BSG/Dr. Who Fic - "The Waystation part 1"
So I wrote this for my good pal, jarodrussell aka Static aka Pdawg aka SweetAndyPie. Yups. BSG/Who. I like the Doc, I like Gaeta. It is so freaking AU I don't really know where to set it except "Season three after Collaborators" for BSG and "Before Doomsday aka that freaking sad episode of Dr. Who." aka "Season two of the revival". Many thanks to batsojopo who nicely read it,corrected stuff,and didn't whine at all about how I was ignoring fic she prefers :) And there's some thinly veiled SouthPark references as well.
He wondered if anyone even thought about him. By Felix Gaeta’s watch, which still worked despite the multiple times it had been through disasters, it had been twenty three days since he had been left behind on the space station. Six of them had been left behind when the Cylons had come. He had been the only human left alive for the last twelve of those days. Of the six in the landing party that had been successful in escaping the onslaught, four of them had been killed in an ill advised attempt to steal one of the Cylons heavy raiders. One had died days later, of what, he didn’t know.
He had refused to go along with the escape plan. Rank hadn’t been much of a consideration at that point, and he wasn’t fool enough to think he could have used his rank to stop the four marines. It hadn’t been an entirely insane plan anyway, although he wasn’t shocked that they had all been killed. The real problem was that he simply didn’t believe that Gunny Ross could fly a Cylon heavy raider, despite a few tutoring sessions with Kara Thrace. That made the plan suicide and therefore against the code. The officer’s code clearly dictated that if stuck in enemy territory, he was to do everything he could to harass the enemy and assist the fleet. He had been the only officer to survive, it was his duty to continue sabotaging the station. Gunny Ross, an older man who had seen actual combat in the first Cylon war, and had been riding out his last year of service on the Galactica when the Cylon attack had come had approved of his choice.
It didn’t make being proven right any easier. The marines had been wiped out within minutes of leaving the safe warren of ventilation and service grids. The only person to stay with him, Cally Tyrol, had simply curled up and died twelve days earlier. He understood the temptation. It wasn’t like they had any reason to hope that the Admiral would send any rescue.
No one on the mission had the last name Adama, after all. The mission was to investigate the abandoned space station and once it had been discovered that there were computers still working, he had been sent over. That was what being the only person on board who even tried to understand computers got him. The Cylons had appeared and the pilot of their raptor had fled with half the crew, not waiting for the rest of them to get down to the station’s docking ports. He had managed to convince the marines that their best chance for immediate survival was to hide and hope that the Galactica won the battle. Based on the wireless reports coming through the marines com units, the Galactica escaped but had not won. He hadn’t entertained any hope that there would be a rescue, but the younger marines and Cally had. At least for a few days they had entertained hope.
It wouldn’t be long before he was dead as well, he thought darkly as he leaned up against the wall of the ventilation shaft . They only had the emergency rations that had been brought in the raptor. He could tap into the water supply pretty easily but even with careful rationing the food was gone. The last seven days… he’d been very hungry. There were rats on the station, and scummy fungus in the water tanks. That was extending his life, but he was no fool.
It was quiet though, the remaining Cylons were having a debate over whether or not the station should just be abandoned. They wanted to turn it into a refueling station so they could chase the fleet more easily. He was trying desperately to sabotage them. Inserting viruses in the computers with his small handheld computer…. Causing power overloads and breaking anything that got repaired… But in the quiet moments, when he wasn’t running or crawling through the duct work, he let himself indulge in the fantasy of what everyone on the Galactica was doing.
Except that after twenty three days, they certainly weren’t thinking about Felix Gaeta, he was sure of that. He knew how the scenario played out, he had planned more than a few such ceremonies. If one’s last name wasn’t Adama or Thrace, it was usually about seven days before it was assumed that the missing were killed in action. He was high ranking, and Cally and Ross had been popular, so the ceremony would have been large. The President would have attended. There was probably a speech. No posthumous medals, his last name wasn’t Thrace or Adama, but the Admiral most likely remarked on how everyone liked friendly and pleasant Lt. Gaeta, despite all the stupid naïve things he had done. Dualla had probably been stuck with the task of packing up and distributing his few remaining things to others in need, per his instructions. He’d made her his primary beneficiary since he was certain that no one else cared. She would take care of his books, appreciate the photographs he had.
