Doctor Who: The Time of the Companions: Book 3 (Doctor Who: The Companions' Adventure)

by Cour M.

  But none of that would come to pass if he destroyed the machine. He removed his sonic screwdriver, went underneath the machine and pulled out some wires.

  “Those were the old days,” he said to himself, “when I created this. And since I am the maker, I have the right to destroy it.”

  He began to dissemble the internal system, then he was just in the midst of completing the destruction of it, when he was suddenly come upon by another Sea Devil.

  “What are you doing?” The Sea Devil asked.

  “Oh,” The Doctor began to lie, “Don’t worry. The machine began to give feedback, so I thought it best to check the wiring for the cold fusion dappener.”

  Yet as the Doctor stood up, he hit the table where his disguise device was damaged and then he appeared as his normal self again. He tried to fix it quickly, but it was too late as the Sea Devil removed its firearm from its holster and shot him. The Doctor was pushed back against the way, he fell down, his vision hazy and at last, he was rendered unconscious.

  

  When the Doctor came to, he found that he was on the ground with his hands cuffed in front of him. He looked around and found that he was in the bridge of the colony, shaped like a great hall, and there were Sea Devil guards against the walls.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake,” came a cold and cruel voice from behind him. Nine rolled over and looked up.

  “John,” Clara’s voice whispered. “Who is that?”

  “Be quiet for now,” the Doctor hissed while not moving his lips.

  Nine raised himself up to his knees and all the Sea Devil guards, moving as one unit, aimed their guns at him.

  “Be careful, Timelord,” the leader of the Sea Devils said, but Nine had in fact recognized him, “Or this time, the guns won’t be set to stun.”

  “Even if they weren’t, you know it would take many shots to bring me down at last, Xaros.”

  The Leader of the Sea Devils looked down at him questioningly.

  “Only one Timelord knows my name,” Xaros said, “The Doctor!”

  “Doctor?” Nine grinned, “Doctor Who?”

  “I don’t know,” Xaros took a whip from his seat, “you tell me.”

  He clicked it on, then he whipped Nine with it. With it having an electrical current running through it, Nine felt the pain surge over his body as he fell to the ground. Xaros whipped him again.

  “John!” Clara cried, “what can I do?”

  “Nothing,” he whispered, still on the ground, “please, stay there.”

  “You’re being tortured.”

  “I can see that.”

  Xaros whipped him again as Nine cried out.

  “So, tell me,” Xaros roared, “will you be more diplomatic now?”

  “Yes,” Nine cried out, truly helpless and in pain. On the TARDIS, Clara watched everything through his eyes, and felt his agony. He was not acting, but instead he was feeling true horror. She didn’t think that she had ever seen him afraid before. She looked up at Xaros through the lens and he was tall, majestic, and imposing. It truly did make sense why he would be the leading commander, because he did look it.

  “So, you know the Doctor?” Xaros said.

  “I know him very well,” Nine said, “therefore I know you. Hello Xaros, still as you always were, aren’t you?”

  “You speak as if we’ve met.”

  “I don’t have to know you to know your kind. So tell me, how did you escape the last encounter you had with the humans, where your colony was destroyed after you attempted to overtake the Earth?”

  “Where we were massacred. Even the Doctor was somewhat guilty.”

  “You captured him when he was attempting to negotiate between you and the humans. He did not condone the plans of the naval base. Or of the Master. What he did, the Master forced him to do.”

  “As he forced us,” Xaros replied.

  “The Sea Devils and him were both victims of the Master’s plan. But you did destroy ships before him, therefore you are still guilty of that. The Doctor wanted to help, and do not pretend otherwise.”

  “The Master had manipulated us!”

  “He does that to all. Neither Sea Devil or Doctor was to blame for that, but that does not excuse anything that you may do now.”

  “The Doctor’s machine destroyed our colony!”

  “What did you expect him to do? You were planning an invasion. You killed innocent people. So, tell me, really, how did you escape?”

