msqu
in
dwhoseries
Series 4 and 3/4 Ficisode 2: Day of the Dellians
Series 4 and 3/4: Ficisode #02
Title: Day of the Dellians
Writers: msqu
Characters: Ten, Donna, Wilf
Rating: G
Word Count: 6,200
Summary: A quiet visit to Leighton House turns into an unexpected adventure when the Doctor and his friends are captured. Trouble always finds the Doctor, and this time it's something that's escaped his notice for years, Mercurians have been living in London, and the Doctor will have to call on an old friend before the day is over to protect Planet Earth this time.
Editor: dory_the_fishie
Director: msqu
Part 1: Mercury Rising
Concluding Part 2:
Donna didn’t want to wake up. She was so very comfortable. For the most part. Except… she thought. "Ugh," she groaned, "slept in my clothes."
Then her eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright. "Why was I sleeping?" She’d just been in the museum with the Doctor and her granddad. "Where am I?" She was on a bed, but how was that possible?
"Aw, you’re finally up, sweetheart," Wilf said from behind her.
Donna whipped around to see her granddad sitting at the table with…
"Is that - are you having tea? Where’s the Doctor?"
Just then, a door across the room opened, and two people entered. The first was an older gentlemen, looking somewhere in his sixties, with graying hair and an olive skin tone; he was followed by a young woman in her twenties, with sleek black hair cropped at the base of her neck, and the same olive skin tone. "Oh, good, you’re awake," the young woman said.
"And thirsty, no doubt," the man said, sitting at the table and pouring another cup of tea.
It was as if the suggestion ignited a tickle in the back of her throat. Donna tried to swallow, but her mouth felt as dry as cotton.
The young woman came and stood next to her. "I was worried when you seemed to show no signs of coming ‘round any time soon after the inoculation. But then your grandfather explained that you -"
"Hang on," Donna interrupted. "That gas was you lot?"
The girl looked down and bit her lip.
The older gentleman clucked his tongue and then spoke. "Yes, that was us. There is a lot to explain."
"Yeah, you better believe there is, starting with where the Doctor is."
"He’s just up the street, still at Leighton House, but if you would please let little Zea here examine you and tell me how you take your tea, we can tell you what’s going on, and then we’ll take you to your friend."
"Grandfather," the girl groaned, "it’s just Zea."
Zea rolled her eyes, turning back to Donna. "I need to look at your eyes with this light, if you don’t mind."
Donna nodded, and Zea held up a small light, moving it over her eyes a few times. Donna noted the startlingly vibrant green of Zea’s eyes, a color Donna had never seen naturally on another human before.
"Your tea?" the man prompted.
"I’ve got a cup ready for her," Wilf said. "Was just waiting for her to wake up."
The man took the cup and saucer Wilf indicated and brought it over for Donna. Donna took it gratefully and began to sip, relieving the severe thirst in her throat. She noticed that both grandfather and granddaughter were wearing sweaters, which was unseasonable for this point in the summer, but when he handed her the tea and Zea started taking her pulse, their skin was so cool, she realized something was up.
"You two aren’t from around here are you?"
The man chuckled. "Not quite, but your grandfather explained that you’re used to that sort of thing."
Donna exchanged a look with her granddad, and he shrugged.
"I think your exposure to travel in time and space is what made you more susceptible to the effects of the Catagen gas," Zea said.
Donna frowned. "Catagen gas?"
"It’s the green gas you encountered earlier," Zea explained. "Once a room has been aired out, humans should be able to wake up from its effects almost immediately, but it’s been about fifteen minutes for you."
"What does it do to people who aren’t human?"
Zea opened her mouth to explain further, but Donna cut her off.
"And you still haven’t explained who you two are, and I want to know why you inoculated us in the first place, and I want to see the Doctor right now."
"Exterminated twenty-two years ago? That can’t be right," the Doctor said.
"Are you trying to tell me I don’t know what happened to my own kind?" Clarence, or Clarean, challenged the Doctor. He was still calm and collected, but the Doctor could see that this was not a subject to be dealt with in the wrong way.
"Twenty-five years ago Mercurians just fell off the grid, stopped communicating with the other planets they’d been in contact with, and then the next time someone went round to check on them, there was nothing left, no one there. So what happened to you? Tell me your story, tell me why you’re here now, on planet Earth."
"It started with the invasion of the Dellians," he began, "only I don’t know how many realized it was an invasion at first."
"A Dellian invasion? That’s… out of character from what I know of them. They’re great with security systems, other races call on them to install security protocols and secure their valuables, for consultations on ship technology."
"Maybe this was a rogue group that deviated from the Dellians you know, then, but your characterization certainly explains how they were able to cut us off from the rest of the galaxy, and without us realizing it."
"What did they do?" the Doctor asked. He stood and walked over to take a seat in front of the desk.
"At first? Nothing," Clarence said. "They just came. We’d been in contact with a few other planets, as you said, Venus, for example, but we’d never had any visitors before the Dellians. Most were wary, but then -"
"DOCTOR!"
Clarence was cut off as Donna burst into the room, a young man following in right after, who looked like he’d been trying to keep her out, and Wilf and two others right behind them.
"Donna! Wilf!" the Doctor cried happily, smiling. "Come sit, I’m listening to this man’s story."
She rushed to his side. "But, Doctor, did you know they’re -"
"Shush, Donna! I’m listening to a story."
"But they think -"
The Doctor put a finger to her lips. "Shussssssh. Story, listening. You, sitting." He looked pointedly at the seat next to him.
Donna rolled her eyes, and sat down in the seat with resignation.
The Doctor looked back at Clarence. "You were saying?"
"Yes, the Dellians came to our planet -"
"Mercury," the Doctor provided for Donna and Wilf.
"- and, while some were wary, it wasn’t long before they won over most of our people. My wife was the ambassador to the Dellians. They brought us technological advances, they enhanced our mining and agricultural production, they improved our medicine - or so we thought."
"They were turning our own bodies against us!" the older man chimed in.
"Right, who are the rest of this lot?" the Doctor asked.
"My wife’s father, George," he indicated the man who’d just spoken, "and my children, Brandon and Zea," he motioned to the younger male and female.
"But what’re your Mercurian names?" the Doctor prompted.
George, Brandon and Zea looked alarmed at the Doctor’s inquiry, but Clarence indulged him. "They were Grorg, Bran and Zea."
"So you got to keep your name, Zea. But those are all brilliant names! Why’d any of you take such boring earth names?"
Clarence finally broke his solemn attitude with a hearty laugh, "Oh, I think I’m going to like you very much, you who call yourself ‘the Doctor.’ But I’ll get to that part of the story all in good time."
The Doctor tilted his head to the side, "Well, I don’t really call myself ‘the Doctor’ so much as other people call me that."
"Because that’s what you tell them," Donna put in.
"Well, yes, all right."
"Shall I continue?" Clarence asked.
"Hang on," the Doctor said, "didn’t you mention your wife was the ambassador for the Dellians? Where’s she? I’d like to meet her, as well."
Clarence and George exchanged a glance, which wasn’t missed by the Doctor.
"Again, more story to tell."
The Doctor nodded, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "Carry on."
"For eight years, the Dellians lived on our planet, gaining our trust, lulling our people into a false sense of security. We noticed problems; communications went down with the other planets, resources started running shorter and shorter each year, but we never imagined it was them. Then there were the shadows, and our planet grew cold, which had never happened before. How could we attribute the cooling of our planet to the Dellians? They had everyone fooled."
"Ahem."
Clarence looked to his father-in-law, and Zea and Brandon both looked like they were stifling a little bit of laughter.
"Right, well they had almost everyone fooled," Clarence qualified.
"Oh, yes!" The Doctor grinned, turning his head to look at George. "Tell me you had a resistance band, I love a good band of resistance, stirs the hearts of people everywhere."
