Multiversal Madness!
The index hasn't been updated yet, but the author names are now attached to the Multiverse stories, so I guess it's time to admit which one was mine. Not that I don't imagine everybody's already guessed... Anyway, I wrote "Travel Light" for lady_smith who wanted The Doctor (any incarnation) & Stark & Pilot & Moya & anybody else from those universes I wanted to bring along with them (which ended up being Ace & some OCs). I really wish I'd managed to work more Pilot & Moya in, but... well, this thing was kind of a bitch to write (14,000 words! When do I ever write anything that's 14,000 words?!), and I'm just glad it came out as well as it did.
There are a lot of other things I could say about this story -- it'd be a prime candidate for a DVD-type commentary if it weren't so damned long -- and maybe I'll say them later, if anybody's actually interested (or possibly even if they aren't, knowing me). For right now, I'm just gonna repost it here, minus the zillion typos I somehow managed to miss in the archived version. *bangs head*
So. 14,000 freakin' words (which means it'll be posted in two parts). Set post-miniseries for Farscape (and thus spoiler-containing), featuring the Seventh Doctor (no spoilers for Who). Contains some violence, but no sex.
Travel Light
by AstroGirl
Ace had just entered the console room when the TARDIS suddenly lurched and all the lights went out.
"Professor! What just happened?"
"Quiet, Ace!" The Doctor's voice came from out of the darkness, followed by the thunk of his fist hitting the console. At least, that's what Ace assumed it was. She'd heard it often enough, since it seemed to be his first response to any problem the rackety old time machine had. And it worked more often than it had any right to, too. The lights flickered a couple of times and came back on.
The Doctor smiled. "There. That's all right!" He polished the console with his sleeve, possibly as some sort of apology for having thwacked it.
"All right? What was that?"
"Oh," he said in an airy tone of voice she'd long since learned not to trust. "We just hit a bump."
"A bump? We're in the Vortex!"
"Yes, well, even the Temporal Vortex has topography, you know. Lumps, bumps, bits of debris... Very rare, but not unheard of."
"So, is the TARDIS all right, then?"
"Oh, yes, yes. Everything should be fine now."
The lights went out again. "Don't say it," came a voice from the dark.
"I wasn't going to say anything," said Ace. But she couldn't quite keep the giggle out of her voice.
"I think," said the Doctor, "That perhaps we ought to land."
**
"How long did you say that crystal whatever thingy was going to take to auto-regenerate?"
"Crystal-fibroid temporal-stabilization initializer circuit. And it shouldn't be long. A few days at the most."
"Days?!"
"At most." The Doctor waved a hand dismissively. It was barely visible in the dim glow he'd managed to produce by repeated console-thunkings.
"Right. So, where are we?"
The Time Lord grinned. "I have no idea. We could be anywhere. Past, future... Even sideways."
"Sideways? What, you mean, like an alternative universe?"
"Mmm. Tricky things, Vortex bumps. Shall we go outside and see?"
"Might as well." Ace smiled back at him. "Hope it's somewhere nice, if we're going to be stuck here for days."
"No, you don't. I know you. You hope it's somewhere exciting."
"Oh, like you don't!" She gave him a cheeky grin, threw open the console doors, and stepped out.
"Well?" came the Doctor's voice from inside the TARDIS.
Ace looked around. "Hmm. It's very... big. Interesting architecture." She walked forward a little, craning her head around to take in the massive ribbed walls that enclosed them. "Lots of boxes or something." She opened one. It was full of smaller boxes labeled in a script she couldn't read. She turned back to look at the TARDIS just as the Doctor emerged. "Are we inside a spaceship?"
He flashed her that small, satisfied smile he got whenever she'd figured something out correctly. "Yes, I believe we are." He peered inside the container she'd opened, then strode over to one of the walls and laid a hand against it. "Well, well. A living ship."
She trailed after him. "Living? What, like... We're inside an animal?" She made a yecch noise.
"Oh, an animal specifically engineered for humanoid habitation, I'd say. Nothing to 'yecch' about, as long as it's happy."
"Happy?"
"Mmm, yes. Such creatures are usually happiest when they have a function to fulfill." He straightened up. "I haven't seen anyone about, have you?"
Ace had just started to shake her head no, when a voice suddenly came from what seemed to be all around them. "Intruders! Stay where you are, or my DRDs will shoot you!"
Ace's brow furrowed as they turned away from the wall. "DR-whats?"
The Doctor tapped her arm with his umbrella, then used it to point downwards. Her gaze followed. On the floor, surrounding them in an effective semicircle, were dozens of little yellow robots. Under other circumstances, Ace thought, they might have been sort of cute. The weapons barrel each one had aimed directly at them, however, did a lot to dispel that impression.
The Doctor smiled and raised his hands. Ace slowly followed suit.
"Hello!" he said. "Take us to your leader!"
**
Their "leader" turned out to be some kind of giant four-armed crab creature. Despite herself, Ace found herself shrinking back a bit, wanting to keep the Doctor between her and its ugly-looking claws.
The Doctor, annoyingly, noticed. "It's all right, Ace. He can't reach you from there, and he can't get up. He's transfixed in place. A highly interesting symbiotic relationship. Is your neural system wired directly into the ship?"
The creature blinked. "Yes, it is. I--" Suddenly it stopped, its eyelids lowering menacingly. "I mean, no! I could easily get up and hurt you, very badly, so you ought to answer our questions."
Ace tried not to laugh, but it was no good. This crab-guy reminded her too much of her old English teacher, Mr. McNally. He'd always tried to come off as a hardnose, like he fancied himself an old-school disciplinarian, but he had such a kind face and a non-threatening voice nobody ever took him seriously. Everybody'd liked him, though, so they'd tended to keep the mayhem down at the level of spitballs. "We're quavering," she said dryly, discreetly stepping out from behind the Doctor again.
"Now, Ace. Be polite!" The Doctor smiled and approached the creature. "I'm the Doctor, and this is my friend Ace. How do you do?" He raised his hat briefly, then stepped towards the console the creature was sitting at. Or possibly bolted to. The little robots zipped forward as he reached out a hand, taking aim at him, but he merely touched the console gently. "Tell me, what's the name of your friend here? She's a beautiful ship, what we've seen of her."
"What?" The poor creature looked awfully confused. Ace almost felt sorry for him. But then, a lot of people had that problem with the Doctor. "Uh, Moya. Her name is Moya."
The Doctor nodded. "Hello, Moya." He stroked his hand gently along the organic material, tilted his head a little, as if listening for an answer, then beamed as if he'd just got one, and liked it.
The creature's eyes were wide, and his massive claws moved in agitated little gestures. "What, how did you--?"
The Doctor removed his hand, smiling, Ace thought, rather smugly now. "Pilot." He said it like it was a name. "As I said, I'm the Doctor, this is my friend Ace, and I assure you, we're no danger to you. We're simply travelers, arrived by accident, and soon enough to be on our way. I'd imagine you might be glad of passengers. You haven't a crew at the moment, have you?"
"No. We did have, but they're all... busy. Raising families, ruling planets, fighting revolutions..."
"Noble occupations, all," said the Doctor, "if done nobly." He paused and tapped the umbrella's handle against his chin thoughtfully. "Revolutions, you say? You know, from the glimpse I got of your cargo, it looked as if you're quite equipped for a revolution, yourselves."
"Well, we were going to--" Pilot -- assuming that's what he was called -- broke off again and regarded them with a suspicious look. "You're not Peacekeepers?"
"I like to think of myself as a peacemaker," said the Doctor. "But somehow I don't think that's what you mean."
"You look like Sebaceans," Pilot said accusingly.
Ace decided to jump in. "Do we act like Seb... Seb..."
"Sebaceans," said the Doctor.
