Fic: Solid Skies, Chapter 5
Title: Solid Skies
Author: Veldeia
Series: Sequel to Hollow World
Fandom: Doctor Who
Warnings: WIP
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, OCs. Gen.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If you've seen it on TV, it isn't mine.
Summary: After surviving one big cave, the Doctor, Martha and a caving team from the Sixties find themselves in even more trouble on a planet full of caves.
5. The Surface
"Martha? You all right?" the Doctor asked, peering worriedly at her face.
Martha felt shaken and dazed, and a little nauseous, like she'd just been riding some crazy thrill ride at an amusement park. Other than that, she'd made it through the train crash without a scratch. "I'm fine," she answered him. "What happened?"
"Don't know yet. Obviously, we slowed down a lot faster than we were supposed to."
Martha looked around. The inside of the train car looked the same as before, except that it was darker. The only light in it was flowing in through the small green windows. At the front of the passenger compartment, at the foot of the wall separating it from the cockpit, two guards were lying on the ground, unmoving. "Everyone else all right?" she asked.
"Don't know that, either. We'd better find out," the Doctor said. He got up from his seat and scanned the room.
Martha copied his motions. As far as she could see, everyone who'd been sitting and strapped down was conscious and seemed more or less okay. Jess and Brian were leaning against each other, speaking softly. Joseph had his head between his knees, and Grant had placed a hand on his back. Khif had stood up, a frown on her face.
The Doctor had clearly come to the same conclusion as Martha. Turning his back to the seated people, he stepped to the aisle between the rows of seats, and started towards the two prone guards.
Several uninjured guards leaped up from their seats. "Where do you think you're going, alien?" one of them growled.
"We're doctors," the Doctor said, indicating himself and Martha. "We can help."
The guards still looked suspicious. No wonder, Martha thought. With two guards down, there were six guards and six prisoners. Much better odds than before, considering escape. Then again, they had no idea where they were, and no idea what the planet's surface was like.
"Please, trust us," the Doctor said steadily. "We're all in this together."
"Let them," Khif ordered the other guards. "But no sudden moves, you two. And everyone else remains seated."
Martha and the Doctor split up, both approaching one of the injured guards. The one Martha went to was lying on the floor in an awkward tangle of limbs, face towards the wall. He looked young, younger than Martha, and much shorter and skinnier. As Martha crouched closer, she saw that a big, nasty-looking bruise covered his forehead, and his neck seemed to be at a strange angle. She tried checking for breathing and pulse - or pulses, or whatever Khiandrians might have - but she found nothing, no signs of life at all. If Martha had had to venture a guess, she would've said the man had broken his neck, and died instantly.
"I... I think he's dead," she said softly.
"She's not," the Doctor announced from his patient. "But she does need help. Do we have any medical supplies? A first aid kit of some sort would be great."
One of the guards tossed him a white box, and the Doctor started going through its contents, most of which were little devices that Martha didn't recognise.
Khif came over to check on the guard Martha had examined. She sighed heavily. "He's gone, then. Poor Chal. It was his first assignment out of town," she shook her head and looked down. After a moment of silence, Khif got up, and walked to the cockpit door. The driver didn't answer when she knocked. She tried the handle, but the door was locked.
"I can help with that," the Doctor offered, and beckoned Martha to him and his patient. He placed a round device about the size of a matchbox on her palm. "Hold that over the broken ribs, and keep an eye on her breathing." Before Martha had time to ask him for a better explanation, let alone more detailed instructions, he'd bounced up and attacked the lock with the sonic.
Martha did her best to follow his orders, locating the obvious injury in the guard's side, and placing the little device over it. She almost dropped it, when it suddenly began to buzz. A few tiny lights blinked on its surface. The Doctor nodded at her from where he stood, and smiled encouragingly. Apparently, it was supposed to do that.
As she monitored the guard's breathing, which seemed to be improving by the second, Martha followed the Doctor and Khif's progress from the corner of her eye. The door was easily dealt with, and the two disappeared into the cockpit.