He sighed. He was too hungry and dirty to really give a damn about how he was already a mostly forgotten, officially dead member of the Galactica’s crew. Besides, he could hear the Cylon meeting breaking up. It was a standard mix, at least what he understood to be a standard mix. All seven models, this group dominated by Threes and Sixes. There were twenty in all. They had been left behind by the basestar to make the station productive. His plan, such as it was, seemed to be working. The Cylons were ready to abandon the station as unusable because of the constant breakdowns. Soon, they would leave, and he could safely put a bullet in his head. But until they were gone, he had to wait. The fleet couldn’t afford the Cylons establishing a convenient foothold in the area.
He was just so tired. And hungry.
~*~
“ Well now, what do we have here?” The Doctor looked at the reading. “ Rose, come take a look.” Rose dutifully came over to the scanner. “ Take a look at that.”
She looked. “ A space station? Haven’t we been here before?” After a moment, she smiled brilliantly. “ I’m teasing, Doctor. Do you want to stop?”
“ You know how these places are. Hidden jewels. I imagine we’ll find the best fish and chips in the galaxy here. Or chili dogs. Do you like chili dogs, Rose?” He chuckled as she rolled her eyes at him.
Rose was a wonderful friend, a wonderful companion, and he had known that she wouldn’t mind stopping. He was rather interested. It was an old station, from Earth’s 25th century. Most likely built during the massive colonization burst that took place in that century. Humans, he mused, were such a fun lot. Always wanting to poke about with things. Almost completely immune to any sort of sense of danger. Give them a shovel and they immediately start digging for China. Give them space travel and they colonize the galaxy. But that wasn’t why they fascinated him. It was that no one gave them shovels or space ships, they just went ahead and made shovels and spaceships.
They enjoyed finding things out.
“What’s special about this station?” Rose asked as he carefully landed the TARDIS. She looked at the scans curiously.
“Oh, just thought it looked interesting. It’s a way station, a place where colony ships could stop for a break, or people going to and fro. It’s probably the entertainment spot for the nearest fifty light years.” He managed to grin, although as he scanned the station, he realized that he was likely to be disappointed. There was life on the station but not as much as he would have expected, and the life signs were… unusual. Still, they hadn’t stopped anywhere recently.
The landing bay looked abandoned, which meant his craving for a really good chili dog would go unresolved. Still, he thought as he carefully maneuvered the TARDIS to a somewhat concealing nook, they might find something interesting.
“ There now,” he said jovially as he stepped out onto the metal decking. “ Here we have a 25th century way station in space. I’m sure we can find something interesting to do. Besides, this far out, we could go hunting for Kobol and its lost colonies.”
“Kobol?” Rose asked.
“ Big colony, settled around the 25th century. Around the 30th century, they had a massive religious revival and sent out colonies of their own and then promptly died out. A few people made it back to Earth to tell the tale.” He paused. “ I always wondered what happened. Anyway, here we are.
Rose looked about. “ Are you sure this is an active station? Don’t people normally come down to greet us? Or point guns?”
“ Only if we’re unwanted guests. Way stations are generally hospitable but who knows?” He looked around. It didn’t look abandoned, systems were up and running although the lights were flickering oddly. “ Maybe they’re all busy square dancing?”
“ Are there any people here?” she asked after a moment. She knew he had scanned the station.
“A few… They might be closing up shop.” He looked around. “ Mid 25th century construction but we’re pretty far out. A lot of these stations were being abandoned in the 28th century when the distance to Earth got too great while the markets became glutted with resources.” The Doctor smiled at her. “ Do you want to check out the place? I thought I’d muddle about, see if there’s anything interesting going on.” By his estimation, it had to be one of the most distant to Earth stations. And they weren’t in the 25th or 28th century so the fact that the station had any signs of life was interesting. Perhaps some of the Kobolians had come looking for their Earth cousins. Nutty people, the Kobolians. Pleasant enough but their increasingly strident religious prostrations had gotten scary the last time he had been in that part of the galaxy.