  Xaros whipped Nine again, and in the TARDIS, Clara almost took off the visual aid, because Nine cried out from the agony of torture.

  “Stop!” Nine cried, “please!”

  Xaros stopped, enjoying the look of this Timelord on his ground, looking utterly helpless.

  “Please,” Nine sighed, “no more.”

  “You weaken quickly. You’re right. You’re not the Doctor.”

  “No,” Nine whispered, “I guess I’m not.”

  “No, you’re not. Let me guess, you’re just the one who is here, hoping to be like him. To be the shadow of a greater man. But I have the truth, the painful truth, and if you are, then you had better find a better role model. The Doctor allowed us to be called Sea Devils! Yet he is the real scourge.”

  “Is he?” Nine spit out some blood that had gotten into his mouth.

  “You were fed on the idea that he was a hero, I gather.” Xaros pressed a few buttons and then over Nine came up some holograms of the Doctor, when he was the Third one, and all the footage that the Sea Devils kept of him. Then alongside him came up images of the Master, and Nine had to shut his eyes. It was the Master who forced him to make the Sea Devils’ machine to revive the colonies so that the Master could use them to take over the world. Then came up footage of the Sea Devils as they pressured him into building it with them. One of the Sea Devils figured most prominently in the group. “Ah, now you see me, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. So, now you have it. Let me guess, you’ve been hiding away all these years, just waiting for the right time.”

  “Half of the colony were able to reach our underground base through thermal transport. Yet we have returned back to the ocean, and we have no need for our underground base system.”

  “Oh, so that’s it?” Nine smiled, “just the way of Eocenes. You hid under the earth, slept for a while and then waited.”

  “Waited for the Time of our kind, which is now.”

  “Oh, is it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “So that is why you are not only planning to revive other sea colonies, but you are also planning on using technology to manipulate divergent and transport plate boundaries so that you can create earthquakes and spark eruption of every volcano at the same time. This way, humanity will be devastated, because if there is one thing that humans have still not learned to control, it’s nature.”

  Nine took in Xaros’s irate expression.

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it and give me the long face. I’m a Timelord; I’m good at hacking into computers.”

  “Did the Doctor send you?”

  “Doctor? Doctor Who again?”

  Xaros raised the whip.

  “No!” Nine cried, but he was whipped again, and the pain was becoming unbearable.

  “Electric whip,” Xaros explained, “even lethal on a Timelord.”

  “Stop it!” Nine cried.

  “Tell me why you are here!”

  “To return the people that you ripped from history!”

  

  Xaros did not reply at first, so Nine rolled over, still panting for breath and then looked at Xaros.

  “I came here, because my machine picked up on its radar the location of the threat. So tell me, why did you do it? Why rip those seven people from their homes and their time period? Was it really just for a diversion?”

  “It distracted you, did it not?”

  “And then it got my attention.”

  “And look what happened?” Xaros sneered, “look at you. You’re broken,
at my feet, and look so very lost. You’re captured, as well as is your machine—I Xaros, was the first Eocene to capture a TARDIS. The Doctor achieved his triumph, not through bravery or strength of any kind, but by trickery. You can’t even do that. Amazing, you’re a disappointment to the disappointment.”

  “A quarter of the Earths’ people will die if you activate the machine as well as detonate all the devices you have to cause the natural disasters.”

  “Wasn’t that the point, Timelord?”

  “But it doesn’t have to be. Xaros, look around you. You have a whole underwater kingdom. You are safe here. So don’t destroy that by attacking Earth just so that you can go to another war. Thousands will die.”

  “Millions, Timelord. Millions will die. And it’s about time. Because for too long we have been down here, hiding, and waiting for the day that humanity gets destroyed, as the primitive apes that they are. We are tired of waiting. And let me guess, you are the only measly hero that they have. How bleak their future looks?”

  “Xaros, please, I beg you, one last time, to cease this attack. Stand down and show mercy. Be like the rest of your kind, be noble and listen first.”