"We had a bit of a group," George said. "Some people were never comfortable with the Dellians in the first place, but it was a small group. I wouldn’t say I was uncomfortable with them, but neither was I ready to walk up to one and give them a kiss on the cheek. But I kept to myself, minded my own business, didn’t protest at my daughter’s work establishing relations between our two races."
"Sure you didn’t," Clarence put in.
"Well, I didn’t at first."
"What changed your mind?" the Doctor pressed.
"I was working on an old communications board, just tinkering, restoring it to its former glory. One day, about three years before the end of it all, I received a transmission. It had been repeating on a loop. It was someone’s account of events when the Dellians came to her planet. The Dellians came, they whispered into the ears of the people, they stole, and then they destroyed. As she was recording, her people were being wiped off the Neffertine planet moon of Rol. She’d actually even discovered that the Dellians had infiltrated the water supply with an agent that served to alter the mood of the people, to make them more docile and trusting. We were able to find an herb grown on our planet that countered its effects when cooked into food. I got a job at a popular cantina and did what I could to spread it around."
"Makes you wonder what you might be eating in your own food here, doesn’t it?" The Doctor elbowed Donna.
"Or on any other planet, space man."
George only shrugged. "It was for the greater good, but, even so, we didn’t do enough good. However, we were able to place a few people on the inside, I tried to get my daughter, but she refused to believe any of it, wouldn’t hear of it, said if she even entertained ideas, she could lose her job or even be marked as a traitor in the eyes of some. It was a hard thing."
"But you were able to find out when we had to leave," Brandon piped up from the back of the room.
"That we were," George agreed.
"But we only just escaped with our lives, and we’re almost certain they put a tracking mark on our ship," Clarence said. "So we set up an alarm on our control boards. If the Dellians come within range of this planet, we’ll know it, and we’ll be able to get out in time."
"And you’ve been here ever since then?" Donna asked.
"This very spot," George answered. "We landed on the roof, and we’ve been monitoring frequencies for any Dellian activity ever since."
The Doctor tilted his head. "And how long has that been, exactly?"
"Twenty years."
"No. No way. How did you manage that? Mercurians hadn’t achieved inter-planetary travel yet, and even if you had, or if you had taken one of the Dellian ships, it would still take you years to reach Earth, depending on the model of ship, and asteroid fields and planetary positions around the sun. Even then, two years? That’s impossible. With every absolutely perfect alignment and condition, you still couldn’t have made it in two years. There’s literally no way your ship could’ve traveled that quickly."
"Funny you bring that up, Doctor," George said, "because it wasn’t two years for us, either. It wasn’t even two days."
"Then how?"
"A rift."
"Ah."
"What’s a rift?" Wilf asked.
The Doctor opened his mouth to explain, but Brandon beat him to it. "A rift is a tear in the fabric of space and time. Imagine a canvas with a tear in it, only you can’t see what’s behind the canvas, and for all you know, it constantly changes."
"And you just decided to fly through it and see what happened?" Donna asked, a little in awe, a little in disbelief.
"We knew we couldn’t outrun them, and so it was a risk, but one we knew we had to take or face elimination," George said.
"That is just another reason that I love a good band of resistance, you’ll take huge, gigantic risks that you probably wouldn’t consider under normal circumstances." The Doctor beamed at George. Then he stood and continued speaking, pacing around the room. "I’m assuming you put up some sort of filter on it, then? On your Dellian doorbell alarm," the Doctor clarified. "Because there has been an awful lot going on with other extra-terrestrial types, and you can’t have this thing going off all the time. Cardiff’s quite a hot spot, actually, and they’ve got Torchwood, and then there’s UNIT and their dealings with life from other planets, plus the small government organizations like NASA and the Russians… So you just tuned them all out?"
"Naturally. We just want to live in peace, we don’t want to get involved or draw attention to ourselves," Clarence said. "Which brings us to you. This," he continued, pulling the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, "set off our detection alarm. I’d like to assume it’s just because of the proximity, but what exactly does this do?"
The Doctor’s hand shot immediately to his pocket, though the evidence of his missing screwdriver was right before his eyes. "That’s my sonic screwdriver. It… does a bit of everything, really, it just sonics things, but it’s completely harmless."
Donna clucked her tongue. "See, I told you to cut it with the sonicing everything in here. You always get us into trouble."
"Oh, but then we never would’ve met this lovely family! Which reminds me," the Doctor said, "I did dodge your question earlier, bit concerned for my friends, hope you’ll forgive me. Anyway, I’m the Doctor."
“Doctor who?”
“Just the Doctor.”
"'The Doctor,' really?" Clarence asked, handing him back the sonic.
"Really," Donna chimed in, "he just calls himself ‘the Doctor.’"
"That cheeky ginger is Donna Noble."
"Oi!"
"And with us is her grandfather, Wilfred Mott."
"Nice to meet more proper, decent aliens," Wilf offered.
"What species are you, Doctor?" Zea asked.
"Zea’s our resident medical specialist," Brandon said, grinning at his little sister.
"Aw, isn’t that brilliant?" The Doctor beamed. "I’m a Time Lord. Got two hearts in here," he said, thumping his chest proudly.
"A Time Lord, eh?" George asked. "That’s impressive."
"It is, isn’t it? So how many more of you are there?"
"The rift proved to be even more unpredictable than we could’ve anticipated," George replied, his voice heavy with regret. "The good thing about it was that we lost any Dellians that may have possibly found the rift as well and tried to follow us through. The bad thing was that it separated all of us. We’re the only ones."
George stopped talking, and there was a moment of contemplative silence that overcame the room.
"But that rift really was the only reason we survived at all. Even before we escaped, it was there that the transmissions from the Neffertine moon actually originated from. They came through the rift and warned us of what would happen from the past, what was happening in their present. It’s what helped us finally see the truth and prepare for the inevitable. "
"And what was the inevitable?" Donna saw all the Mercurians and the Doctor exchange glances. "Look, I think I know, but I want to make sure I’m on the same page, because these Dellians, they might still be out there, right?"
"There are a couple of ways they describe it here on your planet," Clarence said. "The scorched earth policy, or the phrase ‘dead men tell no tales.’ They destroy everything so there’s no warning the next target, no way for them to suspect their new visitors."
"What I can’t understand is that it seems so uncharacteristic of the Dellians," the Doctor said.
"Not to question your Time Lord knowledge and wisdom -"
"Oi, none of that. He's got a big enough head as it is, all that hair poking out everywhere," Donna interrupted.
"What I mean to say," Clarence clarified, "is that you may question their behavior, but we experienced it, and we know of at least one other world that did as well."
"What did they look like?" the Doctor asked.
"They looked like us, for the most part, but they had pale blue skin, and their eyes were a diamond shape, and rimmed with red and purple," Clarence offered.
"Aha. Sound familiar?" The Doctor turned to Donna.
Donna frowned. "No… I haven't met anyone with blue skin yet."
"Not that, the red eyes."
"What, do you mean like the Ood?"
"Exactly like the Ood. Dellians are supposed to have eyes rimmed with green and purple, not red and purple. What you encountered is a group that's gone violent."
"What causes that?" Brandon asked.
"Good question. With the Ood, it was mistreatment by humans. Something with this group probably turned them to a darker way, mistreatment from their own species, a bad encounter off-planet, could've been anything."
Just then, an insistent beeping began from somewhere behind Clarence's desk.
"Oh, what's that? Is that the -"
"Yes, Doctor, it's the alarm," Clarence said, rushing back behind the desk and pulling up a hidden monitor board from under the desk.
Around them, the watches the four Mercurians were wearing all began vibrating.
"It's them. They're coming," Clarence announced, while typing away. "We've got… hours. Maybe three or four."
