[DW] BigBang: Dancing Star VIII
Dancing Star
~SEVEN~
..............~oOo~..............
~EIGHT~
The Doctor pushed Gibbs aside as he darted towards the console to stand beside Jack. The pirate looked mildly astonished, but recovered quickly.
“The ship seems to be broken,” he said.
“How do you know?”
Sparrow clicked his compass shut. “Because it is the means to my end, and if flying it gets me to the Pearl - the compass tells me all I need t' know.”
“Oh, clever you!” The Doctor had spared only a fraction of his energy to talk to Jack - inside, he was listening, while his heart beat in rhythm with the cloister bell. The TARDIS was damaged, or she thought she was. Something was messing with her systems, something so strong that it had even managed to find its way into the Doctor's mind via the telepathic link. The Doctor had fought it off, but it was still in the TARDIS's system. They were effectively grounded, Jack was right, and... “Oh, we are at the bottom of the ocean!”
“Now you notice!” Donna flopped down on leather bench. “What are you gonna do about it, spaceman?”
The Doctor didn't answer, but crouched down on the floor and peered under the console, where sparks were flying. The TARDIS was putting up a fight, and losing. That was bad.
“Donna, would you mind opening the door?”
“Huh?” Donna knelt down to look under the console, as well. “Come again?”
“I said, please open the door.”
Donna disappeared again, and the Doctor lay down on his back, opening the small panel that covered the circuits with one hand, while digging in his pockets for the sonic screwdriver with the other. It was hot and stuffy under the console, and the Doctor blinked away the stars dancing in front of his eyes. He wasn't quite sure whether it was the after-image of the sparks, or the fact that he was developing a headache right out of hell, but there was no time for such worries now. There wasn't even time for putting on his glasses.
The sonic whirred in his hand and the sparks stopped, but the cloister bell kept tolling. The Doctor had shut down the circuit to keep it from burning out - it was all he could do. They would have to...
“Doctor!”
He dived up from under the console. The screen was flashing in red, Gallifreyan symbols dancing over the smooth surface in horrible, terrible speed, and none meant good things.
However, that was not what Donna was pointing at. She stood by the door, pointing up.
Above the surface, a big, dark shape had drifted in front of the sun, casting a black shadow onto the spot where the TARDIS was grounded.
“It's the Pearl,” Gibbs said in awe. Jack was smirking - in his right hand, he cradled the compass, and the needle was very still, pointing straight ahead.
“Aye. How far do you reckon it is to the surface, Doc?”
The Doctor shrugged, momentarily distracted from the console. “Ten feet? Not much, anyway.”
“Save to swim?”
“Yes, but don't even think about it. Listen to me! Don't even think about it, Captain!” The Doctor darted forward, but by the time he reached the door, Jack had already taken a single step through the TARDIS door and was outside, suspended by the water. Without glancing back, he began to swim fast and straight, up to the black shadow of the Pearl.
At the same moment, the console exploded.
Donna yelped in surprise, and the Doctor glared at Gibbs and said, teeth gritted: “I said, don't even think about it!” In his head, the TARDIS was screaming, not in delight as always when they shared a perilous situation, but in agony. The safety protocols had been damaged and she wasn't able to transport them to safety, but the message was clear.
The Doctor pushed Donna towards the door. “Go, follow him. You too, Gibbs.”
“Aren't we safer in here?” Donna asked.
The Doctor turned his gaze to face her, and the look made her blood run cold. “Not any more.”
The console was spraying sparks, invaluable - irreplaceable - parts fused to lumps of metal, or burned to cinder.
Gibbs didn't hesitate following his captain, who had disappeared from view by now, but Donna hesitated at the doorstep. The Doctor had turned back to the console, pointing his screwdriver at it. The sound was inaudible for human ears over the cacophony of the bell and the explosions, but the Doctor evidently could hear something, for he kept it pressed close to his ear, switching the settings with his fingertips.
“You're coming?” Donna asked, and for a moment, he seemed to hesitate, then he nodded.
“Yeah, 'course. Go on!”
“Right...” Donna extended her arm, slowly moving her hand out through the doorway. It was strange. From one moment to the next, her hand went from being completely dry to utterly wet, like breaking the surface of a very calm lake. The water was not exactly cold, but she didn't fancy a swim, either. Still, if there was no choice... She closed her eyes and stepped forward, only just remembering to hold her breath. Eyes still closed, she started kicking upwards, trying to ignore the weight of her clothes that were slowly getting soaked, and didn't stop until her head burst through the surface and she could feel the sun in her face. She was drifting just outside the shadow the Pearl was casting.
Jack and Gibbs were standing at the railing, and Gibbs threw her a robe. “Take hold o'that!”
