by Mike Tucker
On board, surprise at the severity of the retaliation swiftly turned to blind rage and, as the ship swung about, all thoughts of moderation and mercy vanished and the pirates opened fire with everything that they had.
The Doctor had never been in the centre of an explosion this big before, and it was an experience that he would not be in any hurry to repeat.
As the plasma bolts from the pirates’ ship fractured the hull, the Ba-El Cratt spacecraft came apart in silent but spectacular fashion. No longer contained, the huge pressures inside the ship erupted outwards, the explosive decompression literally tearing the ship to pieces in the process. The Ba-El Cratt themselves had barely had time to realise what was happening to them as they boiled away to nothing, gaseous tendrils sucked out into the vacuum of space before dissipating for ever.
In the midst of the fury was the Doctor, his body shaken inside the pressure armour like a bead in a baby’s rattle. Over and over he tumbled, pieces of the hull sparking and fizzing around him as the gravity bubble protecting the suit deflected them. All external sensors went dead, life-support systems diverting every scrap of power, concentrating everything towards keeping the occupant of the armour alive.
Slowly, mercifully, the chaos started to subside, and the Doctor was finally able to gain some control, expertly modifying the gravity inverters to finally bring his dizzying spin to a halt.
Head still swimming, the Doctor reactivated his external camera. He hung in space, Saturn a vast swirling ball far beneath his feet, the rings arcing above him, seemingly going on for ever. He was utterly alone. The pirates had obviously fled, either scared away or damaged by the ferocity of the explosion. Of the Ba-El Cratt ship there was nothing, not a single trace save for a faint radiation flare that lingered in his sensor readings. But floating all around him, glinting in the light from the distant Earth, were diamonds.
Millions and millions of diamonds.
Bill sat in the co-pilot’s seat of the transport shuttle Glamorgan, eyes glued to the window, looking for any trace of the Doctor. They had been searching for nearly an hour now.
Delitsky had initially wanted to wait for a rescue team from Titan to arrive, but Bill had no intention of just sitting and waiting. The shuttle pilot, Tobins, had agreed with her, all too willing to do whatever he could to help the man who had saved all their lives.
Back at the rig, Captain Palmer had Nettleman and Rince locked in the brig and was writing up a detailed report for her superiors. Jo had turned a corner of the gym into a temporary medical bay and was busy treating the injuries – both mental and physical – that had been caused by the Ba-El Cratt. Delitsky was trying to oversee repairs to the station, and deal with a seemingly never-ending series of demands for information from his bosses and from the Federation.
He was also due to give the eulogy at a ceremony that Jenny Flowers was organising to remember Baines and the six crew who had died during the explosion in med-bay. Bill wondered if Jenloz would be included in that speech.
The military cruiser from Ganymede was due to dock in about twenty minutes, and Bill suspected that that was when things would really get busy for Delitsky. She hoped that all turned out well for him. He was a good man.
In the meantime, they had still had no contact with the Doctor. There had been several tense minutes following the explosion of the Ba-El Cratt spacecraft when they had struggled to find him. When the steady pulse from his tracer had finally been located, the entire control room had erupted into cheers.
Now they were just searching through an endless sea of stars for some sign of him. The signal from the subspace transmitter was still beeping away steadily on the console, and the shuttle was still on course, but finding one single tiny figure …
‘There he is!’
Bill scrambled out of her seat as Tobin pointed at a glint of light off in the distance. As the shuttle pulled close, the suited figure raised an arm in greeting.
Bill waved back.
Tobin grinned at her. ‘I’d better let the mine know.’ He reached for the communicator. ‘Kollo-Zarnista control, this is the Glamorgan.’
‘Reading you, Glamorgan. Did you get him?’
‘Yeah, we’ve got him.’
‘Great news, Tobin.’ Bill could hear the relief in Claire Robbins’ voice. ‘How’s our survivor doing?
‘OK, as far as we can see. Looks like his comms system is out. I’m going to open the cargo bay doors and get him aboard. I’ll let you know when we’re on our way back.’