"Yeah. Do we act like them? Huh?" Of course, she was only guessing that they didn't but it seemed like a pretty good bet, because, item one, these Sebaceans were probably the bad guys, and, in Ace's experience, bad guys tended not to stand around having pleasant chats, and item two, the Doctor didn't act like anybody.
"No," said Pilot doubtfully. "But you could be undercover agents."
"Yes," said the Doctor. "But."
"But?"
"But!" The word was almost triumphant. He stabbed a finger in Pilot's direction. "You don't believe I'm a Peacekeeper agent, do you? Not really. In fact, you believe I have an uncommonly honest face and feel strangely inclined to find me trustworthy. Right?"
"Well..."
"And you're an excellent judge of character, yes? Of course you are. I can tell."
"Well, yes, normally I--"
"So." The Doctor grinned. "There you go. Now, about this revolution..."
**
The Doctor and Pilot -- what was it about people who used occupations as names? -- proceeded to have a very long and boring conversation, at least from Ace's point of view. Pilot and the ship had used to travel with a bunch of friends, they said, but the friends had all got lives or something and left. Some friends, Ace thought. Weren't mates supposed to stick together? Anyway, Pilot and Moya'd gone off exploring, but hadn't found it as much fun as they'd thought, without anyone to share it with, so they'd come back -- back where, she wasn't entirely sure -- had somehow run across one of said old friends, who was fighting these Peacekeeper people -- yet another batch of Evil Space Nazis, she figured -- and had agreed to run supplies for the rebels.
All of which was interesting enough, but then the two of them started getting into a long discussion about local politics, then an enthusiastic comparison of various nebulas they'd visited, followed by some kind of game involving who could do the biggest maths equations in their head, and it was all Ace could do to keep her eyes open.
"Look," she said, "I'm glad you two are such great pals now, but this is boring me to death. I'm gonna go look around the ship, OK?"
They both sort of nodded distractedly, and Ace took off before either of their two giant alien brains could process what she'd said and come up with a reason for her not to go.
Blimey, this was a huge ship. Not as huge as the TARDIS, probably, but she doubted it was bigger on the inside than the outside, so it must be the size of a whale. Strange thought, being inside a giant space whale. There were corridors that went on and on, massive open spaces, living quarters that seemed to be empty, and, strangely, an entire section that looked like it had been burned out and abandoned.
She wandered back down to the cargo bay they'd materialized in and browsed through the crates. Lots of medical supplies, some stuff that she was pretty sure was food, a few guns, and... Hang on, were those explosives? She was pretty sure they were, so she slipped a couple of packs into her rucksack. You never knew when you might want something with a bit more kick than nitro and, whoever these rebels were, they probably had more than they really needed, anyway.
She'd just exited a huge room that had turned out to be some kind of shuttle hangar when the door started vibrating behind her. She could hear a rushing sound. Air being evacuated? Then, a minute later, another rushing sound... and an unmistakable engine noise.
"A ship!" she cried, startling one of the little robots that seemed to be everywhere. "There's a ship landing!"
A moment later, the door opened.
**
Stark wanted to sleep, wanted to cry, wanted to curl up into a dark place deep inside himself and fill his world with chanting, the way he once would have done. But whatever had happened to him, whatever role he now played, he was still Stykera. And didn't a Stykera's duty come when the end was inevitable? His people would need the supplies Moya was bringing, now more than ever. Not the weapons, perhaps, but the medical supplies, for certain. So he wiped the grime from his face and the moisture from his functional eye, and concentrated on bringing the transport pod into dock, telling himself that, whatever happened, he would fulfill his duty to his people at the end, giving them what comfort he could in their defeat, as he would give it to a dying soul.
He was so wrapped up in these melancholy thoughts as he exited the docking bay that he almost bumped into the stranger before he saw her. He let out a gasp of surprise, fumbling for his weapon, and the woman jumped back, making a startled sound of her own. "Hey, don't shoot! I'm friendly, honest!"
Stark stopped short, his hand still tightening on the grip of the pulse pistol, as her words penetrated his mind. And not just her words... He realized, with a sudden sense of shock, that, beneath the meaning conveyed to him by the translator microbes, she was speaking John Crichton's language. English. He compared it quickly with the echoes in his mind, and found himself in no doubt. "You're... you're human?"
"Yeah, that's right. Friendly human." She gave him a big smile to illustrate this and looked him carefully up and down. He tried to imagine how he must look to her: a tired, grimy Banik with an itchy trigger finger and a mass of scar tissue across half his face. "You're one of Pilot's rebels, then?"
His hand eased off the gun. He had no particular reason to trust her simply because she was one of Crichton's people, but if Pilot had accepted her...
He nodded. "Stark." It came out in a rasp, and he cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm Stark. And I'm only a rebel a little longer. Only until I go back and offer the Peacekeepers our surrender. We've lost."
She stood there looking at him for a long moment, then flashed him a huge, incongruous smile. "Mate," she said, "This may be your lucky day! I'm gonna introduce you to the Doctor." She put an arm around Stark's shoulder and added, conspiratorially, "He's really good with lost causes."
Stark just blinked, trying to fight down a completely irrational surge of hope.
**
Pilot was deep in conversation with a smallish, dark-haired man when they arrived at the den. Stark had no idea what he was saying, though, because the fantastically complex words of the Pilot language were flying by far too fast for translator microbes to manage. The stranger seemed to have no difficulty with it, though, nodding along as if he understood every word.
"Oi, Doctor!" called out the woman -- who, Stark had learned on the way up was called Ace. "I've found a rebel for you! I think his planet needs saving." She sounded strangely smug.
Both beings turned to look at them. Pilot started to say something, realized he was still speaking far too quickly, and started over. "Stark, this is--"
"I'm the Doctor," said the man. "Pleased to meet you." He smiled a mild, polite, blandly friendly smile, but something dark and strange and subtle glinted in his eyes. Stark found himself staring into those eyes, falling into them. He could see time, death, birth, a bright tangled aura... and something else, something he could almost touch if he tried...
"Yes," said the Doctor's voice in his ear, full of some obscure meaning. Stark blinked, returning to himself, unsure how the Doctor had got from where he'd been standing to his current position at Stark's elbow, or what Stark himself had been reaching toward, or exactly what his Stykera senses had glimpsed. Sheepishly, he returned his reaching hand to his side and shook his head to clear it.
"Yes," said the Doctor again, his manner abruptly changing to boisterous friendliness. "I'm the Doctor, this is Ace, Pilot you know." He thrust the point of something that Stark thought might have been an oddly-shaped umbrella in Pilot's direction. "And you need help." The tip of the probably-an-umbrella came to rest against Pilot's console, and the Doctor folded his hands around the handle, leaned forward, and rested his chin atop them. "Now. Tell me all about it."
The memory of that strange dark brightness still flickering in his mind, Stark did.
**
When they brought the dying man to Stark, his only thought, to his later shame, was a desire to see him quickly to his peace so that he could get some rest of his own.
He had been in the hills for ten days, moving from one group of fighters to another. They seemed to fight better with him there, even if he never fired a gun. Which he seldom did, either because he was deemed too valuable to risk or too unreliable with a weapon. It was only to be expected, of course, that Baniks would fight more willingly if they knew there would be a Stykera to give them the Death Rites should they fall, and comfort their souls at the end. But, to Stark's chagrin, that seemed to be the least of their reasons. His people had come to look on him as a kind of figurehead: the bringer of peace, the companion of the legendary John Crichton, the Stykera who had been touched by the transcendent spirit of the Eidolons. The Banik who proved -- to Baniks if to no one else -- that a Banik could play a role in history, a role other than that of slave. They even gave him credit, despite his protestations, for the weakening of the Scarran Empire, which had given the Baniks under Scarran rule the chance for freedom of their own.
