Chapter Text
Sound doesn't carry in space, but it sure does in time. If there had been people in the Time Vortex to hear it, they would have described a thundering noise as a monstrous behemoth of a saucer sped through, pursued by a blue box that tumbled from side to side, avoiding fire from the ship. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor watched his monitor and bit his lip as he waited for the opportune moment to pull the handle his hand rested on. The ray gun on the underside of the saucer began to light up as it charged again. He pulled the handle hard and suddenly, and the TARDIS once again lurched to the side, avoiding a devastating blast from the alien ship.
"Ha!"
He allowed himself to grin, and ran around to the other side of the console to hit some more buttons and levers, before quickly rushing back to check the monitor again. His face fell as he saw the saucer turning away from him; until now, it had been flying backwards to fire its main gun at the TARDIS, but now it was done fighting, and was instead running away at full pelt.
"No, no, no, no!"
They weren't getting away that easily. He had promised to bring those people back safe.
"Come on, old girl. Don't give out on me now..." he muttered.
The TARDIS shot forward through the vortex again as the Doctor stepped on the throttle. The alien saucer fired its smaller weapons at them as they approached, but none posed quite the same level of threat as that death ray. As the TARDIS came closer, the engines of the ancient machine began to groan, and it dematerialised near the hull of the ship.
The Doctor ran for the doors, casually throwing on his brown trenchcoat as he swept them open and stepped outside. He then stopped abruptly as he found that he had emerged straight onto the bridge, and now had several dozen guns pointed straight at him. They were wielded by yellowish-green humanoids in white uniforms, with bald heads and beady black eyes, standing at roughly the height of a Sontaran. Actually, their unamused glares were also very Sontaran-esque, now that he looked at them. They even had three-fingered hands.
One of them standing near the front window of the ship approached. His uniform was silver, unlike the regular white colouring of the others, and while the rest were all threatening him with their high-tech rifles, the Doctor noted that this one carried only a sidearm.
"Doctor," the alien hissed with loathing. "You've wasted so much of our time."
"Yeah, well..." The Doctor shrugged. "Sorry."
He wasn't really sorry.
"Sorry? You've set our experiments back decades! This universe's inhabitants could have been the key to our race's survival, and you just ruined it!"
"And for that, I really am sorry, but the people of Station Gemini-Fourteen are not yours to experiment on. You can find another way to survive. You don't need to do this. I can't allow you to do this."
The alien captain narrowed his eyes.
"So be it." He lowered his pistol and turned his back to the Doctor. "Kill him."
The Doctor winced, but did not move as the aliens discharged their energy weapons. Beams of light flew, but fizzled out and disappeared before they reached him. The aliens all lowered their weapons and stared in confusion. A few took the initiative to check them for sabotage, apparently not putting it past the Doctor to have somehow tampered with their weapons before even boarding the ship. The captain turned around slowly, his eyes widening as he saw that it had not worked. The Doctor simply grinned at him.
"Extrapolator shielding," he explained. "Good enough to stop daleks. Good enough to stop you."
Well, some daleks anyway, but there was no need to tell them that.
"Grrr..."
"You aren't getting past these shields, so you may as well just listen to me—"
"No! I will not! Words are your weapons, Doctor, and I would never let an armed foe aboard my ship! We may not be natives to your universe, but don't make the mistake of thinking that we are ignorant to your reputation!"
"Well, if you know my reputation, then you know what you're up against, captain...?"
"Ruzzgar."
"Captain Ruzzgar. I'm giving you one chance. Just one. Stop this right now, or I'll stop it myself."
The furious alien stepped right up to the edge of the extrapolator shield, and looked the Doctor in the eyes. As he did, he smiled.
"Do it, then. I dare you."
The Doctor opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted.
"Captain, we're entering home space now!" shouted an alien at a control console. "Establishing contact with Zeta!"
"Switching to main power!"
"Exiting vortex!"
The Doctor's expression betrayed his surprise, and Ruzzgar's sly smile grew ever wider.
"Time's up, Doctor."
The entire ship shook suddenly as the view from the windows at the front of the bridge switched from the swirling colours of the Time Vortex to the blackness of space. In the corner of their view below them, an identical alien ship could be seen. It floated above a dull-looking planet with a green ocean, mostly brown landmasses, and a mysterious yellow circle about the size of a continent, which was either reflecting light from the sun or glowing brightly.
The TARDIS shook as well, but far more violently than the ship they were on. They had entered a whole new universe now, and she didn't like it. It wasn't as bad as the incident which had landed them in Pete's World for the first time, but these were far from ideal circumstances.
