Fic: Solid Skies, Chapter 16/19
Aug. 11th, 2009 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veldeiaTitle: Solid Skies
Author: Veldeia
Series: Sequel to Hollow World
Fandom: Doctor Who
Warnings: WIP
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, OCs. Gen.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If you've seen it on TV, it isn't mine.
Summary: After surviving one big cave, the Doctor, Martha and a caving team from the Sixties find themselves in even more trouble on a planet full of caves.
16. NTPCRC
Air.
Wonderful thing, air. He really had missed it, even while unconscious.
Enjoying the much needed flow of oxygen to his system, the Doctor blinked to clear his eyes and to bring the figure hovering above him into focus. It wasn't difficult to guess what it was. Something else he had sorely missed. Or rather, someone.
"Martha," he said.
"Hi, there," she said, and hugged him tightly enough to squish out some of that precious air. He was too dazed to actually return the gesture, but he somehow managed to manoeuvre his hand onto her back and pat it weakly. It felt weird. His hand, that was, not her back. The same as the rest of his body, not exactly painful anymore, and not cold, either. More like the opposite, and quite itchy. Her hug was making that worse. He cleared his throat, and Martha let go of him.
"It worked, then?" he asked her. Speaking was quite a challenge, and his voice came through all croaky.
"It did," she replied, combing his hair with her fingers to clear off the sticky stuff clinging to his scalp. She stopped to rest her hand on his forehead. It felt cool against his skin. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Much better, thank you," he answered, tried to sit up, and had to fall back, gasping, when the itchiness turned to a nasty burning sensation.
Martha placed a gentle but firm hand on his chest to keep him down. "You should lie still for a bit, okay? We're not in a hurry."
"We're not? How did you..."
"I threatened to let the whole planet know about the conspiracy. About Contrast - they're a secret royalist organisation made up of both Darks and Brights. So, Gaer promised to give you the cure - except that she tried to trick me and use a false one, but then K'iem gave you the right one anyway. They both left just a few minutes ago, so I think it'll take a while before Gaer or her friends show up."
"Right," the Doctor said, straining to process all that information. Lying down a little longer did sound like a very good idea. Just a minute or two, so that he could pull himself together.
Instead of trying to get up again, he concentrated on what was going on in his body. Everything felt mostly all right - he was tired and dehydrated, but that was to be expected. There was one strange thing, though. He raised his hand in front of his face. There were fragments of the Plague growth still sticking to it. The crystal was no longer translucent and white, but a dull, matte grey. His skin didn't look its normal pale shade, either, but an angry, inflamed red, which matched the way it felt.
"What's up with that?" Martha asked. "And how did you even survive? For a while there, I thought... The scanners picked up no life signs at all, but you just - woke up. How's that possible?"
The Doctor coughed a little to try and clear his throat again. He felt as if he had swallowed something very dry and sticky. All things considered, that was entirely possible. He coughed some more, spat out a few crystal fragments, took a deep breath, and finally managed to find his voice. "The scanners couldn't see past the crystal growth. Should've warned you about that. Never got the chance. Sorry. I wasn't quite dead yet, just in a coma. Just like the last time. Hm... This must be a personal record, doing it twice in so short a time."
"Oh! Of course!" Martha exclaimed.
"Anyway..." The Doctor returned his attention to his hand. He brought it to his mouth and licked at the remaining Plague fragments. "Ew. Disgusting. But very interesting, too!"
"Yeah? What is it, then?" Martha asked, sounding a little anxious. "Will you be all right?"
"Oh, yes! This is a good thing, actually." He wriggled his fingers in front of her face. "This is Phase II. Or would've been. Remember Phase II? The flesh-eating phase? Seems I was immune to the Plague after all, partially. It was trying to eat me, but it never got any further than this. I was too hard to digest!"
"So, it's all gone, now? Are you still contagious?"
"Shouldn't be. Let's see." He gave getting up another shot, this time with more success. Might have had something to do with the fact that Martha offered him her hand. Together, they made their way to the computer screen, and the Doctor checked all the readings carefully.
"No sign of living Plague organisms. Good. Still, I'd keep that suit on if I were you. If there's a single speck of the dormant form hiding somewhere, it could spread. Actually, I could use one of those suits. I could really use a shower, too," he noted, scratching at his terribly itchy sides. "But I guess that'll have to wait. Off we go!"