He was glad to be an inspiration, and it moved him to believe he could touch his kinsmen's souls in ways other than the strictly literal. But he was familiar enough with his own flaws and darkness to find the hero worship uncomfortable. And the endless string of raids and retreats, the sleepless journeys from camp to camp, the constant filling of his soul and senses with death... It had begun to wear on him badly.
Still, he should have recognized the symptoms when they brought the man before him. His face was twisted with agony, and blood oozed from his eyes and mouth. His flesh had grown so weak that the Banik energy it contained shone through, making his body glow with a disturbing blood-colored light. Insanely, he was still trying to speak, as if he had something important enough to say that his death was a minor matter beside it. Stark quieted him gently. Words would be unnecessary between them soon.
Stark concentrated on gathering his own energy, suffusing it into the new flesh which now covered what once had been a painful, open breach between his flesh and astral selves, but was now a door to be open or closed according to his will. He shone gently on the man, soft golden light spreading onto sickly red. He reached out to calm the dying man's fear, to soothe his pain, to gently guide his soul to peace.
In return, he received, as he always did, a tiny remnant echo, which quickly settled into its designated place at the bottom of his mind, where it should not trouble him. He also received two horrifying words, and all the import behind them: novatron gas.
Stark followed his sacred duty through to the end. Then he bent over beside the corpse and threw up.
**
"So," said Ace, as much to fill the sudden silence as for any other reason. "This novatron gas. Nasty stuff, then?"
"It's horrible!" said Stark, and from the anguish in his face, you might think he'd been a victim of it himself. Then again, if the stuff he'd been saying about being in people's minds when they died was true, maybe he had been, in a way. "It eats you alive, from the inside out. Organs turning to liquid, cells exploding, leaking blood..." There was a wild look in his eye, like he was about to have some kind of fit, and Ace took a discreet step back, but he only took a deep breath, apparently trying to pull himself together, and finished in a quieter voice. "It’s horrible."
"Yes," said the Doctor. "It sounds it." His voice was even, but Ace could see that gleam in his eyes that said his sense of justice had been offended.
"We didn't think they had any," Stark continued. "The only source was the Plokavians, and their trading empire was nearly wiped out in the war." He smiled grimly. "The Scarrans didn't like the fact that they sold to both sides. But the man I'd crossed over was only the first. Reports began coming in... They'd used it on slave villages that supported the rebels. Hundreds of people, old people, children, innocents, dead. A few arns later, they put out an ultimatum. Surrender the fight, or they'd use the rest of it. They could blanket the planet, kill everyone, while they sit safe in their sealed bases. They've done it before."
He looked as if he were about to cry. Ace felt around in her pocket for some tissues, in case he needed them, and tried to smile reassuringly. "It's all right. We won't let 'em. Will we Professor?"
"No," said the Doctor. "Not if I can help it. And I usually can. How long before they release this gas?"
"Two solar days," said Stark, a look of dubious hope crossing his face.
"Hmm," said the Doctor.
He started to pace. Pilot's head swung to follow him, a worried expression in his eyes, then turned back to Stark. "I am sorry, Stark. I had hoped you would succeed with your plans to free your people."
"Oi, like the Doctor says, it's not over yet!" Ace smiled and looked at Stark. "Do you know where they keep this gas stuff?"
"At their main base, probably. They built it on the ruins of what was once my homeworld's oldest, most sacred city." He looked about ready to cry again. "But we could never get in! There are too many of them, too many soldiers, too many weapons."
"We could take the TARDIS!" Ace exclaimed, but her enthusiasm at this idea was cut short by a shake of the Doctor's head.
"You're forgetting, Ace. The TARDIS isn't going anywhere, not until the initializer's functional. And that is going to take--"
"Days," Ace finished glumly. She didn't bother pointing out that the TARDIS was a time machine and that, theoretically, they could just wait until it could take off and then go back in time. She didn't want another lecture on the dangers of crossing one's own timestream. It had been boring enough the first time.
"Exactly." The Doctor smiled at her. "No, we'll simply have to do it another way!"
"How?" asked Stark eagerly.
"I don't know."
"Oh." The Banik's face fell.
"But I'll think of something. In the meantime, why don't you get some rest?"
Stark started to argue, but the Doctor fixed him with that stare he had, the one that seemed to look right into you, and Stark blinked, nodded, and said. "I think I'll get some rest." He patted Pilot's claw in a friendly fashion and wandered off, looking rather dazed.
"Poor man," said the Doctor. "I hope he does rest. He certainly needs it."
"Kind of a strange guy," said Ace.
"You should have met him before," said Pilot mildly.
Ace decided not to ask, looking back at the Doctor instead. "Well? What are we going to do?"
"Go down to the planet," replied the Doctor cheerfully. "As soon as he wakes up. In the meantime..." He turned to Pilot. "You were telling me a fascinating story about Moya's waste recovery systems?"
Pilot's face lit up with interest. Ace sighed.
**
They landed Moya's transport pod some distance from the rebel Baniks' camp, at the end of a complicated approach carefully calculated by Pilot to keep them off the Peacekeepers' sensors. A pleasant planet, the Doctor thought. Blue sky, soft breeze, a lush coating of delicate blue-green vegetation that reminded him a bit of some world or other in the Bargarean Cluster he'd spent a pleasant holiday on, a lifetime or two ago. You might take it for a peaceful, happy place, until you got a look at its people.
They were dirty, ragged, painfully thin, some of them, and deeply weary. A band of slaves become an army. An army, facing what they believed was defeat. He'd seen it before, a thousand times, but it never failed to move him.
He took in all the details with practiced ease: biology (humanoid, but with interesting differences not at first glance entirely apparent), technology (pulse weaponry, not terribly advanced, but effective enough), and setting (well-hidden mountain camp, designed to be dissembled and moved at a moment's notice).
"We're with him," he muttered, waving his umbrella in Stark's direction, whenever someone approached him with a suspicious look. It seemed to work.
Interesting fellow, that Stark. He seemed to be regarded as a sort of leader, though the Doctor somehow doubted he saw himself as one. He moved among the Baniks, touching an arm here, trading a word or two there. The Doctor and Ace trailed along, until eventually they were taken to someone who appeared to be in a position of military authority: a tired-looking woman with piercing blue eyes, her hair tied with leather thongs in an elaborate style the Doctor assumed was some sort of cultural indicator of status. Interestingly, she also had a faint, glowing line along her jawbone, as if light had become trapped there below her skin. He trod delicately on Ace's toe to keep her from staring, and smiled warmly as Stark introduced them.
"Apaza, this is the Doctor, and Ace. They're friends of Pilot's. They say they can help us, help us destroy the gas, defeat the Sebaceans, and liberate our planet!"
Apaza looked them up and down critically. "How?"
It was, in fact, an excellent question. From everything the Doctor had seen, here in the camp and from the air, from everything Stark had said -- and not said -- yesterday and on the ride here today, and from everything the Doctor's well-honed instincts were telling him, finding a way around the problem of the poison gas was not going to be enough. These people were outnumbered, out-gunned, inexperienced, and rapidly succumbing to a successfully-waged war of attrition. If the Peacekeepers had threatened to end it all suddenly and decisively, it was, in the Doctor's opinion, surely only because they had run out of patience. The Baniks, inevitably, were losing.
He smiled his most cheerful and reassuring smile. "I'll let you know." Just as soon, he added silently, as I do.
**
After a tour of the camp that, in Ace's opinion, included far too much being introduced to people whose names she'd immediately forgotten and far too little being allowed handle the ordinance, she and the Doctor sat down with Stark in his tent for a meal. Well, if you could call it a meal: mostly it consisted of some sort of tasteless bready stuff that vaguely resembled a scone that'd been left to sit out in the sun too long. The Doctor, she noticed, discreetly failed to eat any of it, though she wouldn't take any bets on whether it was because he didn't like it, because his ever-so-superior Time Lord physiology didn't need food right now, or because he was leaving it for the soldiers. Despite the supplies that had come in on the ship, they seemed to Ace to be low on pretty much everything.