Donna smacked the Doctor over the head. "Did you plan this?"
"No! What?"
"But seriously, we can’t go anywhere without getting into some kind of trouble. You have to have planned this. The museum, and sonicing things, and it just happens to be the day the hidden alien race’s enemies could invade Earth, and you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t plan this?"
"I could not have planned an adventure better than this if I tried, Donna. It’s perfect! But as to always bumping into trouble… well, we don’t always bump into trouble. But the TARDIS just knows where to drop us to do the most good a lot of the time."
"So really we’re like space and time superheroes, is what you’re saying?"
"That’s not so bad, is it?"
Donna grinned. "I suppose not."
"But hang on." The Doctor spun around only to discover that Clarence was abandoning the monitor, George had already left the room, and Brandon was opening up a closet in the corner and pulling down a hidden ladder from the ceiling. "What are you doing now?"
"We're leaving," Clarence said simply.
"But you can't just leave!" Donna cried. "You've got to help! Earth is your home, you've got to help us fight them off!"
"You can't fight them," Clarence said simply. "You run, or you hide, or you die, but even we didn't have the weaponry to fight them off in the end, and earth isn't equipped as we were, we've checked."
"But Donna's right. Don't run. This is your home," the Doctor reasoned. "We'll think of something."
"No, Doctor, I'm afraid I've got to protect my family first. They're all I have left."
"I'm not leaving," Zea spoke up from the side of the room, where she was still just leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
"Excuse me?" her father asked.
"This is our home. Home is more than just family, it's our friends, community, our lives. I just took excruciating exams to pass as a doctor, I'm not leaving now. I'm not leaving that, and I'm not leaving Jim."
Clarence sat back down. "You'll only have eight years maybe."
"Or maybe even more. What's your plan, Doctor?"
"Did you say you landed your ship here, right on the roof?"
"Yes… Why?"
"And you've just kept it on the roof all this time?"
Clarence nodded. "It's got an impenetrable invisible shield, it's even invisible to satellite mapping systems."
"You said run or hide. Why not hide?"
"What, we're just going to hide everyone inside their spaceship and hope we all fit?" Donna asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Of course not, Donna, don't be ridiculous. We don't have time to get the entire population into one place. No, but there's a possibility that I may be able to alter the ship's invisible shield to encompass the whole earth."
"That might work," Clarence said.
"Oh, yes. Let me see this ship."
"Just follow my son up that ladder."
"Yeah, this should work," the Doctor said after examining the ship. Everyone was waiting on the roof, standing around the Doctor after he exited the ship.
"Should work, or will work?" Clarence asked.
"Still working on that. I won't know until we start working."
"Dad," Zea interrupted, "let's give this a shot. If it doesn't work, we'll abandon the ship, and we'll go somewhere else, and you said yourself we'd have maybe eight years, right? We could figure something else out."
Clarence looked to his father-in-law. "What do you think?"
"Why not?"
"Still got that spirit of rebellion in you!" the Doctor crowed.
"Okay, what's the plan, Doctor?" Clarence asked.
"George, everything should go according to plan, but in case it doesn't, we need to alert UNIT, maybe Torchwood, but only if we have to, because I'm still not sure of them. No, if we call UNIT, they won't be able to keep mind their own business, you'd better just call Torchwood, because he will at least listen to me when I say not to get involved unless I say so. Have you got paper and a pen?"
Brandon pulled a small notebook out of his jacket and handed them, with the pen, to the Doctor, who quickly scribbled down a name and number. He handed the paper to George. "Call and talk to this man and only this man. Tell him the whole story, and tell him not to get involved. I'll call him myself if I need him. Do you have a mobile?"
"Of course," George said. The Doctor put out his hand, and George handed it to him. He ran the sonic screwdriver over it for a moment, then handed it back to George.
"There, he shouldn't be able to even trace it. And your phone now has inter-gallactic service," the Doctor added. George nodded and began dialing as he headed down below. "Clarence, I assume your office has a lobby?"
"Yes."
"Then, Wilf, I need you to be on lookout duty. Go to that lobby and do not let anyone through that's not on this roof right now."
"Yes, sir," Wilf said, saluting the Doctor and then turning to follow George down off the roof.
"Zea, Donna, I need you two in the ship monitoring the communications and power for the ship, and significant changes, any fluctuations until I say so, and you tell me the second it happens. We'll need both your sets of eyes in there."
"Right, we're on it," Donna said, and the two women went back into the ship.
"Clarence, I'll need you in the control room with me to make the changes to the shield's circuitry."
"What about me?" Brandon asked. "What do you need me to do?"
"Right, Brandon, go back down to your father's office and watch the progress of the ship."
"But… isn't the progress steady?"
"Should be, but we still need somebody to watch it."
In the control room of the Rasodell Firebird an hour later, Clarence and the Doctor were still working feverishly to boost the shielding mechanism. "You really think this will work, Doctor?"
"Well, it will work, sure, it works now. Will it work enough to shield the whole planet? I hope so, but, to be honest, I won’t know until I try a few more things."
Clarence chuckled. "At least you’re honest."
"That I am. Most of the time, anyway. Usually only twist the truth for the baddies." The Doctor glanced at the man working across from him. "You never said what happened to your wife, Clarence."
He put down his tools and sighed. "No, I didn’t."
The Doctor sniffed. "It’s fine."
"I don’t like to talk about it, but you could see it."
"What?" The Doctor looked up in surprise.
"The communications console records any official transmissions from the government. What happened was at a planetary press conference. You can watch it, if you want. I removed the sound from the file, though."
After a moment of hesitation, the Doctor moved to the communications room. Part of him didn’t want to see, and part of him really was curious. But there was another part of him that wanted to see it for a different reason.
He brought up the footage easily. It was the last transmission ever recorded.
He watched as a Mercurian woman who looked so much like Zea spoke at the podium, and then as blue Dellians with their red marks spoke to the people. Then he watched as the man at the podium turned and stabbed the Mercurian ambassador. The woman fell, a look of utter pain and horror on her face, and then less than a second later, chaos broke out, more Mercurians fell, and then the camera appeared to fall over itself, and the recording ended.
The Doctor walked back into the control room and put a hand on Clarence’s shoulder. "That is a hard thing. I lost someone, too. Well, more than one someone, but one of them died right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. That probably doesn't make you feel better, I'm sorry. But now you no longer remember it alone. I will always remember. And those Dellians will not come here, not today, and not at any point in the future. Let’s see where we are on this shield."
Brandon had wanted to protest more, knowing that the same thing would be monitored by Donna and Zea in the navigation room, but he could tell that there was no use. There simply wasn't anything else to be done for now, and so he had the worst task of all - worrying and waiting. So he sat at the desk, watching the flight progress of the Dellian ships. There were eight of them, which meant more than enough to entrap the people of planet earth.
And there was nothing he could do except wait and hope the Doctor's plan saved them.
"So, Jim?" Donna prompted, a grin on her face.
Zea laughed, but ducked her head, her cheeks turning a blush. "I think he's going to propose soon."
"Does he know that you're Mercurian?"
"Ha, you felt my skin earlier! Of course he knows. Couldn't say I was just really cold when it was the middle of the summer and hotter than hades and I was as cool as a cucumber."
"Right," Donna laughed, "I suppose not."
"But it doesn't matter to him, of course."
"Why should it?"
"Well, I'm not human," Zea stated simply. "I am Mercurian and nothing will ever change that. I look like a human, walk and talk like a human, I've been immersed in their culture, more than I was my native culture, but that doesn't change my biology. That's definitely one of the reasons I'm so fascinated with human medicine. I've spent a lot of time comparing our biological chemistry, just to make sure we were compatible."
"And?" Donna asked.
"I believe we are. But there are some notable differences. I can conceive less frequently, but our periods of pregnancy are also shorter."
