The Eleventh Doctor: The Starving Planet by Andrew Kemp

*It's time for us to introduce our third guest writer to our team, and once again, somebody who is very talented. You will be seeing his name a lot through the year, so I am delighted to share his debut story.*

Prologue - Final Day on the Job Galactic Date 258-Z 5733 Space Station Voltoria - Galaxy Sigma-5 ‘You’re destined for so much more!’ Edward could hear his mother’s word in his mind as he began applying cleaner to the slicked up metallic floor panels Janya had accidentally spilled her bucket of grease all over a few hours ago. When he’d met the engineering crew earlier in the day, Edward had made a mental note of despite how her evident engineering prowess was, from how she spoke and the enthusiasm she showed for the subject, Jayna was clearly rather clumsy. How much that worked against the team he was yet to see but he was sure he’d learn all the details and gossip about the ragtag and multi-species crew of the Space Station Voltoria after he’d finished his first day of working here.  Meanwhile as he finished applying the cleaner and began scrubbing, the last conversation his mother had had with him before he departed for the shuttle port continued playing like a podcast in his head.  ‘Come on Eddy, you had a perfectly suitable and well paid job lined up with the Lynjargo Corporation! Why are you throwing away a chance like that to become a cleaner on some crummy space station galaxies away from anyone you know?’ she’d moaned at him, which wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence.  ‘Because I want to go to space, ma. You know that’s all I’ve wanted since I was 9,’ Edward had responded begrudgingly.  ‘You are in space! Your grandma never got to leave Earth before she died, be thankful I got to raise you here.’ ‘That’s not what I mean ma and you know it! I want to travel out in the stars. I want to be able to look out of my window and see the cosmos. Nebulas, new stars being born, planets untouched by human foot. For me this is the opportunity of a lifetime.’ ‘But Eddy, think of all the things you could do with a job at Lynjargo! All the credits you would earn, you’d be able to give your family the life I couldn’t give you. What am I going to do when I'm old and can’t work for myself?’ ‘You see ma, this is why I’m leaving. Not just for the stars but to get away from this. This selfish belief you have that everything I do with my life needs to please you! It doesn’t need to please anyone but me, and that’s why I’ve taken the job. I’ll see you in a few months, if I feel like coming home.’ And that was that. He’d left his small home on the Hulldyn planet cluster and made the somewhat arduous walk toward the shuttle port. He had planned to use some of his savings to get a speeder ride there, but he thought it would be a good idea to get some fresh air after the exchange he’d just had to endure. Luckily that decision worked out fine because here he was now, cleaning engineer grease off of the station floor.  He understood why his mum thought the job with Lynjargo would be better for him, and that his life would be better fulfilled if he wasn’t just cleaning up people's messes on a space station, but he didn’t see what was wrong with that. As long as he was happy, that’s what mattered, and happy he most certainly was.  Once he’d finished cleaning up the grease spillage, he picked up his equipment and raised his wrist to his mouth, pressing the button on the intercom. ‘Edward Loxley to Captain, I’ve finished with the spillage in the catering corridor, what do you need me to do next?’  ‘Ah Loxley great timing! Most of the Delta crew are enjoying some drinks in the bar, would you mind just giving their living quarters a quick tidy before they stumble in too drunk to be able to tell the difference between a door and an airlock? I don’t want them injuring themselves on any of the mess they tend to leave lying around their floors.’ the station Captain asked with the pleasant but stern tone you’d expect from a likeable boss. ‘Sure thing Captain,’ Edward replied, the enthusiasm of this being his first day on the job making even the most menial task a cleaner has to do seem like a fun thing to spend an evening doing, or morning. Whatever time it was right now. There wasn’t exactly a concept of night and day out here so he’d lost track of time pretty quickly. He felt tired though so he guessed given his sleep schedule it was probably what would be an evening back on Hulldyn.  ‘And when you’re done, feel free to join Delta in the bar. You’ve done a great job today so go and chill out with the crew, get to know the people you’ll be working and living with for the foreseeable future.’ ‘Thank you Captain, Edward out,’ he finished before releasing the comms button. He turned on his heels and headed back down the corridor and towards the locker room so he could pick up the equipment he needed for this particular task. Once he’d swapped gear, he quickly checked himself in the mirror and made sure his suit was fitting correctly. When he had arrived at the station they didn’t have a suit in medium like he needed so he’d had to settle for a small. It was a bit tighter than he’d like even on his relatively skinny frame, but in all fairness he could look worse. He pulled the sleeves down to his wrists as they’d ridden up a bit when he’d been scrubbing the floor, then he ran a hand through his well kept, dark blonde hair and made sure he looked mildly presentable. He didn’t fancy bumping into any of his new crew members for the first time looking like a mess, there was never anything wrong with trying to make a good first impression. - Edward had thought the Captain had maybe slightly exaggerated the state of the living quarters that the Delta crew inhabited but when the door slid open for him he’d realised just how wrong he’d been. It was a tip. Did they even know about the concept of tidiness? Not that it mattered. This was his job now after all.  He quickly began working his way through the rooms that made up these living quarters, the cold metal floors surprisingly not taking away from how oddly homely this station felt. He could see himself fitting in here quite nicely he thought. Especially after he caught a glimpse of the view out of the window.  ‘Woah…,” Edward audibly gasped as he marvelled at the stars blinking and twinkling in exquisite detail, clouds of cosmic gases drifting slowly through the vacuum outside with colours shifting from blues and violets to even deep crimsons and the occasional bright green, as well as the sight of some of the various planets the Sigma-5 galaxy contained. Klastro could just about be seen with the bluish hue of its light, caused by the cold and harsh climates that it’s atmosphere contained, a fair distance away. But most striking was the landscape of Triactus over which they were currently passing in their slow drift around the galaxy. It’s lush green forests and marshy swamps were somewhat visible given the station’s current close proximity, almost like looking at a map, but so much bigger and more unbelievable. ‘The galaxy really is a beautiful and wondrous place,’ he thought out loud.  The station had been built and sent to Sigma-5 as part of a colonisation initiative to find more habitable planets for humans and other ally species after the spreading of people throughout the universe. Teams of scientists, archeologists and researchers had been sent to different planets across the universe to discover their terraforming potential as well as indigenous life forms that lived on them and how they could potentially co-exist with them. Edward had often been baffled by his species’ ability to keep surviving and spread themselves across the stars in the face of all adversity. Along the way they’d even managed to secure themselves as part of the Galactic Life Federation, a board comprised of many different representatives from many different species, with the intention of ensuring the best possible chances of interspecies cohabitation across the universe.  Edward managed to pry his gaze away from his view of a lifetime long enough to pick his equipment back up and continue his final task for the shift, but as he was about to finish up his tidying of the living quarters, he heard a bizarre sound just a little ways down the hall. Was that? Yeah it definitely sounded like a teleport of some kind… ‘Hello?’ he called out as he headed in the direction of the noise he’d heard, brandishing his litter skewer like a spear before passing through the door leading into the hallway. As if mocking him the light in the hallway was flickering on and off. He lifted his communicator to his mouth and pressed the button. ‘This is Edward Loxley to Engineering, there’s a light on the brink of death in hallway C of the Delta living quarters,’ he informed them. ‘No problem Loxley, we’ll have someone over there in about 8 kliks,’ a familiar voice to Edward responded in a timely fashion. ‘Thanks Engineering, Edward out,’ he closed communication. Back at home his family and he had still used minutes and hours, unable to let go of the Earth time keeping method as easily as others had, but he knew enough to know that 8 kliks equated to roughly 12 earth minutes, a reasonably fast time considering the Delta living quarters were on the opposite end of the station in relation to the engineering bay.  Despite the clearly broken light curiosity still had its grasp wrapped around Edward, causing him to continue walking forward where a strange smell was getting stronger. After deducing that the smell was the scent of energy dispersal he was certain it was the result of a teleport. But who’d teleport here? And why? As these questions raced through his mind like speeding ships he heard a loud clattering in the room ahead. He’d already tidied up that room, so maybe it was one of Delta who’d come back from their night of drinking before the others. But then why would they have teleported to their quarters, especially with the authorisation law over teleports being in place here?  Starting to feel the hairs on his neck stand on end as anxiety washed over him, Edward cautiously walked into the dorm after the door slid open with a slick swooshing sound, tightening his grip around the litter skewer in case he had to defend himself. Luckily the light in here came on without issue which gave Edward a little bit of relief, although that was a very short lived emotion as he heard an unearthly screech behind him. Before he could react a strong arm wrapped itself around Edward’s small frame and locked him against its body. Whilst he could see his assailant he could tell from the way he was pressed roughly against the figure that his shoulder blades were roughly where the beings chest was, making it taller than his 6’ frame by at least a few feet.  ‘HELP!’ he cried out loudly, desperately trying to maneuver his arms, which were currently locked at his sides by the arm of his attacker, in order to use his communicator to get the attention of one of his co-workers, but before he had the chance the screeching sound deafened his ears once more before he saw a bright blue light enveloping him as the same fizzling sound he’d heard before began again and only got louder. What felt like minutes to Edward was in fact mere seconds as he was teleported away from the station along with the unseen creature.  It wasn’t until 10 minutes later, when Jayna from engineering arrived to fix the flickering light and discovered Edward’s litter skewer on the dorm-room floor, plus his other equipment left in the furthest dorm, that anyone on Voltoria knew he was gone. - The first thing Edward noticed, as he began to come around from whatever had knocked him out the moment he’d teleported to wherever his attacker had taken him, was the strange and frankly rancid smell. It was as if the smell were corroding his nostrils and as much as he wished he could lose his sense of smell in this moment it only seemed to open his nostrils wider. The next thing he noticed was that he was being securely pinned down to a rough, cold and oddly slimy surface and yet he was warm. Too warm. Way too warm… Then the pain began to register. The searing, scorching pain as his body felt like it was on fire. He tried his hardest to open his eyes but the pain was excruciating which caused him to scrunch them tighter together. In a final effort to see what was happening he forced his eyes open, only to wish he hadn’t almost immediately after. Whilst his eyes were still adjusting to the very minimal light wherever he was, he could just about make out the blurry sight of a large, dark green insectoid head with huge, circular red eyes. Whatever it was, it was making rapid clicking noises as if communicating through them.  Not that he had the time to figure out what it was or what it was doing as his body finally reached breaking point. ‘Maybe I should’ve taken that job at Lynjargo…’ was the last thought to run through Edward’s mind before it, along with the rest of him was burned and reduced to nothing, just weird energy remained hanging in the air before it was quickly absorbed. - Chapter 1 - Morning Caffeine and Distress Signals The kettle clicked to life as Rory Williams started boiling water to make him and his wife a morning drink to help them wake up. Amy had a deadline for when she needed to complete her next novel, and he had a twelve hour nursing shift starting at nine o’clock. He had no doubt that it was going to be a long day, but he didn’t mind at all. He’d settled into the daily routine of the normal life him and Amy had built for themselves, and he was happy to have a stable income with which he and Amy could comfortably live on.  As he turned to the cupboard to take out a mug for the both of them, Rory heard a knocking at the door. It was currently half past seven, so he didn’t really have to think hard about who could be calling at this time. ‘It’s open Dad just come in!’ Rory called out, loud enough for his Dad to hear from outside the front door.  ‘It’s a nippy morning today Rory,’ Brian mused as he walked through the door, letting out a shiver before he took off his coat and hung it on the hooks by the door ‘make sure you wear a coat on your way to work, you’ll freeze to death in just your uniform.’ ‘Yes Dad, don’t worry I was already going to,’ Rory replied with a little eye roll. He loved his Dad but it did grate on him slightly how much he would fuss over him even with the littlest things. ‘Are you having a cuppa today or is it just a flying visit this morning?’ he asked as he popped his head around the living room door. ‘I’ll have a quick tea thanks Rory,’ Brian said with a friendly smile.  ‘Rory, is my coffee ready yet?’ came the brash yet oddly soothing and heavy scottish voice of his wife as she trudged down the stairs. ‘Just making it now Amy,’ he responded as he was spooning scoops of coffee into her mug after having dropped tea bags into his and his dads.  ‘My head’s killing me this morning,’ Amy complained once she got to the bottom of the stairs, dressed in a white dressing gown with grey pyjamas underneath ‘hopefully a coffee will make me feel up for staring at a screen all day writing.’ ‘Your deadline’s not for another two weeks Amy why not take a day off? I thought you said you just had a couple more chapters to go, surely you can put a day aside to pamper yourself a little,’ Rory tried to comfort his wife. ‘Yeah, of the first draft. Then i have to submit it to my publisher and make any changes they want me to make before I can submit a final version,’ Amy sighed out of stress. ‘You’ll be fine, you’ve not missed a deadline so far and I don’t see it happening this time either,’ Rory smiled before giving Amy a chaste kiss on the lips which she happily returned. Normally it wouldn’t be so chaste but given his dad was around the corner he’d settle for that for now.  ‘I’m glad one of us has faith in my timekeeping skills,’ Amy chuckled before she took the milk out of the fridge, added it to her coffee and stirred it before handing it to Rory for him to finish making the teas for him and his dad.  