"She's not here! How's that possible?" Khif's astonished exclamation carried through the doorway.
"Left through that door, I reckon, probably as soon as we'd stopped," the Doctor's voice came in reply. "Must've been in on the plot, whatever that is. Let's see if I can make some sense of these controls..."
The guard Martha was tending to shifted, and moaned softly. "It's all right," Martha told her reassuringly. "You're going to be fine." The mysterious healing device had stopped buzzing, and the light's weren't blinking anymore, either. Martha figured that meant it was finished.
"Thanks," the guard whispered, drawing deep, shaky breaths.
A moment later, Khif and the Doctor stepped out of the cockpit. "It seems we've been hit by an EMP. There's probably been a bomb on the tracks," Khif announced. "An extremist attack, obviously. The train is completely inoperative, and the comms are down. The good news is, there seems to be a station not far from us. That means we're going out."
To her surprise, Martha saw the injured guard tense up and turn her head to stare at Khif, wide-eyed.
"Isn't there any other way?" another guard asked from behind them, almost pleadingly. "Wouldn't it be better to stay here and wait for help?"
"We don't know how widely communications are disrupted, or how big this attack was. We'll most likely be home sooner on foot. Don't be such grubs."
"What about him?" Martha asked, glancing at the dead guard.
"Him?" Khif repeated, looking puzzled. "That's not Chal anymore. His spirit has passed on. That's just meat, and carrying it around would only slow us down."
Martha gaped at her, taken aback.
"Different planet, different habits," the Doctor told her in an undertone.
She decided not to press her point.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Suit up!" Khif bellowed at the other guards.
They made a salute, and began pulling parcels of some kind from under the seats. They tossed one to each of the prisoners, and took ones for themselves.
Martha unwrapped the lightweight bundle she'd been given. It looked more like a cape of flowing white fabric, with a pair of green goggles and a filter mask attached to it, than anything she'd call a suit. She saw Khif pull the hood over her head, and as the rest of the cloak settled over her, it somehow knit together on its own, enveloping her body. She stepped forwards to help one of the suits over the injured guard next to Martha. She was sitting up now, looking much better.
"Ooh, smart fabric! Very smart of you!" the Doctor exclaimed eagerly. He hung his suit in front of him, looking contemplative. "What are the conditions like out there?"
"Cold and windy, now that it's the dry season," said Khif. "In the wet season, we wouldn't even consider going out. The air is breathable without a mask, but only just."
"Hmm. Better safe than sorry," the Doctor decided, and let the fabric wrap itself around him.
Martha dressed in her suit as well. It felt strange, not as much like clothing as like stepping into warm water. It was quite comfortable, even the part over her face, although she found herself wishing the goggles came with clear glass instead of green.
Khif and the Doctor helped the injured guard to her feet. Martha was amazed to see that she could actually stand up on her own, even though she did seem to be guarding her side.
"I can walk without help, I think," the guard said, her voice a little hoarse. Her gaze met Martha's. "Thank you so much. If only all the alien-hating Darks had seen that!"
Martha smiled at her. "Maybe you can tell them about it."
"I will," she promised. "I definitely will."
Khif walked over to the door, and used an emergency handle to open it. The curtains fluttered as a strong gust of wind assailed the room, but Martha could barely feel it through the suit.
"I can trust you not to try and run away from us, right?" Khif asked the prisoners, once they had all climbed out of the train car.
"Of course you can," the Doctor assured her. "As I said, we're all in this together."
They made their way down a concrete slope, from the elevated tracks to a narrow walkway next to them, and began walking. Khif took point, the Doctor and Martha came behind her, and the injured guard followed them with a fellow guard. The remaining guards seemed more suspicious than Khif, and stayed close to the rest of their prisoners.
As Martha glanced at the others over her shoulder, she noticed that all the guards were either looking down, or staring straight ahead. It was the view, she realised. They were afraid of it. That was why they'd been so reluctant to come out here. For people who spent all their lives in closed spaces, the open air must be as frightening as small tunnels were to her.