"Is that it? Doesn't sound to bad," Donna offered. "Cooler body temperature, shorter pregnancy."
Zea let her head fall to the side, and pushed her hair behind her ear. "Well, there is just one other thing. I don't know how this atmosphere will affect my family, but traditionally Mercurians live about twice as long as humans."
"Oh."
"Yes. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it is something Jim and I will have to talk about one day."
"But you wouldn't let that keep you from marrying him, would you?"
"Of course not. I love him. But I do want him to know, I want him to make that decision, too. He'll age more quickly than me, and that will be hard for both of us."
They were quiet for another few minutes, and Donna imagined that Zea was thinking about her future with Jim. Donna thought about her own future, traveling with a nine hundred year old Time Lord. She realized she didn't have any idea how long Time Lords could live. He must've seen so many many people go on before her. She hoped it wouldn't be a hard thing for her to get older and still travel through all of time and space. It was hard to even really imagine growing older when you laid your head to rest inside a grand time machine.
Then something flashed on the navigation board.
"DOCTOR!" Donna bellowed down the corridor.
"What is it?" he shouted back, and she could hear him throwing down a couple of tools and rushing in to where they were.
"It's the power monitor," Zea said. "It's just jumped up about five levels."
"That's not enough," the Doctor said, worry in his tone. "We need more power. Five more levels only gives us about…. Eighty percent of Europe." He ran his fingers through his hair. "We just… we simply need more power. There might be more we can do in the control room, but I don't know if we can boost it in time. We need something else to boost it."
"What, sort of like jumping a car battery?" Donna asked.
"Sort of, yeah."
"Well, why not use the TARDIS?" she suggested.
"No, no, no, no, no. The TARDIS has too much power. It would take even more time to calibrate the right amount of power to enable the shield and not blow it up."
Donna rolled her eyes. "Too much power," she mouthed to Zea.
"But you're right, Donna, we need something to boost the power. Think, think, think brain, think."
He began pacing up and down the adjoining corridor. Clarence appeared at the door of the control room, watching the Doctor anxiously.
"Aha! I know just the thing! You three just keep doing what you're doing, I will be right back!"
"Braaaaaaaaandooooooooooooon!"
If the Doctor hadn't been shouting for him, Brandon still would've known the Doctor was coming because of the racket he made thundering down from the roof at top speed.
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Do you have a car?" the Doctor asked, after coming to a halt right next to Brandon.
"Sure, just up the street. What do you need me to get?" Brandon knew where this was going.
"I need you to go to 13 Brannermen Road in Ealing and get my dog."
"Your dog?"
"Well, he belongs to an old friend of mine these days, but we need him now."
Brandon's brow furrowed in confusion. "How's your dog possibly going to help us?"
"Oh, you'll see. Now, go as fast as you can, just tell him I sent you, and he’ll come right along. I've got to get back up there and finish the callibrations.”
“Maybe you should call this Mister Torchwood back and get him to come help with this,” Donna said when the Doctor reappeared on the ship.
“Torchwood’s an organization, not a person.”
“Oh, like UNIT?”
“Not like UNIT, really, no. Well, sort of. I’m not sure what they are these days. But I think we’ll manage here without UNIT or Torchwood,” the Doctor said, shimmying under the control console. “And we certainly don’t need you bumping into Mister Torchwood,” the Doctor added quietly to himself.
“How close are we, Doctor? I believe I’ve got everything sorted on this end,” Clarence said. The Doctor could hear the edge in his voice.
“Nearly done, and then we’ll just have to wait for my dog.”
“What? Your dog?”
“You’ll see.” The Doctor took another minute just to tighten up the link to the inner calliutrix meter. “There. That’ll do for now. And can I just say,” the Doctor said, sitting up and turning to Clarence, “this ship is an absolute beauty, I mean, really, the craftsmanship is just stunning. If I didn’t already have a ship of my own…” he trailed off.
“Thank you, Doctor. You know, that’s how I knew you weren’t a danger to us, earlier in the gallery when you set off the alarm. My own father always told me, you watch how a person acts in a museum, it’ll tell you exactly the kind of person they are. If they respect the history, they’ll respect the people.”
“Your father must’ve been a very wise man.”
“He was. He died before any of this mess with the Dellians even started. But he brought me up right.”
“Now, why don’t you give me a proper tour of this ship, I want to hear all about it, and not just the invisibility shield this time.”
“Do you think this is really the time?”
“Yep, everything else is done, we just have to wait for Brandon.”
Clarence laughed. “You’re a little strange, Doctor.”
“Quite right, comes with the rest of the package.”
Brandon pulled up in front of a modest house in quite a normal neighborhood in Ealing. “Guess this is it. Number thirteen.”
He got out of the car, closing the door quietly. He was not entirely sure about how he was supposed to get this dog of the Doctor’s. Or was it the dog of the Doctor’s friend? Was the friend going to be home?
He figured the best way to go about this would be to just take the front-door approach. He strolled up the path, and then knocked on the door.
No one answered.
He knocked again. “Anybody home? The Doctor sent me. He was looking for his dog?”
Still no answer.
Another knock. “Hello? Anyone?”
Brandon turned around and let out a sigh. Then he heard what sounded like a small kitchen appliance coming round the corner of the house, and a small tin robot that looked like… well, the closest thing it could resemble was a dog, a robotic dog steered its way over to him.
“You were sent by my master, the Doctor?” it iterated.
“Yes. You’re his dog, then?”
“Affirmative. Reason suggests the Doctor requires my assistance.”
“Yeah, he sent me to come get you.”
“Take me in your transport to the Doctor’s current location.”
“This is fantastic.”
“Affirmative.”
“So, your dog, he’s a robot?” Donna asked as the little robot rolled up the gangway.
“Affirmative,” it responded.
“Donna Noble, Zea Minor, Clarence Minor, this is K9.”
“Pleasurable acquaintance made. How can I assist you, Doctor?”
“This way, K9; we need you to boost the power of this ship’s invisibility shield.”
K9 followed the Doctor, and the others followed behind K9.
“Right over here,” the Doctor directed once they were in the control room.
“Affirmative.” K9 moved forward to the spot the Doctor indicated. His nose extended forward over a power recepticle, and the Doctor began adjusting things on the control board with his sonic screwdriver. “Calculations indicate your intent is to shield the entire planet.”
“That’s right.”
“Earth shield will be up in three point seven minutes, master.”
“Aw, that’s a good dog,” the Doctor crooned, stooping down to pat the dog on the head. “A brilliant dog, even.”
“Affirmative, master.”
“And that’s it?” Clarence asked. “It’s… all done? The Dellians won’t see us?”
“They won’t detect even one insect or one smidge of dust from this planet.”
Clarence sank down into the nearest chair. “That’s unbelievable.”
“Oh, you’re not telling me you didn’t think it’d work?”
“Well, I wanted it to work, but, really, Doctor, I didn’t imagine that we’d actually be able to pull it off.”
“I suppose that’s acceptable, seeing as you’d never experienced just how brilliant I am before. You remember that ship that nearly smashed into Buckingham Palace last Christmas? That was me, I diverted it from impact.”
Donna gave him a sharp look.
“I did have a little help, it’s true.”
“Well, what happens now?” Zea asked.
“We wait till they pass by, I return K9 to an old friend, you return to your normal lives, and we set off for our next adventure.”
“Simple as that?” Brandon asked.
“Life of a time traveller. Big day every day.”
Series 4 and 3/4 will return next Saturday with 'The Factory' by lowbatterie:
Martha Jones rejoins Donna and the Doctor for "one trip" as a wedding gift from the Time Lord (with a little persuasion by Donna, of course). Things go awry when the 'random' button on the TARDIS leaves the trio in an abandoned factory with inhabitants called the Zahm'Brie who only want them for their brains-- literally.