"So," she said, mostly to distract herself from the food, "That Apaza, she's the one in charge here, then? What is she, like, a general?"
Stark shrugged. "She coordinates the fighting. People listen to her. Four cycles ago, she led a revolt of mining slaves. Three hundred Baniks escaped alive. It was the largest successful slave uprising in Peacekeeper history."
"So presumably," said the Doctor, "she knows what she's doing." Whether the Doctor agreed with that assessment or not, Ace couldn't tell. His eyes were giving away nothing.
"What about you?" Ace said, still looking at Stark. "You're, what, the chaplain? You're some kind of priest, right?"
"Something like that."
"Oh, rather more than that, I should think," said the Doctor. "You carry a great deal of influence. It seemed clear to me that Apaza only accepted us because you vouched for us."
Stark looked uncomfortable. "Pilot vouched for you."
Ace grinned at the Doctor. "And here I thought it was your trustworthy face!"
The Doctor gave her an exaggeratedly modest look. "Well. That, too."
She grinned back. "Hey, speaking of faces..." She looked at Stark again, was suddenly struck by the sight of his scarred face, and felt a rush of embarrassment. She continued on quickly, not wanting him to get the idea that she was talking about him. "What was that thing, on Apaza's neck?" She indicated a spot along her jaw. "It looked like it was glowing!"
"It was," said Stark. "We Baniks are composed partly of energy. These physical bodies are only our manifestations on this place of existence. A... a corporeal shell, a form that anchors us to this realm. But there are places where the energy leaks through. It manifests itself on this side as light. Most Baniks have a weak spot like that on their bodies somewhere, although it's seldom that bright. The Mark of the Baniks, they call it." His voice grew rather bitter. "It's what distinguishes us from Sebaceans. Marks us out as slaves."
Stark's hand had gone, unconsciously, perhaps, to the scarred half of his face. Ace, on impulse, decided to ask after all. "What happened?" she said gently.
"My Mark was more like a hole. A breach. It helped to make me what I am, but it also caused me great pain. I only recently learned how to heal it. To heal many things, perhaps." He stroked the puckered skin lightly. "I am still healing."
There seemed to be something deep and sad and strangely alien about him now. It made Ace mildly uncomfortable, for no reason she could put her finger on, and she decided to change the subject back. "So, you really exist partly in another dimension from this one? As some kind of energy being?" Put that way, it sounded kind of hard to believe.
Stark nodded gravely, then gave her a crooked smile. "Yes."
"Wicked."
Stark looked confused, and perhaps a little hurt. The Doctor jumped in quickly. "What she means," he said, "Is that she finds it an appealing and intriguing concept. Ace's language occasionally tends to the idiosyncratic." He reached out and tweaked her nose playfully.
Stark looked back and forth between them. "She really is one of Crichton's people, isn't she?"
"Eh?" said Ace.
The Doctor waved a hand impatiently, his mood suddenly changing, in that unpredictable way of his. "Enough of this chit chat. I need to think."
"About what?" asked Ace.
"About how we're going to sneak into a secure base guarded by heavily armed and highly trained soldiers, destroy their supplies of an incredibly dangerous poison gas and get out again with our lives."
"Oh, that," said Ace. "I'm not worried. You'll think of something."
"Yes," he said darkly. "But what then?"
When Stark tried to question him about what he meant, he got up and left. To "plan," he said. Ace tried to force down her nervous feeling, but suddenly she really didn't want the rest of her bread.
**
The Doctor proceeded to disappear for the better part of a day. Ace found him at one point, poring over Banik intelligence reports, but he impatiently waved her away. When she went looking for him again later, she was told he'd taken the shuttle thingy and gone back up to Moya for "equipment." Ace felt rather put out by this. Even if he had just gone to fetch something from the TARDIS -- and with the Doctor, you could never quite be sure whether he was up to more than he was admitting to -- she hated being left behind.
The Baniks weren't especially fun company, either. You'd expect a bunch of guerilla fighters to be livelier, but, with the exception of Stark, who had this weird ability to go from skittery to serene and back in the space of minutes, they were all so... quiet. Never seemed to want to show you what they were thinking, or feeling. Ace wondered if they were just naturally calm, or if they didn't trust aliens, or what. The only time she got any real reaction out of them was when she got them to talking about the Peacekeepers, and what the Peacekeepers had done to their people. They were horrible stories: slavery, rape, torture, murder... It was depressing. No, more than that. It made her angry. And she hated sitting around waiting for the Doctor to do something about it.
So it was something of a relief when he finally showed up, grabbed her and Stark each by an elbow, and swept the two of them away from yet another meal of indigestible bread and into Apaza's tent.
Apaza looked up at them with characteristic Banik expressionlessness and put down the portable computer thing she'd been looking at. The Doctor said nothing, but pulled some sort of gadget out of his pocket and set it on the little desk in front of her with a triumphant flourish.
"What," asked Apaza, regarding it neutrally, "is that?" Ace was wondering the same thing. It looked like a couple of random TARDIS components strapped to a TV remote with some kind of weird alien duct tape.
"It's what you asked me for," the Doctor replied. "A way into the Peacekeeper base." He stood up straight and jammed his hands into this pockets, leaning back a little. "It's a low-power, one-shot, bi-directional transmat." He smiled. "Rather a good piece of off-the-cuff engineering, if I do say so myself."
Apaza and Stark looked at him blankly. "A transmat," Ace added helpfully, glad to show off the knowledge she'd picked up traveling with the Doctor. "A matter transmitter. Picks you up here." She tapped a spot on the desk. "And, bam!" She slammed her hands together, fist-on-palm, "Takes you there!" She tapped the other side of the desk. "Without ever having to go through the places between."
"Colorful," said the Doctor, "and decidedly oversimplified. But accurate." They exchanged grins.
"Matter transmission?" said Stark. "That's impossible!"
The Doctor made a tutting noise. "Really? I'd think Baniks, of all people, would recognize that it's no such thing. Transferring matter through an alternate dimension and assembling it into humanoid form? Isn't that how you form those bodies of yours in the first place?"
"That's different," said Apaza calmly. "We manifest these forms as infants. After that, we're locked into them, and they're locked into the material plane. We can't just... discorporealize and reappear somewhere else."
"Usually," said Stark. He had that strange, lopsided smile again.
"Ah!" said the Doctor, looking at Stark. "So you've done it! Well, there, you see?" He turned back to Apaza, smiling. "What can be done with spiritual ability and strength of will can also be done with technology, albeit more crudely." He tapped the gadget. "This will transport a small group of people behind the enemy's defenses, right into where they're keeping the gas. If your intelligence is correct."
"It is," said Apaza.
"Good, good. As I said, this transports us in, we destroy the gas -- a moderately intense blast should be sufficient to break apart the complex bioactive compound into harmless byproducts, assuming the molecular formula you gave me is right."
"It is," said Stark, the eagerness in his voice a strong contrast with the curtness in Apaza's.
"Good. And then," the Doctor smiled. "We transport out again. One round trip only, I'm afraid. Transmats aren't exactly easy to cobble together. I was only able to manage this one thanks to having stocked up on spare parts at that electronics fair on Traxacapetofarelian Minor."
Ace's ears had pricked up at the word "blast." "You mean, we get to blow something up?"
"We get to blow something up," said Apaza. "I see no need for you two to come."
"Ah," said the Doctor. "But you'll need me to operate it."
She looked dubiously at the device for a moment, then nodded. "All right. But the girl stays. I don't need two aliens of unknown fighting ability to keep track of."
"Agreed."
