Part 03 - Chapter 07 - Shopping?
After breakfast Rose heads off for her shower and the Doctor and Jack head for the control room.
He watched the alien called the Doctor move around the control area like a master pianist playing a piano, smooth graceful and very, very yummy looking. Jack knows that the Doctor is still watching him but it feels completely different than it did last night and he wonders what changed. “So Doctor what’s on the agenda today. Where are we headed?” With a mysterious grin that says ‘wouldn’t you like to know?’ he replies, “Have someone special you want to meet?”
He decides right then, two can play at that game. “No just thinking if you didn’t have any plans we could get to know each other each a bit more.”
He gives the Doctor a look of daring him to take him up on the offer. Not unexpectedly the Doctor ignores him. But he asks something unexpected, “How did you sleep last night Captain?” I hesitate just a moment before replying, “Fine… why?”
“Oh no reason,” the Doctor answers a bit too casually, which makes Jack wonder again exactly how much influence on the room he had slept in was through the Doctor’s choice and how much was decided by the ship. Figuring he best know as well as he could where he stood he asked the Doctor directly, “So whose decision was it to give me the room I had, you or the ship’s?”
The Doctor looked him in the eye, catching him with that oh so intense gaze and stated, “Mine.”
“Not that, I’m complaining mind you but I hardly expected five star accommodations after the welcome you gave me last night.”
His dismissive shrug is a bit disconcerting. He says nothing more but I do notice his furtive stroking of a section of coral near a set of controls and I have to wonder what it is that is being communicated between him and the ship. Not that I get the chance to ask as Rose comes bouncing into the room and I notice it’s not just the Doctor that seems to brighten at her arrival as the lights in the control room get just a bit brighter at her cheerful greeting of, “So Doctor where we off to today?”
“Oh I don’t know, were do you want to go backwards or forwards?” I watch the interplay between the two as she thoughtfully pokes her tongue in the corner of her mouth as she concentrates. I stop myself before making a comment as I feel disapproval from the very feminine presence of the ship and out of the corner of my eye I catch a smug expression from the Doctor, even if Rose hadn’t heard my flippant comment, he suspected the Doctor had, if not directly, then as a in relay from his ship and knew of his ship’s reaction.
“Well,” she replies looking mischievous, “We could go shopping.” Then hurrying on as I watch the Doctor get ready to protest, she turns to me, “So Jack, you know of any good places to go shopping?”
Immediately put on the spot but knowing that was exactly the point I reply, “Well there was that nice place in the Denaba system in the 57th Century.”
The Doctor looking indignant states, “What you call that place a shopping center?” Looking at Rose with a sudden gleeful mischief that more than equaled hers of a few moments before, he began enthusiastically moving about the central console. “I’ll show you what a real shopping center looks like.”
A few moments later we arrived with a tremendous thump, which seemed to utterly delight Rose and by his reaction was exactly what the Doctor was trying to accomplish. “Now this is the standard by which all shopping malls are judged by welcome to Illupodifettoso THE shopping planet.” He announced and watched Rose’s reaction to that statement. Which obviously didn’t disappoint him one bit as she launched herself at him and planted a big smooch on his cheek. With that kind of reaction I could see why he why he actually agreed to a shopping planet, which I got the distinct impression was not something he would normally want to do.
Grabbing his hand, she headed to the door nearly at a run and hardly slowed down as she grabbed my hand pulling me in that direction too, pausing only long enough to open the door before plunging out into the purple sunshine.
It didn’t take long, though, for Rose to come to a screeching halt with a quiet, “Wow,” as she stood, stunned, looking out over the four to eight story shops that extended out for miles around and had dozens of types of aliens wandering about at varying speeds depending on their physical configuration. There were the Snalize that looked like six-meter tall snails with their elaborately painted carapace and gently waving antennae. There was a small group of Cheem who were strolling nearby while a couple of others took in the sun on a bench. Drifting past them was a contingent of small cloud like Elizar a bit further down the way was a small family of Judoon and a dozen or so Balhoon were scooting around on their little hover pads. Add to that hundreds of tall willowy blue beings and large quantity of humans and humanoid races in a huge array of clothing styles and lack of clothing styles it made for quite the colorful scene. I couldn’t help smiling as I saw a large group of humanoids naked but for small loincloths and veils that covered their eyes stroll by not more than a few feet from us. Much as I hated to admit it, this place did dwarf the shopping center I had mentioned.
When she finally took it all in, I watched as she turned to the Doctor who was leaning casually against of the TARDIS side, legs crossed and arms folded looking extremely pleased with himself if the huge grin he had plastered on his face was anything to go by.
At that point Rose enthusiastically announced, “I could shop for weeks, months, maybe even years here!” As she ran back to him and grabbed his hand at which point he wagged his finger at her stating, “One day, Rose! I will not spend a week let alone a month or year here,” he said with a shudder, “you know how I feel about shopping.”
I barely caught her quiet, “I know,” as she gave him another quick peck on the cheek. Grabbing his hand, she said, “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s shop!”