Martha, herself, felt glad and relieved to be outside after all the time they'd spent underground on two different planets. The landscape was barren and pocked with craters, but everywhere she looked, the ground was covered with some sort of plating. It looked vaguely familiar - solar panels, she realised. In the distance, she also saw a forest of tall pillars with rapidly spinning rotors: windmills.
"That's brilliant!" the Doctor enthused. "What a great way of using all this wide, empty space!" He had pulled off his hood, leaving his face bare. He was grinning widely. The weather didn't seem to bother him at all.
"Is it OK if I take this off, too, do you think?" Martha asked him, gesturing at the mask covering her face.
"Should be all right," he said. "It's just a bit chilly."
Martha grabbed at the strange, smooth fabric under her chin. There were no seams, but it gave way under her fingers, forming a flap, which allowed her to pull the hood off. A freezing cold wind instantly struck her face, making her eyes water, and the air smelled strange, but it was wonderful to be able to look at the wide open sky without the green filtering.
The sun had set during their train ride. The sky wasn't black, but a deep purple, sprinkled with unfamiliar stars. Martha saw two moons making their way across it. One of them looked like Earth's Moon, the other was smaller, full of details she couldn't make out, with an uneven edge - it must be one of the artificial moons. She wondered if one of those two was the Dungeon Moon. Looking ahead, along the tracks, she saw a low, flat stone building not far from them. It must be the station Khif had mentioned.
Soon, her cheeks were starting to grow numb with the cold, and the air somehow felt a little too thin. She glanced at the Doctor - he was still beaming, completely untroubled.
"Better cold tolerance," he told her.
She nodded, her teeth chattering, and pulled the hood over her head. She felt instantly warmer.
Once they'd reached the side of the station building, Khif went to the first door they saw. Before she'd as much as touched it, one of the guards cried out an urgent warning. "No, no! Stay away! Don't you recognise the station?"
Khif stepped back to take a good look - and then backed away some more, with a string of curses that didn't translate. "Keep moving," she yelled.
"What's wrong with this place?" the injured guard behind Martha asked.
"It's Nest Town Station! Suck it up and keep moving!" Khif repeated.
Nest Town - that was the place where the plague had struck. Martha noticed the Doctor had pulled the hood over his face. Of course, she didn't know if these surface suits would provide any protection from dangerous micro-organisms anyway. Then again, they hadn't even opened the door. Surely there was no risk at all.
They kept walking. As soon as they'd passed the station, they saw that there really had been a bomb on the tracks. There was a blackened and burned crater cutting them, at least thirty feet across. She shuddered to think what would've happened if the train had run into it.
"I doubt they wanted us to fall into that pit," Khif said, as if reading Martha's thoughts. "It was no accident we stopped where we did, right on top of Nest Town. Whoever did this, they were sending you a message: you brought it, you should suffer for it."
"Where exactly did the Plague come from, then?" the Doctor asked.
"I'm not sure anyone knows that," Khif answered. "The last I heard, they're still working on that."
"I could help. I've been around. Met a few plagues. Not that I mean that I might be carrying anything, mind," the Doctor said.
"I doubt they'll want your help, no matter what. You see how things are," Khif pointed at the bomb crater with her thumb.
They had been walking for what felt like at least an hour, when there was another building by the tracks. It was an angular block of stone slightly bigger than the TARDIS, with a door.
"Ah, an emergency exit," Khif said. She tapped at a point in the building's wall, and a small computer screen appeared. "In working order, too. Good," she added. She took a few minutes to make a call - audio only - to let the officials know what had happened and where they were, and then opened the doors to a large lift. There was just enough space for the six prisoners and the seven guards in it.
"We should be well past the dangerous area, and we'll be getting off at an upper level anyway, but better keep the suits on just in case," Khif said.
They stepped in, the doors closed behind them, and they were back inside, sinking rapidly deeper underground. As barren and unfriendly as the surface had been, Martha felt a little sad that they had to leave it behind so soon. Now, it would be all rocks and tunnels and dim green light again.