"Hey!" cried Ace. "Now, wait just a minute, Professor! I'm--"
"Ace." It was his I'm-not-going-to-argue voice, and, when she looked at his face, she could see that he was resolved. Too dangerous. To complicated for the poor little human girl. Yeah, right.
"Ace..." But she didn't hear the rest of what he said, because she'd gone charging out of the tent.
**
[On to Pt. 2!]
There are a lot of other things I could say about this story -- it'd be a prime candidate for a DVD-type commentary if it weren't so damned long -- and maybe I'll say them later, if anybody's actually interested (or possibly even if they aren't, knowing me). For right now, I'm just gonna repost it here, minus the zillion typos I somehow managed to miss in the archived version. *bangs head*
So. 14,000 freakin' words (which means it'll be posted in two parts). Set post-miniseries for Farscape (and thus spoiler-containing), featuring the Seventh Doctor (no spoilers for Who). Contains some violence, but no sex.
Travel Light
by AstroGirl
Ace had just entered the console room when the TARDIS suddenly lurched and all the lights went out.
"Professor! What just happened?"
"Quiet, Ace!" The Doctor's voice came from out of the darkness, followed by the thunk of his fist hitting the console. At least, that's what Ace assumed it was. She'd heard it often enough, since it seemed to be his first response to any problem the rackety old time machine had. And it worked more often than it had any right to, too. The lights flickered a couple of times and came back on.
The Doctor smiled. "There. That's all right!" He polished the console with his sleeve, possibly as some sort of apology for having thwacked it.
"All right? What was that?"
"Oh," he said in an airy tone of voice she'd long since learned not to trust. "We just hit a bump."
"A bump? We're in the Vortex!"
"Yes, well, even the Temporal Vortex has topography, you know. Lumps, bumps, bits of debris... Very rare, but not unheard of."
"So, is the TARDIS all right, then?"
"Oh, yes, yes. Everything should be fine now."
The lights went out again. "Don't say it," came a voice from the dark.
"I wasn't going to say anything," said Ace. But she couldn't quite keep the giggle out of her voice.
"I think," said the Doctor, "That perhaps we ought to land."
**
"How long did you say that crystal whatever thingy was going to take to auto-regenerate?"
"Crystal-fibroid temporal-stabilization initializer circuit. And it shouldn't be long. A few days at the most."
"Days?!"
"At most." The Doctor waved a hand dismissively. It was barely visible in the dim glow he'd managed to produce by repeated console-thunkings.
"Right. So, where are we?"
The Time Lord grinned. "I have no idea. We could be anywhere. Past, future... Even sideways."
"Sideways? What, you mean, like an alternative universe?"
"Mmm. Tricky things, Vortex bumps. Shall we go outside and see?"
"Might as well." Ace smiled back at him. "Hope it's somewhere nice, if we're going to be stuck here for days."
"No, you don't. I know you. You hope it's somewhere exciting."
"Oh, like you don't!" She gave him a cheeky grin, threw open the console doors, and stepped out.
"Well?" came the Doctor's voice from inside the TARDIS.
Ace looked around. "Hmm. It's very... big. Interesting architecture." She walked forward a little, craning her head around to take in the massive ribbed walls that enclosed them. "Lots of boxes or something." She opened one. It was full of smaller boxes labeled in a script she couldn't read. She turned back to look at the TARDIS just as the Doctor emerged. "Are we inside a spaceship?"
He flashed her that small, satisfied smile he got whenever she'd figured something out correctly. "Yes, I believe we are." He peered inside the container she'd opened, then strode over to one of the walls and laid a hand against it. "Well, well. A living ship."
She trailed after him. "Living? What, like... We're inside an animal?" She made a yecch noise.
"Oh, an animal specifically engineered for humanoid habitation, I'd say. Nothing to 'yecch' about, as long as it's happy."
"Happy?"
"Mmm, yes. Such creatures are usually happiest when they have a function to fulfill." He straightened up. "I haven't seen anyone about, have you?"
Ace had just started to shake her head no, when a voice suddenly came from what seemed to be all around them. "Intruders! Stay where you are, or my DRDs will shoot you!"
Ace's brow furrowed as they turned away from the wall. "DR-whats?"
The Doctor tapped her arm with his umbrella, then used it to point downwards. Her gaze followed. On the floor, surrounding them in an effective semicircle, were dozens of little yellow robots. Under other circumstances, Ace thought, they might have been sort of cute. The weapons barrel each one had aimed directly at them, however, did a lot to dispel that impression.
The Doctor smiled and raised his hands. Ace slowly followed suit.
"Hello!" he said. "Take us to your leader!"
**
Their "leader" turned out to be some kind of giant four-armed crab creature. Despite herself, Ace found herself shrinking back a bit, wanting to keep the Doctor between her and its ugly-looking claws.
The Doctor, annoyingly, noticed. "It's all right, Ace. He can't reach you from there, and he can't get up. He's transfixed in place. A highly interesting symbiotic relationship. Is your neural system wired directly into the ship?"
The creature blinked. "Yes, it is. I--" Suddenly it stopped, its eyelids lowering menacingly. "I mean, no! I could easily get up and hurt you, very badly, so you ought to answer our questions."
Ace tried not to laugh, but it was no good. This crab-guy reminded her too much of her old English teacher, Mr. McNally. He'd always tried to come off as a hardnose, like he fancied himself an old-school disciplinarian, but he had such a kind face and a non-threatening voice nobody ever took him seriously. Everybody'd liked him, though, so they'd tended to keep the mayhem down at the level of spitballs. "We're quavering," she said dryly, discreetly stepping out from behind the Doctor again.
"Now, Ace. Be polite!" The Doctor smiled and approached the creature. "I'm the Doctor, and this is my friend Ace. How do you do?" He raised his hat briefly, then stepped towards the console the creature was sitting at. Or possibly bolted to. The little robots zipped forward as he reached out a hand, taking aim at him, but he merely touched the console gently. "Tell me, what's the name of your friend here? She's a beautiful ship, what we've seen of her."
"What?" The poor creature looked awfully confused. Ace almost felt sorry for him. But then, a lot of people had that problem with the Doctor. "Uh, Moya. Her name is Moya."
The Doctor nodded. "Hello, Moya." He stroked his hand gently along the organic material, tilted his head a little, as if listening for an answer, then beamed as if he'd just got one, and liked it.
The creature's eyes were wide, and his massive claws moved in agitated little gestures. "What, how did you--?"
The Doctor removed his hand, smiling, Ace thought, rather smugly now. "Pilot." He said it like it was a name. "As I said, I'm the Doctor, this is my friend Ace, and I assure you, we're no danger to you. We're simply travelers, arrived by accident, and soon enough to be on our way. I'd imagine you might be glad of passengers. You haven't a crew at the moment, have you?"
"No. We did have, but they're all... busy. Raising families, ruling planets, fighting revolutions..."
"Noble occupations, all," said the Doctor, "if done nobly." He paused and tapped the umbrella's handle against his chin thoughtfully. "Revolutions, you say? You know, from the glimpse I got of your cargo, it looked as if you're quite equipped for a revolution, yourselves."
"Well, we were going to--" Pilot -- assuming that's what he was called -- broke off again and regarded them with a suspicious look. "You're not Peacekeepers?"
"I like to think of myself as a peacemaker," said the Doctor. "But somehow I don't think that's what you mean."
"You look like Sebaceans," Pilot said accusingly.
Ace decided to jump in. "Do we act like Seb... Seb..."
"Sebaceans," said the Doctor.
"Yeah. Do we act like them? Huh?" Of course, she was only guessing that they didn't but it seemed like a pretty good bet, because, item one, these Sebaceans were probably the bad guys, and, in Ace's experience, bad guys tended not to stand around having pleasant chats, and item two, the Doctor didn't act like anybody.
"No," said Pilot doubtfully. "But you could be undercover agents."