Still, they generally had good wine. “ If you find anyone, try not to get into a religious discussion and ask if there’s wine.”
“Wine?” Rose asked, her eyebrow quirking upwards.
“ Drat, you’re right. They call it ambrosia.” He smiled at her. “ The living quarters are generally up higher. Or you could stay here with me.” He really didn’t mind. Rose was generally a lot of fun when he was rooting around. He knew her well enough to know that she often got bored though. “ Go on then, have some fun.” He made shooing motions
He waited until she had gone up to the metal stairwell to turn his attention to the lights that flickered on and off. Way stations were monuments to human engineering. The design was almost flawlessly simple and he could see that while old, it had been made with the typical care that went into such projects. A system with a way station was up and coming and the governments in those systems paid for the best of everything.
There were records of way stations functioning by themselves for centuries. This one had lighting on the fritz. That was simply bizarre. Bizarre and next to impossible. That indicated that something was going on. Something interesting. Time, he thought with amusement, to take a look around.
~*~
Rose wondered, as she walked through the metal hallways if she would ever get used to space travel. Truth be told, she wasn’t always taken with landing on random space stations. She wasn’t afraid, not exactly. So far the station seemed very… metallic. All grey metal, flickering lights, and an air system that seemed to whir into life and then stop at random. It was dusty as well. She had been around enough ill kept flats to know what lived in dirty was supposed to look like, and the station looked abandoned dirty, not lived in dirty. At the same time, she could see signs of recent activity. Tracks in the dust on the floor for example and the fact that as she went higher in the station, she was certain that she heard footsteps. Footsteps and voices.
And worse, her eyes were itching and sore. She and the Doctor had visited her mother recently, and her mother had been babysitting the neighbor children. The dirty neighbor children that had pink eye, and she was positive that one of the kids hadn’t been diligent about washing hands. Damn it, she thought as she wiped her eyes. I need antibiotic eye drops. And I’ll need to warn the Doctor.
She rather doubted that he could catch something as mundane as conjunctivitis but her mum had raised her to be courteous. Besides, it was a legitimate reason to suggest that perhaps rooting around an abandoned space station wasn’t as big of a priority as getting antibiotic eye drops. She had a bad feeling, truth be told. It was hard to say anything. Sometimes she thought the Doctor would take such a warning with complete seriousness, and sometimes she thought that he would just laugh. He was sometimes hard to understand.
Rose rounded another corner and much to her surprise she came upon two women. Two extremely attractive women were poring over one of the many computer panels. Their panel was dark and as she watched, they pulled it open as if to fix it. The problem was neither looked like the sort of woman that worked in maintenance on a space station. Both were clad in very nice, conservative but sexual outfits. The taller blonde was in a red cocktail dress, while the slightly shorter but more muscular woman was in a white pantsuit. They didn’t look like maintenance workers at all.
She coughed, and they both spun to look at her. It eerily reminded her of sharks sighting prey, like she remembered seeing in documentaries at school. The taller, blonder woman took a step forward.
“ Who are you?” the woman asked. Her companion stepped up beside her, and Rose got a distinctly bad vibe from the two of them.
“ I’m Rose. We just arrived here at the station.” She regretted saying we almost as soon as she did it. Something about the women set her on edge. She considered the request the Doctor had made earlier. “ Is there any ambrosia? We were hoping to pick some up.”
The two women look at her, at each other, and then back at her. “ You will come with us,” the taller one said.
As they both stepped forward, Rose realized she wasn’t being offered a choice. Oh damn, she thought, the Doctor is not going to be pleased.
~*~
It got increasingly curious as he walked about the station. By any reasonable standard, the station was in excellent condition. It was powered down, which was understandable, but a quick scan of the systems told the Doctor a very different story. There were people on the station, in the upper decks, but not many, and the readings he had gotten on them from the TARDIS’s scanner had been… less than distinct. There were a lot of things in the galaxy that reasonably approximated humans. On the other hand, it could have just been a glitch.