Title: Day of the Dellians
Writers: msqu
Characters: Ten, Donna, Wilf
Rating: G
Word Count: 6,200
Summary: A quiet visit to Leighton House turns into an unexpected adventure when the Doctor and his friends are captured. Trouble always finds the Doctor, and this time it's something that's escaped his notice for years, Mercurians have been living in London, and the Doctor will have to call on an old friend before the day is over to protect Planet Earth this time.
Editor: dory_the_fishie
Director: msqu
Part 1: Mercury Rising
Concluding Part 2:
Donna didn’t want to wake up. She was so very comfortable. For the most part. Except… she thought. "Ugh," she groaned, "slept in my clothes."
Then her eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright. "Why was I sleeping?" She’d just been in the museum with the Doctor and her granddad. "Where am I?" She was on a bed, but how was that possible?
"Aw, you’re finally up, sweetheart," Wilf said from behind her.
Donna whipped around to see her granddad sitting at the table with…
"Is that - are you having tea? Where’s the Doctor?"
Just then, a door across the room opened, and two people entered. The first was an older gentlemen, looking somewhere in his sixties, with graying hair and an olive skin tone; he was followed by a young woman in her twenties, with sleek black hair cropped at the base of her neck, and the same olive skin tone. "Oh, good, you’re awake," the young woman said.
"And thirsty, no doubt," the man said, sitting at the table and pouring another cup of tea.
It was as if the suggestion ignited a tickle in the back of her throat. Donna tried to swallow, but her mouth felt as dry as cotton.
The young woman came and stood next to her. "I was worried when you seemed to show no signs of coming ‘round any time soon after the inoculation. But then your grandfather explained that you -"
"Hang on," Donna interrupted. "That gas was you lot?"
The girl looked down and bit her lip.
The older gentleman clucked his tongue and then spoke. "Yes, that was us. There is a lot to explain."
"Yeah, you better believe there is, starting with where the Doctor is."
"He’s just up the street, still at Leighton House, but if you would please let little Zea here examine you and tell me how you take your tea, we can tell you what’s going on, and then we’ll take you to your friend."
"Grandfather," the girl groaned, "it’s just Zea."
Zea rolled her eyes, turning back to Donna. "I need to look at your eyes with this light, if you don’t mind."
Donna nodded, and Zea held up a small light, moving it over her eyes a few times. Donna noted the startlingly vibrant green of Zea’s eyes, a color Donna had never seen naturally on another human before.
"Your tea?" the man prompted.
"I’ve got a cup ready for her," Wilf said. "Was just waiting for her to wake up."
The man took the cup and saucer Wilf indicated and brought it over for Donna. Donna took it gratefully and began to sip, relieving the severe thirst in her throat. She noticed that both grandfather and granddaughter were wearing sweaters, which was unseasonable for this point in the summer, but when he handed her the tea and Zea started taking her pulse, their skin was so cool, she realized something was up.
"You two aren’t from around here are you?"
The man chuckled. "Not quite, but your grandfather explained that you’re used to that sort of thing."
Donna exchanged a look with her granddad, and he shrugged.
"I think your exposure to travel in time and space is what made you more susceptible to the effects of the Catagen gas," Zea said.
Donna frowned. "Catagen gas?"
"It’s the green gas you encountered earlier," Zea explained. "Once a room has been aired out, humans should be able to wake up from its effects almost immediately, but it’s been about fifteen minutes for you."
"What does it do to people who aren’t human?"
Zea opened her mouth to explain further, but Donna cut her off.
"And you still haven’t explained who you two are, and I want to know why you inoculated us in the first place, and I want to see the Doctor right now."
"Exterminated twenty-two years ago? That can’t be right," the Doctor said.
"Are you trying to tell me I don’t know what happened to my own kind?" Clarence, or Clarean, challenged the Doctor. He was still calm and collected, but the Doctor could see that this was not a subject to be dealt with in the wrong way.
"Twenty-five years ago Mercurians just fell off the grid, stopped communicating with the other planets they’d been in contact with, and then the next time someone went round to check on them, there was nothing left, no one there. So what happened to you? Tell me your story, tell me why you’re here now, on planet Earth."
"It started with the invasion of the Dellians," he began, "only I don’t know how many realized it was an invasion at first."
"A Dellian invasion? That’s… out of character from what I know of them. They’re great with security systems, other races call on them to install security protocols and secure their valuables, for consultations on ship technology."
"Maybe this was a rogue group that deviated from the Dellians you know, then, but your characterization certainly explains how they were able to cut us off from the rest of the galaxy, and without us realizing it."
"What did they do?" the Doctor asked. He stood and walked over to take a seat in front of the desk.
"At first? Nothing," Clarence said. "They just came. We’d been in contact with a few other planets, as you said, Venus, for example, but we’d never had any visitors before the Dellians. Most were wary, but then -"
"DOCTOR!"
Clarence was cut off as Donna burst into the room, a young man following in right after, who looked like he’d been trying to keep her out, and Wilf and two others right behind them.
"Donna! Wilf!" the Doctor cried happily, smiling. "Come sit, I’m listening to this man’s story."
She rushed to his side. "But, Doctor, did you know they’re -"
"Shush, Donna! I’m listening to a story."
"But they think -"
The Doctor put a finger to her lips. "Shussssssh. Story, listening. You, sitting." He looked pointedly at the seat next to him.
Donna rolled her eyes, and sat down in the seat with resignation.
The Doctor looked back at Clarence. "You were saying?"
"Yes, the Dellians came to our planet -"
"Mercury," the Doctor provided for Donna and Wilf.
"- and, while some were wary, it wasn’t long before they won over most of our people. My wife was the ambassador to the Dellians. They brought us technological advances, they enhanced our mining and agricultural production, they improved our medicine - or so we thought."
"They were turning our own bodies against us!" the older man chimed in.
"Right, who are the rest of this lot?" the Doctor asked.
"My wife’s father, George," he indicated the man who’d just spoken, "and my children, Brandon and Zea," he motioned to the younger male and female.
"But what’re your Mercurian names?" the Doctor prompted.
George, Brandon and Zea looked alarmed at the Doctor’s inquiry, but Clarence indulged him. "They were Grorg, Bran and Zea."
"So you got to keep your name, Zea. But those are all brilliant names! Why’d any of you take such boring earth names?"
Clarence finally broke his solemn attitude with a hearty laugh, "Oh, I think I’m going to like you very much, you who call yourself ‘the Doctor.’ But I’ll get to that part of the story all in good time."
The Doctor tilted his head to the side, "Well, I don’t really call myself ‘the Doctor’ so much as other people call me that."
"Because that’s what you tell them," Donna put in.
"Well, yes, all right."
"Shall I continue?" Clarence asked.
"Hang on," the Doctor said, "didn’t you mention your wife was the ambassador for the Dellians? Where’s she? I’d like to meet her, as well."
Clarence and George exchanged a glance, which wasn’t missed by the Doctor.
"Again, more story to tell."
The Doctor nodded, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "Carry on."
"For eight years, the Dellians lived on our planet, gaining our trust, lulling our people into a false sense of security. We noticed problems; communications went down with the other planets, resources started running shorter and shorter each year, but we never imagined it was them. Then there were the shadows, and our planet grew cold, which had never happened before. How could we attribute the cooling of our planet to the Dellians? They had everyone fooled."
"Ahem."
Clarence looked to his father-in-law, and Zea and Brandon both looked like they were stifling a little bit of laughter.
"Right, well they had almost everyone fooled," Clarence qualified.
"Oh, yes!" The Doctor grinned, turning his head to look at George. "Tell me you had a resistance band, I love a good band of resistance, stirs the hearts of people everywhere."