"Yes," said the Doctor. "But."
"But?"
"But!" The word was almost triumphant. He stabbed a finger in Pilot's direction. "You don't believe I'm a Peacekeeper agent, do you? Not really. In fact, you believe I have an uncommonly honest face and feel strangely inclined to find me trustworthy. Right?"
"Well..."
"And you're an excellent judge of character, yes? Of course you are. I can tell."
"Well, yes, normally I--"
"So." The Doctor grinned. "There you go. Now, about this revolution..."
**
The Doctor and Pilot -- what was it about people who used occupations as names? -- proceeded to have a very long and boring conversation, at least from Ace's point of view. Pilot and the ship had used to travel with a bunch of friends, they said, but the friends had all got lives or something and left. Some friends, Ace thought. Weren't mates supposed to stick together? Anyway, Pilot and Moya'd gone off exploring, but hadn't found it as much fun as they'd thought, without anyone to share it with, so they'd come back -- back where, she wasn't entirely sure -- had somehow run across one of said old friends, who was fighting these Peacekeeper people -- yet another batch of Evil Space Nazis, she figured -- and had agreed to run supplies for the rebels.
All of which was interesting enough, but then the two of them started getting into a long discussion about local politics, then an enthusiastic comparison of various nebulas they'd visited, followed by some kind of game involving who could do the biggest maths equations in their head, and it was all Ace could do to keep her eyes open.
"Look," she said, "I'm glad you two are such great pals now, but this is boring me to death. I'm gonna go look around the ship, OK?"
They both sort of nodded distractedly, and Ace took off before either of their two giant alien brains could process what she'd said and come up with a reason for her not to go.
Blimey, this was a huge ship. Not as huge as the TARDIS, probably, but she doubted it was bigger on the inside than the outside, so it must be the size of a whale. Strange thought, being inside a giant space whale. There were corridors that went on and on, massive open spaces, living quarters that seemed to be empty, and, strangely, an entire section that looked like it had been burned out and abandoned.
She wandered back down to the cargo bay they'd materialized in and browsed through the crates. Lots of medical supplies, some stuff that she was pretty sure was food, a few guns, and... Hang on, were those explosives? She was pretty sure they were, so she slipped a couple of packs into her rucksack. You never knew when you might want something with a bit more kick than nitro and, whoever these rebels were, they probably had more than they really needed, anyway.
She'd just exited a huge room that had turned out to be some kind of shuttle hangar when the door started vibrating behind her. She could hear a rushing sound. Air being evacuated? Then, a minute later, another rushing sound... and an unmistakable engine noise.
"A ship!" she cried, startling one of the little robots that seemed to be everywhere. "There's a ship landing!"
A moment later, the door opened.
**
Stark wanted to sleep, wanted to cry, wanted to curl up into a dark place deep inside himself and fill his world with chanting, the way he once would have done. But whatever had happened to him, whatever role he now played, he was still Stykera. And didn't a Stykera's duty come when the end was inevitable? His people would need the supplies Moya was bringing, now more than ever. Not the weapons, perhaps, but the medical supplies, for certain. So he wiped the grime from his face and the moisture from his functional eye, and concentrated on bringing the transport pod into dock, telling himself that, whatever happened, he would fulfill his duty to his people at the end, giving them what comfort he could in their defeat, as he would give it to a dying soul.
He was so wrapped up in these melancholy thoughts as he exited the docking bay that he almost bumped into the stranger before he saw her. He let out a gasp of surprise, fumbling for his weapon, and the woman jumped back, making a startled sound of her own. "Hey, don't shoot! I'm friendly, honest!"
Stark stopped short, his hand still tightening on the grip of the pulse pistol, as her words penetrated his mind. And not just her words... He realized, with a sudden sense of shock, that, beneath the meaning conveyed to him by the translator microbes, she was speaking John Crichton's language. English. He compared it quickly with the echoes in his mind, and found himself in no doubt. "You're... you're human?"
"Yeah, that's right. Friendly human." She gave him a big smile to illustrate this and looked him carefully up and down. He tried to imagine how he must look to her: a tired, grimy Banik with an itchy trigger finger and a mass of scar tissue across half his face. "You're one of Pilot's rebels, then?"
His hand eased off the gun. He had no particular reason to trust her simply because she was one of Crichton's people, but if Pilot had accepted her...
He nodded. "Stark." It came out in a rasp, and he cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm Stark. And I'm only a rebel a little longer. Only until I go back and offer the Peacekeepers our surrender. We've lost."
She stood there looking at him for a long moment, then flashed him a huge, incongruous smile. "Mate," she said, "This may be your lucky day! I'm gonna introduce you to the Doctor." She put an arm around Stark's shoulder and added, conspiratorially, "He's really good with lost causes."
Stark just blinked, trying to fight down a completely irrational surge of hope.
**
Pilot was deep in conversation with a smallish, dark-haired man when they arrived at the den. Stark had no idea what he was saying, though, because the fantastically complex words of the Pilot language were flying by far too fast for translator microbes to manage. The stranger seemed to have no difficulty with it, though, nodding along as if he understood every word.
"Oi, Doctor!" called out the woman -- who, Stark had learned on the way up was called Ace. "I've found a rebel for you! I think his planet needs saving." She sounded strangely smug.
Both beings turned to look at them. Pilot started to say something, realized he was still speaking far too quickly, and started over. "Stark, this is--"
"I'm the Doctor," said the man. "Pleased to meet you." He smiled a mild, polite, blandly friendly smile, but something dark and strange and subtle glinted in his eyes. Stark found himself staring into those eyes, falling into them. He could see time, death, birth, a bright tangled aura... and something else, something he could almost touch if he tried...
"Yes," said the Doctor's voice in his ear, full of some obscure meaning. Stark blinked, returning to himself, unsure how the Doctor had got from where he'd been standing to his current position at Stark's elbow, or what Stark himself had been reaching toward, or exactly what his Stykera senses had glimpsed. Sheepishly, he returned his reaching hand to his side and shook his head to clear it.
"Yes," said the Doctor again, his manner abruptly changing to boisterous friendliness. "I'm the Doctor, this is Ace, Pilot you know." He thrust the point of something that Stark thought might have been an oddly-shaped umbrella in Pilot's direction. "And you need help." The tip of the probably-an-umbrella came to rest against Pilot's console, and the Doctor folded his hands around the handle, leaned forward, and rested his chin atop them. "Now. Tell me all about it."
The memory of that strange dark brightness still flickering in his mind, Stark did.
**
When they brought the dying man to Stark, his only thought, to his later shame, was a desire to see him quickly to his peace so that he could get some rest of his own.
He had been in the hills for ten days, moving from one group of fighters to another. They seemed to fight better with him there, even if he never fired a gun. Which he seldom did, either because he was deemed too valuable to risk or too unreliable with a weapon. It was only to be expected, of course, that Baniks would fight more willingly if they knew there would be a Stykera to give them the Death Rites should they fall, and comfort their souls at the end. But, to Stark's chagrin, that seemed to be the least of their reasons. His people had come to look on him as a kind of figurehead: the bringer of peace, the companion of the legendary John Crichton, the Stykera who had been touched by the transcendent spirit of the Eidolons. The Banik who proved -- to Baniks if to no one else -- that a Banik could play a role in history, a role other than that of slave. They even gave him credit, despite his protestations, for the weakening of the Scarran Empire, which had given the Baniks under Scarran rule the chance for freedom of their own.
He was glad to be an inspiration, and it moved him to believe he could touch his kinsmen's souls in ways other than the strictly literal. But he was familiar enough with his own flaws and darkness to find the hero worship uncomfortable. And the endless string of raids and retreats, the sleepless journeys from camp to camp, the constant filling of his soul and senses with death... It had begun to wear on him badly.