More interesting was the subtle sabotage of the station’s system, in his opinion. It was subtle, very subtle, and yet it clearly was sabotage because the station’s computer systems were being manipulated. Someone was carefully and systematically shutting down systems. Turning on the shut down systems simply caused the systems to be shut down again. As if someone was watching the whole business, waiting. More worrisome, the systems that were tampered with were being erased. And as near as he could tell, the systems were being accessed on the lower levels. From consoles near the ventilation system, and wasn’t it convenient that the ventilation system was non functional?
Convenient for him anyway. Whoever was fooling with the system was keeping an eye on things. Which meant, he thought as he cheerfully reset the lighting, that whoever was playing would need to show themselves in order to have the lights continue to blink. The Doctor carefully hid himself in a doorway and waited.
It didn’t take long. That didn’t surprise him in the slightest. Someone was trying very hard to make the station unlivable, and that was very interesting. As he watched, the nearest vent slowly pushed out and much as he suspected, a human crawled out of the ventiliaton shaft. Male, very dirty,dusty, and scruffy looking, with short curly dark hair. Much darker than Rose, but there was much variation in the human race. As he watched, the man looked about furtively, obviously fearful, and went right to the control panel.
The Doctor hesitated. The reality was that humans could be unpredictable and this one looked almost feral. Shutting down necessary systems was generally a hostile act but the Doctor suspected that he wasn’t looking at the dark tyrant of the station. For starters, the poor fellow simply looked too terrified to be a diabolical tyrant. He waited a moment, until he was certain that there was only one person coming out of the shaft.
His suspicions were confirmed when the man withdrew a battered hand held computer and began to fiddle with the computer system. That solved the basic problem of who was doing the sabotage. That left the more interesting reason of why.
Humans liked comfort, after all. That was a basic truth about them. This human was dirty and thin and from his own experience he knew living in a ventilation system wasn’t pleasant. So why was this human doing this?
“Why are you doing this?” he asked brightly.
The young man spun around, desperately grabbing for a gun that had been tucked in his pants. A chemical combustion weapon, the Doctor noted. Primitive but deadly. The man blinked in surprise.
“Who are you, why are you here, who are you?” The poor man was too darkly complexioned to actually blanch but he did manage a nice color change. The gun shook in his hand. “ Who are you?”
“ I’m the Doctor,” he said cheerfully, holding out his hand. “ And you are?”
“ I’m … Lt. Gaeta of the Colonial Fleet. Doctor What?” The man’s hands shook.
“ That’s right. What are you doing here?” The Doctor was careful to keep things calm. He could read stress on a human. He could even smell it and the human standing before him reeked of it. And, he simply reeked. Still, if he was a true colonial, from Kobol’s lost colonies, then perhaps he might be worth chatting up. “I just arrived, with my companion Rose. By your coating of grime, I assume you’ve been here a while. Any recommendations?”
The lieutenant twitched. “ Are you insane?” His fingers clenched the gun. “ How... could you land here? They’re all over…”
There was a sudden thumping on the metal deck. The Doctor could feel it coming from the upper decks. People marching. Scratch that, the Doctor thought. People didn’t sound so metallic. Cybermen? Daleks? It didn’t matter. It was danger, that much he knew, and the sheer terror on the face of the lieutenant confirmed it.
“ Come with me,” Gaeta said urgently, not quite above a whisper. “ They’ll kill us if they find us.”
And that was certainly a warning. “ I have to find Rose.”
The lieutenant, Gaeta, paled more. “ If the Cylons have her, she’s dead already. Or captured. That’s worse.”
“Cylons?” Suddenly so much made sense. Cylons were a scourge. A minor scourge, to be sure, and they had died off almost as soon as they had appeared, but the rumors were decidedly unpleasant. And, he realized, the timing was just right. As was the location. “What will they do with Rose?”
