given a data-chip. “That is the key to your future. It contains every schematic and every plot formulated by Humanity Intergalactic. Spread that around the galaxy and it’ll start an uprising. Overthrow them, and well, win.” He said, optimistically. They’d be able to stop the horrible injustices put in place by Humanity Intergalactic, and start on a blank slate. “Thank you!” she said, “But where are we going to start?” she asked and the Doctor pointed to the doors, which he’d opened simultaneously with the flick of a switch. “Outside of those doors, a blank slate awaits you! In other words, parliament. Oh, I told the other party, what’s it called –” he began, before Amanda helped to finish the sentence; “—The Humanity Party –” she replied, “That’s the one – very similar names though aren’t they- anyway, yes, I contacted them, and informed them of your arrival. So, that’s your proof. Go and change the galaxy.” He said, and with that Amanda and Scott were off. They thanked him one last time for everything he’d done, and said their goodbyes to Nyssa. The doors closed, and already the Doctor was at the controls. “So, where were we?” The Doctor asked, as he piloted the TARDIS once more. Nyssa was walking around the console, while remembering where they’d left off before answering the distress call. “You were going to take me to a relaxing holiday destination orbiting a black hole - , if I remember correctly.” Nyssa replied, “However, I think we have another place to be…” Nyssa hinted. The Doctor caught on quickly..“Yes, I think it’s been far too long,” he said, plotting new coordinates. “Next stop, Heathrow!” END.