Still, he should have recognized the symptoms when they brought the man before him. His face was twisted with agony, and blood oozed from his eyes and mouth. His flesh had grown so weak that the Banik energy it contained shone through, making his body glow with a disturbing blood-colored light. Insanely, he was still trying to speak, as if he had something important enough to say that his death was a minor matter beside it. Stark quieted him gently. Words would be unnecessary between them soon.
Stark concentrated on gathering his own energy, suffusing it into the new flesh which now covered what once had been a painful, open breach between his flesh and astral selves, but was now a door to be open or closed according to his will. He shone gently on the man, soft golden light spreading onto sickly red. He reached out to calm the dying man's fear, to soothe his pain, to gently guide his soul to peace.
In return, he received, as he always did, a tiny remnant echo, which quickly settled into its designated place at the bottom of his mind, where it should not trouble him. He also received two horrifying words, and all the import behind them: novatron gas.
Stark followed his sacred duty through to the end. Then he bent over beside the corpse and threw up.
**
"So," said Ace, as much to fill the sudden silence as for any other reason. "This novatron gas. Nasty stuff, then?"
"It's horrible!" said Stark, and from the anguish in his face, you might think he'd been a victim of it himself. Then again, if the stuff he'd been saying about being in people's minds when they died was true, maybe he had been, in a way. "It eats you alive, from the inside out. Organs turning to liquid, cells exploding, leaking blood..." There was a wild look in his eye, like he was about to have some kind of fit, and Ace took a discreet step back, but he only took a deep breath, apparently trying to pull himself together, and finished in a quieter voice. "It’s horrible."
"Yes," said the Doctor. "It sounds it." His voice was even, but Ace could see that gleam in his eyes that said his sense of justice had been offended.
"We didn't think they had any," Stark continued. "The only source was the Plokavians, and their trading empire was nearly wiped out in the war." He smiled grimly. "The Scarrans didn't like the fact that they sold to both sides. But the man I'd crossed over was only the first. Reports began coming in... They'd used it on slave villages that supported the rebels. Hundreds of people, old people, children, innocents, dead. A few arns later, they put out an ultimatum. Surrender the fight, or they'd use the rest of it. They could blanket the planet, kill everyone, while they sit safe in their sealed bases. They've done it before."
He looked as if he were about to cry. Ace felt around in her pocket for some tissues, in case he needed them, and tried to smile reassuringly. "It's all right. We won't let 'em. Will we Professor?"
"No," said the Doctor. "Not if I can help it. And I usually can. How long before they release this gas?"
"Two solar days," said Stark, a look of dubious hope crossing his face.
"Hmm," said the Doctor.
He started to pace. Pilot's head swung to follow him, a worried expression in his eyes, then turned back to Stark. "I am sorry, Stark. I had hoped you would succeed with your plans to free your people."
"Oi, like the Doctor says, it's not over yet!" Ace smiled and looked at Stark. "Do you know where they keep this gas stuff?"
"At their main base, probably. They built it on the ruins of what was once my homeworld's oldest, most sacred city." He looked about ready to cry again. "But we could never get in! There are too many of them, too many soldiers, too many weapons."
"We could take the TARDIS!" Ace exclaimed, but her enthusiasm at this idea was cut short by a shake of the Doctor's head.
"You're forgetting, Ace. The TARDIS isn't going anywhere, not until the initializer's functional. And that is going to take--"
"Days," Ace finished glumly. She didn't bother pointing out that the TARDIS was a time machine and that, theoretically, they could just wait until it could take off and then go back in time. She didn't want another lecture on the dangers of crossing one's own timestream. It had been boring enough the first time.
"Exactly." The Doctor smiled at her. "No, we'll simply have to do it another way!"
"How?" asked Stark eagerly.
"I don't know."
"Oh." The Banik's face fell.
"But I'll think of something. In the meantime, why don't you get some rest?"
Stark started to argue, but the Doctor fixed him with that stare he had, the one that seemed to look right into you, and Stark blinked, nodded, and said. "I think I'll get some rest." He patted Pilot's claw in a friendly fashion and wandered off, looking rather dazed.
"Poor man," said the Doctor. "I hope he does rest. He certainly needs it."
"Kind of a strange guy," said Ace.
"You should have met him before," said Pilot mildly.
Ace decided not to ask, looking back at the Doctor instead. "Well? What are we going to do?"
"Go down to the planet," replied the Doctor cheerfully. "As soon as he wakes up. In the meantime..." He turned to Pilot. "You were telling me a fascinating story about Moya's waste recovery systems?"
Pilot's face lit up with interest. Ace sighed.
**
They landed Moya's transport pod some distance from the rebel Baniks' camp, at the end of a complicated approach carefully calculated by Pilot to keep them off the Peacekeepers' sensors. A pleasant planet, the Doctor thought. Blue sky, soft breeze, a lush coating of delicate blue-green vegetation that reminded him a bit of some world or other in the Bargarean Cluster he'd spent a pleasant holiday on, a lifetime or two ago. You might take it for a peaceful, happy place, until you got a look at its people.
They were dirty, ragged, painfully thin, some of them, and deeply weary. A band of slaves become an army. An army, facing what they believed was defeat. He'd seen it before, a thousand times, but it never failed to move him.
He took in all the details with practiced ease: biology (humanoid, but with interesting differences not at first glance entirely apparent), technology (pulse weaponry, not terribly advanced, but effective enough), and setting (well-hidden mountain camp, designed to be dissembled and moved at a moment's notice).
"We're with him," he muttered, waving his umbrella in Stark's direction, whenever someone approached him with a suspicious look. It seemed to work.
Interesting fellow, that Stark. He seemed to be regarded as a sort of leader, though the Doctor somehow doubted he saw himself as one. He moved among the Baniks, touching an arm here, trading a word or two there. The Doctor and Ace trailed along, until eventually they were taken to someone who appeared to be in a position of military authority: a tired-looking woman with piercing blue eyes, her hair tied with leather thongs in an elaborate style the Doctor assumed was some sort of cultural indicator of status. Interestingly, she also had a faint, glowing line along her jawbone, as if light had become trapped there below her skin. He trod delicately on Ace's toe to keep her from staring, and smiled warmly as Stark introduced them.
"Apaza, this is the Doctor, and Ace. They're friends of Pilot's. They say they can help us, help us destroy the gas, defeat the Sebaceans, and liberate our planet!"
Apaza looked them up and down critically. "How?"
It was, in fact, an excellent question. From everything the Doctor had seen, here in the camp and from the air, from everything Stark had said -- and not said -- yesterday and on the ride here today, and from everything the Doctor's well-honed instincts were telling him, finding a way around the problem of the poison gas was not going to be enough. These people were outnumbered, out-gunned, inexperienced, and rapidly succumbing to a successfully-waged war of attrition. If the Peacekeepers had threatened to end it all suddenly and decisively, it was, in the Doctor's opinion, surely only because they had run out of patience. The Baniks, inevitably, were losing.
He smiled his most cheerful and reassuring smile. "I'll let you know." Just as soon, he added silently, as I do.
**
After a tour of the camp that, in Ace's opinion, included far too much being introduced to people whose names she'd immediately forgotten and far too little being allowed handle the ordinance, she and the Doctor sat down with Stark in his tent for a meal. Well, if you could call it a meal: mostly it consisted of some sort of tasteless bready stuff that vaguely resembled a scone that'd been left to sit out in the sun too long. The Doctor, she noticed, discreetly failed to eat any of it, though she wouldn't take any bets on whether it was because he didn't like it, because his ever-so-superior Time Lord physiology didn't need food right now, or because he was leaving it for the soldiers. Despite the supplies that had come in on the ship, they seemed to Ace to be low on pretty much everything.
"So," she said, mostly to distract herself from the food, "That Apaza, she's the one in charge here, then? What is she, like, a general?"