The man flinched back. “You can come with me… but if they have her…”
The Doctor nodded. Centurions had lasted a lot longer than the Cylons themselves. He was going to need more information. His instincts told him to trust the man. After all, he was human, and he was offering to help him hide with no ulterior motive. That usually was a good sign. And the footsteps were getting much louder and closer. He clapped the man on the shoulder, causing dust to plume “ Yes discretion is the better part of valor. Lead the way, my dirty friend.”
I dunno if this qualifies as crack fic. Feel free to comment.
He wondered if anyone even thought about him. By Felix Gaeta’s watch, which still worked despite the multiple times it had been through disasters, it had been twenty three days since he had been left behind on the space station. Six of them had been left behind when the Cylons had come. He had been the only human left alive for the last twelve of those days. Of the six in the landing party that had been successful in escaping the onslaught, four of them had been killed in an ill advised attempt to steal one of the Cylons heavy raiders. One had died days later, of what, he didn’t know.
He had refused to go along with the escape plan. Rank hadn’t been much of a consideration at that point, and he wasn’t fool enough to think he could have used his rank to stop the four marines. It hadn’t been an entirely insane plan anyway, although he wasn’t shocked that they had all been killed. The real problem was that he simply didn’t believe that Gunny Ross could fly a Cylon heavy raider, despite a few tutoring sessions with Kara Thrace. That made the plan suicide and therefore against the code. The officer’s code clearly dictated that if stuck in enemy territory, he was to do everything he could to harass the enemy and assist the fleet. He had been the only officer to survive, it was his duty to continue sabotaging the station. Gunny Ross, an older man who had seen actual combat in the first Cylon war, and had been riding out his last year of service on the Galactica when the Cylon attack had come had approved of his choice.
It didn’t make being proven right any easier. The marines had been wiped out within minutes of leaving the safe warren of ventilation and service grids. The only person to stay with him, Cally Tyrol, had simply curled up and died twelve days earlier. He understood the temptation. It wasn’t like they had any reason to hope that the Admiral would send any rescue.
No one on the mission had the last name Adama, after all. The mission was to investigate the abandoned space station and once it had been discovered that there were computers still working, he had been sent over. That was what being the only person on board who even tried to understand computers got him. The Cylons had appeared and the pilot of their raptor had fled with half the crew, not waiting for the rest of them to get down to the station’s docking ports. He had managed to convince the marines that their best chance for immediate survival was to hide and hope that the Galactica won the battle. Based on the wireless reports coming through the marines com units, the Galactica escaped but had not won. He hadn’t entertained any hope that there would be a rescue, but the younger marines and Cally had. At least for a few days they had entertained hope.
It wouldn’t be long before he was dead as well, he thought darkly as he leaned up against the wall of the ventilation shaft . They only had the emergency rations that had been brought in the raptor. He could tap into the water supply pretty easily but even with careful rationing the food was gone. The last seven days… he’d been very hungry. There were rats on the station, and scummy fungus in the water tanks. That was extending his life, but he was no fool.
It was quiet though, the remaining Cylons were having a debate over whether or not the station should just be abandoned. They wanted to turn it into a refueling station so they could chase the fleet more easily. He was trying desperately to sabotage them. Inserting viruses in the computers with his small handheld computer…. Causing power overloads and breaking anything that got repaired… But in the quiet moments, when he wasn’t running or crawling through the duct work, he let himself indulge in the fantasy of what everyone on the Galactica was doing.
Except that after twenty three days, they certainly weren’t thinking about Felix Gaeta, he was sure of that. He knew how the scenario played out, he had planned more than a few such ceremonies. If one’s last name wasn’t Adama or Thrace, it was usually about seven days before it was assumed that the missing were killed in action. He was high ranking, and Cally and Ross had been popular, so the ceremony would have been large. The President would have attended. There was probably a speech. No posthumous medals, his last name wasn’t Thrace or Adama, but the Admiral most likely remarked on how everyone liked friendly and pleasant Lt. Gaeta, despite all the stupid naïve things he had done. Dualla had probably been stuck with the task of packing up and distributing his few remaining things to others in need, per his instructions. He’d made her his primary beneficiary since he was certain that no one else cared. She would take care of his books, appreciate the photographs he had.