The three of them sat in the cosy living room and put the world to rights for a little while as they sipped away at their drinks and enjoyed a quick breakfast, although after about half an hour, unsurprisingly to Rory, his dad was already offering to do odd jobs around the house, painting the garden shed and whatnot even though Rory had already finished painting just the week prior. After convincing his dad that they didn’t need any jobs doing for home improvement, Rory stood up to take the mugs into the kitchen since he had to get ready to leave for work. ‘Right, I’ll be off then,’ Arthur said as he stood up and brushed himself off, straightening out his shirt and bomber jacket ‘I’ve got some gardening to get on with and it sounds like you’ve both got a busy day ahead.’  As he was saying his goodbyes, unbeknownst to the three of them a vworping sound was blaring in their back garden. As Arthur headed out of the front door, Amy quickly jogged up the stairs so she could get dressed and prepare herself for a hard day of writing. Meanwhile Rory began washing up the pots used during their breakfast so that the kitchen would be clean for Amy whilst he spent the majority of his day on the Accident and Emergency ward. That was at least until there was a rather loud knock on the back door. The back door? ‘Why would someone be knocking on the back door?...’ Rory asked himself out of confusion.  ‘Rory!’ a very familiar voice said loudly from behind the door.  ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Rory sighed a little frustrated. It had been months since they’d last seen him, with absolutely no contact since then. Rory knew time ran differently for him given his ability to travel back and forth through it at will, but he still wished they’d get a postcard or a letter every once in a while just so they knew he was ok.  ‘Doctor!’ Rory said a little abruptly as he opened the door and came face to face with the young faced Time Lord ‘what are you doing here? It’s been months and I have to be at work in about fifty minutes…’ he began to speak, checking his watch before the Doctor, as enthusiastically as ever, cut him off.  ‘Mr Pond! Get Amy, we’re going on an adventure!’ the Doctor announced without really paying attention to what Rory had just said, flipping his quiffed hair out of his eye and turning to run back to the TARDIS before Rory stopped him. ‘Doctor, I just said, I have to go to work in fifty minutes, and Amy’s got to spend the day working on finishing the first draft of her book,’ Rory explained.  ‘Surely that can all wait for a bit?’ the Doctor protested like a moaning child. ‘You know we love travelling with you but you can’t just swan into our lives as and when you please now, Doctor. We have our own lives and jobs that happen the entire time you’re not here.’ After a moment Rory took a breath. He wasn’t angry or even annoyed at the Doctor, he just wished he’d give them some notice before he turned up and expected them to travel to who-knows-what galaxy and gave them time to plan around having an adventure with him.  ‘Rory what are you yelling for, I could hear you upstairs…’ Amy began to say as she came back downstairs still in her pyjamas and dressing gown, before she saw who’d decided to materialise in their back garden. ‘Doctor!’ her face widened into a beaming grin as she ran up to him to pull him into a tight hug ‘what are you doing here? We both have work today.’ ‘There’s this big festival, HUUUGE festival about to take place on the planet Calliota where for one day the Calliotans form heat repelling force fields around the planets nine suns so they can be stood on. There’s singing and dancing and partying and all sorts of other young people things…’ the Doctor began to explain enthusiastically. ‘Doctor…’ Amy tried to interject.  ‘And the food is incredible, the music is unlike anything you’ll hear anywhere else in the universe…’ ‘Doctor…’ Rory attempted the same tactic as Amy, but again to no avail. ‘And the monarchs leave their palace to party and celebrate with the rest of the planets inhabitants…’ ‘Doctor!’ they both shouted this time, causing him to stop his excited tangent and almost pout at them sulkily. ‘We can’t, we’re both busy today with normal life stuff. You know, all that stuff that happens when you’re off travelling for who knows how long.’ ‘I can have you back here for 5 minutes ago,’ the Doctor replied somewhat dismissively. ‘But that just messes up our sense of time Doctor, it makes it hard to adjust to daily life again after being whisked away for an adventure in the 1870’s or the 64th century,’ Rory explained now that he was sure the Doctor was listening to them. The Doctor stood silently for a moment, letting Rory’s words sink in before he gave the most measured and reasonable response he could think of. ‘Did I mention they dance on their suns?’ Amy and Rory shared a knowing look that the Doctor wasn’t going to back down and besides which, they both knew that deep down they wanted nothing more than to go with him. Feeling their willpower being drilled away by the almost puppy-dog look the Doctor gave them, they just sighed before smiling at him.  ‘Give us five minutes to get changed and we’ll be ready to go,’ Amy told him before turning on her heels and walking back into the house, slippers sliding along the grass.  Rory just gave him a pleasant smile before following suit. - ‘So Calliota!’ The Doctor announced as if they’d just arrived when in actual fact they’d only just entered the TARDIS ‘the largest planet in the Juryadon Galaxy, moderate temperature and the most stunning city entirely made of pearlescent Juryadon marble. Once had dinner with the king and queen, delightful hosts but remarkably lax when it comes to table manners,’ he continued.  ‘And what exactly is this festival to celebrate?’ Rory asked. ‘The Calliotans believe that each of the nine suns represents one of the nine gods of the Juryadon pantheon, so the festival is to give thanks to their gods for the gifts of life and wellbeing,’ the Doctor reeled off the facts excitedly as he inputted the coordinates for Calliota into the TARDIS console, but before he could pull the starting lever, a flashing red light started blinking on the screen with the text ‘incoming distress signal’ in huge all-caps letters.  ‘Erm, Doctor…’ Amy began to say. ‘Hmmm interesting,’ the Doctor said aloud as he studied the incoming distress signal ‘if I just triangulate this signal’s origin…’ he pressed a few buttons near the screen and smiled once the results popped up. ‘There we go! This distress signal is being sent from quite a ways away from Calliota. I know I promised you a festival dancing on a sun but could we take a detour?’ He looked at Amy and Rory, waiting to see if any protests came out of their mouths but when they just looked at him, waiting for him to begin the materialisation sequence he smiled at them, knowing they were fine with it. He inputted the coordinates he trangulated from the distress signal origins before looking at them once more. ‘Here we go!’ he smirked before pulling the lever.  - Chapter 2 - A Breach in Sector 3 After what was a typically bumpy ride in the TARDIS the Doctor, Amy and Rory steadied themselves around varying parts of the central console. Amy walked over to the doors and tried to look out of the windows to see whereabouts they were, but all she could see outside was the dark. ‘Doctor, where are we?’ she asked somewhat confused ‘it’s just dark outside.’ ‘Well, according to the coordinates the signal originated from, we should be somewhere within the Sigma-5 galaxy…’ the Doctor started before grabbing his coat, and putting it on. With one quick adjustment of the bow tie, he strode towards the TARDIS doors, pulling them open with force only to have the wind taken out of his sails when he was indeed greeted by just blackness. ‘Ok, well we’re not just floating in space, I can tell that much,’ the Doctor said ‘so let’s find out where we’ve landed, shall we?’ Together the three of them stepped out of the TARDIS, a little it taken aback to be greeted by what felt like a solid wall, until the wall revealed itself to be a door as it slid open to reveal a much more brightly lit hallway. After turning around to close the TARDIS doors and lock them, the trio found themselves in a pretty dull looking corridor, with walls of sheer white and metallic flooring. ‘Ok, Doctor where are we?’ Amy asked before the double doors at the end of the corridor slid open with a satisfying swoosh to reveal a group of what looked like space cadets, dressed in matching grey and yellow uniforms and each carrying some form of pistol like weapon that they pointed directly at the trio. The three put their hands up in surrender to show they meant no harm.  ‘State your names, species and what your reason is for being here!’ demanded one of the cadets. It was hard to tell what any of them looked like under the helmets they were wearing, all of which had darkly tinted visors which heavily obscured how much you could see the face of those wearing them, however judging by the pitch and tone of voice, and the general stature of the one who’d barked the order at them, they were female. Well, they assumed she was the one who’d spoken given she was the one who’d waved her gun at them as if to emphasise the importance of fulfilling this demand.  ‘The Doctor, Amy and Rory!’ The Doctor stated, pointing at each of the three of them in the order he introduced them before resuming his surrender position, ‘Time Lord, Human and Human, and just travelling!’ ‘Define travelling and why you’d end up here of all places,’ a different voice said this time, male by the sounds of it.  ‘We just travel, everywhere,’ The Doctor continued ‘and my ship picked up a distress signal coming from nearby coordinates. We came to see if everything was alright’ ‘Ok, I think they’re safe guys,’ the first voice said before putting her gun back into the holster on her hip, reaching up to her head and taking off the helmet to reveal green, scaly skin. ‘Doctor isn’t that a…’ Rory began to say. ‘A Sliurian!’ The Doctor finished his sentence with a gleeful smile.  ‘You seem surprised by my being here...what was your name?’ ‘Just call me The Doctor,’ he reiterated, his smile barely leaving his face.  ‘Ok then, Doctor...you say your comrades are human?’ As the Silurian spoke the three other crew members had put their guns away and were removing their helmets. The Doctor could see that two of them also appeared to be human while the other was a humanoid with downy, feathery like appearance on their head as well as piercing golden eyes and a black beak like mouth lined with sharp teeth.  ‘Ah, a Fraxin!’ The Doctor said it like it was an announcement. ‘Again, you seem surprised that someone of my species would be here…’ the Fraxin responded seemingly confused by the Doctor’s surprise.  ‘Doctor, where are we?!’ Amy asked once again now that she was certain they weren’t about to be shot. ‘This is the Space Station Voltoria,’ the Silurian spoke, apparently the one in charge of the small group ‘we’re currently conducting a long term expedition throughout the Sigma-5 galaxy to find planets that could potentially be habitable.’ ‘Habitable for who?’ Rory asked. ‘Well, everyone…’ the Silurian answered. ‘What do you mean everyone?’ Amy questioned her this time. ‘Well every species that’s a part of the Galactic Life Federation,’ she continued, growing a little more perplexed ‘don’t tell me you don’t know what the Galactic Life Federation is either…’ ‘They’re not from around here…’ the Doctor started ‘or this time period.’ ‘Time Travellers?’ one of the humans perked up at this interesting development. ‘That would explain a lot,’ the Silurian lady said as the things that were confusing her seemed to make sense to her now ‘what time period are you from?’ ‘The 21st Century,’ Rory answered her ‘we’ve met your species before. Although at that time they were still living under the surface of the Earth.’ ‘That was many millennia ago,’ she said ‘the humans and Silurian races have long been allies since the founding of the Galactic Life Federation, as well as the need to find other planets to inhabit.’ ‘If the Galactic Life Federation has been formed then that means this is somewhere in the 58th Century…’ the Doctor pondered out loud, trying to place what year the TARDIS had landed in. ‘Yes, it’s the year 5733,’ the human who’d gotten excited at the prospect of time travel said.  ‘So why was a Galactic Life Federation space station sending out a distress signal?’ The Doctor asked the Silurian who’d appeared to be the leader of the group. She took a moment before she gave her answer, questioning with herself as to whether or not she could trust the three strangers who’d just appeared on the space station, but something about them seemed earnest and honest. That and in all of her many interactions with humans she’d learned that they were pretty terrible liars, and she hadn’t noticed any of the telltale signs when talking to the two humans here. ‘I think you’d better come with me to the captain’s office, Doctor,’ she stated before turning around and walking back out of the corridor. Assuming they were meant to be following her, the Doctor, Amy and Rory walked close behind her with the other three crew members bringing up the rear. - As they walked through the station the three of them took time to look at their surroundings as they passed through different corridors, especially any that had viewing platforms that let them see the galaxy outside. No matter how long they’d been travelling with the Doctor, Amy and Rory would never tire of seeing the beauty of the stars and space, and the surface of planets for as long as they lived.  Soon they were shown through another set of swooshy sliding doors, of which they were already bored of since they’d had to pass through so many on the walk here. The room they’d been led to seemed to be a large office, complete with a desk and even what seemed to be living quarters attached at the back like an open-plan room.  ‘Captain Alexander,’ the Silurian addressed the man behind the desk who’d looked up to see who had entered the room when he’d heard the door open ‘this is the Doctor, Amy and Rory. They’re the reason for the breach in sector 3.’ ‘And for what reason are they hear,’ the relatively young Captain responded in somewhat cold-shouldered manner. It wasn’t until now that the trio noticed the slightly slimmer man stood behind and to the right of the captain, leaning against the wall with a similar stern and accusing look on his face. ‘They’re time travellers, they say their ship received a distress signal coming from the station and came here to check everything was ok, Captain.’ ‘Distress signal?!’ the older man behind Captain Alexander spoke up rather angrily, although this seemed to be aimed at the Captain more than anyone else ‘Captain I thought we’d agreed we didn’t need to send out a distress signal?! You have no idea who could use it to get on board!’  ‘Yes Critchley I know what we agreed but given the circumstances, I decided to make an executive decision and send the signal, we need any help we can get!’ And with that rebuttal the older man the Captain had named Critchley leaned back against the wall without another word, although the look on his face could clearly be read as irritated. ‘Thank you for bringing them to me Bellana,’ he said pleasantly, seemingly addressing the Silurian lady since she then proceeded to bow her head to him ‘would you mind leaving me to speak with our new guests in private?’ ‘Of course Captain,’ Bellana responded before turning and walking out of the office, the 2 humans and the Fraxin following suit before the door swooshed shut behind them, leaving the Doctor, Amy and Rory alone with the two humans in the office.  ‘So, would you mind introducing yourselves? I’m Felix Alexander, the Captain of the Space Station Voltoria and one of the head human representatives of the Galactic Life Federation.’ ‘I’m Rory, from 21st century planet Earth,’ Rory introduced himself, making sure he said what time period he was from since Bellana had told Felix they were time travellers already.  ‘I’m Amy, also from 21st century Earth.’ ‘And I’m the Doctor, a Time Lord from Gallifrey. The ship that landed in one of your store cupboards is mine.’ ‘A Time Lord?!’ Felix responded in shock at this new information ‘I thought Time Lord’s were the stuff of myths and legends. Remnants of a long time ago.’ ‘Well I guess you could say that,’ the Doctor replied, not really sure how to respond to the Captain ‘but just me now.’ ‘Well no matter, having someone of your standing is just what we need to help us during this crisis.’ ‘Crisis?’ Amy questioned worriedly. -  Chapter 3 - The Engineer, the Medic and the Cleaner ‘We’re in dire need of help Doctor,’ Felix began to explain ‘we’ve had seven crew members disappear within the space of the last nine days with no trace of them left. Their communicators have all gone offline and there’s no way of tracking where they’ve gone or even knowing if they’re still alive. And it’s not just that.’ ‘What else has happened?’ the Doctor asked. ‘Our communications systems have been tampered with, and I’m not entirely sure who could have done it and how,’ the Captain replied with a worried tone lacing his voice as he leaned back in his chair and ran a rather meaty hand through his dark brown and grey speckled hair.  ‘Your communications systems? But you managed to send out a distress signal,’ Rory said confused.  ‘That’s because our distress signal runs on a seperate system, good for situations like this where the communications are down and we need help. The problem is that with a distress signal anyone could pick it up and find us, as you found out. The main communications systems allow us to contact the Galactic Life Federation headquarters to send for assistance, but with that down we have no way of contacting them. They have no idea there’s even anything wrong unless by some miracle they also picked up our distress signal before you detected it,’ Felix explained. Whilst he seemed relatively calm as he told the trio the problems the station was experiencing, it was obvious that was just his stern, captain exterior and that internally he was extremely worried and desperate. ‘Captain, are you sure we can really trust these people with this information?’ the now grouchy Critchley stepped forward and properly examined the Doctor, Amy and Rory for the first time ‘we have no idea if what they told Bellana was true or not.’ ‘I think they seem genuine, don’t you Critchley?’ Felix responded a little more snappy than Critchley had been expecting ‘besides which i’m pretty sure if they’d come here with the intention of harming anyone they would have just killed or taken Bellana and her team when they first got here.’  `If you say so Captain,’ Critchley grunted out of annoyance and walked towards the door of the office ‘I’m going to go take a break in the canteen,’ he announced before storming out without waiting for his Captain’s response.  The travellers turned back to look as Captain Alexander, clearly quite taken aback by the coldness of the younger man. ‘That’s my second in command, Jonathan Critchley. I’m sorry for his attitude, this situation has gotten everyone on this ship pretty worked up and I guess we all deal with it in different ways. I deal with it silently whereas Jonathan seems to deal with it by snapping at or being rude to anyone who just so happens to mildly annoy him,’ Felix stated before releasing a loud sigh.  ‘It’s fine, don’t worry about it,’ Rory reassured the Captain ‘we’re happy to help however we can.’ ‘I assume you have files on all of the staff that you’ve had working on board,’ the Doctor asked the Captain, walking around the desk to look over his shoulder. Amy and Rory followed him around and saw that in the desk that the Captain was sitting at was a large screen that took up most of the surface area of the top.  ‘Yes I do,’ he answered as he sat upright and began to press various buttons on the screen ‘we keep everyone’s details on file until they either resign or we have confirmation that they’re deceased.’  ‘Would you mind showing us the files of all seven people who’ve gone missing?’ the Doctor said. ‘Of course, just let me bring them up,’ he agreed before going into the folder that contained his employees information and worked his way through it, bringing up each file of every person who’d disappeared over the last ten days. ‘This is Freema Greenwood, Human, thirty-six years of age and one of our engineering staff,’ he opened up one of the files and read the main information before opening a second, ‘and this is Gothan, Draconian, four-hundred and twelve years of age and one of our lead communication managers. These were the first two to disappear followed by...’ he paused as he pulled up a third file to reveal the face of a Silurian ‘Granthar, Silurian, one-hundred and seventy four years of age and a canteen worker. He was, erm...’ he paused for a moment before continuing ‘he was Bellana’s mate. Sweet gent. He only wanted to come onto the crew so he could work with her. I dread to think what’s happened to him.’ ‘I guess that explains why she was so on edge when we first got here,’ said Amy.  ‘Odd. Different races, ages, genders, and even jobs,’ the Doctor inquired, looking for any form of similarity or pattern between the two ‘so it’s nothing to do with expertise or skill either. What about the others?’ One by one the captain took them through the next three files, the Doctor noting that just like with the first three there was no particular similarity amongst the group of missing employees except that these three all happened to work in the communications department. ‘And finally just ten hours ago our new janitor, Edward Loxley, twenty one years of age. It was his first day on the job, the young lad had barely even been off of the planet on which he was born.’ ‘And you said these disappearances happened over the course of nine days?’ asked Rory looking over all the files next to each other. ‘Yes. Gothan disappeared two days after Freema. And after Granthar two days later, we had someone disappearing every day. We’ve tried tightening security as best we can, checked for any breaches in the station’s structure that something could be getting in through, we’ve even made sure there was no faults in our TAS. But still the disappearances keep happening!’ the frustration in the Captain’s voice grew over the duration of his explanation.  ‘T A S?’ Amy said the letters back at the captain in a question ‘what’s the TAS.’ ‘Teleport Authorisation System,’ the Doctor answered her before the captain had had a chance ‘all Galactic Life Federation ships have a Teleport Authorisation System which does exactly what it says, it prevents the free use of teleportation devices on the station. In order to board and leave, you need to have your access granted by the station. Without access any teleport will lock up and fail until your destination coordinates no longer match the station’s.’ ‘The point is,’ Felix interjected before the briefing went on more of a tangent ‘assuming that these disappearances are in fact the work of something as opposed to just a very consistent string of random happenings which I find to be highly unlikely at this point, then whatever is causing them to happen is getting more confident in their abilities to not get caught. Why else would the disappearances go from once every few days to one a night?’ ‘So, what are you proposing we do?’ Amy queried, leaning over the desk with her hands resting on the edge as she inspected the files.  ‘Given how the victims of these disappearances just seem to be random as opposed to specifically targeted, we need to start monitoring as much of the station as we possibly can, see where and how whatever is doing this is getting on board,’ the Captain began to explain to the travellers ‘I know we don’t know for certain that there is an external factor but I highly doubt these seven people just got up and walked out of an airlock.’ ‘So split up and monitor the ship?’ acknowledged Rory who was looking over the files whilst having one arm wrapped around Amy. ‘Yes but there’s more to it than that,’ said Felix ‘I think you should integrate with the crew. We need to keep an eye on as many people as possible, and if whatever is doing this does strike again which i believe is an inevitability, we will hopefully be able to react quickly and maybe get an idea of just what the hell is going on. Do you have any preferences as to what departments I put you in?’ ‘Well, I’m a nurse back on Earth,’ Rory started ‘and whilst I probably won’t be able to do much to help any non-human crew members I’ll be at least somewhat useful there.’ ‘No problem, I’ll have you a medical department ID sorted out,’ Felix responded to Rory with a smile before directing his attention to Amy and the Doctor ‘and you two?’ ‘I’m a writer so i’m not sure how helpful that will be on here,’ Amy was honest with the Captain ‘so i’ll just help wherever you think I could be needed.’ ‘Well…’ the Captain was about to speak before he was interrupted by the Doctor.  ‘I’ll take cleaning duty if you don’t mind!’ he announced, much to the surprise of his companions. ‘Well I was going to have you possibly help out in engineering, Doctor. You seem like you’d be just the man to help us with our communications problem…’ ‘Amy can do that! She’s great with a spanner,’ the Doctor responded without really thinking about how Amy would feel having him dump these expectations onto her. Sure enough whenever the Captain had his back to her she was glaring daggers into the Doctor over the Captain's shoulder.  ‘Oh erm...ok then I guess. Go and find Critchley in the canteen. He’s likely to be grouchy with the three of you but he’ll come around soon enough. Get him to have your ID chips prepared,’ Felix gave the trio his orders ‘I’m going to have to coop myself up in here writing up the missing person reports and find a way to get them to the GLF despite our lack of communications.’ ‘Are you sure you’re going to be ok?’ Rory asked, his nursing instinct making him want to make sure the man was in fact going to be able to cope.  ‘I may be a relatively young age for a GFL station captain at thirty-six, but I was chosen because I was able to cope under stress like this,’ the Captain reassured Rory ‘I’ll be fine. I just need to know that my crew are ok.’ With that the Doctor, Amy and Rory turned and left the Captain’s office, Amy waiting for the door to have slid shut and hopefully out of earshot before she grabbed the Doctor by his collar and pushed him into a wall out of frustration. ‘She’s good with a spanner?!’ she shouted at her friend ‘what the hell were you thinking?! And why are you so determined to be on cleaning duty? You could have their communications fixed within an hour!’ ‘Because I need to be able to have full access to every part of this space station,’ the Doctor began to explain whilst waiting for Amy to relinquish her annoyingly tight grip on his collar ‘and as a cleaner I’ll have exactly that.’ Then the Doctor paused, looking around to make sure it was just the three of them around before he spoke again. ‘Plus I don’t fully trust that the Captain has nothing to do with this. Not yet anyway.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Rory spoke up ‘why would the Captain want to have his own crew disappear? Surely that would be a surefire way to lose his lucrative position.’ ‘I don’t know Rory. But something doesn’t feel right about his story,’ the Doctor revealed. ‘What exactly?’ Amy asked this time, finally releasing her hold on the Doctor, who couldn’t re-adjust his bow tie quick enough. ‘This space station has a Teleport Authorisation System, which means nothing can teleport on or off of it without someone providing authorisation for a teleport device to operate within its proximity,’ he began to explain ‘and yet the Captain said there are no signs of physical damage to the station that could be exploited to get on board.’ ‘Which means that the only way anyone could get on is by teleport?’ Rory caught onto the Doctor’s train of thought. ‘Exactly. So, either the Captain is lying about there being no way the culprits could climb on board, someone has been authorising teleport access for whatever is doing this or…’ ‘Or someone in the crew is making them disappear themselves,’ Amy said having arrived at the same conclusion. ‘Yes. Which is why i need you both to really try and get to know the crew. See if any of them would have a motive for wanting their crew dead,’ the Doctor told his friends ‘but first we should go and get our identification chips.’ - ‘Captain Alexander told me you’d be on your way here,’ Critchley greeted the three with a very uninterested tone as they walked into the large canteen area before exhaling a deep sigh and standing up, turning to face them. ‘I’m Jonathan Critchley, the second in command here on Space Station Voltoria,’ he formally introduced himself ‘I apologise for my coldness earlier. Things haven’t exactly been easy on us over the last week or so.’ ‘It’s fine, we understand,’ Rory responded for the three of them, knowing that he’d probably handle the man’s admission of attitude in a much friendlier way than his equally hot-headed wife.  ‘The Captain told me to prepare ID Chips for the three of you on your way over, so here you go,’ he picked up three small devices off of the table at which he’d been sat. The devices had straps that looked as though they were designed to wrap around a wrist, similar to a watch. ‘Wear them on your wrist like so,’ he held his up to show the ID chip attached comfortably ‘the chip itself is near the front, press it against a door panel and providing your job grants you the correct access, it will open for you. This also works as a communicator, this button here will allow you to call through to whichever department you need, just state your name and desired contact at the start so the correct people get back to you. I’ve already set them up to have communication channels open, just make sure you don’t turn them off so that you can be reached at any time. You can also use it to record yourself voice messages to listen back to, if you need to leave yourself a note for later, for example or to remember a code for something.’ The man took a quick breath before he finished his explanation ‘and finally in case you need to transfer any data between any of the ship terminals and computer, you can use this to download the data to carry it between them.’ ‘Thank you,’ the Doctor said to Critchley as the three were each handed their respective ID chips. Once they’d put them on, Critchley turned his communicator on. ‘This is Critchley to Engineering and Med-Bay. Send someone to the canteen please, your new team members are here to meet you,’ he commanded, two separate voices responding with ‘understood’ before he switched it off.  Rather than wait in an awkward silence for the people they’d be working with to arrive, the Doctor decided to start his investigation into the crew by asking Critchley questions about his life and time working on the Voltoria.  ‘So what inspired you to work for the GLF?’ he grilled the second in command. ‘Well…’ Critchley paused before giving his answer, not sure how many details it was socially acceptable to divulge so soon after meeting someone ‘my family died in an attack on my home world of Northan many years ago. A faction of Fraxin invaded and we were completely unprepared. It wasn’t so much a war as it was a massacre, I only survived because my parents were lucky enough to be able to afford to have an emergency teleport pad in our house. I was able to use it before they got to our house but my family...weren’t as fortunate.’ ‘Emergency teleport pad? That can’t have been a pleasant experience,’ the Doctor comforted the stern man. ‘Indeed it wasn’t,’ he replied with a slight sarcastic chuckle. ‘What’s so bad about an emergency teleport pad?’ asked Rory, not quite seeing why being able to teleport away would be a bad thing.  ‘The nature of it being an emergency teleport,’ Critchley began to explain ‘the coordinates of your teleport destination is completely randomised every minute it’s not in use, then after use they’re automatically randomised again to prevent tracking. I was just lucky enough I didn’t land in the middle of space or some god-forsaken star.’ ‘But why would anyone have that?’ Rory continued. ‘If given the option between guaranteed death at the hands of a fleet of brutal killers, or a chance of survival where they can’t follow you afterwards, wouldn’t you take that chance? No matter how slim.’ Rory just silently nodded in understanding before the Doctor had another question to put to the second-in-command. ‘But there’s a Fraxin crew member on board! He was in the security group with Bellana who met us when we boarded. Which must mean the GLF accepted the Fraxin into its ranks at some point.’ ‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Jonathan answered with a definite hint of venom in his voice ‘that’s Huxley. Can’t say I approve of his being here or even with the GLF’s choice to enroll the Fraxin as one of the many species in its alliance, but that’s not exactly my decision to make. And Huxley does make a very good security officer I’ll give him that. Not that it surprises me given his species’ tendencies for violence.’ ‘Hey c’mon now,’ Rory interjected ‘don’t you think that’s a little bit unfair? Any violence he does here is just a part of his job and he seemed perfectly likeable when we met him.’ ‘When you’ve had everything you loved taken away from you, it’s hard to come face to face everyday with the same thing that did that to you,’ Critchley bit back very abruptly.  ‘Aaaaaanywaaaaay,’ the Doctor quickly cut them off before an argument kicked off ‘you said Northan? That’s a fair few galaxies away from here,’ he commented.  ‘Yes, I miss it often,’ Critchley replied with a solemn tone ‘but there’s nothing really there for me anymore. That was thirty-two years ago,’ ‘So how did you end up out here? And where does working for the GLF come into this?’ Amy pressed on. ‘Well after the deaths of my family, I did a lot of stupid stuff. The GLF was still relatively new back then and couldn’t do much to help Northan when we needed it,’ Critchley explained, clearly not used to opening up to people ‘I was young, angry and had nothing to lose. I joined gangs, space pirates, anything I could do to get back at the GLF for what I thought they’d done to me.’ ‘Then what happened?’ she asked, curious to hear more about the man’s past.  ‘I got caught,’ he said rather nonchalantly ‘nothing more to it really. I’d gained something of a notoriety during my time being a criminal, the GLF got the jump on me on a theft contract and imprisoned me.’ ‘So why would you work for them?’ asked Rory, now just more confused than anything. ‘Because prison does things to a man,’ he stated ‘I regretted what I’d let my life become and didn’t see anyway of changing myself after over two decades of criminal activity. Then the GLF threw me a lifeline. They knew I was skillful with technology from all of the heists i’d lead as well as my ability to lead a team. So they took me on board a cadet recruitment programme on probation. Rather than live out my years behind bars they’d let me have my freedom and make an honest life as long as I used my skills to help rather than hurt. That was nine years ago. I’m fifty-two now and haven’t looked back. I owe a lot to the GLF, I probably would have been dead in a cell if they hadn’t have seen what I could be.’ As the trio were about to continue their conversation with their new temporary boss, two other crew members entered the cafeteria. The first was a rather short, slim looking human lady whilst the other was an… ‘An Ood!’ the Doctor cried out in excitement at noticing the tendril-mouthed alien dressed in the same crew uniform as everyone else they’d met so far ‘you have an Ood in your crew?!’ ‘Yes! Clive here is our head medic. Brilliant worker, couldn’t ask for a better pair of hands to patch you up when you’re ill,’ Critchley introduced the Ood to the group.  ‘Clive?’ the Doctor questioned the man at his naming of the Ood ‘who named him Clive?’ ‘It is just a joke amongst the crew members, sir,’ the Ood explained with a pleasant tone to its voice ‘my real designation is Gamma-8145, but my fellow crew decided it would just be easier to call me Clive. Whatever that means. ‘And you don’t mind?’ the Doctor asked the Ood slightly concerned that it maybe was just being picked on without its knowledge.  ‘Not at all!’ it reassured the Time Lord.  ‘Doctor, when we met one of them before...it tried to kill us!’ Amy tried to tell the Doctor without the Ood hearing ‘are we sure we can trust it?’ ‘Of course!’ the Doctor answered with a big smile apparently oblivious to the fact that Amy was trying to be subtle ‘nothing to worry about. The only time an Ood would ever harm is when something possesses it to do so, like House did.’  ‘There is nothing to fear, miss,’ Clive responded with a slight tilt of its head towards Amy as if showing her politeness ‘Ood would never kill, I am here to help and heal.’ ‘When did the Ood become a part of the GLF?’ the Doctor asked Critchley, although it was the short young lady who answered him. ‘About fifteen years ago!’ she piped up ‘once the GLF started spanning its reach and influence across galaxies there were many new species that wanted to be a part of it. The Ood, free from the slavery we humans had put them through beforehand, were happy to join up given their peaceful nature and desire to help.’

‘But what about the translator ball? The Ood who’ve had those were all submitted to slavery,’ the Doctor interrogated the woman. ‘Not this time. The GLF offer the translator balls to any Ood representative as an optional procedure to allow for easy communication, as opposed to having to rely on other telepaths to act as a constant translator between them and other races. None of them are forced, in fact many are happy to have the procedure in order to allow them to take more active roles in the GLF as opposed to just standing as representatives for their race,’ she explained, putting the Doctor’s mind to rest ‘I’m Jayna by the way. Head of engineering.’ ‘Nice to meet you Jayna,’ the Doctor smiled at her, shaking the hand she’d outstretched in greeting ‘this is Amy, she’ll be your new worker for however long we end up staying,’ he gestured a hand to the tall ginger before turning to Clive ‘and Clive this is Rory, he’ll be your new nurse.’ ‘It is a pleasure to meet you, sir,’ the Ood said politely after bowing his head to Rory.  ‘Nice to meet you Amy,’ Jayna stepped towards her with an outstretched hand, using her other hand to move her purple-dyed fringe out of her eye. ‘Likewise,’ Amy responded a little grumpily. It wasn’t that she wanted to dislike Jayna, in fact she seemed friendly and bubbly, but Amy was still a little annoyed that the Doctor had dumped her into a job that she had no idea how to do. ‘Thanks for setting them up for us Critchley,’ Jayna went to say to the middle aged man before realising he’d already left the canteen. - Chapter 4 - A Bug in the System ‘So how long have you been a GLF employee?’ Amy asked Jayna as they walked through the space station towards the engineering department after she’d just been given the grand tour of the tour of the Voltoria.  ‘For the last eighteen years,’ Jayna replied, her chirpy attitude still persisting even an hour after their first meeting ‘pretty much as soon as I turned 21 and was old enough to start working in a space environment.’ ‘Have you always wanted to have a job out here?’ ‘Not Sigma-5 specifically no, but I have always wanted to do something out in space. It just so happened that once I started my space cadet training I discovered I had a knack for mechanics and machinery, and skills like that are highly valued in the GLF, especially as we expand our horizons and explore more planets.’  ‘What is the work structure like here? How many different departments and teams are there?’ ‘Well there’s us and four others in engineering, we manage any of the mechanical issues that the ship has. There’s a team of three people and now your husband in the med-bay,’ Jayne began to explain. ‘There’s catering who you’ll get to know in the canteen which is where most of us hang out on our lunch breaks and even some evenings, the comms team who run the station’s communications, or at least they did until they all went missing, the navigation crew who handle the station’s flight course and finally the expedition teams, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, made up of a mixture of scientists, archeologists and security personnel who go with them in case of any on-planet incidents. ‘Is it normally busy, in this department I mean?’ ‘I mean it always has been relatively busy. There’s always something To be fixed or improved but more recently it’s been ridiculous. Everything has been breaking much more frequently. Lights, heaters, air lock seals, even doors.’ ‘And what about outside of work, where is home for you?’ Amy continued to question the engineer ‘got a family back there?’ ‘I was a habitant of Kallista-32 before I ended up becoming a resident on the GLF Starship Jupiter,’ Jayna recounted her life story ‘mainly because that meant I could finally marry and live with my wife.’ As she explained this to Amy, Jayna had reached into the left pocket of her grey and yellow crew uniform (which Amy and Rory had also changed into, the Doctor chose not to however) and pulled a small photograph out of it. ‘This is her, my Anya,’ Jayna smiled as she showed the photo to Amy. Upon inspection Amy saw that it was a picture of Jayna and a much taller looking lady with long, flowing blonde hair. ‘Yeah I can understand wanting that,’ said Amy ‘I’ve travelled with the Doctor for a few years now but after a while Rory and I knew we wanted a house and a place to settle down. Now rather than travel constantly, he comes and picks us up when he has an adventure for us.’ ‘Is that why you’re here then?’ Jayna inquired ‘for an adventure?’ ‘Well not exactly.’ ‘How do you mean?’ ‘We were meant to be going to a festival on this far off planet but his ship picked up the distress signal this place was transmitting,’ Amy explained ‘so we came to help out.’ ‘Does that mean that you’re not really my newest engineering protegé?’ Jayne asked, a little disappointed. ‘I’m sorry, no. We’re just here to find out what’s making your crew disappear, put a stop to it and then we’ll be off.’ ‘Well, no matter!’ Jayna replied surprisingly positively ‘you can still help me out while you’re here. Plus I know the internals of this ship like the back of my hand, so if you need to investigate anything mechanic, I’m your gal!’ ‘Actually, now that you mention it…’ Amy began to say as she turned to look at the friendly woman. - ‘This is Jayna to the cleaning department,’ she spoke into her communicator. ‘Cleaning receiving, over,’ came the Doctor’s voice over the device in response. ‘I don’t think you have to say ‘over’ after each message Doctor,’ Amy responded to him like he was an irritating teenager. ‘Understood, over,’ the Doctor acknowledged whilst also completely ignoring what she’d said. ‘Doctor can you come to the communications room? We think we might have found the problem,’ she asked him with a huff. ‘On my way, over,’ he replied before cutting off the conversation, making Amy slap her hand against her face out of annoyance.  Outside of the communications room, the Doctor pressed his ID chip against the door panel and let out a giddy noise as the door slip open with a clean, satisfying swoosh. ‘I’ll never get tired of doing that,’ he announced as he walked in to find Amy and Jayna hunched over an exposed panel in the large communication array in the middle of the room. ‘What have you found?’ he asked as he walked over to join them.  ‘None of the wiring has been tampered with, no crude cutting of cables or anything like that but feel this,’ Jayna instructed the Doctor after placing her hand against the body of the array, with the Doctor quickly doing the same. ‘It’s hot,’ Amy said ‘as in roasting hot. How is the station not able to communicate with anything outside if this thing is clearly working overtime?’‘And what the hell could have made it feel so damn hot? I can feel the heat radiating off of it from here, it’s insane!’ Jayna remarked before pulling her hand off of the machine to avoid burning it.  Instead of responding the Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out of the inside pocket of his tweed jacket and pressed the button to extend it out before beginning to scan the machine, the green tip lighting up and a light but constant whirring noise being projected out of the device.. ‘What is he doing?’ asked Jayna in a perplexed tone. ‘Just give him a moment,’ Amy told her as she waited for the Doctor to finish his scan.  As if on queue he stopped his scan and lowered the sonic screwdriver to his side. ‘Just like i thought, it has been tampered with,’ he announced to the pair ‘something’s planted a virus in it. No wonder you can’t get any messages to transmit out of the station, our communications array is can’t lock on to anything to broadcast to. That’s why it’s so hot, it’s been trying to send out the help message your Captain made days ago non-stop, but it has no idea where it’s meant to be sent to. Every few seconds it’s trying to send but then it’s coordinates are being scrambled, then it’s trying to send to the new coordinates only for them to be scrambled again.’ ‘And that’s happening on a constant loop?!’ Jayna gasped ‘why wasn’t I informed about this problem sooner? Why would the Captain keep this from me and my team?!’ ‘Because I didn’t want to make the situation worse for my crew than it already was,’ came the familiar voice of Captain Alexander from the direction of the door as it closed behind him, Critchley just behind him ‘and because in all honesty, I’m not sure who I can trust, Jayna.’ ‘And what does that mean?’ she shot back at her leader, standing up and turning to face up to him. Whilst her height was significantly less than his, the look in her eyes gave away her unwillingness to back down even when facing off against her superior. ‘Do you not trust me? Do you think I’d sabotage this station and its mission after I’ve been here since day one?’ she was managing to keep her voice relatively calm until now ‘do you think I’d actively work to have my crewmates, no...my friends disappear to who knows where and have who knows what happen to them?!!’ ‘No, Jayna,’ Felix admitted with a deep sigh ‘I don’t. But please try to understand where I’m coming from. This whole expedition is falling apart around me and I have no idea who is behind it, never mind why. My back’s against a wall and I need to do something if i’m to save everyone I still can. I’m trying to protect people Jayna. I don’t want to lose anyone else.’ Jayna looked her captain in the eye for what was just a moment but felt like forever. She didn’t want to blame him, but at the same time trying to push her and others away wasn’t going to help solve this crisis. Overcome with a rush of frustrating emotions she chose not to respond and instead push past the Captain somewhat roughly and leave the room, her footsteps echoing as she stormed off down the corridor. ‘I’ll go and talk to her,’ Amy let the Doctor know before quickly following after the engineer, hoping she could catch up to her before she lost sight of her and got lost. ‘Is there anything you can do Doctor,’ Critchley asked the Time Lord who was still tinkering around in the communications array, performing different scans with the screwdriver for any signs of repairs he could make, but to no avail.  ‘Not as of now no,’ the Doctor informed them with a hint of annoyance in his voice ‘I need to find the source of the virus corrupting your communication systems before I’ll know how to remove it because in all honesty, I’m not fully certain what kind of virus this even is.’ ‘Well be sure to investigate Doctor, but discreetly please,’ Felix ordered. ‘I’ll assist you since I know the station better,’ Critchley said without giving the Doctor the option to protest. The two left the communications room whilst the Captain stayed to examine the array and see if there was anything he could do. - ‘Jayna wait up!’ Amy called out after the engineer who was only a few metres ahead of her at this point as she walked towards what Amy assumed was her living quarters ‘we need to try and get your communications working again! You know the Captain didn’t mean to upset you.’‘That’s not the point Amy,’ she shouted back as she walked into her quarters ‘it’s that I feel like the man I trusted with my life for the past few years just betrayed me.’ ‘Do you really think that’s what he was trying to do though? Because he seemed genuinely concerned for everyone’s safety to me,’ Amy tried to get through to her. On the other side of the now shut door Amy heard Jayna let out a long sigh before she spoke. ‘Yeah, I know you’re right. I just need a moment to clear my head, this whole situation is just so stressful. I miss my Anya.’ ‘I get it, don’t worry,’ Amy reassured her ‘is there anything I can do?’  ‘Erm...yeah actually. I left my tool kit in the comms room. Would you mind getting it for me? I like to tinker with stuff in my room when I need some me time,’ Jayna explained, the friendly tone Amy had gotten accustomed to slowly coming back into her voice.  ‘Yeah, no problem, I’ll be back in a few minutes then.’ And with that Amy began to walk back to the communications room to retrieve the requested tool kit. - ‘What are you wanting to do in the Captain’s office Doctor?’ Critchley asked with uncertainty as he followed the Doctor into the room, who had already started tapping away on the screen in the Captain’s desk.  The Doctor didn’t respond as his mind ran feverishly with all the different thoughts of tests he should run, details he should check, information he should search for. His tapping on the screen seemed to just get more and more rapid as his brain ran through thoughts and plans like an olympic athlete would a one-hundred metre sprint.  ‘Doctor! That is the Captain’s personal computer I highly suggest you stop looking through his stuff before you have his permission…’ ‘Ah ha!’ the Doctor exclaimed completely ignoring the older man’s protests ‘see I knew it! It just didn’t make any sense. Of course there were no breaches in the station’s exterior because there didn’t have to be!’ ‘Doctor what are you on about?!’  ‘Someone has been authorising teleportation on and off the station for brief periods over the last year at least,’ the Doctor announced without lifting his head away from the screen ‘this hasn’t just been a nine day problem, someone has been planning and working on this for a long time. And I think I’ve found the source of the virus.’ ‘You mean..inside the Captain’s computer?!’  ‘By the looks of it,’ he continued as if this wasn’t a massive revelation ‘but why would someone plan all of this? Why all the teleporting?’ ‘But...i’m sorry I don’t understand. Why would Captain Alexander want to sabotage his own ship? That doesn’t make any sense Doctor!’ Critchley protested, taken aback by this information. ‘I don’t know, vendetta, money, power, there are many things that can corrupt a person's morality but right now I need to find a way to unravel this virus because it’s a nasty one,’ the Doctor said at a lightning fast speed as he continued to look through the computer.  ‘What kind of virus is it? Could it spread to other parts of the ship?’ Critchley asked in a panicked voice.  ‘It’s a scrambler virus,’ the Doctor told him ‘and a particularly brutal one at that.’ ‘And what exactly does a scrambler virus do?’ ‘Well, exactly what the name would suggest,’ the Doctor replied rather bluntly ‘completely scrambles a system’s memories and functions. In this case it’s scrambled the communication array’s coordinates so it thinks it’s sending out a message to so many different places at once it’s just about ready to overload, whilst it’s in actual fact sending out nothing.’ ‘Ok and what can we do about that? And just where would the Captain even be able to find such a virus?’ ‘Given the crudeness and volatility of this strain I reckon it came from some sort of black market vendors. However it was acquired it certainly wasn’t done legally. I won’t be able to trace its origins until we can get it out of your communications system and decrypt it’ the Doctor explained, his speech pattern still not showing any signs of slowing down ‘and as for what we can do to get it out in the first place, if I can find what exactly put it into the system I might be able to force the virus out.’  Suddenly the Doctor stopped what he was doing and stood up, pulling his sonic screwdriver out and turning to Jonathan. ‘Let me see your ID chip device for a moment Critchley,’ he said before walking up to him and putting his own ID chip close to Jonathan’s. ‘Doctor...what are you doing…’ ‘You’re the second-in-command, yours has much better clearance than mine will give me and right now, I need it just as much as you do so…’ he paused before he buzzed the sonic over Critchley’s ID chip and then over his own ‘there we go.’ Critchley walked over to the captain’s desk to look at what the Doctor had found, but as he began looking at the different folders he’d brought up he stopped with a panicked expression beginning to cover his face ‘Doctor...you might want to look at this.’ The Doctor quickly walked over to check what Critchley had seen. ‘There’s a teleport that’s just been authorised in the communication room…’ But before he could finish his analysis a loud scream erupted from somewhere inside the station, a scream that the Doctor would recognise anywhere. ‘AMY!’ - Chapter 5 - Ambush Amy walked somewhat leisurely towards the communications room, mainly because she couldn’t quite remember the way and was pretty certain she was going to get lost if she didn’t think carefully about the direction she was going in.  ‘Ok, so it was a right turn here,’ she spoke to herself out loud as she tried her best to recall the way she’d run after Jayna and reversed it ‘then another right here.’ Before too long she breathed a sigh of relief as she came across the door to the communications room. ‘Oh thank god I thought I was going to get lost.’  Once she was inside it didn’t take long for Amy to find the tool kit Jayna was wanting placed next to the communication array, although what she wasn’t expecting was the strange almost energy noise that she heard behind her. ‘Hello?’ she called out loudly, hearing a strange clicking noise before she turned around and came face to face with a huge, praying-mantis like creature.  Leathery dark green skin seemed to be tautly stretched over a muscular looking physique, or at least if an insectoid creature could look to have a muscular figure. Whilst the two abnormally large, bulbous, crimson red eyes studied her, it stamped its four legs, two facing forward and the back pair looking like they’d been turned the opposite direction and outstretched its four arms. The top pair were scythe like appendages, vicious and sharp looking, ridged with spines that could easily tear a human like paper if it managed to catch one in its grasp. The lower arms were much shorter in length but each ended in a three-clawed hand.  Amy let out a scream as the creature lunged at her, swiping at her with its large bladed arms. She dodged to the left, falling onto her side as the blade just missed her body, bouncing off of the thick metallic floor of the ship with a loud clang. ‘Someone send help to the communication room immediately!’ she shouted into her communicator as she scrambled onto her feet and darted for the back of the room, trying to put plenty of space between herself and the alien, whatever it was. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ she asked her assailant as it stood still for a moment, tilting its head from side to side and staring at her intently as if examining her. The creatures mandibles clicked rapidly and very audibly before the mouth behind them opened, lined vertically in the centre with sharp fangs on either side of the mouth opening. ‘Our planet...is dying,’ the beast spoke, presumably in its native tongue but thanks to the TARDIS translation, Amy heard its words in English.  ‘What do you mean your planet is dying? Do you mean like climate change?’ Amy questioned it now that it seemed to not be about to attack her. ‘Our planet...is starving…’ it continued, sizing her up once more before it reared up again, preparing to lunge forward ‘you, shall be its sustenance!’ And with that, it leapt into the air toward Amy, the abdomen that stretched out behind it from around where its smaller arms were situated, opened up to allow four large translucent wings to unfurl and stretch open before the flapped rapidly, creating a low pitched and very loud buzzing sound. The creature slashed its scythe-arms at Amy, who dove forward onto the ground on her front, feeling the air blow over her as the creatures jump now went over her head.  However whilst she’d thought her maneuver might cause her attacker to crash into the wall, it instead used its flight to steady its momentum before placing its legs against said wall, clenching the hook like claws on its ‘feet’ into the sturdy material with such force that the wall buckled and crumpled where the pressure was applied, until it became such that the wall just gave up fighting, the claws piercing through.  Glaring at Amy by this point, the alien let out a dreadful screech that reverberated around the room before it released its grip on the wall and fell down on top of the terrified time traveller, legs on either side of her to prevent her from rolling away. She tried to pull herself from under its body, wanting desperately to find some form of grip with either the fingers or the souls of the boots she was wearing. But before she could get any chance of an escape, the creature slammed its blades into the ground in front of her, the one on the left just barely missing her head whilst the one on the right cut into the flesh on her shoulder and into the floor, causing Amy to take in a very sharp breath as the pain shot through her body.  Luckily for her, as another blood-curdling scream bounced around the room, the door slid open to reveal Bellana and her security crew with their guns drawn. The Fraxin, Huxley, quickly fired an energy bolt from his blaster pistol, hitting the creature square in its chest. Angry, it reared up ready to strike Amy fatally, but Huxley unleashed another shot into it before it could lash out, unleashing a high pitched screech of pain before collapsing over onto the floor in a dead, unmoving heap. Amy, understandably shaken, slowly picked herself up off of the ground, the adrenaline in her system preventing her from feeling the full extent of the pain in her shoulder, although it was still significant enough to make her wince. ‘Amy!’ Rory cried out in relief upon seeing wife alive and breathing, until he saw the blood on her shoulder ‘you’re hurt! What did it do to you?!’ ‘It’s nothing,’ she responded flippantly ‘it just scratched me if all.’‘Let me look at it,’ Rory insisted as he placed a hand gently next to the wound, making Amy breathe in sharply as pain seared through it at his touch ‘that’s a deep gash Amy. Let me take you to the medical bay, we can treat you there.’ The Doctor came in just behind Rory, pulling Amy into a tight hug before releasing her after seeing the injury, not wanting to make it feel any worse. ‘Never scare me like that again,’ he said to her, angling her head to place a gentle kiss on her forehead before letting her go so Rory could take her to get patched up, Captain Alexander and Critchley walking into the room as they left. Then he saw what had attacked her.  ‘Oh...you are a beauty!’ he could hardly contain his excitement at seeing the body of Amy’s assailant.  ‘What is it?’ Bellana asked as she stepped forward to join the Doctor in examining the beast. ‘A Mantisaan,’ he answered, kneeling down to get a closer look ‘inhabitants of the Thespallion galaxy. But what is it doing here? Thespallion is galaxies over from Sigma-5. And why did it attack Amy?’ ‘The Mantisaan? They’re behind this?’ Felix said ‘why? What reason do they have for being here and...how? Like you said Doctor, the Thespallion galaxy is light years away.’ ‘You know the Mantisaan?’ the Doctor seemed surprised. ‘About three years ago, the Mantisaan caused a lot of issues with the GLF because we wouldn’t give them a planet to live on,’ Felix began to explain ‘they were trying to make us essentially give up one of the planets under our jurisdiction for them to inhabit. But we couldn’t. Any planet we have law over is inhabited by species that are a part of the GLF. We couldn't just give them an entire planet and evict everyone else who was already living on it like they wanted. Then things got nasty and they turned to violence. Luckily we vastly outnumbered them and it didn’t take them long to decide it was a bad idea, but they’ve been in the dark since then. This is the first form of contact I think anyone within the GLF has had with them in all this time.’ Suddenly, without warning, all the lights in the room shut off. To make matters worse, now the doors wasn’t sliding open, and with no way to force it open or another way to leave the room. ‘Great, another power outage?’ Bellana cried out frustrated ‘that’s the fifth consecutive day in a row…’ ‘So this has been a regular occurence?’ the Doctor quizzed the irritated Silurian. ‘Yes, for the last couple of months or so we’ve had irregular power outages. At first I thought nothing of it, but they started to become more and more common until now they’re pretty much a daily occurence,’ she explained ‘not much we can do but wait for the power to come back online.’ ‘And these outages happen around the entire station, not just certain sections?’ ‘Yes, every notable one has affected the whole station.’ ‘Have you had engineering take a look at your power supplies? See if there’s anything wrong with them.’ ‘Of course we did,’ Jayna answered once the door slip open and the lights came back on ‘we couldn’t find anything wrong. In fact if anything, it’s running much more efficiently than it ever has before.’ ‘And yet the power cuts have become more and more common,’ the Doctor said whilst running a hand through his quiffed hair ‘which begs the question, where is all this extra power going to if the station itself seems to be running at a worse capacity, don’t you think?’ ‘That’s just what I was thinking Doctor,’ Jayna agreed with him. ‘Well in that case, why don’t you and I take a look in the engine room, see if we can find anything there?’ the Doctor proposed with a sly smirk. ‘I think that sounds like a pretty great idea,’ Jayna matched his cheeky enthusiasm before the pair started to head for the door before being stopped by Bellana.  ‘I’m coming with you Doctor. You need someone to protect you, especially since you seem to be our best chance of fixing this whole mess.’ ‘I want to stop by the medical bay before we go to the engine room,’ the Doctor informed the crew members ‘I want to make sure Amy is ok.’ - ‘How are you feeling now, miss?’ Clive the Ood asked Amy as it finished stitching up the large gash wound the Mantisaan had sliced into her right shoulder. ‘Still very sore, especially now the adrenaline has worn off,’ she responded before wincing at the feeling of Rory patting a cloth of sterilising lotion onto the now sealed injury. ‘I know this hurts Amy, but I don’t want to risk this getting infected or opening up whilst it’s healing,’ Rory explained as he continued to apply the serum ‘this thing got you pretty deep so I think you’ll be better off limiting the use of your right arm for at least 4 weeks to give it plenty of time to heal.’ ‘Rory, I’m fine, it’s just a cut that’s all,’ she brushed it off just like Rory had expected her to do. ‘No Amy, it’s not just a cut. That thing nearly killed you, and if we hadn’t have arrived when we did, then there would be no nearly about it, you’d be dead,’ he snapped, biting back tears ‘this is why we said we’d slow down on the travelling Amy. Stuff like this. Wasn’t the minotaur in that space hotel enough to show you how close to death we can get travelling with the Doctor? Heck, I’ve died. Multiple times Amy. But it’s not probable that either of us are just going to come back to life every time.’ ‘I…’ Amy began to speak before choosing to stop and make sure she said the correct words. ‘I know Rory. I know how dangerous it can be, and how much we keep saying we want to slow down. But you miss it just as much as I do. The travelling, adventuring, the things we get to see that barely anyone else on the planet gets the opportunity to.’ ‘I know too, Amy. I’m just a bit shaken. Travelling with the Doctor is amazing and brilliant. Terrifying, thrilling, bizarre and exciting all at once,’ he started but then took a moment to look at Amy directly in her eyes ‘but none of that is worth losing you.’ The pair let his words hang in the air like a star in the sky, glistening and burning bright before they leaned forward and their lips touched. Despite the intense soreness of her shoulder, Amy didn’t let the pain bother her as she allowed herself to have this beautiful, perfect and loving moment with the man of her dreams. Her husband. They stayed like that for what felt like hours even though it was only a few moments, their lips pressed together in the magical way that allowed them to express every thought and feeling they had for each other without the need for a single word. ‘I believe this is what you humans refer to as an, intimate moment,’ Clive the Ood broke the romantic silence ‘should I allow you to have some privacy?’ The Ponds broke their kiss and stared into each others eyes as though it was the only thing that mattered in the world, at least until they realised they were just asked by and Ood surgeon whether or not they needed some privacy and started to laugh uncontrollably, which caused Amy’s shoulder to hurt even more. Not that she cared right now. No pain was going to corrupt how happy she felt to be with Rory in this moment.  As the pair began to separate so that Amy could lie down and stop putting strain on her injury, the Doctor came into the room in something of a rush. Seeing Amy was patched up and fine, he knelt down at the side of the bed she was laying in and took her pale hand and cupped it between his own hands. ‘I’m glad you’re ok,’ he said relieved.  ‘I’m fine Doctor don’t worry about me. Do you know what that thing was?’ ‘It’s called a Mantisaan,’ he told her ‘they’re from a galaxy called Thespallion, a few galaxies over from here, so why exactly it was here I don’t know.’ ‘When it attacked me, it said it’s planet was starving, and that I would be its food.’ ‘Starving?’ Rory said back to her like a question ‘how can a planet be starving?’ ‘Maybe oxygen? Air?’ the Doctor answered with more questions ‘some form of mineral? Maybe their food source has run out? I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense. Anyway, I’m sorry but I need to go and take a look at the engine room, see what’s happening with all these power outages,’ he let his companions know before heading to leave the room. As he passed Rory he put a caring hand on his shoulder. ‘Look after her, Rory,’ he said, smiling at the nurse before walking out. - Chapter 6 - A Kidnapped Roman ‘How is this possible?!’ Jayna cried out in amazement as she and the Doctor ran diagnostic tests on ships power ‘everything’s working fine. Better than fine. If anything it’s over working, this doesn’t make any sense!’ ‘A space station becoming plagued by power outages despite power systems that are working more than perfectly,’ the Doctor mused out loud ‘I don’t think possibility is the correct question in this instance.’ ‘Oh?’ Jayna replied almost sarcastically ‘so what is the correct question? In this instance.’ ‘A space station becoming plagued by power outages despite power systems that are working more than perfectly…’ he started as he started delving into the files of the engine room computer ‘where is all this extra power being used?’ ‘Well isn’t it possible that all this extra power is just overloading the systems?’ Bellana asked who was standing guard at the door to protect the pair in case anything attempted to attack them like they had Amy.  ‘Not if what I’ve just found is accurate,’ the Doctor said as he beckoned for Jayna to come over to the system computer ‘look, here,’ he pointed. ‘Apart from the necessary power levels to sustain the station’s vital systems, almost all of the rest is being surged to two different places.’ ‘And what places are they,’ Jayna said as she looked at the screen ‘what? The warp engines and...the communications array? But the array’s been screwed up why would anyone want to be surging power into it?’ ‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor responded as he slapped his hand against the screen in frustration ‘but i’ll find out. We need to… ‘Doctor!’ Amy’s voice came over the ID chip communicator on his wrist. ‘Amy...are you ok?’ he asked hearing the sound of sniffs and light sobs. ‘They...they’ve got Rory!’ - ‘Is there anything I can get for you, miss?’ Clive the Ood asked Amy who was currently being cared for by Rory. ‘No, I think I'm good,’ she replied ‘thank you.’ ‘Actually, I think I can see a bit of bleeding on your shoulder,’ Rory gently checked the wound, pressing his fingers on it lightly and as he expected, a little bit of blood wept out of it between the stitches. ‘I will go and retrieve some more sterilisation serum,’ Clive informed the couple, before Rory stopped it politely. ‘I’ll do it,’ he reassured her before walking into the room on the right to look around the storage room for some more. Amy felt awkward being left in the room on her own with the Ood. It’s not that she thought it was going to hurt her, on the contrary it had been extremely helpful in stitching up her cut, but given the only previous experience she’d had with one of his kind was one trying to kill her and Rory, she struggled to think of something to say. However once she heard the same energy sound she’d heard in the communications room coming from the storage room, that thought no longer played on her mind.  ‘Rory!’ she cried out, leaping off of the hospital-style bed and towards the storage room, ignoring any form of pain her shoulder was giving her. ‘Amy!’ she heard Rory call out in panic on the other side of the door. As the door slid open, she saw a creature, the same as what had attacked her, grabbing Rory with one of its hands and cry out in a series of loud, triumphant clicks before using its other hand to hit the glowing blue device strapped around its chest, causing a light of the same colour to glow around the both of them before it engulfed them. Within moments the two were gone.  ‘Doctor,’ she spoke into her communicator, trying to hold back the upset and panic she could feel welling up inside of her. ‘Amy...are you ok?’ she could tell he’d noticed her slight sobbing. ‘They...they’ve got Rory!’ - ‘What happened?’ the Doctor questioned Amy as soon as he walked into the room, noticing she was wiping away the start of tears forming in the corners of her eyes.  ‘I...err…’ she didn’t know what to say ‘he went into the storage room to get something for my...ow…’ she winced as she went to gesture to her shoulder ‘my injury. I heard the same sound I heard when that one attacked me and when I went in, it grabbed him and teleported out.’ ‘And it wasn’t in here beforehand? ‘No, it just appeared in there,’ she pointed towards the storage room door. ‘How did it know where he was? And why Rory?’ the Doctor asked out loud ‘first you, then when they failed they went for Rory. That can’t be a coincidence.’ And with that he took out his sonic screwdriver, scanning the ID chip on Amy’s wrist for about ten seconds.  ‘Doctor, how is this going to help us get Rory back?’ ‘I knew it!’ he shouted a bit too loudly ‘I knew there was something else dodgy here.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘Tracking devices inside the chips,’ he said, quickly taking Amy’s off of her wrist and investigating it more ‘no wonder the Mantisaan that attacked you knew where you were.’ ‘But...why would somebody put tracking devices in ours? The Captain said the other disappearances were nearly all random, apart from the communication team all disappearing one after the other.’ ‘And why do you think that happened?’ ‘Well if I was going to tamper with the station’s communications, I’d want to get rid of the people who were most likely to notice and fix it.’ ‘Exactly. So assuming the next target was going to be me, why would they go for us one after the other?’ Amy took a moment to think this over before it dawned on her. ‘Because we’re the most likely ones to stop whatever is happening.’ ‘Bingo!’ he smiled at Amy before heading into the storage room brandishing the sonic screwdriver like a wand. ‘Now, if Rory was teleported out of here, there should be some residual energy still remaining in the air…’ he narrated out loud as he waved the sonic around the room until it bleeped loudly. ‘There we go,’ he said, clicking the screwdriver back into its shorter form. ‘So what now?’ Amy asked him, trying to hold out hope that they could save Rory.  ‘We need to get back to the TARDIS as quick as possible. Are you ready to run?’ Amy managed to push a smile through her worry for a moment at the Doctor’s question. ‘Always,’ she smirked before he grabbed her arm without the damaged shoulder and began running down the corridor and towards his trusty ship, at least until they bumped into Bellana, Huxley and the two humans in her security team. ‘Doctor, Amy!’ she greeted them a little taken aback by their running ‘where are you going?’ ‘My ship,’ he answered abruptly ‘the Mantisaan have captured Rory and we’re going to get him back.’ ‘Then my team will go with you,’ she responded without giving it a second thought ‘we’ll help you sort out this mess in any way we can.’ ‘Well we’d better get to it then,’ he smiled at them before him and Amy continued their run to the TARDIS, the security team close behind them.  - ‘This is magnificent!’ Bellana declared upon stepping inside of the TARDIS ‘how is this possible? The dimensions inside vastly surpass those on the outside…’ ‘One of the most eloquent ways I’ve heard it put, Bellana,’ the Doctor smirked at her as she closed the doors behind her, the team each taking a moment to marvel at the beauty of the TARDIS interior.  ‘Right, I scanned the trace left behind by the teleport, if I input that ino the TARDIS console,’ the Doctor began to explain to Amy as he pressed the screwdriver into its socket on the console and pressing its button before returning to the TARDIS controls ‘and decode it, I can get...a ha! Got it.’ ‘What Doctor?’ Amy asked. ‘Coordinates! Hold on everyone, it’s going to be a bit bumpy.’ Pulling on the starting lever, the TARDIS whirred into like as the centre console began to flash and the engine vwoorped. Everyone on board stumbled as the shaky journey began, quickly grasping on to whatever they could to keep themselves stable as the ship continued to bump constantly until as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.  ‘Where are we?’ Amy asked the Doctor. Normally that question would fill he with excitement but given the circumstances it was more out of worry for Rory than anything.  ‘Honestly,’ he looked at his friend ‘I have no idea.’ The pair headed to the doors and opened them, the security team right behind them. Once they were all outside, the Doctor locked the doors. Whatever it was they were about to walk into, he certainly didn’t want the Mantisaan’s getting access to the TARDIS. ‘Rory?’ Amy called out, hoping to hear him call back but worrying more when he didn’t ‘Rory?!’ ‘Doctor, what is this place?’ Bellana asked mostly due to the impending feeling of dread she felt washing over her ‘because whatever it is, I don’t like it.’ ‘Well, I think this is some sort of hallway but I don’t know, this wall feels sort of...I don’t know. Organic,’ the Doctor replied as he placed a hand against it. ‘Amy!’ a male voice cried out from a little ways away down from where they were stood ‘Doctor! Help me!’ ‘Rory!’ Amy began to sprint ahead without thinking, desperate to rescue her husband. ‘Amy be careful!’ the Doctor shouted after her, trying to keep up with her as Bellana and her team followed close behind, turning on the torches attached to the chests of their crew uniforms.. The group ran towards where Rory was shouting from until the ended up inside what looked like a large cavern. Amy saw that Rory was being pinned down by what looked like two Mantisaan with another pointing a strange looking contraption at him as it sparked red energy, seemingly powering up. ‘Everyone fire at the creatures!’ Bellana commanded her team, who quickly took their blaster pistols out and fired them at the Mantisaan. The two keeping Rory trapped were dispatched by a couple of well aimed shots, although the one holding the machine wasn’t yet hit. Out of retaliation, the remaining Mantisaan pointed the end of the machine at Huxley before firing a large blast of red electrical like energy at the unexpecting Fraxin, who cried out a loud, pained screech. ‘Huxley!’ Bellana yelled out in horror as she saw her friend’s disintegrate into a floating cluster of energy, which the machine just as quickly absorbed into its main body. Furious, the Silurian aimed her blaster at the remaining Mantisaan and opened fire as many shots as she could at it, even after it had fallen to the ground dead.  ‘Bellana, that’s enough,’ the Doctor stopped her, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder before walking over the machine the final Mantisaan had used to kill Huxley and picking it up, admiring the piece of technology before looking at it angrily.  ‘This is impossible,’ he snapped at no one. ‘What’s impossible?’ Amy questioned the frustrated Time Lord as she helped her terrified husband off of the ground. ‘This is an energy scoop, but I’ve never seen one built like this.’ ‘How do you mean?’ Rory joined in the conversation, brushing himself down although still extremely shaken.  ‘This is an energy scoop built into a weapon. A disintegration ray, capable of burning up organic matter within seconds, but then it collects and contains the massive amount of energy created during the process.’ ‘Which means…’ ‘Yes. Those crew members who disappeared are almost definitely dead,’ the Doctor finished Rory’s statement before turning to Bellana ‘I’m so sorry.’ ‘But how did such primitive creatures get their hands on such technology?’ Bellana asked him, practically spitting out the word primitive.  ‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor told her honestly ‘but the Mantisaan’s don’t have the need for ships, they can fly out into the vacuum of space and quite comfortably survive for a long time, so there’s no way they would have just made this themselves, they wouldn’t even know how to acquire an energy scoop.’ ‘Hey, it is just me or is the ground...i don’t know...pulsing?’ Amy asked the group as she noted the strange sensation of the ground beneath her feet slightly moving up and down at regular intervals. ‘Yes, now that you mention it,’ Bellana agreed, sniffling a little and wiping away a single tear. ‘That and the smell of this place it’s like…’ Amy continued, taking in a few deep breaths ‘rot. Like something’s off. It’s rancid and thick.’ ‘Why would a planet be pulsing and smell like bad milk?’ the Doctor racked his brains ‘aaarrrrgggggh! This is too frustrating there are too many things happening at once, I’m struggling to keep up.’ ‘I don’t think this is really the time to be debating this right now,’ Rory panicked as he saw what was happening at the other end of the cavern. Hundreds of Mantisaan scuttling their way towards them, on the walls, upside down, the ground, a horde coming in for the kill.  ‘Run!’ the Doctor ordered ‘quickly back to the TARDIS!’  Amy grabbed Rory’s hand and lead the way, the Doctor behind them carrying the energy scoop and the remaining three members of Bellana’s squad bringing up the rear as they occasionally fired shots at the oncoming threats, hoping to make it easier to escape by dispatching a few of their potential obstacles.  ‘Everyone in now!’ the Doctor barged through the TARDIS door and waited to make sure everyone got in ‘now, go, move! Come on!’ As soon as everyone was inside he slammed the door shut and bolted to the console. ‘Right, locking on to our previous destination coordinates and…bam!’  - ‘Doctor, I don’t understand, you said the Mantisaan wouldn’t know how to get their hands on an energy scoop, so where did it come from?’ Rory questioned him as the exited the TARDIS doors back on the Voltoria. ‘Well nowadays the only place someone could find an energy scoop as basic as this would be...some black market somewhere.’ ‘Why did you pause,’ Amy asked. ‘Because now it’s starting to make a lot more…’ the Doctor was about to declare until all of the lights started flickering ‘sense.’ ‘What’s going on?’  ‘Bellana, gather everyone together at a safe point in the station, arm them if you have to, I don’t know if they’ll follow us but I have a feeling the Mantisaan aren’t going to be too happy with us and I don’t want to take any chances.’ ‘And what are you going to do?’ she asked the Time Lord. ‘I’ve got to get to the Captain’s office and find out what the hell this station has to do with the Mantisaan.’ - Chapter 7 - The Starving Planet ‘Captain Alexander!’ the Doctor announced loudly as he barged into his office once the door had opened.  ‘Doctor! What’s going on with my station, I can’t get control of any of the systems, it’s going haywire.’ ‘Yes I noticed that,’ the Doctor responded as he began using the Captain’s computer without asking, again. ‘What are you doing?! Why is nearly all of the power being diverted to the warp engines and the communications array?!’  But before the Doctor could answer, there was a tremendous crashing sound as the entire station shook, sparks flying from the lights and the computer. The rumbling continued for a minute or so as the station stabilised its flight again.  ‘What...was that?!’ ‘I don’t know...but whatever was happening to the warp engines has stopped,’ the Doctor informed the flustered Captain who’d moved to look out of his window ‘although the communications array is still going into overdrive ‘But...that’s impossible…’ Felix gasped as he looked out of the window ‘that’s a planet. A new planet’ Taken aback by this statement, the Doctor quickly joined the Captain and saw that he was on about. A new planet, a murky green and brown colour had somehow appeared in the middle of the Sigma-5 galaxy where there hadn’t been anything prior.  ‘That’s not just a planet…’ the Doctor said as the pieces continued to click into place he was already working out ‘it’s alive.’ ‘What do you mean it’s alive, how can a planet be alive?!’  ‘Because it’s more than just a planet,’ he answered, unable to contain the bit of excitement he was feeling about this discovery in spite of the situation ‘it’s a Drumach.’ ‘A Drumach...what’s a Drumach?’ ‘A creature, a being so massive that once fully grown they have their own centre of gravity,’ explained the Doctor in awe at the humongous beast ‘but this one doesn’t look healthy. Assuming that’s the planet me and your crew were on earlier, it smelt like it was dying...wait…’ ‘Wait for what?’ ‘Amy! The Mantisaan said to her that their planet was starving and I didn’t understand what that meant...but if their planet is in fact a Drumach then, they meant it literally. Their planet is starving because it’s a creature that’s lost its source of food. But why is it here now…’ ‘Captain Alexander!’ roared a gruff voice from the doorway causing the Doctor and the Captain to turn around to see it was Critchley ‘what the hell is going on? You’ve got some explaining to do.’ ‘Explaining? What do you mean?’ Felix fired back ‘I haven’t done anything...none of this was anything to do with me!’ ‘Captain seven of your crew members have disappeared, our communicator is going ballistic, our warp drives just surged out of control. And the virus corrupting everything was found on your computer. Why would that be?’ ‘I have absolutely no idea!’ the Captain shouted in protest. ‘Why don’t you tell us Critchley?’ the Doctor asked the second-in-command ‘since you’re the one who put it there.’ Critchley stood in silence for a moment, hanging his head and shaking it slightly, before beginning to chuckle. ‘Oh Felix,’ he addressed his Captain informally ‘I did tell you not to send out that distress signal.’ Then as quick as a flash the man pulled out a blaster pistol he’d had clipped onto his utility belt, aimed at the Captain and fired with no sign of remorse. The Doctor jumped back in shock as the Captain breathed his last and collapsed to the floor, dead. ‘How long have you known, Doctor?’ Critchley asked, his voice barely wavering despite the fact he’d just commited murder ‘that it was me who was orchestrating this.’ ‘I had my suspicions when I found out about the virus in your communications array. It would be extremely hard to find a scrambler virus as vicious as that even in the most morally questionable areas of the galaxy, and I reckon only someone with significant knowledge in technology and experience in criminal matters would be able to forge one for themselves,’ the Doctor explained as he fiddled with is ID chip nonchalantly ‘but I knew it was you once I discovered the tracking devices in the ID chips Amy, Rory and I were wearing. Since you were the one who’d set them up for us, it only made sense that you’d be the one behind it, wanting to have us targeted to prevent us from being any trouble. Then, there’s all the other evidence.’ ‘Other evidence?’ Critchley questioned the comment as he waved the gun at the Doctor ‘do enlighten me. And quickly if you can, I’ve got stuff to do.’ ‘Well where to start,’ the Doctor laughed sarcastically ‘the energy scoop, a device you’d also find in intergalactic black markets, crudely morphed into a weapon that the Mantisaan, a race hardly known for their technological prowess, just so happened to have on them? That’s a good one. And there’s the fact that I found information on the scrambler virus stored on your ID chip that you’d clearly used to pass the virus into the communications array as well as plant it on the Captain’s computer to try and frame him.’ ‘So when you scanned my chip with that...thing of yours, you weren’t trying to gain my clearance level at all…’ ‘Nope, I just needed to make sure there were legitimate foundations to my suspicions.’ ‘I must say I am slightly impressed, even if you’ve been a thorn in my side since you got here, Doctor.’ ‘And then there’s your motive! You see it made sense that the Captain would look suspicious given how much access he has to everything on the station, plus I found the virus on his terminal, why wouldn’t he be a suspect,’ the Doctor rambled on ‘but I never understood what motive he’d have for any of this. Then when I realised it was you it made perfect sense. After all why would an ex criminal start working for the foundation that imprisoned him, the foundation that he blames for the death of his family and everything he loved?’ ‘So I could take them down myself for what they did to me,’ Critchley said through gritted teeth ‘from the inside.’ ‘And then of course there’s the fact that they allowed the species responsible for killing them into their ranks, I can’t imagine that was a pleasant nerve to have hit with a sledgehammer.’ ‘Don’t test my patience Doctor,’ the man spat out, pointing the gun at the Doctor much steadier now ‘I won’t hesitate to shoot.’ ‘Oh I don’t doubt your resolve, after all you’re a hardened criminal harbouring decades of resentment for the one federation responsible for keeping your species safe within this universe. No wonder you could murder an innocent man in cold blood.’ ‘Captain Alexander allowed one of those disgusting Franix onto his station as part of the crew, despite knowing what they did to me. He lost any respect I had for him the moment he made that mistake.’ ‘And that’s why you set him up as the culprit?’ ‘He was as good a scapegoat as anyone else, and given my position on this godforsaken station it also made him the easiest to frame.’ ‘Then why kill the man you worked so hard to frame?’ ‘Because I had no more use for him Doctor since you’d clearly worked it all out for yourself. Word travels fast, it would be just as easy if you were all dead. ‘Ok ok hang on because there’s still something I’m trying to work out,’ the Doctor said to the criminal, not giving a care about the weapon aimed squarely at him ‘why the Mantisaan? Why team up with them?’ ‘The GLF denied them help when their planet, the Drumach, started to die of starvation. Whilst it takes many years for it to eat the energy of just one single star until there’s nothing left, when it’s been alive for as long as it has it’s unsurprising that it would end up consuming everything it could within the Thespallion galaxy. Every star, every planet, gorged on by the creature the Mantisaan relied on for shelter, and food, and a livelihood. Once its food source had run out, it was only a matter of time before the Drumach slowly began to die of starvation, and with little the Mantisaan could do to help it.’ ‘And you related to them,’ the Doctor realised ‘you saw them being denied and stranded by the GLF just like you felt you had been and what, you felt sorry for them?’ ‘I felt like there was an opportunity, after years of waiting to find a way to sabotage them.’ ‘So you signed up for the expedition, gave them technology to use and eventually even gave them crew members to test the energy scoop on. But why?’ ‘Well for one thing they needed something to sustain the Drumach with, no matter how small. Giving it doses of pure energy without the need to convert it from anything gives even a creature of that size a surprising boost.’ ‘But there’s more to it than that because there’s still something you’re not telling me. All those teleport trips I noticed as well as the number and increasing frequency of instances of you allowing your colleagues to get picked off doesn’t make sense if they were just food for the Drumach.’ ‘Well I'm afraid you’re going to have to figure that one out for yourself Doctor,’ Critchley chuckled him as he walked over to the Captain’s terminal and began to press a few buttons ‘now I know that using teleportation to get on and off of this station typically requires the Captain’s authorisation but I’m afraid to say, he’s not really around to do that anymore. And as second-in-command, I guess that gives me the full authority now. Have fun.’  Before the Doctor could grab him and stop him, Critchley activated the teleportation gadget he was wearing and disappeared before his eyes. Not that the Doctor had time to dwell on that as the terminal began to flash warnings about an overload to the communications array. Panicking slightly now, he racked his brain to try and place the final pieces of the puzzle. And that’s when it clicked. ‘Why would you overpower a communications array you’d forcibly prevented from working? Unless stopping it from working wasn’t the aim at all. Frequencies. That’s how he jumped the Drumach into Sigma-5, he projected the energy of the warp drive engines along the correct frequency of the Drumachand bingo, you allow a planet to warp jump into a galaxy three over from where it was. But why is it still running like it is...unless...no. He wouldn’t?!’ ‘Doctor!’ Rory shouted as he came into the room, catching his breath back after having to run to find him ‘something’s really wrong with the communications array, it’s sparking red, kind of like…’ ‘The energy scoop, I know. Critchley’s been tampering with everything. I need to get that scrambler virus out of the array now.’ ‘Critchley?! He did all of this?...wait. The Captain...is he…’ ‘Critchley murdered him. But we don’t have time, I need to fix that communications array before this station turns the entire Sigma-5 galaxy into incinerated balls of energy for the starving planet to consume!’ he said before quickly using the sonic screwdriver to scan where Crictchley had been stood and ran out of the office. - Chapter 8 - The Battle for Sigma-5 ‘Amy do you know how to work this thing?’ Rory asked his wife as she inputted the communication line for the GLF headquarters into the TARDIS console phone which Bellana was reading out to her. ‘Well I’ve used it to call the Doctor before so I don’t see how this will be much different,’ she replied just before she heard the TARDIS screen ping to life.  ‘Hello?’ an unfamiliar voice spoke from the screen. Once Amy and Rory rotated the screen to be facing them they could see that the voice raspy, deep toned belonged to a dark-skinned human woman who looked to be around her late 40s in age ‘how did you get our frequency? Who authorised you to make this call?’ the woman asked rather angrily. ‘I did, ma’am,’ Bellana answered as she appeared behind Amy and Rory ‘it’s a matter of urgency.’ ‘Bellana! Where are you calling from?’ the woman inquired.  ‘I’m still on the Voltoria ma’am but none of us will be for much longer. Jonathan Critchley, our second in command, has sabotaged the entire station and rigged it up to destroy Sigma-5 to aid the Mantisaan.’ ‘I hope you have some hefty evidence to back up these monstrous accusations you’re making Bellana.’ ‘We do but we don’t have time to show you now, we’re in grave danger and need your help. A Mantisaan fleet are swarming towards the station as we speak and I don’t know how long we can hold out on our own.’ From the look on the woman’s face, Amy and Rory could tell she recognised the urgency and panic in Bellana’s tone. ‘I’ll have a fleet warp over to you ASAP,’ she finally responded after taking a moment to seemingly make her decision ‘hold out until we can get to you.’ ‘Yes ma’am, thank you,’ Bellana saluted the woman before the call was cut off.  ‘Who was she?’ Amy asked. ‘Jennifer Addison, Chief of the Combat Division at the GLF headquarters.’ Bellana answered ‘a stern woman, you don’t want to get on the wrong side of her, but loyal. I’d trust her with my life. If she says she’s sending a fleet out to us, then she means it.’ - Meanwhile, in the communications room the Doctor was frantically trying to hack into the systems and remove the virus that was causing it to go berserk. ‘Jayna, I need you to try and keep the power levels from spiking too high otherwise this station may just blow up.’ ‘I’m trying my best Doctor!’ she assured him as she worked on the other terminal, doing everything she could to counteract the extremely unpredictable behaviours the virus was causing the system to make ‘how did Critchley manage to do this?’ ‘With many years to plot and train,’ the Doctor answered without looking at her ‘there you are! I’ve got you, you nasty little bugger,’ he sneered at the terminal as he found where the virus had been buried into the system.  ‘Can you remove it?’ Jayna asked as she continued her job. ‘Since I downloaded the source code of the virus from off of Critchley’s ID chip, yes I can.’ ‘Are you sure...aaaaaah!,’ she asked before screaming as a large spark of deadly energy shot out of the array terminal and struck the floor just a couple of metres away from where she was standing. ‘Whatever you did there, it didn’t like it.’ ‘No, the virus is fighting back!’ the Doctor cried out as he smacked the terminal out of frustration ‘c’mon don’t do this to me.’ As he continued to hack into the virus to delete it, the column that made the base of the communications array suddenly began to surge with red electrical energy, arcing up and through the ceiling and to the tip of the transmission disk before launching a huge bolt of the same energy wildly into space, striking a star just a few moments later. Jayne watched on in fright as the star that had been hit almost instantly began to disintegrate, arcs of the red electricity sparking all over the celestial body, frazzling it before all that was left was a cluster of pure energy, which the Drummach quickly sucked up through the gaping maw it opened. ‘Is that what’s going to happen to the entire galaxy?’ she asked the Doctor worriedly. ‘If we can’t stop it, yes!’ he gave her the honest answer, frantically tapping away on the terminal as the array began charging up for another bolt. ‘Doctor it’s going to fire again and I don’t think I can stop it!,’ she began to panic more.  ‘Ah ha! Gotcha!,’ the Doctor suddenly shouted triumphantly before he pressed his ID chip against the slot in the terminal, got his sonic screwdriver out in the other and pressed the button, forcing the virus to leap out of the systems and into his ID chip. ‘Is that it? Have we done it?’ Jayna asked the Time Lord with hope in her voice.  ‘Yes and no,’ he responded. ‘Yes i think we’ve stopped your station from becoming a death ray about to wipe out the entire galaxy. No, we haven’t stopped the impending swarm of Mantisaan that are flying across the chasm of space as we speak, moments away from breaching the station and tearing us all limb from limb.’ ‘I mean, at least there’s some positives there.’ ‘Did I mention that I really rather like you Jayna?’ ‘No you did not but thank you,’ she smirked at him before the two ran out of the room, leaving the no longer corrupted communications array to cool down now that it wasn’t sparking deadly energy.  - The pair arrived at the canteen to find all the crew were gathered together, each equipped with blaster pistols and ready to try and fight for their lives for as long as they could. They joined them and Bellana gave each of them a gun to defend themselves with. ‘I know a lot of you will have no idea how to use one of these but now isn’t the time for me to give you a formal training session,’ Bellana addressed the group matter-of-factly ‘just aim and pull the trigger, that’s all you need to know to hopefully have a chance of surviving this.’ As she finished her sentence there was a horrific bang coming from somewhere on the station, followed by the loud sound of something seemingly cutting through metal. ‘They’re sawing their way in?!’ Amy commented as a half question. ‘Get ready, we’re being breached. Make sure every angle of this room is covered, we’re either shooting our way through a horde of blood-thirsty Mantisaan or we’ll die trying!’ Bellana told them before a huge organic scythe stabbed through one of the cafeteria doors, beginning to forcibly carve it open before it was wide enough for the creature to use its brute strength to break through. ‘Open fire!’ Bellana cried before people began to shoot at the Mantisaan that had broken through, making it drop dead within a few seconds. However that was just one, and soon more were scuttling their way through the large gap their fallen comrade had created in. Some took to sticking on the walls, whilst others used the ground. One burst through the gap mid flight, forcing it open even wider before it let out a high pitched screech and lunged for the closest crew member it could. Luckily several other crew members were able to take it out before it could land a killing blow, but that didn’t stop them from being able to stop the two that leapt onto them and stabbed them through the torso with their scythes.  The battle was vicious and seemingly never ending as countless Mantisaan crawled their way into the cafeteria through any door they could get to. Whilst it didn’t take many shots to kill one of them, the crew were finding that they were vastly outnumbered and their numbers were dwindling, many people being sliced, dismembered, even eaten by the savage and brutal killers. ‘Doctor, there’s no way we’re getting out of this,’ Amy said, her lip trembling as it dawned on her that they could, and were probably going to die here. ‘I don’t know Amy, look,’ he pointed out of the window, out of which she could see the beginnings of a battle across the galaxy. ‘The fleet are here!’ she called out to the group as a feeling of relief began to creep into the terror that had ruled over her body for the last few minutes.  The group continued to defend themselves as best they could as from the outside they heard shouts and screeches both Mantisaan and not, the sound of blaster guns being fired. Before long the numbers of Mantisaan desperate to get at the survivors in the cafeteria had drastically dropped, especially once a now familiar face ran into the room, guns blazing as she mowed down the final few Mantisaan within the room. ‘Ma’am,’ Bellana saluted Chief Addison as she lowered her weapons.  ‘Bellana, glad to see you’ve survived the onslaught,’ the Chief said, a hint of relief coming through under the harsh, stern tone she normally had. ‘What about the Mantisaan outside?’ the Doctor asked as he stepped forward towards the Chief. ‘And you are?’ she asked him as opposed to answering. ‘This is the Doctor!’ Bellana told her boss ‘this is the man who fixed everything that’s been happening. Well, him and his friend,’ she gestured for Amy and Rory to step forward and join them.  ‘Well I guess I’ll have you to thank for this mess then too,’ she responded quite dead-pan to the point where the Doctor couldn’t tell if she was actually blaming him or not.  The trio could see outside that the Mantisaan were now beginning to retreat, seemingly realising that they were not going to win this fight with the GFL fleet, as a few still determined warriors flew onto some of the fighter ships and tried to slash their way into them. However other ships just assisted their fellow pirates by shooting the Mantisaan that were attacking them. The majority of the remaining Mantisaan swarm flew back to the Drumach out of fear and began hiding inside of the caves and burrows that had dug themselves in its immensely thick skin. ‘Chief Addison,’ a voice came over the ID chip communicator on her wrist ‘we’ve driven the Mantisaan back on their planet, what should we do?’ The Chief took a moment to think about what she wanted to do, before deciding that given their prior altercations with the Mantisaan it would just make sense to eliminate the chance of them causing the GLF any further problems in the future. ‘Blow up the planet,’ she said coldly. ‘No you can’t!’ the Doctor argued ‘that planet is a Drumach, an extremely rare and extremely innocent creature that the Mantisaan just so happen to be living on, you can’t kill it just for that. It didn’t choose to come here.’ ‘Doctor, many people have died because of them, GLF people. Good people. They had families, loved ones and lives of their own waiting back home for them and now it’s going to have to be my job to inform those families and loved ones of how they tragically died. How do you think they’re going to feel if I also tell them that the creatures that brutally slaughtered them were allowed to live?’ ‘Look, i’m not saying to not do anything but surely killing this beautiful, innocent creature that’s done nothing wrong by your people makes you just as bad as the Mantisaan!’ ‘And you might be right about that Doctor, but quite frankly I don’t care,’ Chief Addison spoke down to him, her cold stare searing its way into the Doctor ‘I’d rather allow my conscience to carry the weight of one innocent life I had to take rather than have to tell the victims families how we failed them, failed to honour the lives of our fallen ones by being ‘kind’. This was just a small battle on the scale of what we’ve had to deal with in the past, Doctor. But when you’ve fought in as many fights as I have, killed as many monsters and villains and horrors as I have, you learn soon enough that there isn’t always a nice way out. And even when there is, the universe is a cruel, unforgiving place that will quite happily punish someone for taking the nice way out as much as it will allow those who do the most unimaginable evils to get away without so much as a scratch. I am not about to allow the Mantisaan to be given the latter.’  With that, the Doctor stood down, unsure of how to prevent the killing of the Drumach and just had to watch as Chief Addison gave the order for her fleet to fire at will into the planet creature, who’s wail of agony couldn’t be heard in the vacuum of space. He gazed on as the Drumach’s body slowly began to swell, the amount of energy blasts being fired into it reacting with the gases a body so large would create. In a last ditch attempt of survival, the Mantisaan could be seen beginning to try to fly away quickly, but it was much too late. The Drumach exhaled its last before its enormous body instead became and immense ball of fire that shot out in all directions. The fleet ships that had kept a good distance were lucky enough to be able to get out of the danger zone before the area of effect reached its end where they would have been burned alive. The same could not be said for the Mantisaan, who lacked the power to their flight that a fighter ship did, and instead were caught up in the inferno as it grew and grew, engulfing all of them in a searing hug of death. ‘I’m sorry Doctor, but I’ll sleep better tonight knowing I can tell those people that we gave did their loved ones the justice they deserved,’ the Chief said to him, a slight warmth in her voice as opposed to the icy cold of the speech she’d given before ‘now, you said that Jonathan Critchley was the man behind all of this. Where is he?’ ‘Don’t worry, I can sort that out for you,’ the Doctor replied, trying to put the image of what he’d just seen out of his mind so they could finish up here ‘come with me to the Captain’s office and I’ll get him here for questioning.’ - Chapter 9 - None Of That Is Worth Losing You Inside the Captain’s office, Chief Addison was horrified to discover the body of Captain Alexander. ‘And Critchley did this?’ ‘In cold blood, yes,’ the Doctor answered without looking at her, instead walking over to the computer terminal in the desk to activate the teleport authorisation system, using the sonic to input the entry and exit coordinates of the teleport jump Critchley had used and reversing the polarity. Almost instantly a blue light formed where the man had been stood before he disappeared, morphing into his silhouette before the light dispersed and Critchley was there in the flesh. ‘What? How did you...Chief Addison!’ Critchley quickly saluted his boss out of fear, his eyes constantly darting from her, to the body of his dead Captain, and back again. ‘I think you’ve got some explaining to do, Commander Jonathan Critchley,’ Addison spoke in a steely voice. ‘That man, the Doctor, shot the Captain, I barely made it out alive before he killed me too…’ ‘Oh give it up Critchley, i’ve told her everything,’ the Doctor snapped back out of irritation, barely able to bring himself to look at the man who’d caused all of this. ‘What is there to tell? You came here answering my distress call after the Captain sabotaged the ship’s communications, discovered his alliance with the Mantisaan, found the virus in his terminal and then dispatched him before you turned the gun on me,’ the cowardly man spun lies as he was backed into a corner. ‘Come one Critchley we both know that’s not what happened,’ the Doctor said exasperated ‘just tell the truth, it will make things a lot easier.’ ‘You really think they’re going to take the word of some traveling stranger over that of a highly ranked commander of the GLF?’ Critchley snarled back. ‘I mean maybe not,’ the Doctor answered with a wry smirk ‘but they will take the word of a highly ranked commander of the GLF!’ Upon saying that, the Doctor pressed the playback function on his ID chi and began to play the recording of the conversation he’d had with Critchley just after the Captain’s murder.  ‘But I knew it was you once I discovered the tracking devices in the ID chips Amy, Rory and I were wearing. Since you were the one who’d set them up for us, it only made sense that you’d be the one behind it, especially given all the other evidence.’ ‘Other evidence? Do enlighten me. And quickly if you can, I’ve got stuff to do.’ The recording continued to play, revealing why Critchley had killed Captain Alexander and made an alliance with the Mantisaan, as well as the reasons he detested the GLF.  ‘’You can also use it to record yourself voice messages to listen back to, if you need to leave yourself a note for later, for example or to remember a code for something’ I believe is how you explained how the recording function works to the three of us, wasn’t it? Thank you for that by the way, it was very useful,’ the Doctor jeered at the man as he felt that dark part of himself he often tried to suppress surfacing after having to look at the murderer and listen to his pathetic attempts to worm his way out of the disaster he’d caused.  Critchley, enraged, lunged for the Doctor and slammed him into the floor, unclipping the blaster pistol he’d used to kill the Captain from his utility belt and placing it under the Doctor’s chin. ‘Let’s hear you jeer at me again as you die.’ BANG! The Doctor’s body clenched as he thought for a moment that he might have been fatally shot, but he felt no pain. Instead he looked up to see Critchley’s eyes roll into the back of his head before the gun fell from his hand and onto the floor, body flopping over onto his side next to the Doctor. ‘Prison was going to be too good for him. Besides which he’s been there once and we should have never given him the opportunity for redemption back then,’ Chief Addison exclaimed as she put her blaster gun back in its holster. The Doctor stood up and regained his bearings before he walked over to the Chief. ‘Thank you,’ was all he said, her giving him a slight polite nod before allowing him to leave the room. As he walked away, he heard the fierce woman barking orders into her communicator regarding the two bodies in the office.  - ‘Are you sure you can’t stay on board as we head back to the GLF headquarters?’ asked a slightly disappointed Jayna as she gave Amy a tight hug, forgetting about the still relatively fresh injury in her shoulder until Amy took in a sharp breath ‘oops, I’m sorry.’ ‘It’s fine, don’t worry,’ Amy smiled.  ‘I’m sorry but we can’t stay. I’ve got to get these two back home, Amy’s got some recovering to do and I think we’ve had enough adventure for a few days at least,’ the Doctor said, putting his arms around his two best friends. ‘Well, you’ll be welcome at the GLF anytime, I’ll put in a good word for you. And besides, after how you brought Critchley to justice I’m pretty sure Chief Addison will at least be more pleasant with you if you ever did decide to pop by for a visit,’ Bellana explained, chuckling a bit at her last comment.  ‘And I promise you, it’s a lot nicer at the headquarters than it is here on Voltoria,’ Jayna tried to convince them ‘plus you could come over and have dinner with Anya and I! She makes the best Altan cocktail this side of the universe I guarantee it. And her food is at least not going to poison you with it’s bizarre flavourings.’ ‘Surely that does not make for a very enjoyable meal, Miss Jayna,’ Clive the Ood remarked, not really understanding the sarcasm in the comment, but getting a laugh out of the other five nonetheless before the time travellers turned to step into the TARDIS.  ‘See you guys,’ Rory said with a slightly bittersweet voice ‘and best of luck. With everything.’ ‘You too,’ Jayna replied. ‘And thank you for everything. Seriously. We’d all be particles of energy inside a living planet’s organs if it wasn’t for you guys turning up,’ Bellana added before giving them a final wave along with Jayna and Clive the Ood. ‘Goodbye!’ they could hear the two women’s voices outside alongside an always pleasant and mechanical sounding ‘goodbye’ from the Ood medic.  - ‘Right here you are, back home in one piece,’ the Doctor said to his friends as they opened the TARDIS doors and stepped out into their backyard, which looked as though they had never left ‘well, almost one piece,’ he nudged Amy.  ‘One, very funny and two,’ Amy said before nudging him back with her healthy arm, but more forcefully.  ‘Ouch!’ the Doctor yelped at her assault. ‘Yes exactly, ouch that was my injured arm you moron,’ she responded slightly feistily before it dissolved into light giggling.  ‘Well, I guess this is it for another adventure, Ponds!’ the Doctor announced, trying to hide the fact that he was pretty upset at the idea of having to leave his best friends again and go off alone for a little bit.  ‘Oh you’ll see us soon. You could see us in another five minutes, it might just be a few weeks for us,’ Rory tried to reassure him.  ‘Yeah,’ the Doctor said ‘I know.’ And with that he pulled the two into a tight, loving hug, trying to make sure he didn’t irritate Amy’s wound anymore before turning around and walking into his blue box, smiling at the Ponds once more, and closing the door. ‘Well that was eventful,’ Rory laughed a little with his wife. ‘Yeah no kidding, my shoulder can attest to that.’ After that comment the two looked at each other in silence for a moment before Rory spoke up again. ‘Are you sure it’s ok Amy? You seem kind of...I don’t know, upset by it.’ ‘It’s not the cut Rory, that will heal fine. It’s just. You know. What we discussed, in the medical bay, what you said about none of this being worth losing me. Well having you taken from me, me being terrified of the worst, it made me realise the same thing.’ ‘What are you saying?’ ‘I love you, Rory Williams. And I love travelling with the Doctor, I always will. The adventure, the fun, the thrill,  the sheer terror, the mystery, the monsters. But I think we need to seriously start thinking about whether or not we want to keep doing this Rory. Because you know what?’ Amy left the question hanging in the air. ‘What?’ Rory looked at his beautiful wife, feeling his heart swell as he realised the words that were about to come out of her mouth.  ‘None of that is worth losing you.’  The couple looked into each others eyes, as they had on the Voltoria, and pressed their lips together gently in another perfect kiss that allowed them the express everything they felt for each other without needing to say a single word.  And inside the TARDIS, watching the monitor, the Doctor wiped a tear away that rolled down his cheek as he realised that sooner than he would have thought, he might be about to have to say goodbye to the Ponds for good. END