Captain Ruzzgar raised his pistol again, and fired at the Doctor. Once more, it fizzled out on contact with the shield. That caused him to stop smiling.
"Pity," he said. "I was hoping that the cross-dimensional travel would do something about that pesky shield. Oh well. Not much you can do now, unfortunately. We're not in your universe anymore, Doctor. This is our world. Our home. You'll fight on our terms now, and if you think we gave you trouble before, now you'll have Zeta to deal with as well."
He gestured through the window towards the other ship as they rapidly descended towards it. Ruzzgar looked confident, and he had every reason to be. By all appearances, the aliens had the advantage. But it was not to last.
"Eta! Come in, Eta!"
A red 3D hologram of another alien's face appeared by the captain's chair. It looked panicked.
"Eta, we need immediate assistance! A group of human captives escaped, and have been running amok! They're using our own weapons against us, and have set the experiments loose! They've already killed almost the entirety of our crew! Soldiers, scientists, engineers, it didn't matter to them! They're animals!"
"What?" Ruzzgar shouted back, approaching the hologram. "How did this happen? They're only a primitive species! Especially in this universe! How are they—"
"I don't know, but please, send help immediately! The humans have already taken the engineering core, the hangar, the labs, and disabled our main gun! They're currently making their way through the living quarters! If you don't hurry, they could be on our bridge at any— "
There was a scream from the other ship, accompanied by the distinct sound of an energy weapon firing. The Zeta captain's head turned around, and then exploded in a shower of hologram gore. He slumped out of sight, leaving the hologram displaying only a red-tinted partial view of an alien chair. In the background, a voice could be heard.
"Yippee ki-yay, ya ugly green fucks!"
The Doctor paused. Though the telepathic circuits of the TARDIS perfectly translated just about any language in universe for him, he was still always aware of exactly what language others were speaking. Until now, he and the aliens had been conversing in their native tongue. That, however, was unmistakably English. American English.
"'Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the Earth! I have not come to bring peace, but a sword!'" More energy fire sounded through the speakers, along with the horrified screams of Zeta's bridge crew. "'For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land!'"
Bible quotes. Here of all places. Being loudly shouted by a strange American man as he killed large numbers of aliens with their own weapons. The Doctor would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation, were people's lives not still at stake.
Captain Ruzzgar growled, and pointed a long finger at Zeta through the window.
"Cut the feed and bring us around! I want us facing Zeta head on! Approach from above, move in backwards, and aim main gun for Zeta's vitals! Ready for fire on my mark!"
He marched across the bridge and jumped into his chair. The other aliens ran for their consoles, following their captain's commands. The ship twisted around and drifted backwards, towards the planet, just as Ruzzgar ordered. The Doctor stood watching the action, transfixed by the scene as the crew seemed to forget about him entirely.
"Send a red to their bridge!"
"Ruzzgar—" the Doctor began.
"Quiet! I have matters to deal with."
He slammed a fist on the console, and began speaking into it. No hologram appeared on the bridge again this time.
"Human! You have vastly overstepped your bounds! By attacking the civilian crew of Mothership Zeta, you and your compatriots have lost all right to protection by the treaty of Silarmellos, for instances of negotiations between our species! You are advised to surrender immediately, or else the full might of Mothership Eta will be brought to bear against you! This is your only warning!"
There was a temporary silence, aside from the hum of the ship and the pressing of buttons as the crew of the Eta continued their work. Still no red hologram appeared. Ruzzgar broke the silence.
"Stop ignoring me, human! What are you doing to that body? Put that down!"
"Captain!" the Doctor shouted. "They can't understand you! They probably don't have any clue what you're saying."
Ruzzgar grunted, and turned back to the computer in front of him. As he did, Zeta began to emerge back into their view as Eta floated down to its level. A human woman's voice came through the speaker.
"Holy shit. Where did that come—"
The audio cut out as Ruzzgar slammed a three-fingered fist on the console.
"Forget it! Fire at will!"
"Sir!" One of the aliens stood up from his console, facing the captain. "We're to fire on Zeta? One of our own?"
"I'd rather see her as ashes than in the hands of a degenerate race like theirs! Destroy her!"
The alien marched right up to the captain's chair.
"Captain Ruzzgar, with all due respect, I can't abide by this order. As one of the last remaining motherships of the old fleet, Zeta is too important an asset for us to lose! Our race is on the brink of extinction! We can't afford to abandon any possible survivors!"