He sighed. He was too hungry and dirty to really give a damn about how he was already a mostly forgotten, officially dead member of the Galactica’s crew. Besides, he could hear the Cylon meeting breaking up. It was a standard mix, at least what he understood to be a standard mix. All seven models, this group dominated by Threes and Sixes. There were twenty in all. They had been left behind by the basestar to make the station productive. His plan, such as it was, seemed to be working. The Cylons were ready to abandon the station as unusable because of the constant breakdowns. Soon, they would leave, and he could safely put a bullet in his head. But until they were gone, he had to wait. The fleet couldn’t afford the Cylons establishing a convenient foothold in the area.
He was just so tired. And hungry.
~*~
“ Well now, what do we have here?” The Doctor looked at the reading. “ Rose, come take a look.” Rose dutifully came over to the scanner. “ Take a look at that.”
She looked. “ A space station? Haven’t we been here before?” After a moment, she smiled brilliantly. “ I’m teasing, Doctor. Do you want to stop?”
“ You know how these places are. Hidden jewels. I imagine we’ll find the best fish and chips in the galaxy here. Or chili dogs. Do you like chili dogs, Rose?” He chuckled as she rolled her eyes at him.
Rose was a wonderful friend, a wonderful companion, and he had known that she wouldn’t mind stopping. He was rather interested. It was an old station, from Earth’s 25th century. Most likely built during the massive colonization burst that took place in that century. Humans, he mused, were such a fun lot. Always wanting to poke about with things. Almost completely immune to any sort of sense of danger. Give them a shovel and they immediately start digging for China. Give them space travel and they colonize the galaxy. But that wasn’t why they fascinated him. It was that no one gave them shovels or space ships, they just went ahead and made shovels and spaceships.
They enjoyed finding things out.
“What’s special about this station?” Rose asked as he carefully landed the TARDIS. She looked at the scans curiously.
“Oh, just thought it looked interesting. It’s a way station, a place where colony ships could stop for a break, or people going to and fro. It’s probably the entertainment spot for the nearest fifty light years.” He managed to grin, although as he scanned the station, he realized that he was likely to be disappointed. There was life on the station but not as much as he would have expected, and the life signs were… unusual. Still, they hadn’t stopped anywhere recently.
The landing bay looked abandoned, which meant his craving for a really good chili dog would go unresolved. Still, he thought as he carefully maneuvered the TARDIS to a somewhat concealing nook, they might find something interesting.
“ There now,” he said jovially as he stepped out onto the metal decking. “ Here we have a 25th century way station in space. I’m sure we can find something interesting to do. Besides, this far out, we could go hunting for Kobol and its lost colonies.”
“Kobol?” Rose asked.
“ Big colony, settled around the 25th century. Around the 30th century, they had a massive religious revival and sent out colonies of their own and then promptly died out. A few people made it back to Earth to tell the tale.” He paused. “ I always wondered what happened. Anyway, here we are.
Rose looked about. “ Are you sure this is an active station? Don’t people normally come down to greet us? Or point guns?”
“ Only if we’re unwanted guests. Way stations are generally hospitable but who knows?” He looked around. It didn’t look abandoned, systems were up and running although the lights were flickering oddly. “ Maybe they’re all busy square dancing?”
“ Are there any people here?” she asked after a moment. She knew he had scanned the station.
“A few… They might be closing up shop.” He looked around. “ Mid 25th century construction but we’re pretty far out. A lot of these stations were being abandoned in the 28th century when the distance to Earth got too great while the markets became glutted with resources.” The Doctor smiled at her. “ Do you want to check out the place? I thought I’d muddle about, see if there’s anything interesting going on.” By his estimation, it had to be one of the most distant to Earth stations. And they weren’t in the 25th or 28th century so the fact that the station had any signs of life was interesting. Perhaps some of the Kobolians had come looking for their Earth cousins. Nutty people, the Kobolians. Pleasant enough but their increasingly strident religious prostrations had gotten scary the last time he had been in that part of the galaxy.
Still, they generally had good wine. “ If you find anyone, try not to get into a religious discussion and ask if there’s wine.”