Donna did as she was told, still kicking the water, and between them, the two pirates succeeded in pulling her aboard. The Pearl was bigger than Donna had imagined, and she realised now why she was called The Black Pearl. Worn pitch-black sails were hanging above her head, none of them unfurled, but she could just imagine that the Pearl at full speed must look like a dark, threatening shadow on the horizon. Now, she turned back towards the railing, trying to spot the TARDIS beneath the water. It wouldn't have been possible if there hadn't been one brilliant explosion of light, multiplied even by the water, and then nothing. And still no Doctor.
For a few agonising moments, Donna held her breath, then, his head burst through the surface, and he started swimming towards them.
When the Doctor climbed over the railing, he threw a rueful glance back to where the TARDIS had been, before turning towards Donna. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded, then pulled the screwdriver and the psychic paper out of his pockets, placing them on the sunbathed deck. “No use, wet.”
Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “Remind me to thank you when we've gotten her under way, aye?” Then, the two pirates walked away, Jack already bellowing order, leaving the two of them alone.
The Doctor wasn't smiling. His lips were pressed tightly together, and he had buried his hands in his trouser pockets, leaning against the railing.
“What happened down there?” Donna asked, imitating his position and staring ahead out into the open sea before them. On the starboard side, there were a couple of islands in the distance, but none seemed to be particularly spectacular.
“Had to shut the TARDIS down - that means, no heat, no energy, no life support. At least, it shouldn't get her while she still functions.” He sounded very grave, and very final.
Donna shivered. “Who shouldn't?” And, she thought, how are we gonna get away?
The Doctor didn't answer, and if they'd been in the TARDIS, Donna would have left him alone, but they weren't - where could she possibly go on a pirate ship? They had found the Pearl, at least, that had to be good - or was it? Donna wasn't quite so sure they had done the Caribbean sea a favour by helping a pirate.
“My people called them Dancing Stars,” the Doctor suddenly said in a low voice. “They are an ancient race - oh, so ancient. Perhaps older than the Time Lords themselves, but who knows. It's probably just the one and it has probably been here for longer than you humans even exist. So old, and so brilliant, and amazing, and so dangerous.”
“What did it do?”
The Doctor didn't seem to have heard her. “In their raw form, their childhood, they are tiny. Just brilliant, little specks of light, floating in space after they departed from their home planet. It's gone now. Destroyed in the Time War. I suppose there aren't many left, and certainly no children.
“They travelled through space, and when they find one with a large body of water, they make it their home. They adapt. They become part of the chosen world like a new organ - impossible to remove, and generally, generally, they even go entirely unnoticed by everyone else. Only, this one's got it all wrong.”
“There's such a creature on Earth?”
The Doctor inhaled sharply and rubbed his neck. Little droplets of water rained from his hair. “Yeah. Probably one of the islands back there.”
“It's an island?!” No wonder Gibbs had heard stories about a whale so big that there was an island on its back!
“Probably. I could find the Dancing Star with the sonic, of course, but certainly not in this state, and it's not much use, anyway.”
“But what of the TARDIS?”
“She's gone.”
“And we're trapped here?” The expression on the Doctor's face told her all she needed to know. “But we've found the Pearl - that can't be a coincidence.”
“It's not. The Dancing Star offered us an exchange, and Captain Jack took the offer.”
“Do you want to be left alone?”
The Doctor looked at her. Donna had had the impression before that he was much older than he looked; now, however, he looked so much older still. His eyes were deep dark pools in which she could see just a fraction of the grief, the despair, the burden that rested on his shoulders. Then, suddenly, he forced a smile, and the dark shadows dissolved. “Nah. Come on.” He offered her his hand and she took it, and together they ambled up towards the steering wheel behind which Jack was standing, proud and upright, and grinning, his golden tooth glittering.
“Well, Captain?”
Jack gently tilted the large wheel, and the ship slowly turned towards the wind. “The least I can do is offer ye a lift,” he said. “Or a place in the crew. It's not an easy life, Doc, but with yer own ship gone...”
The Doctor grinned, but it never reached his eyes. “What do you think, Donna? Donna Noble, the most cunning pirate of the Caribbean.”
She punched him in the arm. “Stop it!” Granted, now that she was wet and a bit bedraggled, she felt more like a pirate than a citizen of the twenty-first century, but she certainly wouldn't be part of whatever criminal scheme they were planning, and, now that she had come to think of it, neither would the Doctor.
“A lift it is, then, Captain.”
Jack nodded. “I don't claim to understand what happened, mate, but perhaps you could use this.” He dug into his pocket, pulling out the compass, and threw it to the Doctor. The chain attached to the little wooded box jingled. “The cabin's below, if ye need some privacy. There should be some rum in the cabinet.”
“I doubt it,” murmured the Doctor, but started towards the stairs and the cabin door. “You're coming, Donna?”
“Aye,” she said, and considered punching Jack when he grinned broadly, but she really wasn't in the mood.
~NINE~