There was a stack of protective suits in the next room. Once he had dressed in one, they did their best to make sure that the outer surfaces of their suits were absolutely Plague-free, and dashed out. They ran into the first locals, a small team of guards, right outside the decontamination room. Without stopping, the Doctor grabbed the sonic and hit the Khiandrians with a nasty, loud ultrasound squeal. As they groaned and covered their ears, he and Martha were on the run again.
Unfortunately, running turned out to be more of a strain than usual. No surprise there, really. The Plague had taken its toll. Once they were out of the building, in the cave chamber where the NTPCRC complex lay, he slowed down.
"Everything all right?" Martha asked worriedly, grabbing his arm.
"Fine, fine. Change of tactics," he panted.
He pointed the sonic at her face plate, turning the clear plastic a little hazy - not too much, but enough to make it less obvious that she wasn't a Khiandrian. He did the same to his own mask. "There. Now, we'll walk. Which way?"
"Let's head back the way I came," Martha said. "Follow me."
They hadn't got far when they met a pair of researchers hurrying towards the building they'd just exited. "No point going in there," the Doctor told them, doing his best to sound like a local. "The alien who had the Plague is dead, and the girl fled. I think they went that way," he motioned in the direction exactly opposite to where they were headed.
The researchers thanked him and sprinted away. For once, the Doctor and Martha were in luck - they managed to escape the research facility with no more trouble than that. The few people who saw them from afar took them for researchers, since the suits covered not only their looks, but also any smells or sounds that might've given them away.
Martha led the way several levels down, into a green tunnel. "We hid over there," she gestured towards one part of the tunnel. "But I'd rather not return to the exact same place."
"Would make us easier to find, yes," he agreed, and headed in the opposite direction. They went down one more level. There, he picked a suitably discreet-looking door, and let them in with the sonic.
As soon as they were safely inside, he collapsed on the first seat he could find, trying to catch his breath, and more importantly, struggling to scratch an extremely itchy and very hard to reach spot on his back. The remaining bits of Plague growth between his clothes and skin were not helping at all. Neither was the smart fabric suit covering it all, as smart as it was.
Martha chuckled, and he could just see her smirking at him through her hazy face plate.
"This isn't funny at all," he told her, pushing at his right elbow with his left hand in an attempt to reach further down his back.
"You should see yourself!" She was laughing in earnest, now.
He let his arms fall, crossing them, but he couldn't help grinning a little - and soon, he was laughing too, not just because of the situation, but because he was so glad to be alive, so very glad to be here with her.
"I'll need to call Khif or Meg to let them know we're all right," Martha said, once they'd both sobered somewhat. "In the meantime, you could take that shower."
"Shower! Yes! Brilliant!" he exclaimed, and hopped back on his feet.
The apartment they were in wasn't terribly big, so he could find the bathroom easily. Cold water felt almost as wonderful as air had earlier. After a very careful sonic sweep of his clothes, both to clean them and to make absolutely sure that there were no dormant Plague bits left, he decided that he wouldn't need the protective suit anymore. He joined Martha at the local terminal, where she was talking to a very serious-looking hologram of Khif.
"I'm glad to hear you're both well," the guard was saying. "Still, we're far from safe. Contrast is already one step ahead of us. They've convinced the media and the guards that we're not just extremists, we're dangerous insurgents. I'm a fugitive now as well, and I've got to admit I'm all out of ideas. I doubt anyone will believe anything we say. What can we do?"
"That's a good question," the Doctor noted.
Martha turned around to look at him. "Hey! You're looking better."
He held out his hand in front of his face. It looked almost normal. The skin was healing nicely, just like it should. Maybe a little slower than usual, but he'd live with that. "More like a Time Lord, less like a red chilli," he said, and sat down next to Martha. There was just enough room for the two of them on the narrow bench. "So, what do we have on schedule?"
"A meeting with the guards, or Contrast, or both, depending on who finds us first," Martha said, not sounding terribly happy. "And the trial is set to continue tomorrow at the first tenth."
"We'll be going, of course," the Doctor declared. "There's nothing like a good courtroom drama! And that bit about meeting the guards, well, we could consider that, too."
