The Doctor turned to Desiato.
‘Where did that weapon come from?’ he asked.
‘I’ve kept it in my pocket since we jumped ship. The power supply’s nearly run down – it doesn’t have nuclear batteries like the escape pod components. I don’t know if it will be effective against the creature again.’
‘Typical,’ sighed the Doctor. ‘Still, that’s the folly of putting your faith in weapons. They never help in the end.’
‘I’ll have you know that this blaster sent many alien marauders to the grave in its time.’
The Doctor turned on Desiato, facing him squarely in the eye.
‘As an alien myself, that remark pains me greatly.’
‘Doctor, I can see you’re as human as I am.’
‘Looks can be extremely deceiving. But we can’t argue about that now. We have somewhat more pressing matters in hand.’
Never a truer word had he spoken. The underdeveloped creature had now formed into a rudimentary humanoid shape, almost embryonic in its morphology. It stretched to its not inconsiderable full height; raising its overlarge head and staring at the panic around it with two empty eyes. It was quite hideous, a grotesque grey parody of a baby, its glistening mud-like body matter hanging like rolls of puppy fat on its body.
‘What the hell is that thing?!’ gasped Huhrun, joining Desiato’s side.
‘It’s a threat,’ he said. The captain turned to the frightened colonists. ‘Have you forgotten your training?’ he yelled. ‘This is an alien enemy. We have all fought creatures new to us, have we not?’
‘Actually,’ said a Tarrokku, gingerly, ‘we just fought your lot.’ He had the decency to look embarrassed when Desiato glared at him.
‘It always comes back to that,’ muttered the Doctor.
‘Get the wounded inside,’ said Huhrun. ‘Walters, Ahgus, Mendez, organise the personnel. We need to tackle this creature.’
Ahgus, a burly Tarrokku, and Mendez, a young dark-skinned man, immediately began to rally their fellows. The Doctor noticed that both tried to gather members of their own species first. A natural reaction, he supposed.
‘So, Doctor, how do we tackle this creature?’ said Huhrun.
The monster bellowed, charging at Huhrun. He dodged it, but the creature was surprisingly agile, and turned quickly, grasping Huhrun by the throat.
There was a loud, sickening snap.
Huhrun slumped in the monster’s grip. The beast dropped him onto the ground.
‘My God,’ exclaimed Desiato. ‘How do we stop this thing?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’m sorry.’
Desiato noticed that Walters was still standing, watching the monster, as it pounced at the battle ready troops. Some stood their ground, most scattered.
‘Walters, don’t stand there watching, do something!’ ordered Desiato, although what could be done he didn’t know.
Walters looked at his captain, suddenly alert.
‘Sorry, sir?’
The creature stopped moving. It looked back at where it had sprung from, as if unsure what to do. It then approached the three of them. Walters looked terrified.
The creature bolted for the fracture, its body losing cohesion, flowing forward into the crack, sealing it behind it. It hardened into rock.
‘Opinions, anyone?’ said Desiato.
The five travellers reached the TARDIS at long last.
‘This is your ship?’ said the Hesper.
‘Yes,’ said Caroline. ‘What you see here is its plasmic shell, which forms an interface between the ‘real’ Universe, and the micro-universe within, which is larger than the exterior dimensions would suggest due to it’s being dimensionally transcendental.’ She was rather pleased with that, even though she didn’t really know what the Doctor had meant when he’d told her.
‘Oh,’ said Hesper. ‘I see you’ve already got some gunk growing on it.’
Caroline and Danny looked down. There was indeed some of the grey substance creeping up the sides.
‘It’s attracted to power sources. I’m not surprised its after your ship.’
‘Do you think it’s safe to go in?’ said Danny, eyeing the substance warily.
‘I don’t think we have much choice,’ said Caroline.
‘Indeed we don’t,’ said Hesper. ‘We need food and medical equipment. If you have it in there, we’re going in.’
‘Okay,’ said Caroline, taking the key out of her pocket. She slid it into the lock, and pushed the door hard. It opened with little complaint. She stepped in.
The others followed her in.
‘This is the console room,’ she said. ‘Christ, I sound like the Doctor.’
‘Come with me,’ Danny said to the three Tarrokku who’d been following Hesper. ‘We’ll gather some food.’ He left through the main door at the back of the console room.
Caroline squatted down, ducking under the projecting dais of the console. She opened a small cupboard in the stem of the device.
‘We have medical supplies in here,’ she said. ‘The Doctor will probably want some of his laboratory equipment to.’ She stood up and passed a green medical kit box to Hesper, then left through a small side door. He followed her into the laboratory, a medium sized room utterly full with bizarre looking equipment. Huge arrays of tubes wound around the room, linking flasks of chemicals on several tables. Computer screens from various eras displayed reams of unintelligible data. Stained, empty teacups sat strewn about the place. A yellow-white skull, human looking but for the curved horns that sprouted from its forehead, lay on one desk.
‘Does he use this for dissection?’ queried Hesper, looking with alarm at a large microscope from which sprung various blades and syringes.
‘That was part of his experiment to find out how they put the sherbet into sherbet lemons,’ said Caroline. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she said when Hesper gave her a quizzical look, which she didn’t realise was because he didn’t know what sherbet lemons were.
Caroline gathered some pieces of equipment, and placed them carefully into a leather bound briefcase.
‘The Doctor explained to me that these were used for chemical analysis,’ she said. ‘I’ll expect they’ll be useful.’
They returned to the console room, meeting Danny and his friends carrying bags full of food.
‘Ready to go?’ asked Danny. Caroline nodded.
The TARDIS jolted violently.
‘What’s happening?’ cried Caroline.
Danny pulled the door lever. The doors opened, to reveal a vast mass of grey mucilage climbing the outside of the TARDIS. Danny closed the doors quickly.
‘That thing’s swallowing us. We’re trapped in here!’
No comments:
Post a Comment