by Cour M.
In hearing this, Ten’s face turned to stone.
“Macrellus?” He echoed.
“Yes. So, buckle up.”
Ten and Martha remained at the consul unit, making sure that the anchor of the unit had the power to tow the tower of frozen sagriens along, while spaceship Nerva followed the police craft back to Macrellus.
“Is there something bad about Macrellus?” Martha asked.
“Yes, it just might be. It’s a planet that is new to the ways of the Galactic Federation. This means that the Galactic Alliance doesn’t hold much sway over them.”
“So, they are basically like the wild west cowboys of the galaxy?”
“That’s what I love about you,” Ten sighed, “intelligent metaphors.”
“Ah, thank you,” Martha smiled, and then she thought about it and took in his expression, “hang on, was that actually you being cheeky?”
“What do you think?”
“Ah, testy!”
Martha looked at the wreckage as they flew away from it.
“But what about the purebloods?” Martha asked, “they may have killed the half-bloods, but if they were killed, then they could regenerate in space?”
“The Howards killed them all. Since they knew the internal system setup of the sagrien, then they would know how to destroy them completely. Yet even if they got it wrong, then they would be regenerating in space.”
“And how long could a sagrien last in space without a proper suit?”
“No more than fifteen minutes at the most. Until they would have to regenerate.”
“So, they would regenerate a couple of times in space and then just die?”
Ten considered this, and he stared ahead in shock at the revelation.
“Yes. They would regenerate over and over—until their lives were spent.”
“They deserved it,” Martha stated, to which Ten gave her a look. “Doctor, I’m too tired for pity, I admit. Whether I’m a doctor or not.”
“I suppose, I can understand that. You’re tired, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, I know that we must stay awake because of the TARDIS. But wait, will it run out of energy?”
“We may not have gotten the solar panels,” Ten smiled, gesturing to his shoulder bag where he stashed all the equipment, “but we got everything else. Stay near me, Martha, because now I am going to begin repairing my TARDIS.”
“I’m right here.”
“Good-e-oh.”
The Doctor removed the parts he took from the satellite and began to re-work things while Martha sat on the dashboard and kept an eye on the tower that trailed behind them.
As she did so, the Doctor eyed her every now and again. She had a wistfulness in her eye that unnerved him—and interested him. In this instance, he did desire to know what she was thinking.
“Martha, what is it?”
“Nothing much,” Martha replied, still looking at the tower, “but if they can regenerate, then he, in some way, could have survived.”
“Weldon Jinn?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, he could have. And with his nature and abilities, anything is possible.”
“Yes, with him, I suppose so.”
“Yet don’t worry. It’s more than likely that he is gone. Forever.”
Ten’s eyes narrowed as he saw Martha so still and somber.
“Martha… did you let him in?”
“What do you mean?”
“Into your mind. Did you let Weldon Jinn into your mind?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Ten voiced very simply.
Martha looked at him as Ten continued to stare at her, his arms frozen midair with a tool as he was still working on the consul unit.
“You must not lie to me,” he urged, monotone.
“Right,” Martha gave in, “sorry, yes. I know that I should have confessed it before, but I was upset that I let you down.”
“You didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. And I didn’t mean it, Doctor.”
“No, I really mean that you didn’t. Weldon Jinn was a pureblood sagrien. He had certain abilities of persuasion. And even if not so, even if you did not give in, he would have made you give in anyway. How far into your soul did he go?”
“I still feel him there.”
“How much?”
“I see his face, right in front of me, now.”
“It’ll fade with time. Good ole’ time, it heals all wounds. Don’t worry, Martha,” Ten continued on, cheerily, “we’re away from all that and you will never go near him again. We’ll recover and we’ll be as we once were.”
Martha turned and looked at the Doctor as he said this. He didn’t return her gaze, but continued to work away. Martha stood up, walked to where he was and laid down beside him while he worked on the consul unit. The Doctor only looked ahead, acting nonchalant. Yet every part of him was aware and wondering why she was now laying down next to him.
“Will you really be able to get the TARDIS back to her former glory?”
“Ah, now you’re accepting that it’s a she.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Yes, maybe.”
“Martha Jones, I’ll make a believer out of you yet.”
“Oh, please! I will always believe in her.”
“Yes, I suppose that you will. We all have no choice but to, now do we?”
“Yes. Doctor, now that we’ve got some time to breathe, I now get the chance to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” He asked, a little scared.
“I’m sorry. About the TARDIS.”
“Oh! Well, it’s not your fault, I suppose.”
“I know, but someone has to apologize, and the Medusa Cascade won’t.”