6. Maze City, Central Holding Facility
Author: Veldeia
Series: Sequel to Hollow World
Fandom: Doctor Who
Warnings: WIP
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, OCs. Gen.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If you've seen it on TV, it isn't mine.
Summary: After surviving one big cave, the Doctor, Martha and a caving team from the Sixties find themselves in even more trouble on a planet full of caves.
5. The Surface
"Martha? You all right?" the Doctor asked, peering worriedly at her face.
Martha felt shaken and dazed, and a little nauseous, like she'd just been riding some crazy thrill ride at an amusement park. Other than that, she'd made it through the train crash without a scratch. "I'm fine," she answered him. "What happened?"
"Don't know yet. Obviously, we slowed down a lot faster than we were supposed to."
Martha looked around. The inside of the train car looked the same as before, except that it was darker. The only light in it was flowing in through the small green windows. At the front of the passenger compartment, at the foot of the wall separating it from the cockpit, two guards were lying on the ground, unmoving. "Everyone else all right?" she asked.
"Don't know that, either. We'd better find out," the Doctor said. He got up from his seat and scanned the room.
Martha copied his motions. As far as she could see, everyone who'd been sitting and strapped down was conscious and seemed more or less okay. Jess and Brian were leaning against each other, speaking softly. Joseph had his head between his knees, and Grant had placed a hand on his back. Khif had stood up, a frown on her face.
The Doctor had clearly come to the same conclusion as Martha. Turning his back to the seated people, he stepped to the aisle between the rows of seats, and started towards the two prone guards.
Several uninjured guards leaped up from their seats. "Where do you think you're going, alien?" one of them growled.
"We're doctors," the Doctor said, indicating himself and Martha. "We can help."
The guards still looked suspicious. No wonder, Martha thought. With two guards down, there were six guards and six prisoners. Much better odds than before, considering escape. Then again, they had no idea where they were, and no idea what the planet's surface was like.
"Please, trust us," the Doctor said steadily. "We're all in this together."
"Let them," Khif ordered the other guards. "But no sudden moves, you two. And everyone else remains seated."
Martha and the Doctor split up, both approaching one of the injured guards. The one Martha went to was lying on the floor in an awkward tangle of limbs, face towards the wall. He looked young, younger than Martha, and much shorter and skinnier. As Martha crouched closer, she saw that a big, nasty-looking bruise covered his forehead, and his neck seemed to be at a strange angle. She tried checking for breathing and pulse - or pulses, or whatever Khiandrians might have - but she found nothing, no signs of life at all. If Martha had had to venture a guess, she would've said the man had broken his neck, and died instantly.
"I... I think he's dead," she said softly.
"She's not," the Doctor announced from his patient. "But she does need help. Do we have any medical supplies? A first aid kit of some sort would be great."
One of the guards tossed him a white box, and the Doctor started going through its contents, most of which were little devices that Martha didn't recognise.
Khif came over to check on the guard Martha had examined. She sighed heavily. "He's gone, then. Poor Chal. It was his first assignment out of town," she shook her head and looked down. After a moment of silence, Khif got up, and walked to the cockpit door. The driver didn't answer when she knocked. She tried the handle, but the door was locked.
"I can help with that," the Doctor offered, and beckoned Martha to him and his patient. He placed a round device about the size of a matchbox on her palm. "Hold that over the broken ribs, and keep an eye on her breathing." Before Martha had time to ask him for a better explanation, let alone more detailed instructions, he'd bounced up and attacked the lock with the sonic.
Martha did her best to follow his orders, locating the obvious injury in the guard's side, and placing the little device over it. She almost dropped it, when it suddenly began to buzz. A few tiny lights blinked on its surface. The Doctor nodded at her from where he stood, and smiled encouragingly. Apparently, it was supposed to do that.
As she monitored the guard's breathing, which seemed to be improving by the second, Martha followed the Doctor and Khif's progress from the corner of her eye. The door was easily dealt with, and the two disappeared into the cockpit.
"She's not here! How's that possible?" Khif's astonished exclamation carried through the doorway.