"We had a bit of a group," George said. "Some people were never comfortable with the Dellians in the first place, but it was a small group. I wouldn’t say I was uncomfortable with them, but neither was I ready to walk up to one and give them a kiss on the cheek. But I kept to myself, minded my own business, didn’t protest at my daughter’s work establishing relations between our two races."
"Sure you didn’t," Clarence put in.
"Well, I didn’t at first."
"What changed your mind?" the Doctor pressed.
"I was working on an old communications board, just tinkering, restoring it to its former glory. One day, about three years before the end of it all, I received a transmission. It had been repeating on a loop. It was someone’s account of events when the Dellians came to her planet. The Dellians came, they whispered into the ears of the people, they stole, and then they destroyed. As she was recording, her people were being wiped off the Neffertine planet moon of Rol. She’d actually even discovered that the Dellians had infiltrated the water supply with an agent that served to alter the mood of the people, to make them more docile and trusting. We were able to find an herb grown on our planet that countered its effects when cooked into food. I got a job at a popular cantina and did what I could to spread it around."
"Makes you wonder what you might be eating in your own food here, doesn’t it?" The Doctor elbowed Donna.
"Or on any other planet, space man."
George only shrugged. "It was for the greater good, but, even so, we didn’t do enough good. However, we were able to place a few people on the inside, I tried to get my daughter, but she refused to believe any of it, wouldn’t hear of it, said if she even entertained ideas, she could lose her job or even be marked as a traitor in the eyes of some. It was a hard thing."
"But you were able to find out when we had to leave," Brandon piped up from the back of the room.
"That we were," George agreed.
"But we only just escaped with our lives, and we’re almost certain they put a tracking mark on our ship," Clarence said. "So we set up an alarm on our control boards. If the Dellians come within range of this planet, we’ll know it, and we’ll be able to get out in time."
"And you’ve been here ever since then?" Donna asked.
"This very spot," George answered. "We landed on the roof, and we’ve been monitoring frequencies for any Dellian activity ever since."
The Doctor tilted his head. "And how long has that been, exactly?"
"Twenty years."
"No. No way. How did you manage that? Mercurians hadn’t achieved inter-planetary travel yet, and even if you had, or if you had taken one of the Dellian ships, it would still take you years to reach Earth, depending on the model of ship, and asteroid fields and planetary positions around the sun. Even then, two years? That’s impossible. With every absolutely perfect alignment and condition, you still couldn’t have made it in two years. There’s literally no way your ship could’ve traveled that quickly."
"Funny you bring that up, Doctor," George said, "because it wasn’t two years for us, either. It wasn’t even two days."
"Then how?"
"A rift."
"Ah."
"What’s a rift?" Wilf asked.
The Doctor opened his mouth to explain, but Brandon beat him to it. "A rift is a tear in the fabric of space and time. Imagine a canvas with a tear in it, only you can’t see what’s behind the canvas, and for all you know, it constantly changes."
"And you just decided to fly through it and see what happened?" Donna asked, a little in awe, a little in disbelief.
"We knew we couldn’t outrun them, and so it was a risk, but one we knew we had to take or face elimination," George said.
"That is just another reason that I love a good band of resistance, you’ll take huge, gigantic risks that you probably wouldn’t consider under normal circumstances." The Doctor beamed at George. Then he stood and continued speaking, pacing around the room. "I’m assuming you put up some sort of filter on it, then? On your Dellian doorbell alarm," the Doctor clarified. "Because there has been an awful lot going on with other extra-terrestrial types, and you can’t have this thing going off all the time. Cardiff’s quite a hot spot, actually, and they’ve got Torchwood, and then there’s UNIT and their dealings with life from other planets, plus the small government organizations like NASA and the Russians… So you just tuned them all out?"
"Naturally. We just want to live in peace, we don’t want to get involved or draw attention to ourselves," Clarence said. "Which brings us to you. This," he continued, pulling the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, "set off our detection alarm. I’d like to assume it’s just because of the proximity, but what exactly does this do?"
The Doctor’s hand shot immediately to his pocket, though the evidence of his missing screwdriver was right before his eyes. "That’s my sonic screwdriver. It… does a bit of everything, really, it just sonics things, but it’s completely harmless."
Donna clucked her tongue. "See, I told you to cut it with the sonicing everything in here. You always get us into trouble."
"Oh, but then we never would’ve met this lovely family! Which reminds me," the Doctor said, "I did dodge your question earlier, bit concerned for my friends, hope you’ll forgive me. Anyway, I’m the Doctor."
“Doctor who?”
“Just the Doctor.”
"'The Doctor,' really?" Clarence asked, handing him back the sonic.
"Really," Donna chimed in, "he just calls himself ‘the Doctor.’"
"That cheeky ginger is Donna Noble."
"Oi!"
"And with us is her grandfather, Wilfred Mott."
"Nice to meet more proper, decent aliens," Wilf offered.
"What species are you, Doctor?" Zea asked.
"Zea’s our resident medical specialist," Brandon said, grinning at his little sister.
"Aw, isn’t that brilliant?" The Doctor beamed. "I’m a Time Lord. Got two hearts in here," he said, thumping his chest proudly.
"A Time Lord, eh?" George asked. "That’s impressive."
"It is, isn’t it? So how many more of you are there?"
"The rift proved to be even more unpredictable than we could’ve anticipated," George replied, his voice heavy with regret. "The good thing about it was that we lost any Dellians that may have possibly found the rift as well and tried to follow us through. The bad thing was that it separated all of us. We’re the only ones."
George stopped talking, and there was a moment of contemplative silence that overcame the room.
"But that rift really was the only reason we survived at all. Even before we escaped, it was there that the transmissions from the Neffertine moon actually originated from. They came through the rift and warned us of what would happen from the past, what was happening in their present. It’s what helped us finally see the truth and prepare for the inevitable. "
"And what was the inevitable?" Donna saw all the Mercurians and the Doctor exchange glances. "Look, I think I know, but I want to make sure I’m on the same page, because these Dellians, they might still be out there, right?"
"There are a couple of ways they describe it here on your planet," Clarence said. "The scorched earth policy, or the phrase ‘dead men tell no tales.’ They destroy everything so there’s no warning the next target, no way for them to suspect their new visitors."
"What I can’t understand is that it seems so uncharacteristic of the Dellians," the Doctor said.
"Not to question your Time Lord knowledge and wisdom -"
"Oi, none of that. He's got a big enough head as it is, all that hair poking out everywhere," Donna interrupted.
"What I mean to say," Clarence clarified, "is that you may question their behavior, but we experienced it, and we know of at least one other world that did as well."
"What did they look like?" the Doctor asked.
"They looked like us, for the most part, but they had pale blue skin, and their eyes were a diamond shape, and rimmed with red and purple," Clarence offered.
"Aha. Sound familiar?" The Doctor turned to Donna.
Donna frowned. "No… I haven't met anyone with blue skin yet."
"Not that, the red eyes."
"What, do you mean like the Ood?"
"Exactly like the Ood. Dellians are supposed to have eyes rimmed with green and purple, not red and purple. What you encountered is a group that's gone violent."
"What causes that?" Brandon asked.
"Good question. With the Ood, it was mistreatment by humans. Something with this group probably turned them to a darker way, mistreatment from their own species, a bad encounter off-planet, could've been anything."
Just then, an insistent beeping began from somewhere behind Clarence's desk.
"Oh, what's that? Is that the -"
"Yes, Doctor, it's the alarm," Clarence said, rushing back behind the desk and pulling up a hidden monitor board from under the desk.
Around them, the watches the four Mercurians were wearing all began vibrating.
"It's them. They're coming," Clarence announced, while typing away. "We've got… hours. Maybe three or four."
Donna smacked the Doctor over the head. "Did you plan this?"