  “If you were the Doctor, you would know what my answer would be, because you would know the Silurian that I am. And we Silurians of the ocean, Sea Devils that you call us, have now taken up the name. If you were the Doctor, then you would know me, and how your words are wasted—how you already lost.”

  “Then I now have no choice. Clara!”

  “Yes!” Clara cried over the audio piece, happy to be of use. “The TARDIS is surrounded by Sea Devils, but what is it?”

  Nine looked at the ceiling and was amazed at the position of where they were.

  “Pull the blue thing and then hold it down.”

  “What will it do?”

  “It will turn off the anti-gravs.”

  “How does that help?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Clara did so, then she felt a rumbling.

  Down on the bridge, they all heard a rumbling from above. Nine took off his ear piece so that Clara would not hear him.

  “Xaros, again we meet,” he breathed, “My words are never wasted. Because I am the Doctor!”

  Xaros’s eyes turned venomous.

  “Doctor!” Xaros cried, then he raised up his whip again. Nine genuinely felt afraid, but they were interrupted when there was a crash from above. The TARDIS had fallen through the floor above them. Xaros and the Doctor had just enough time to roll out of the way.

  “Clara!” He raised the ear piece to his mouth, “now turn it back on.”

  Clara did as she was instructed and the TARDIS landed right in front of them. She rushed out of the TARDIS with Ethel and Emily, then they all carried the Doctor into the TARDIS, shut the doors behind them while Virgil flocked to him and the rest stood behind the consul unit.

  “Doctor!” Jeannette yelled, “tell us what to press so that we can get out of here!”

  “Roll the brown ball,” he gasped, “then pull the gold lever.”

  Jeannette and Commander Nestor did so.

  “Right!” Commander Nestor shouted.

  “Hang on!” Jeannette instructed.

  Jeannette Picard, the first woman to reach the stratosphere, drove the TARDIS straight through time and space, into the vortex, with Commander Nestor helping her.

  Chapter 13

  Voice to the Voiceless

  Two Doctors in one TARDIS.

  Two companions alongside a Doctor.

  “So, the beginning it is,” Twelve echoed.

  “Well,” Donna said, “this has the potential to be uncomfortable, but I’m really not in the mood for that.”

  Donna moved forward and offered Clara her hand to shake.

  “I hope that we shall get to know each other better,” Donna said warmly.

  “I hope so as well,” Clara smiled, “and thank you so much, because I didn’t know what to say, I admit.”

  “It’s fine,” Donna smiled, “I’ve actually had experience at this sort of thing. The one Doctor I travelled with, I met his previous companion who he put through pure mayhem, so I figured that if I could make her comfortable around me quickly, then I should get a handle on it. Now onto some more pressing matters.” Donna looked between Eleven and Twelve, “Just when I thought Ten was skinny, you two just break the mold. What, are you afraid of regenerating into a body with some mass to it?”

  “In his defense,” Clara said about Eleven, “he never stops moving. So he exercises just by standing around. And you,” Clara turned to Twelve, diplomatically, “What’s your excuse?”

  Twelve just stared at her for a second in wonder. Here was the woman who had undergone much with him—so very much… and was the girl who died. Yet here she also was, the woman who had never met him truly at that point, and was at the very beginning for him. It was jarring, even for him. Donna gave him a look however, then snapped her fingers, and he recovered.

  “I’m recycled from him,” He said, pointing at Eleven, “What do you expect?”

  “Oh, blame me will you?” Eleven scoffed, then he looked at Twelve, giving him the once over. “So, this is what I turned into?”

  “Yes, call me old, sonny, and I’ll sock you,” Twelve said.

  “Touchy, are we? And we are still not ginger.”

  “I’m sure it’ll happen eventually, but not now.”

  “Now, we saved Donna, but why do I get the sense that there is more to this than that? By the way, Donna, you look brilliant.”