"Left through that door, I reckon, probably as soon as we'd stopped," the Doctor's voice came in reply. "Must've been in on the plot, whatever that is. Let's see if I can make some sense of these controls..."
The guard Martha was tending to shifted, and moaned softly. "It's all right," Martha told her reassuringly. "You're going to be fine." The mysterious healing device had stopped buzzing, and the light's weren't blinking anymore, either. Martha figured that meant it was finished.
"Thanks," the guard whispered, drawing deep, shaky breaths.
A moment later, Khif and the Doctor stepped out of the cockpit. "It seems we've been hit by an EMP. There's probably been a bomb on the tracks," Khif announced. "An extremist attack, obviously. The train is completely inoperative, and the comms are down. The good news is, there seems to be a station not far from us. That means we're going out."
To her surprise, Martha saw the injured guard tense up and turn her head to stare at Khif, wide-eyed.
"Isn't there any other way?" another guard asked from behind them, almost pleadingly. "Wouldn't it be better to stay here and wait for help?"
"We don't know how widely communications are disrupted, or how big this attack was. We'll most likely be home sooner on foot. Don't be such grubs."
"What about him?" Martha asked, glancing at the dead guard.
"Him?" Khif repeated, looking puzzled. "That's not Chal anymore. His spirit has passed on. That's just meat, and carrying it around would only slow us down."
Martha gaped at her, taken aback.
"Different planet, different habits," the Doctor told her in an undertone.
She decided not to press her point.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Suit up!" Khif bellowed at the other guards.
They made a salute, and began pulling parcels of some kind from under the seats. They tossed one to each of the prisoners, and took ones for themselves.
Martha unwrapped the lightweight bundle she'd been given. It looked more like a cape of flowing white fabric, with a pair of green goggles and a filter mask attached to it, than anything she'd call a suit. She saw Khif pull the hood over her head, and as the rest of the cloak settled over her, it somehow knit together on its own, enveloping her body. She stepped forwards to help one of the suits over the injured guard next to Martha. She was sitting up now, looking much better.
"Ooh, smart fabric! Very smart of you!" the Doctor exclaimed eagerly. He hung his suit in front of him, looking contemplative. "What are the conditions like out there?"
"Cold and windy, now that it's the dry season," said Khif. "In the wet season, we wouldn't even consider going out. The air is breathable without a mask, but only just."
"Hmm. Better safe than sorry," the Doctor decided, and let the fabric wrap itself around him.
Martha dressed in her suit as well. It felt strange, not as much like clothing as like stepping into warm water. It was quite comfortable, even the part over her face, although she found herself wishing the goggles came with clear glass instead of green.
Khif and the Doctor helped the injured guard to her feet. Martha was amazed to see that she could actually stand up on her own, even though she did seem to be guarding her side.
"I can walk without help, I think," the guard said, her voice a little hoarse. Her gaze met Martha's. "Thank you so much. If only all the alien-hating Darks had seen that!"
Martha smiled at her. "Maybe you can tell them about it."
"I will," she promised. "I definitely will."
Khif walked over to the door, and used an emergency handle to open it. The curtains fluttered as a strong gust of wind assailed the room, but Martha could barely feel it through the suit.
"I can trust you not to try and run away from us, right?" Khif asked the prisoners, once they had all climbed out of the train car.
"Of course you can," the Doctor assured her. "As I said, we're all in this together."
They made their way down a concrete slope, from the elevated tracks to a narrow walkway next to them, and began walking. Khif took point, the Doctor and Martha came behind her, and the injured guard followed them with a fellow guard. The remaining guards seemed more suspicious than Khif, and stayed close to the rest of their prisoners.
As Martha glanced at the others over her shoulder, she noticed that all the guards were either looking down, or staring straight ahead. It was the view, she realised. They were afraid of it. That was why they'd been so reluctant to come out here. For people who spent all their lives in closed spaces, the open air must be as frightening as small tunnels were to her.