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It had been hours and I really was beginning to regret bringing Rose here. She had enthusiastically moved from shop to shop cooing and ahhing over everything from dresses to kitchen utilities, not that she realized what the latter were till Jack pointed out to her the practical uses. Though as I watched her looking at some fabric in a rich shade of red that would look truly lovely on her if made up into a dress I couldn’t quite bring myself to be unhappy enough to insist on us returning to the TARDIS. That changed the minute I noticed the Essarrian standing in the far corner of the shop with his back to us. I knew three very important facts about Essarrians; one they rarely traveled alone, two they were know for their sadistic nature and how they took great delight in tormenting their enemies, but the third was the most relevant at the moment and was that they hated Time Lords with a passion that bordered on rabid. It was time to go.
I stroll over to Jack very casually and stepped into the man’s personal space. “Jack, do not turn around and do not alarm Rose but we need to leave… Now!” I said very quietly and watched as he gave a slight nod and quietly extricated himself from the buxom bight yellow humanoid with lovely blue hair he was chatting up. Turning, he followed me over to Rose, as we moved I nodded ever so slightly in the direction of the Essarrian and felt his posture stiffen as he realize what species the neon orange fellow was. Though tolerated and for the most part ignored, humans were consider an ‘inferior’ race by the Essarrians and Essarrians had little to no patience when it came to dealing with the ‘lower species’. They had also been frequently known to pick up human ‘toys’ and use them for entertainment, which for the human was anything but entertaining as they rarely survived the experience; Essarrians were notoriously hard on their playthings.
I leaned causally in next to the rack of dresses that Rose was looking through, “Rose something has come up and we need to leave, now.” I didn’t raise my voice and hoped that she would understand my tone.
“But Doctor…” her voice cut off as she looked up and saw my expression as she reached out for my hand I leaned in and put my arm around her waist drawing her into the side of my body in a casual move so that I could whisper in her ear. “If we get separated head for the TARDIS and wait for us inside,” intentionally putting stress on the word inside. “Whatever you do avoid anyone that is neon orange like your life depends on it.”
“Doctor I don’t understand, what’s going on?” She whispered back as we made for the front entrance of the store. About half way there I began to breath a bit easier as whatever the Essarrian was looking at has it’s complete attention and I was pretty sure it had not yet spotted us. Right up until I hear a clear bell like voice yell across the room. “Oh Jack, you forgot one of your packages,” the yellow female Jack had been chatting up lilted. I cringed as I saw the Essarrian turn to see what the commotion was about with a glare that would have made a glacier melt. As his eye caught us I could see that he wasn’t amused and that generally didn’t bode well.
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Rose looked up to see the Doctor's reaction to see if she need to run and was glad his arm was loop gently around her waist as she nearly tripped when she saw what the Doctor was looking at, she figured it had to be close to 7 meters tall and she had never seen it's like before, its skin tone was a garish neon orange with scales of both lighter and darker orange, reminding her of one of those tropical rain forest frogs that were brightly colored to warn potential predators they were poisonous. She hoped it wasn't, she never had cared for venomous creatures after she had been bitten when she was younger by a slightly venomous snake in the science lab at school. If that striking skin tone meant poison he would be a whole mountain of trouble and based on the Doctor's expression she figured she wasn't far off. The being also had long arms the diameter of small tree trunks and wicked looking three fingered hands with opposable thumbs. Where its hips would be, if it were a biped, was a sheath like patterned skirt, which covered a transition to a snake like lower body that tapered down to a curl on which it balanced. The unusual body was matched with the oddest face with a wicked looking beak like mouth that hooked down wickedly reminded her of a parrot’s beak. It had black beady eyes with a vertical orange stripes making its eyes a bit a cat like, only its eye lids seemed to twist open and closed like an iris and peered at them with undisguised hate out of a background of small shimmery orange scales. It only took her a moment to take in its appearance but it was enough for her to know that being would not be someone to be messed with and before she could say a word it was on the move toward them.
As the being began to head in their direction she was jerked out of her distraction by the Doctor as he rapidly discarded any pretense of casually leaving and broke into a run. As they headed to the front entrance Jack made a motion she didn’t quite get and at the door he headed the opposite direction from her and the Doctor only to moments later turn and head back their direction as he was cut off by another of the orange beings. The Doctor didn’t slow them in their flight only altered course, as a third being appeared cutting off yet another path. Making a quick move toward a service door we bolted through barely pausing as the sonic screwdriver unlocked the door in front of us. Quickly he reversed the setting as Jack slammed the door on the approaching Essarrians relocking the door.
Moving quickly down a corridor it became obvious that coming in here had been a bad move, as three more of the orange beings came around the corner brandishing guns. The Doctor pushed Rose behind him Jack moving in to shield her on another side in the process showing her he had pulled his blaster the wall behind her would protect her on a third side but even as she began to feel like things were slowing down all around her she heard herself yelp as something sharp impacted her shoulder looking down she saw a small red dart as she heard the Doctor shout her named she began to crumple into unconsciousness.
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Jack had tried to split up, signaling the Doctor that he would meet them back at the TARDIS to make it more difficult for the Essarrians to corner them, what he hadn’t counted on was nearly running straight into the arms of one of its companions and having to do a quick about face in order to avoid capture, leading him to suspect that maybe the Essarrian in the shop hadn’t been quite as oblivious to their presence as it seemed.
Jack had heard things about Essarrians had been warned to stay clear of them and what ever he did never allow himself to be caught by one. As they made it through to the service corridor he began to think they had made to the clear and it might turn out okay, but as he watched Rose crumple behind him and felt the impact of a similar red dart he figured this was not going to be a good day after all.
Chapter 08 - Twisted Biology Lesson (R)
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