“Wine?” Rose asked, her eyebrow quirking upwards.
“ Drat, you’re right. They call it ambrosia.” He smiled at her. “ The living quarters are generally up higher. Or you could stay here with me.” He really didn’t mind. Rose was generally a lot of fun when he was rooting around. He knew her well enough to know that she often got bored though. “ Go on then, have some fun.” He made shooing motions
He waited until she had gone up to the metal stairwell to turn his attention to the lights that flickered on and off. Way stations were monuments to human engineering. The design was almost flawlessly simple and he could see that while old, it had been made with the typical care that went into such projects. A system with a way station was up and coming and the governments in those systems paid for the best of everything.
There were records of way stations functioning by themselves for centuries. This one had lighting on the fritz. That was simply bizarre. Bizarre and next to impossible. That indicated that something was going on. Something interesting. Time, he thought with amusement, to take a look around.
~*~
Rose wondered, as she walked through the metal hallways if she would ever get used to space travel. Truth be told, she wasn’t always taken with landing on random space stations. She wasn’t afraid, not exactly. So far the station seemed very… metallic. All grey metal, flickering lights, and an air system that seemed to whir into life and then stop at random. It was dusty as well. She had been around enough ill kept flats to know what lived in dirty was supposed to look like, and the station looked abandoned dirty, not lived in dirty. At the same time, she could see signs of recent activity. Tracks in the dust on the floor for example and the fact that as she went higher in the station, she was certain that she heard footsteps. Footsteps and voices.
And worse, her eyes were itching and sore. She and the Doctor had visited her mother recently, and her mother had been babysitting the neighbor children. The dirty neighbor children that had pink eye, and she was positive that one of the kids hadn’t been diligent about washing hands. Damn it, she thought as she wiped her eyes. I need antibiotic eye drops. And I’ll need to warn the Doctor.
She rather doubted that he could catch something as mundane as conjunctivitis but her mum had raised her to be courteous. Besides, it was a legitimate reason to suggest that perhaps rooting around an abandoned space station wasn’t as big of a priority as getting antibiotic eye drops. She had a bad feeling, truth be told. It was hard to say anything. Sometimes she thought the Doctor would take such a warning with complete seriousness, and sometimes she thought that he would just laugh. He was sometimes hard to understand.
Rose rounded another corner and much to her surprise she came upon two women. Two extremely attractive women were poring over one of the many computer panels. Their panel was dark and as she watched, they pulled it open as if to fix it. The problem was neither looked like the sort of woman that worked in maintenance on a space station. Both were clad in very nice, conservative but sexual outfits. The taller blonde was in a red cocktail dress, while the slightly shorter but more muscular woman was in a white pantsuit. They didn’t look like maintenance workers at all.
She coughed, and they both spun to look at her. It eerily reminded her of sharks sighting prey, like she remembered seeing in documentaries at school. The taller, blonder woman took a step forward.
“ Who are you?” the woman asked. Her companion stepped up beside her, and Rose got a distinctly bad vibe from the two of them.
“ I’m Rose. We just arrived here at the station.” She regretted saying we almost as soon as she did it. Something about the women set her on edge. She considered the request the Doctor had made earlier. “ Is there any ambrosia? We were hoping to pick some up.”
The two women look at her, at each other, and then back at her. “ You will come with us,” the taller one said.
As they both stepped forward, Rose realized she wasn’t being offered a choice. Oh damn, she thought, the Doctor is not going to be pleased.
~*~
It got increasingly curious as he walked about the station. By any reasonable standard, the station was in excellent condition. It was powered down, which was understandable, but a quick scan of the systems told the Doctor a very different story. There were people on the station, in the upper decks, but not many, and the readings he had gotten on them from the TARDIS’s scanner had been… less than distinct. There were a lot of things in the galaxy that reasonably approximated humans. On the other hand, it could have just been a glitch.