  “Oh stop! And yes, I know.”

  “The Angels are back,” Twelve informed Eleven, “And they are at war with the Daleks.”

  “What?” Clara gasped.

  “Yes, and it’s worse. The Angels, they can move when being seen now.”

  Eleven took a step forward.

  “Impossible.”

  “But it did.”

  “Can I explain,” Donna asked, “I do so love to be the one to explain things.”

  “Go ahead,” Clara encouraged.

  “Good, here we go.”

  

  Donna explained everything to them and when they were finished, Eleven was amazed, scared, delighted, and petrified simultaneously.

  “Weeping Angels who can move when being observed because they feed off the energy of sending people into the future? By the powers of Grayskull, what’s been going on in the universe since I died?”

  “This apparently!” Twelve groaned. Eleven turned to Donna and Clara.

  “Is he always like this?”

  “No idea, really,” Donna admitted, “I only met him yesterday.”

  “And I haven’t really become his companion yet,” Clara explained.

  “Right,” Eleven said, clapping his hands together, “Well, guess we all have to learn to survive this together.”

  “You really do move your hands a lot when you talk,” Twelve criticized.

  “And you clearly always scowl when you talk.”

  “Oi!” Donna reprimanded, “You both had better not start fighting. I can’t bear fighting. And I will not have fighting Doctors.”

  “And you both clearly remember,” Clara magnified, “that when we met Ten and the War Doctor, you both argued a great deal and it never helped the situation. We have a problem, like Weeping Angels that defy their main weakness mingled with the godforsaken Daleks coming back. So! It’s time to remember that you are the Doctor, and you will focus.”

  Donna stared at Twelve.

  Clara stared at Eleven.

  Both Doctors felt the weight of those stares and therefore they buckled.

  “Order and obey,” Twelve said.

  “Tell me about it, mate,” Eleven said, “I missed you both.”

  “Of course you did,” Clara smiled, “bet you missed being ordered around by a woman who’s a head shorter than you.”

  “And who’s your height, and a proper weight,” Donna added.

  “Yes, I might have,�
� Twelve said.

  “Now,” Eleven said, “time for a plan. And you,” he pointed his finger at Twelve, “don’t bash my plan until I have finished saying it.”

  “I can make no promises.”

  “I figured that would be your answer, so the answer is simple. You’ve heard the Daleks side of things, and now the Angels have a voice where they once didn’t. So now, we need to hear their side of the story.”

  “What do you mean when—” Twelve seized his head, getting the idea in his mind then. “Oh, that is your plan.”

  “We don’t share your heads, so what is it?” Donna cried.

  “The first thing we need to do is secure all the victims from the grasp of the Angels, but remove them from the Papal Mainframe,” Eleven said.

  “Precisely, Tasha has sacrificed much for us, and she will not do so anymore,” Twelve said, “and I know just who to call for that.”

  “Kate Stewart?”

  “Kate Stewart!”

  “Right, but for the grand scheme of things,” Eleven turned to their companions, “Clara and Donna, we are going to capture ourselves a Weeping Angel.”

  “I know I should be scared,” Clara said, “but for some reason, I am quite excited.”

  “It’s the feeling you get, the tingling sensation rising from your feet?” Donna asked.

  “Yup!”

  “Uh huh!”

  “Should be accomplished,” Twelve said, “after all, we now have two TARDISes. Come along, Noble!”

  Twelve left Eleven’s TARDIS and Donna followed along. As she left, she looked back at Eleven and Clara.

  “Two TARDISes!” She laughed, “this is how the universe should always be!”

  “Would you believe, there was a time where there were thirteen at once?” Clara offered.

  “You just blew my mind,” Donna stated, in awe, and then she left the TARDIS, closing the door behind her. Eleven turned to Clara, smiling.

  “So my Possible girl,” Eleven smiled, “remember, we’ve lived through worse.”

  “Geronimo.”

  He laughed and they were off, traveling to the Papal Mainframe.