"No! What?"
"But seriously, we can’t go anywhere without getting into some kind of trouble. You have to have planned this. The museum, and sonicing things, and it just happens to be the day the hidden alien race’s enemies could invade Earth, and you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t plan this?"
"I could not have planned an adventure better than this if I tried, Donna. It’s perfect! But as to always bumping into trouble… well, we don’t always bump into trouble. But the TARDIS just knows where to drop us to do the most good a lot of the time."
"So really we’re like space and time superheroes, is what you’re saying?"
"That’s not so bad, is it?"
Donna grinned. "I suppose not."
"But hang on." The Doctor spun around only to discover that Clarence was abandoning the monitor, George had already left the room, and Brandon was opening up a closet in the corner and pulling down a hidden ladder from the ceiling. "What are you doing now?"
"We're leaving," Clarence said simply.
"But you can't just leave!" Donna cried. "You've got to help! Earth is your home, you've got to help us fight them off!"
"You can't fight them," Clarence said simply. "You run, or you hide, or you die, but even we didn't have the weaponry to fight them off in the end, and earth isn't equipped as we were, we've checked."
"But Donna's right. Don't run. This is your home," the Doctor reasoned. "We'll think of something."
"No, Doctor, I'm afraid I've got to protect my family first. They're all I have left."
"I'm not leaving," Zea spoke up from the side of the room, where she was still just leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
"Excuse me?" her father asked.
"This is our home. Home is more than just family, it's our friends, community, our lives. I just took excruciating exams to pass as a doctor, I'm not leaving now. I'm not leaving that, and I'm not leaving Jim."
Clarence sat back down. "You'll only have eight years maybe."
"Or maybe even more. What's your plan, Doctor?"
"Did you say you landed your ship here, right on the roof?"
"Yes… Why?"
"And you've just kept it on the roof all this time?"
Clarence nodded. "It's got an impenetrable invisible shield, it's even invisible to satellite mapping systems."
"You said run or hide. Why not hide?"
"What, we're just going to hide everyone inside their spaceship and hope we all fit?" Donna asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Of course not, Donna, don't be ridiculous. We don't have time to get the entire population into one place. No, but there's a possibility that I may be able to alter the ship's invisible shield to encompass the whole earth."
"That might work," Clarence said.
"Oh, yes. Let me see this ship."
"Just follow my son up that ladder."
"Yeah, this should work," the Doctor said after examining the ship. Everyone was waiting on the roof, standing around the Doctor after he exited the ship.
"Should work, or will work?" Clarence asked.
"Still working on that. I won't know until we start working."
"Dad," Zea interrupted, "let's give this a shot. If it doesn't work, we'll abandon the ship, and we'll go somewhere else, and you said yourself we'd have maybe eight years, right? We could figure something else out."
Clarence looked to his father-in-law. "What do you think?"
"Why not?"
"Still got that spirit of rebellion in you!" the Doctor crowed.
"Okay, what's the plan, Doctor?" Clarence asked.
"George, everything should go according to plan, but in case it doesn't, we need to alert UNIT, maybe Torchwood, but only if we have to, because I'm still not sure of them. No, if we call UNIT, they won't be able to keep mind their own business, you'd better just call Torchwood, because he will at least listen to me when I say not to get involved unless I say so. Have you got paper and a pen?"
Brandon pulled a small notebook out of his jacket and handed them, with the pen, to the Doctor, who quickly scribbled down a name and number. He handed the paper to George. "Call and talk to this man and only this man. Tell him the whole story, and tell him not to get involved. I'll call him myself if I need him. Do you have a mobile?"
"Of course," George said. The Doctor put out his hand, and George handed it to him. He ran the sonic screwdriver over it for a moment, then handed it back to George.
"There, he shouldn't be able to even trace it. And your phone now has inter-gallactic service," the Doctor added. George nodded and began dialing as he headed down below. "Clarence, I assume your office has a lobby?"
"Yes."
"Then, Wilf, I need you to be on lookout duty. Go to that lobby and do not let anyone through that's not on this roof right now."
"Yes, sir," Wilf said, saluting the Doctor and then turning to follow George down off the roof.
"Zea, Donna, I need you two in the ship monitoring the communications and power for the ship, and significant changes, any fluctuations until I say so, and you tell me the second it happens. We'll need both your sets of eyes in there."
"Right, we're on it," Donna said, and the two women went back into the ship.
"Clarence, I'll need you in the control room with me to make the changes to the shield's circuitry."
"What about me?" Brandon asked. "What do you need me to do?"
"Right, Brandon, go back down to your father's office and watch the progress of the ship."
"But… isn't the progress steady?"
"Should be, but we still need somebody to watch it."
In the control room of the Rasodell Firebird an hour later, Clarence and the Doctor were still working feverishly to boost the shielding mechanism. "You really think this will work, Doctor?"
"Well, it will work, sure, it works now. Will it work enough to shield the whole planet? I hope so, but, to be honest, I won’t know until I try a few more things."
Clarence chuckled. "At least you’re honest."
"That I am. Most of the time, anyway. Usually only twist the truth for the baddies." The Doctor glanced at the man working across from him. "You never said what happened to your wife, Clarence."
He put down his tools and sighed. "No, I didn’t."
The Doctor sniffed. "It’s fine."
"I don’t like to talk about it, but you could see it."
"What?" The Doctor looked up in surprise.
"The communications console records any official transmissions from the government. What happened was at a planetary press conference. You can watch it, if you want. I removed the sound from the file, though."
After a moment of hesitation, the Doctor moved to the communications room. Part of him didn’t want to see, and part of him really was curious. But there was another part of him that wanted to see it for a different reason.
He brought up the footage easily. It was the last transmission ever recorded.
He watched as a Mercurian woman who looked so much like Zea spoke at the podium, and then as blue Dellians with their red marks spoke to the people. Then he watched as the man at the podium turned and stabbed the Mercurian ambassador. The woman fell, a look of utter pain and horror on her face, and then less than a second later, chaos broke out, more Mercurians fell, and then the camera appeared to fall over itself, and the recording ended.
The Doctor walked back into the control room and put a hand on Clarence’s shoulder. "That is a hard thing. I lost someone, too. Well, more than one someone, but one of them died right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. That probably doesn't make you feel better, I'm sorry. But now you no longer remember it alone. I will always remember. And those Dellians will not come here, not today, and not at any point in the future. Let’s see where we are on this shield."
Brandon had wanted to protest more, knowing that the same thing would be monitored by Donna and Zea in the navigation room, but he could tell that there was no use. There simply wasn't anything else to be done for now, and so he had the worst task of all - worrying and waiting. So he sat at the desk, watching the flight progress of the Dellian ships. There were eight of them, which meant more than enough to entrap the people of planet earth.
And there was nothing he could do except wait and hope the Doctor's plan saved them.
"So, Jim?" Donna prompted, a grin on her face.
Zea laughed, but ducked her head, her cheeks turning a blush. "I think he's going to propose soon."
"Does he know that you're Mercurian?"
"Ha, you felt my skin earlier! Of course he knows. Couldn't say I was just really cold when it was the middle of the summer and hotter than hades and I was as cool as a cucumber."
"Right," Donna laughed, "I suppose not."
"But it doesn't matter to him, of course."
"Why should it?"
"Well, I'm not human," Zea stated simply. "I am Mercurian and nothing will ever change that. I look like a human, walk and talk like a human, I've been immersed in their culture, more than I was my native culture, but that doesn't change my biology. That's definitely one of the reasons I'm so fascinated with human medicine. I've spent a lot of time comparing our biological chemistry, just to make sure we were compatible."
"And?" Donna asked.
"I believe we are. But there are some notable differences. I can conceive less frequently, but our periods of pregnancy are also shorter."