Martha, herself, felt glad and relieved to be outside after all the time they'd spent underground on two different planets. The landscape was barren and pocked with craters, but everywhere she looked, the ground was covered with some sort of plating. It looked vaguely familiar - solar panels, she realised. In the distance, she also saw a forest of tall pillars with rapidly spinning rotors: windmills.
"That's brilliant!" the Doctor enthused. "What a great way of using all this wide, empty space!" He had pulled off his hood, leaving his face bare. He was grinning widely. The weather didn't seem to bother him at all.
"Is it OK if I take this off, too, do you think?" Martha asked him, gesturing at the mask covering her face.
"Should be all right," he said. "It's just a bit chilly."
Martha grabbed at the strange, smooth fabric under her chin. There were no seams, but it gave way under her fingers, forming a flap, which allowed her to pull the hood off. A freezing cold wind instantly struck her face, making her eyes water, and the air smelled strange, but it was wonderful to be able to look at the wide open sky without the green filtering.
The sun had set during their train ride. The sky wasn't black, but a deep purple, sprinkled with unfamiliar stars. Martha saw two moons making their way across it. One of them looked like Earth's Moon, the other was smaller, full of details she couldn't make out, with an uneven edge - it must be one of the artificial moons. She wondered if one of those two was the Dungeon Moon. Looking ahead, along the tracks, she saw a low, flat stone building not far from them. It must be the station Khif had mentioned.
Soon, her cheeks were starting to grow numb with the cold, and the air somehow felt a little too thin. She glanced at the Doctor - he was still beaming, completely untroubled.
"Better cold tolerance," he told her.
She nodded, her teeth chattering, and pulled the hood over her head. She felt instantly warmer.
Once they'd reached the side of the station building, Khif went to the first door they saw. Before she'd as much as touched it, one of the guards cried out an urgent warning. "No, no! Stay away! Don't you recognise the station?"
Khif stepped back to take a good look - and then backed away some more, with a string of curses that didn't translate. "Keep moving," she yelled.
"What's wrong with this place?" the injured guard behind Martha asked.
"It's Nest Town Station! Suck it up and keep moving!" Khif repeated.
Nest Town - that was the place where the plague had struck. Martha noticed the Doctor had pulled the hood over his face. Of course, she didn't know if these surface suits would provide any protection from dangerous micro-organisms anyway. Then again, they hadn't even opened the door. Surely there was no risk at all.
They kept walking. As soon as they'd passed the station, they saw that there really had been a bomb on the tracks. There was a blackened and burned crater cutting them, at least thirty feet across. She shuddered to think what would've happened if the train had run into it.
"I doubt they wanted us to fall into that pit," Khif said, as if reading Martha's thoughts. "It was no accident we stopped where we did, right on top of Nest Town. Whoever did this, they were sending you a message: you brought it, you should suffer for it."
"Where exactly did the Plague come from, then?" the Doctor asked.
"I'm not sure anyone knows that," Khif answered. "The last I heard, they're still working on that."
"I could help. I've been around. Met a few plagues. Not that I mean that I might be carrying anything, mind," the Doctor said.
"I doubt they'll want your help, no matter what. You see how things are," Khif pointed at the bomb crater with her thumb.
They had been walking for what felt like at least an hour, when there was another building by the tracks. It was an angular block of stone slightly bigger than the TARDIS, with a door.
"Ah, an emergency exit," Khif said. She tapped at a point in the building's wall, and a small computer screen appeared. "In working order, too. Good," she added. She took a few minutes to make a call - audio only - to let the officials know what had happened and where they were, and then opened the doors to a large lift. There was just enough space for the six prisoners and the seven guards in it.
"We should be well past the dangerous area, and we'll be getting off at an upper level anyway, but better keep the suits on just in case," Khif said.
They stepped in, the doors closed behind them, and they were back inside, sinking rapidly deeper underground. As barren and unfriendly as the surface had been, Martha felt a little sad that they had to leave it behind so soon. Now, it would be all rocks and tunnels and dim green light again.
6. Maze City, Central Holding Facility