Tobins began to manoeuvre the shuttle so that it was underneath the Doctor. A low vibration rattled Bill’s seat as the cargo doors slowly slid open. Using the thrusters on his suit, the Doctor started to make his way to the cargo bay.
Tobins turned to Bill. ‘You’d better get back there to help him get out of that suit.’
Bill unhooked her harness and hurried from the cabin, making her way through the short access corridor to the cargo bay door. She waited impatiently as the bay doors closed and the ship re-pressurised the compartment.
With a hiss, the cargo bay door slid open to reveal the Doctor, his armour already starting to unlock and unhinge.
Bill hurried forward. ‘Doctor, are you OK?’
‘Oh, you know, just been in the middle of an explosion, been left orbiting Saturn for an hour, probably no tea on this shuttlecraft … Typical day, really.’
Bill smiled. The Doctor was doing his best to be his usual testy self, but she could hear the strain of recent events showing in his voice.
‘Actually, I’ve started to realise that this actually is a fairly typical kind of day for you.’
‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘It can be.’
‘Doctor …’
‘Hmm?’
‘I think I’m ready to go home now.’
He didn’t argue with that, just held out a gloved hand. ‘Here.’
Bill reached out for whatever it was the Doctor was holding and he dropped it into her palm.
Bill just stared at the diamond.
‘Just do me one favour …’ said the Doctor wearily
She looked at him curiously. ‘Of course.’
‘When we do get back home, please don’t mention any of this to Nardole.’
Bill began to laugh.
Epilogue
Laura Palmer signed off her report and gave a deep sigh. Her first couple of days back on duty had turned out to be quite eventful. The Federation had discovered that it was involved in a war of which it had no knowledge, and the implications were far reaching. A formal complaint had been made to the Cancri about their actions, and there were already rumours that Earth might sever all ties with them rather than risk further conflict with the Ba-El Cratt. Personally, Laura doubted that would happen. The diamonds were too important to the economy. It was far more likely that the military would become involved, strengthening the Federation borders, preparing for another possible Ba-El Cratt incursion. She had already seen draft plans for an intelligence-gathering mission to find the Ba-El Cratt home world. It was going to get messy.
She got up from her chair and stretched, her back aching from being hunched over her terminal for so long. She needed a walk.
Leaving Harrison in charge, she made her way down to the shuttle bay, making her presence known to the technicians on duty, and wandering across the empty landing pad to the observation window on the far side. Strictly speaking, no one was allowed in here when a shuttle arrival was imminent, but she still had plenty of time before Tobins docked the Glamorgan, and the guys in traffic control had got used to her strange obsession.
The shuttle bay was one of the few places on board that actually had any kind of window. When the rig was at mining depth, there was very little point in having them – like visors on the suits of pressure armour, they were a potential weak point, and the only view that they offered was of the choking clouds that made up the Saturnian atmosphere.
When the mine was at shallow depths, either for repairs as it was now, or
for the loading of offloading of the diamond cargo, then the massive steel shutters that covered those windows were retracted, allowing the crew additional visibility during complicated docking manoeuvres, and affording an unparalleled view of the planet below.
Those shutters were open now, and Laura leaned her forehead on the thick Plexiglas, staring out at the view. Despite the horror of the last twenty-four hours, the sight of Saturn was still enough to send her heart soaring.
She craned her neck, peering up at the rings. Somewhere amongst all that beauty a fortune in gemstones was slowly drifting, a vast cloud of gleaming crystals, inexorably being pulled and shaped by the forces of gravity. In time there would be a new ring around the planet she called home.
A diamond ring.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Justin Richards and Albert DePetrillo for bringing me on board.
To James Dudley and Edward Russell for arranging a sneak peek at Bill ahead of time.
To Cavan and Jonny, co-conspirators.
To Steffan Morris for opening a door back into the Doctor’s world once more.
To Matt Doe for his patience.
To Moogie and Baz.
And to Karen and her hedgehog army, for endless love and support.
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BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,
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Copyright © Mike Tucker 2017
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First published by BBC Books in 2017
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Chapter 8
fn1 See Doctor Who and the Invisible Enemy.