"Is that it? Doesn't sound to bad," Donna offered. "Cooler body temperature, shorter pregnancy."
Zea let her head fall to the side, and pushed her hair behind her ear. "Well, there is just one other thing. I don't know how this atmosphere will affect my family, but traditionally Mercurians live about twice as long as humans."
"Oh."
"Yes. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it is something Jim and I will have to talk about one day."
"But you wouldn't let that keep you from marrying him, would you?"
"Of course not. I love him. But I do want him to know, I want him to make that decision, too. He'll age more quickly than me, and that will be hard for both of us."
They were quiet for another few minutes, and Donna imagined that Zea was thinking about her future with Jim. Donna thought about her own future, traveling with a nine hundred year old Time Lord. She realized she didn't have any idea how long Time Lords could live. He must've seen so many many people go on before her. She hoped it wouldn't be a hard thing for her to get older and still travel through all of time and space. It was hard to even really imagine growing older when you laid your head to rest inside a grand time machine.
Then something flashed on the navigation board.
"DOCTOR!" Donna bellowed down the corridor.
"What is it?" he shouted back, and she could hear him throwing down a couple of tools and rushing in to where they were.
"It's the power monitor," Zea said. "It's just jumped up about five levels."
"That's not enough," the Doctor said, worry in his tone. "We need more power. Five more levels only gives us about…. Eighty percent of Europe." He ran his fingers through his hair. "We just… we simply need more power. There might be more we can do in the control room, but I don't know if we can boost it in time. We need something else to boost it."
"What, sort of like jumping a car battery?" Donna asked.
"Sort of, yeah."
"Well, why not use the TARDIS?" she suggested.
"No, no, no, no, no. The TARDIS has too much power. It would take even more time to calibrate the right amount of power to enable the shield and not blow it up."
Donna rolled her eyes. "Too much power," she mouthed to Zea.
"But you're right, Donna, we need something to boost the power. Think, think, think brain, think."
He began pacing up and down the adjoining corridor. Clarence appeared at the door of the control room, watching the Doctor anxiously.
"Aha! I know just the thing! You three just keep doing what you're doing, I will be right back!"
"Braaaaaaaaandooooooooooooon!"
If the Doctor hadn't been shouting for him, Brandon still would've known the Doctor was coming because of the racket he made thundering down from the roof at top speed.
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Do you have a car?" the Doctor asked, after coming to a halt right next to Brandon.
"Sure, just up the street. What do you need me to get?" Brandon knew where this was going.
"I need you to go to 13 Brannermen Road in Ealing and get my dog."
"Your dog?"
"Well, he belongs to an old friend of mine these days, but we need him now."
Brandon's brow furrowed in confusion. "How's your dog possibly going to help us?"
"Oh, you'll see. Now, go as fast as you can, just tell him I sent you, and he’ll come right along. I've got to get back up there and finish the callibrations.”
“Maybe you should call this Mister Torchwood back and get him to come help with this,” Donna said when the Doctor reappeared on the ship.
“Torchwood’s an organization, not a person.”
“Oh, like UNIT?”
“Not like UNIT, really, no. Well, sort of. I’m not sure what they are these days. But I think we’ll manage here without UNIT or Torchwood,” the Doctor said, shimmying under the control console. “And we certainly don’t need you bumping into Mister Torchwood,” the Doctor added quietly to himself.
“How close are we, Doctor? I believe I’ve got everything sorted on this end,” Clarence said. The Doctor could hear the edge in his voice.
“Nearly done, and then we’ll just have to wait for my dog.”
“What? Your dog?”
“You’ll see.” The Doctor took another minute just to tighten up the link to the inner calliutrix meter. “There. That’ll do for now. And can I just say,” the Doctor said, sitting up and turning to Clarence, “this ship is an absolute beauty, I mean, really, the craftsmanship is just stunning. If I didn’t already have a ship of my own…” he trailed off.
“Thank you, Doctor. You know, that’s how I knew you weren’t a danger to us, earlier in the gallery when you set off the alarm. My own father always told me, you watch how a person acts in a museum, it’ll tell you exactly the kind of person they are. If they respect the history, they’ll respect the people.”
“Your father must’ve been a very wise man.”
“He was. He died before any of this mess with the Dellians even started. But he brought me up right.”
“Now, why don’t you give me a proper tour of this ship, I want to hear all about it, and not just the invisibility shield this time.”
“Do you think this is really the time?”
“Yep, everything else is done, we just have to wait for Brandon.”
Clarence laughed. “You’re a little strange, Doctor.”
“Quite right, comes with the rest of the package.”
Brandon pulled up in front of a modest house in quite a normal neighborhood in Ealing. “Guess this is it. Number thirteen.”
He got out of the car, closing the door quietly. He was not entirely sure about how he was supposed to get this dog of the Doctor’s. Or was it the dog of the Doctor’s friend? Was the friend going to be home?
He figured the best way to go about this would be to just take the front-door approach. He strolled up the path, and then knocked on the door.
No one answered.
He knocked again. “Anybody home? The Doctor sent me. He was looking for his dog?”
Still no answer.
Another knock. “Hello? Anyone?”
Brandon turned around and let out a sigh. Then he heard what sounded like a small kitchen appliance coming round the corner of the house, and a small tin robot that looked like… well, the closest thing it could resemble was a dog, a robotic dog steered its way over to him.
“You were sent by my master, the Doctor?” it iterated.
“Yes. You’re his dog, then?”
“Affirmative. Reason suggests the Doctor requires my assistance.”
“Yeah, he sent me to come get you.”
“Take me in your transport to the Doctor’s current location.”
“This is fantastic.”
“Affirmative.”
“So, your dog, he’s a robot?” Donna asked as the little robot rolled up the gangway.
“Affirmative,” it responded.
“Donna Noble, Zea Minor, Clarence Minor, this is K9.”
“Pleasurable acquaintance made. How can I assist you, Doctor?”
“This way, K9; we need you to boost the power of this ship’s invisibility shield.”
K9 followed the Doctor, and the others followed behind K9.
“Right over here,” the Doctor directed once they were in the control room.
“Affirmative.” K9 moved forward to the spot the Doctor indicated. His nose extended forward over a power recepticle, and the Doctor began adjusting things on the control board with his sonic screwdriver. “Calculations indicate your intent is to shield the entire planet.”
“That’s right.”
“Earth shield will be up in three point seven minutes, master.”
“Aw, that’s a good dog,” the Doctor crooned, stooping down to pat the dog on the head. “A brilliant dog, even.”
“Affirmative, master.”
“And that’s it?” Clarence asked. “It’s… all done? The Dellians won’t see us?”
“They won’t detect even one insect or one smidge of dust from this planet.”
Clarence sank down into the nearest chair. “That’s unbelievable.”
“Oh, you’re not telling me you didn’t think it’d work?”
“Well, I wanted it to work, but, really, Doctor, I didn’t imagine that we’d actually be able to pull it off.”
“I suppose that’s acceptable, seeing as you’d never experienced just how brilliant I am before. You remember that ship that nearly smashed into Buckingham Palace last Christmas? That was me, I diverted it from impact.”
Donna gave him a sharp look.
“I did have a little help, it’s true.”
“Well, what happens now?” Zea asked.
“We wait till they pass by, I return K9 to an old friend, you return to your normal lives, and we set off for our next adventure.”
“Simple as that?” Brandon asked.
“Life of a time traveller. Big day every day.”
Series 4 and 3/4 will return next Saturday with 'The Factory' by lowbatterie:
Martha Jones rejoins Donna and the Doctor for "one trip" as a wedding gift from the Time Lord (with a little persuasion by Donna, of course). Things go awry when the 'random' button on the TARDIS leaves the trio in an abandoned factory with inhabitants called the Zahm'Brie who only want them for their brains-- literally.