"Why would you want to do that? The beginning of the next cycle isn't many tenths away. With a little luck and some skill, I'd think you could stay hidden until that," Khif said. "Besides, that isn't what I was talking about. The Plague, Contrast, what can we do about all that?"
"That's what I'm talking about, too," the Doctor told her, a plan already starting to take shape in his mind.
He had thought he'd be unable to do anything about the general situation on the planet, but maybe he'd been wrong. He'd fixed the Plague, and because it was linked to everything else, he now had the chance to fix everything else, too, if he played things right. Of course, if he didn't, the news about Contrast and what they had been up to could cause even more violence and unrest than the planet had seen so far. There was a lot at stake. Well, he always enjoyed a good challenge. This was going to be interesting.
"Now, do we have any concrete proof of all this?" he began. "I can easily prove that the Plague is of Khiandrian origin and artificial..."
"And K'iem has already let the authorities know about that, and the NTPCRC's dodgy dealings," Martha put in. "Though I don't know if they'll believe him."
"He has? Good for him. Hm. Have we got anything else?" the Doctor asked.
"I have data linking some people in the guard to all this," Khif answered him.
"Oh, very good! Can you send it to us somehow? And could we save it in a concrete, portable form? A floppy, a memory stick, a crystal disk, whatever you've got here? Or put it somewhere safe in the Network that we can access at will?"
Khif raised her eyebrows at his enthusiasm, but nodded. "Meg already has a hard copy of it all."
"We'll get it from her, then."
"You won't be able to call her, but I can arrange a meeting. Let's see... There should be a park not far from where you are. Out of the door, to the left, go on until you find a stream, and then follow that. I'll contact Meg and tell her to be there in half a tenth."
"Good. We'll be there, too," the Doctor said.
"So, you'll try to go public with this anyway?" Khif asked.
"Oh, yes. Very," the Doctor announced, flashing her his widest grin.
"I hope you know what you're doing. Anything else you need from me? We shouldn't talk too long, or they may be able to locate us."
"I think that's about it. Thank you for all your help. Be sure to watch the trial tomorrow!"
"No need to thank me! Thank you, Doctor, and you, Martha Jones. You've done this planet a great favour."
"Not yet, we haven't. But we're going to," the Doctor declared.
Khif cast him a puzzled look, and cut the connection.
17. The Palace
Author: Veldeia
Series: Sequel to Hollow World
Fandom: Doctor Who
Warnings: WIP
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, OCs. Gen.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If you've seen it on TV, it isn't mine.
Summary: After surviving one big cave, the Doctor, Martha and a caving team from the Sixties find themselves in even more trouble on a planet full of caves.
16. NTPCRC
Air.
Wonderful thing, air. He really had missed it, even while unconscious.
Enjoying the much needed flow of oxygen to his system, the Doctor blinked to clear his eyes and to bring the figure hovering above him into focus. It wasn't difficult to guess what it was. Something else he had sorely missed. Or rather, someone.
"Martha," he said.
"Hi, there," she said, and hugged him tightly enough to squish out some of that precious air. He was too dazed to actually return the gesture, but he somehow managed to manoeuvre his hand onto her back and pat it weakly. It felt weird. His hand, that was, not her back. The same as the rest of his body, not exactly painful anymore, and not cold, either. More like the opposite, and quite itchy. Her hug was making that worse. He cleared his throat, and Martha let go of him.
"It worked, then?" he asked her. Speaking was quite a challenge, and his voice came through all croaky.
"It did," she replied, combing his hair with her fingers to clear off the sticky stuff clinging to his scalp. She stopped to rest her hand on his forehead. It felt cool against his skin. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Much better, thank you," he answered, tried to sit up, and had to fall back, gasping, when the itchiness turned to a nasty burning sensation.
Martha placed a gentle but firm hand on his chest to keep him down. "You should lie still for a bit, okay? We're not in a hurry."
"We're not? How did you..."
"I threatened to let the whole planet know about the conspiracy. About Contrast - they're a secret royalist organisation made up of both Darks and Brights. So, Gaer promised to give you the cure - except that she tried to trick me and use a false one, but then K'iem gave you the right one anyway. They both left just a few minutes ago, so I think it'll take a while before Gaer or her friends show up."
"Right," the Doctor said, straining to process all that information. Lying down a little longer did sound like a very good idea. Just a minute or two, so that he could pull himself together.