Stark shrugged. "She coordinates the fighting. People listen to her. Four cycles ago, she led a revolt of mining slaves. Three hundred Baniks escaped alive. It was the largest successful slave uprising in Peacekeeper history."
"So presumably," said the Doctor, "she knows what she's doing." Whether the Doctor agreed with that assessment or not, Ace couldn't tell. His eyes were giving away nothing.
"What about you?" Ace said, still looking at Stark. "You're, what, the chaplain? You're some kind of priest, right?"
"Something like that."
"Oh, rather more than that, I should think," said the Doctor. "You carry a great deal of influence. It seemed clear to me that Apaza only accepted us because you vouched for us."
Stark looked uncomfortable. "Pilot vouched for you."
Ace grinned at the Doctor. "And here I thought it was your trustworthy face!"
The Doctor gave her an exaggeratedly modest look. "Well. That, too."
She grinned back. "Hey, speaking of faces..." She looked at Stark again, was suddenly struck by the sight of his scarred face, and felt a rush of embarrassment. She continued on quickly, not wanting him to get the idea that she was talking about him. "What was that thing, on Apaza's neck?" She indicated a spot along her jaw. "It looked like it was glowing!"
"It was," said Stark. "We Baniks are composed partly of energy. These physical bodies are only our manifestations on this place of existence. A... a corporeal shell, a form that anchors us to this realm. But there are places where the energy leaks through. It manifests itself on this side as light. Most Baniks have a weak spot like that on their bodies somewhere, although it's seldom that bright. The Mark of the Baniks, they call it." His voice grew rather bitter. "It's what distinguishes us from Sebaceans. Marks us out as slaves."
Stark's hand had gone, unconsciously, perhaps, to the scarred half of his face. Ace, on impulse, decided to ask after all. "What happened?" she said gently.
"My Mark was more like a hole. A breach. It helped to make me what I am, but it also caused me great pain. I only recently learned how to heal it. To heal many things, perhaps." He stroked the puckered skin lightly. "I am still healing."
There seemed to be something deep and sad and strangely alien about him now. It made Ace mildly uncomfortable, for no reason she could put her finger on, and she decided to change the subject back. "So, you really exist partly in another dimension from this one? As some kind of energy being?" Put that way, it sounded kind of hard to believe.
Stark nodded gravely, then gave her a crooked smile. "Yes."
"Wicked."
Stark looked confused, and perhaps a little hurt. The Doctor jumped in quickly. "What she means," he said, "Is that she finds it an appealing and intriguing concept. Ace's language occasionally tends to the idiosyncratic." He reached out and tweaked her nose playfully.
Stark looked back and forth between them. "She really is one of Crichton's people, isn't she?"
"Eh?" said Ace.
The Doctor waved a hand impatiently, his mood suddenly changing, in that unpredictable way of his. "Enough of this chit chat. I need to think."
"About what?" asked Ace.
"About how we're going to sneak into a secure base guarded by heavily armed and highly trained soldiers, destroy their supplies of an incredibly dangerous poison gas and get out again with our lives."
"Oh, that," said Ace. "I'm not worried. You'll think of something."
"Yes," he said darkly. "But what then?"
When Stark tried to question him about what he meant, he got up and left. To "plan," he said. Ace tried to force down her nervous feeling, but suddenly she really didn't want the rest of her bread.
**
The Doctor proceeded to disappear for the better part of a day. Ace found him at one point, poring over Banik intelligence reports, but he impatiently waved her away. When she went looking for him again later, she was told he'd taken the shuttle thingy and gone back up to Moya for "equipment." Ace felt rather put out by this. Even if he had just gone to fetch something from the TARDIS -- and with the Doctor, you could never quite be sure whether he was up to more than he was admitting to -- she hated being left behind.
The Baniks weren't especially fun company, either. You'd expect a bunch of guerilla fighters to be livelier, but, with the exception of Stark, who had this weird ability to go from skittery to serene and back in the space of minutes, they were all so... quiet. Never seemed to want to show you what they were thinking, or feeling. Ace wondered if they were just naturally calm, or if they didn't trust aliens, or what. The only time she got any real reaction out of them was when she got them to talking about the Peacekeepers, and what the Peacekeepers had done to their people. They were horrible stories: slavery, rape, torture, murder... It was depressing. No, more than that. It made her angry. And she hated sitting around waiting for the Doctor to do something about it.
So it was something of a relief when he finally showed up, grabbed her and Stark each by an elbow, and swept the two of them away from yet another meal of indigestible bread and into Apaza's tent.
Apaza looked up at them with characteristic Banik expressionlessness and put down the portable computer thing she'd been looking at. The Doctor said nothing, but pulled some sort of gadget out of his pocket and set it on the little desk in front of her with a triumphant flourish.
"What," asked Apaza, regarding it neutrally, "is that?" Ace was wondering the same thing. It looked like a couple of random TARDIS components strapped to a TV remote with some kind of weird alien duct tape.
"It's what you asked me for," the Doctor replied. "A way into the Peacekeeper base." He stood up straight and jammed his hands into this pockets, leaning back a little. "It's a low-power, one-shot, bi-directional transmat." He smiled. "Rather a good piece of off-the-cuff engineering, if I do say so myself."
Apaza and Stark looked at him blankly. "A transmat," Ace added helpfully, glad to show off the knowledge she'd picked up traveling with the Doctor. "A matter transmitter. Picks you up here." She tapped a spot on the desk. "And, bam!" She slammed her hands together, fist-on-palm, "Takes you there!" She tapped the other side of the desk. "Without ever having to go through the places between."
"Colorful," said the Doctor, "and decidedly oversimplified. But accurate." They exchanged grins.
"Matter transmission?" said Stark. "That's impossible!"
The Doctor made a tutting noise. "Really? I'd think Baniks, of all people, would recognize that it's no such thing. Transferring matter through an alternate dimension and assembling it into humanoid form? Isn't that how you form those bodies of yours in the first place?"
"That's different," said Apaza calmly. "We manifest these forms as infants. After that, we're locked into them, and they're locked into the material plane. We can't just... discorporealize and reappear somewhere else."
"Usually," said Stark. He had that strange, lopsided smile again.
"Ah!" said the Doctor, looking at Stark. "So you've done it! Well, there, you see?" He turned back to Apaza, smiling. "What can be done with spiritual ability and strength of will can also be done with technology, albeit more crudely." He tapped the gadget. "This will transport a small group of people behind the enemy's defenses, right into where they're keeping the gas. If your intelligence is correct."
"It is," said Apaza.
"Good, good. As I said, this transports us in, we destroy the gas -- a moderately intense blast should be sufficient to break apart the complex bioactive compound into harmless byproducts, assuming the molecular formula you gave me is right."
"It is," said Stark, the eagerness in his voice a strong contrast with the curtness in Apaza's.
"Good. And then," the Doctor smiled. "We transport out again. One round trip only, I'm afraid. Transmats aren't exactly easy to cobble together. I was only able to manage this one thanks to having stocked up on spare parts at that electronics fair on Traxacapetofarelian Minor."
Ace's ears had pricked up at the word "blast." "You mean, we get to blow something up?"
"We get to blow something up," said Apaza. "I see no need for you two to come."
"Ah," said the Doctor. "But you'll need me to operate it."
She looked dubiously at the device for a moment, then nodded. "All right. But the girl stays. I don't need two aliens of unknown fighting ability to keep track of."
"Agreed."
"Hey!" cried Ace. "Now, wait just a minute, Professor! I'm--"
"Ace." It was his I'm-not-going-to-argue voice, and, when she looked at his face, she could see that he was resolved. Too dangerous. To complicated for the poor little human girl. Yeah, right.
"Ace..." But she didn't hear the rest of what he said, because she'd gone charging out of the tent.
**
[On to Pt. 2!]