Ruzzgar's head twisted to face him.
"Duly noted, lieutenant," he said through gritted teeth.
He raised his sidearm and shot his subordinate in the head, causing the lieutenant to disintegrate in seconds.
"Now fire!" he screamed.
There was a loud blaring noise, and through the windows, the Doctor saw the blast of Mothership Eta's death ray striking its opposite number. The beam appeared to be blocked by some kind of energy shield, which he observed as a ripple of blue light flickered across it from the point of the laser's impact.
"Fire again! Full power!"
"We need time to charge, captain!"
In that time, Zeta took the initiative to fire instead. A thunderous boom struck the ship. Sparks erupted from panels and machinery. A klaxon alarm began blaring. Everything shook, and the Doctor fell onto his knees briefly, before scrambling up again.
"We've been hit!"
"No!" Ruzzgar screamed. "How do the humans know how to operate those weapons?!"
The Doctor was momentarily paralyzed, until he shook himself out of his stupor, and remembered what he was here for in the first place.
The captives.
He turned back to the TARDIS and ripped the doors open. The moment he did, the klaxon alarms were complemented by the ringing of the cloister bell. Inside, everything was dark, except a red glow coming from all around. He spared a look back at the alien captain, who suddenly looked terrified, before rushing in and closing the door behind him.
"Not now!" the Doctor said to himself. "Any time but now!"
He reached into his pocket and drew his sonic screwdriver. Pointing it at the console, he changed to the TARDIS maintenance setting and activated it, but instead of fixing anything he just caused a small explosion of sparks and smoke to start pouring out. The cloister bell sounded ever louder.
"Come onnnn..." he whined.
The TARDIS shook again. There was another explosion outside. Zeta was hitting back and hitting hard.
"Doctor!" That was the sound of Ruzzgar, pleading as he pounded on the wooden doors. "Let me in, Doctor! I don't want to die!"
For a second, the time lord just looked at the door, contemplating it. With a sad shake of his head, he returned his attention to the console.
"You had your chance," he muttered.
Another explosion, and another scream. Finally, the TARDIS wheezed to life once more, and the lights came back on. The monitor displayed a view of Eta's bridge outside, just in time for the Doctor to see it engulfed in flames. The explosions continued. The shaking continued. The crashing and burning and rattling, the screams of dying aliens, and the sound of flying metal all filled the air just outside the doors.
The TARDIS dematerialised just as the ship exploded, but it wasn't too late for the captured humans. All he had to do was go back a few minutes and land in the holding cells, after Eta entered this universe, but before it was destroyed...
A sudden crash interrupted the Doctor's thoughts.
"What?" He pulled the view monitor over to him, and saw that he had just impacted a piece of flying debris. "Impossible!"
They were supposed to be travelling back already. Instead, the TARDIS had dematerialised in the ship as it exploded, and materialised outside it again during the same explosion. How could the TARDIS have failed something as simple as jumping into the Time Vortex?
It must be this new universe, the Doctor thought.
Not a good sign. And now it appeared they were riding the explosion, and hurtling down towards the planet.
"Hang on, old girl!"
***
The TARDIS couldn't decide if it wanted to dematerialise or fall, so it was instead opting to do both. It sailed down through the atmosphere of the planet, thrashing about in the air wildly, and leaving a burning trail of orange in its wake. Every so often, though, the light would cut out. The blue box vanished for several seconds at a time, before appearing further along the same course, as if it had never stopped falling, but had become invisible for just a few moments. As it did, it also fell further backwards in time, hopping back a decade or so with every jump.
Inside, its pilot was madly trying to contain the situation with a fire extinguisher, spraying it all over the control console while the fires raged around him. Smoke filled the innards of the TARDIS, and that cloister bell just would not shut up.
The Doctor coughed and tried to wave the smoke away. He threw the fire extinguisher aside and grabbed a handle attached to a small wheel, which he spun rapidly. The view monitor began making an obnoxious beeping of its own, independent of the equally obnoxious cloister bell, forcing the Doctor to take time between his manic scrambling and wiping the sweat from his forehead to pull it over again and see what it wanted. It appeared to be warning him that they were about to impact the surface of the planet.
"Brilliant..."
***
Somewhere in California, in January of the year 2162, a man in a suit of metal armour worn over a blue jumpsuit looked up at the night sky. As he saw the trail of light, he thought that it must surely have been a shooting star, like the old science textbooks in his vault talked about. He briefly considered making a wish, before dismissing the notion as childish folly, and continuing on through the desert.