Instead of trying to get up again, he concentrated on what was going on in his body. Everything felt mostly all right - he was tired and dehydrated, but that was to be expected. There was one strange thing, though. He raised his hand in front of his face. There were fragments of the Plague growth still sticking to it. The crystal was no longer translucent and white, but a dull, matte grey. His skin didn't look its normal pale shade, either, but an angry, inflamed red, which matched the way it felt.
"What's up with that?" Martha asked. "And how did you even survive? For a while there, I thought... The scanners picked up no life signs at all, but you just - woke up. How's that possible?"
The Doctor coughed a little to try and clear his throat again. He felt as if he had swallowed something very dry and sticky. All things considered, that was entirely possible. He coughed some more, spat out a few crystal fragments, took a deep breath, and finally managed to find his voice. "The scanners couldn't see past the crystal growth. Should've warned you about that. Never got the chance. Sorry. I wasn't quite dead yet, just in a coma. Just like the last time. Hm... This must be a personal record, doing it twice in so short a time."
"Oh! Of course!" Martha exclaimed.
"Anyway..." The Doctor returned his attention to his hand. He brought it to his mouth and licked at the remaining Plague fragments. "Ew. Disgusting. But very interesting, too!"
"Yeah? What is it, then?" Martha asked, sounding a little anxious. "Will you be all right?"
"Oh, yes! This is a good thing, actually." He wriggled his fingers in front of her face. "This is Phase II. Or would've been. Remember Phase II? The flesh-eating phase? Seems I was immune to the Plague after all, partially. It was trying to eat me, but it never got any further than this. I was too hard to digest!"
"So, it's all gone, now? Are you still contagious?"
"Shouldn't be. Let's see." He gave getting up another shot, this time with more success. Might have had something to do with the fact that Martha offered him her hand. Together, they made their way to the computer screen, and the Doctor checked all the readings carefully.
"No sign of living Plague organisms. Good. Still, I'd keep that suit on if I were you. If there's a single speck of the dormant form hiding somewhere, it could spread. Actually, I could use one of those suits. I could really use a shower, too," he noted, scratching at his terribly itchy sides. "But I guess that'll have to wait. Off we go!"
There was a stack of protective suits in the next room. Once he had dressed in one, they did their best to make sure that the outer surfaces of their suits were absolutely Plague-free, and dashed out. They ran into the first locals, a small team of guards, right outside the decontamination room. Without stopping, the Doctor grabbed the sonic and hit the Khiandrians with a nasty, loud ultrasound squeal. As they groaned and covered their ears, he and Martha were on the run again.
Unfortunately, running turned out to be more of a strain than usual. No surprise there, really. The Plague had taken its toll. Once they were out of the building, in the cave chamber where the NTPCRC complex lay, he slowed down.
"Everything all right?" Martha asked worriedly, grabbing his arm.
"Fine, fine. Change of tactics," he panted.
He pointed the sonic at her face plate, turning the clear plastic a little hazy - not too much, but enough to make it less obvious that she wasn't a Khiandrian. He did the same to his own mask. "There. Now, we'll walk. Which way?"
"Let's head back the way I came," Martha said. "Follow me."
They hadn't got far when they met a pair of researchers hurrying towards the building they'd just exited. "No point going in there," the Doctor told them, doing his best to sound like a local. "The alien who had the Plague is dead, and the girl fled. I think they went that way," he motioned in the direction exactly opposite to where they were headed.
The researchers thanked him and sprinted away. For once, the Doctor and Martha were in luck - they managed to escape the research facility with no more trouble than that. The few people who saw them from afar took them for researchers, since the suits covered not only their looks, but also any smells or sounds that might've given them away.
Martha led the way several levels down, into a green tunnel. "We hid over there," she gestured towards one part of the tunnel. "But I'd rather not return to the exact same place."
"Would make us easier to find, yes," he agreed, and headed in the opposite direction. They went down one more level. There, he picked a suitably discreet-looking door, and let them in with the sonic.
As soon as they were safely inside, he collapsed on the first seat he could find, trying to catch his breath, and more importantly, struggling to scratch an extremely itchy and very hard to reach spot on his back. The remaining bits of Plague growth between his clothes and skin were not helping at all. Neither was the smart fabric suit covering it all, as smart as it was.
Martha chuckled, and he could just see her smirking at him through her hazy face plate.