More interesting was the subtle sabotage of the station’s system, in his opinion. It was subtle, very subtle, and yet it clearly was sabotage because the station’s computer systems were being manipulated. Someone was carefully and systematically shutting down systems. Turning on the shut down systems simply caused the systems to be shut down again. As if someone was watching the whole business, waiting. More worrisome, the systems that were tampered with were being erased. And as near as he could tell, the systems were being accessed on the lower levels. From consoles near the ventilation system, and wasn’t it convenient that the ventilation system was non functional?
Convenient for him anyway. Whoever was fooling with the system was keeping an eye on things. Which meant, he thought as he cheerfully reset the lighting, that whoever was playing would need to show themselves in order to have the lights continue to blink. The Doctor carefully hid himself in a doorway and waited.
It didn’t take long. That didn’t surprise him in the slightest. Someone was trying very hard to make the station unlivable, and that was very interesting. As he watched, the nearest vent slowly pushed out and much as he suspected, a human crawled out of the ventiliaton shaft. Male, very dirty,dusty, and scruffy looking, with short curly dark hair. Much darker than Rose, but there was much variation in the human race. As he watched, the man looked about furtively, obviously fearful, and went right to the control panel.
The Doctor hesitated. The reality was that humans could be unpredictable and this one looked almost feral. Shutting down necessary systems was generally a hostile act but the Doctor suspected that he wasn’t looking at the dark tyrant of the station. For starters, the poor fellow simply looked too terrified to be a diabolical tyrant. He waited a moment, until he was certain that there was only one person coming out of the shaft.
His suspicions were confirmed when the man withdrew a battered hand held computer and began to fiddle with the computer system. That solved the basic problem of who was doing the sabotage. That left the more interesting reason of why.
Humans liked comfort, after all. That was a basic truth about them. This human was dirty and thin and from his own experience he knew living in a ventilation system wasn’t pleasant. So why was this human doing this?
“Why are you doing this?” he asked brightly.
The young man spun around, desperately grabbing for a gun that had been tucked in his pants. A chemical combustion weapon, the Doctor noted. Primitive but deadly. The man blinked in surprise.
“Who are you, why are you here, who are you?” The poor man was too darkly complexioned to actually blanch but he did manage a nice color change. The gun shook in his hand. “ Who are you?”
“ I’m the Doctor,” he said cheerfully, holding out his hand. “ And you are?”
“ I’m … Lt. Gaeta of the Colonial Fleet. Doctor What?” The man’s hands shook.
“ That’s right. What are you doing here?” The Doctor was careful to keep things calm. He could read stress on a human. He could even smell it and the human standing before him reeked of it. And, he simply reeked. Still, if he was a true colonial, from Kobol’s lost colonies, then perhaps he might be worth chatting up. “I just arrived, with my companion Rose. By your coating of grime, I assume you’ve been here a while. Any recommendations?”
The lieutenant twitched. “ Are you insane?” His fingers clenched the gun. “ How... could you land here? They’re all over…”
There was a sudden thumping on the metal deck. The Doctor could feel it coming from the upper decks. People marching. Scratch that, the Doctor thought. People didn’t sound so metallic. Cybermen? Daleks? It didn’t matter. It was danger, that much he knew, and the sheer terror on the face of the lieutenant confirmed it.
“ Come with me,” Gaeta said urgently, not quite above a whisper. “ They’ll kill us if they find us.”
And that was certainly a warning. “ I have to find Rose.”
The lieutenant, Gaeta, paled more. “ If the Cylons have her, she’s dead already. Or captured. That’s worse.”
“Cylons?” Suddenly so much made sense. Cylons were a scourge. A minor scourge, to be sure, and they had died off almost as soon as they had appeared, but the rumors were decidedly unpleasant. And, he realized, the timing was just right. As was the location. “What will they do with Rose?”
The man flinched back. “You can come with me… but if they have her…”
The Doctor nodded. Centurions had lasted a lot longer than the Cylons themselves. He was going to need more information. His instincts told him to trust the man. After all, he was human, and he was offering to help him hide with no ulterior motive. That usually was a good sign. And the footsteps were getting much louder and closer. He clapped the man on the shoulder, causing dust to plume “ Yes discretion is the better part of valor. Lead the way, my dirty friend.”
I dunno if this qualifies as crack fic. Feel free to comment.