"This isn't funny at all," he told her, pushing at his right elbow with his left hand in an attempt to reach further down his back.
"You should see yourself!" She was laughing in earnest, now.
He let his arms fall, crossing them, but he couldn't help grinning a little - and soon, he was laughing too, not just because of the situation, but because he was so glad to be alive, so very glad to be here with her.
"I'll need to call Khif or Meg to let them know we're all right," Martha said, once they'd both sobered somewhat. "In the meantime, you could take that shower."
"Shower! Yes! Brilliant!" he exclaimed, and hopped back on his feet.
The apartment they were in wasn't terribly big, so he could find the bathroom easily. Cold water felt almost as wonderful as air had earlier. After a very careful sonic sweep of his clothes, both to clean them and to make absolutely sure that there were no dormant Plague bits left, he decided that he wouldn't need the protective suit anymore. He joined Martha at the local terminal, where she was talking to a very serious-looking hologram of Khif.
"I'm glad to hear you're both well," the guard was saying. "Still, we're far from safe. Contrast is already one step ahead of us. They've convinced the media and the guards that we're not just extremists, we're dangerous insurgents. I'm a fugitive now as well, and I've got to admit I'm all out of ideas. I doubt anyone will believe anything we say. What can we do?"
"That's a good question," the Doctor noted.
Martha turned around to look at him. "Hey! You're looking better."
He held out his hand in front of his face. It looked almost normal. The skin was healing nicely, just like it should. Maybe a little slower than usual, but he'd live with that. "More like a Time Lord, less like a red chilli," he said, and sat down next to Martha. There was just enough room for the two of them on the narrow bench. "So, what do we have on schedule?"
"A meeting with the guards, or Contrast, or both, depending on who finds us first," Martha said, not sounding terribly happy. "And the trial is set to continue tomorrow at the first tenth."
"We'll be going, of course," the Doctor declared. "There's nothing like a good courtroom drama! And that bit about meeting the guards, well, we could consider that, too."
"Why would you want to do that? The beginning of the next cycle isn't many tenths away. With a little luck and some skill, I'd think you could stay hidden until that," Khif said. "Besides, that isn't what I was talking about. The Plague, Contrast, what can we do about all that?"
"That's what I'm talking about, too," the Doctor told her, a plan already starting to take shape in his mind.
He had thought he'd be unable to do anything about the general situation on the planet, but maybe he'd been wrong. He'd fixed the Plague, and because it was linked to everything else, he now had the chance to fix everything else, too, if he played things right. Of course, if he didn't, the news about Contrast and what they had been up to could cause even more violence and unrest than the planet had seen so far. There was a lot at stake. Well, he always enjoyed a good challenge. This was going to be interesting.
"Now, do we have any concrete proof of all this?" he began. "I can easily prove that the Plague is of Khiandrian origin and artificial..."
"And K'iem has already let the authorities know about that, and the NTPCRC's dodgy dealings," Martha put in. "Though I don't know if they'll believe him."
"He has? Good for him. Hm. Have we got anything else?" the Doctor asked.
"I have data linking some people in the guard to all this," Khif answered him.
"Oh, very good! Can you send it to us somehow? And could we save it in a concrete, portable form? A floppy, a memory stick, a crystal disk, whatever you've got here? Or put it somewhere safe in the Network that we can access at will?"
Khif raised her eyebrows at his enthusiasm, but nodded. "Meg already has a hard copy of it all."
"We'll get it from her, then."
"You won't be able to call her, but I can arrange a meeting. Let's see... There should be a park not far from where you are. Out of the door, to the left, go on until you find a stream, and then follow that. I'll contact Meg and tell her to be there in half a tenth."
"Good. We'll be there, too," the Doctor said.
"So, you'll try to go public with this anyway?" Khif asked.
"Oh, yes. Very," the Doctor announced, flashing her his widest grin.
"I hope you know what you're doing. Anything else you need from me? We shouldn't talk too long, or they may be able to locate us."
"I think that's about it. Thank you for all your help. Be sure to watch the trial tomorrow!"
"No need to thank me! Thank you, Doctor, and you, Martha Jones. You've done this planet a great favour."
"Not yet, we haven't. But we're going to," the Doctor declared.
Khif cast him a puzzled look, and cut the connection.
17. The Palace