Ten laughed at this, then he turned and looked at Martha through her helmet. They both smiled at each other.
“I didn’t want your last trip in the TARDIS to be like this,” he assured her. “I just want you to know that.”
“I never said this,” she realized, “but the TARDIS. Well, she is beautiful.”
“Yes, she is. Martha, you should have seen my face when I first saw her. Ah! She was an antique, but you know me. I like antiques. Antiques are brilliant! They are truly underrated. But when I saw her, she sealed herself onto my hearts. So, I walked up to her and I took her. I do that a lot, I suppose. Walk right up to things and take them.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“Well, I walked right up to you and took you, didn’t I?”
Martha bit her lip.
“Yes, I did. And we both know that I did. I was tired of wondering alone, I admit that now. And you just had to go and check my heartbeats. Right then and there, you were a goner—I was going to show up with my blue box then.”
“Who would have known that taking a heartbeat was a dangerous thing?” Martha joked.
“No good deed goes unpunished. But with the TARDIS, when I wished to run away from Gallifrey, and I saw her—she was the only thing that felt like home.”
“Is that what you are always chasing?” Martha asked.
“Huh?”
“Home. You say you’re running away, but tell me… is it that you are more-so running not to escape, but for something to come home to?”
Ten continued to work.
“Doctor?” She asked.
“These cables won’t fix themselves,” Ten announced, making it very clear that he was not ready to answer the question. Knowing that a wall had now come up in between them, she stood up.
“I should go and keep an eye out on the tower.”
“Good, make sure that it never drifts away. After all, we can’t afford to let the frozen species of bloodthirsty savages get away from us, now can we? No, we can’t! What kind of a world would we live in if we did that? Nope!”
He began to sing ‘Beat It’ to himself while Martha remained sentinel, with them being flown to Macrellus.
Chapter 2
The Unfortunate Tourist
Kellerphron: a planet in the Necroid System
Year: 4265 A.D.
“Come on, silly,” Daphne cried, rushing through the crowd with her boyfriend, Miccas.
“I’m coming,” Miccas laughed, coming up behind her. On the planet Kellerphron, school everywhere had just been let out, and Miccas had sworn that he had a surprise waiting for Daphne along the avenue that was just outside of the Celestial Academy. “I knew you would be excited for my gift, but I didn’t know that you would be this excited.”
“Silly! What kind of a girl would not be excited?” she laughed, with them racing along. As they did so, it began to rain, but the blue of the rain didn’t affect her much at all. “By the way, we learned something in Interplanetary Class today.”
“What?”
“That half the planets in the galaxies have clear rain.”
“No way!”
“Yeah way. Their rain has no color to it at all. Can you imagine? There’s no pink, red, or blue to it? Just clear rain that doesn’t stain anything at all? Seriously, that’s so dull!”
“Exactly! How do they live?”
“No idea.”
Eventually they reached the avenue at the edge of their school and came under a landing to get some cover.
As they did so, Daphne rung out her black hair. The stains of blue from the rain didn’t affect her however, because it just blended in with her other natural spots. While Miccas had come from the Vexos neighborhood, and therefore he had red spots along his neck and arms, Daphne was from Bristol, and therefore had blue spots along her hairline and collarbone.
“I look hideous now, don’t I?” She asked lightly, twirling around.
“Even if I believed it, you know I would never say that,” Miccas laughed. For a second, they both stood there awkwardly.
“So, did you bring me here for something special?” Daphne questioned, “or are we just going to kiss now?”
“We could kiss anywhere.”
“Exactly, so I’m assuming that we’re not going to waste the setting.”
“No, we aren’t.” Miccas opened his mouth, then closed it. He opened it again, then closed it once more. Now that the moment had come down to it, he just couldn’t gather the courage. Therefore, instead, he reached into his pocket and decided to skip right to the gift. “I got you something that we’ve been dying to see.”
Before even looking at the tickets, Daphne guessed what it was.
“No way!” She cried happily.
“Yeah way.”
Daphne grabbed the tickets and read them.
“Two passes to Draconis!”
“Yup. There was this raffle that was offering tickets to Macrellus, just for the first day of course, but not for the whole thing. I heard on the first day, they might re-do the Battle of Thermopylae, whatever that is.”
“Oh, no it’s different now,” Daphne corrected, “they realized that just mimicking history isn’t fair because there’s a definite winner or loser. Yeah, I heard that now they allow the outcome of the battles to be random.”
“Celsius 8!” Miccas swore, happy.
“So then, we’re really going to the Imitation Games?”
“Yeah, we totally are.”
“Miccas, this is the best gift ever,” Daphne complimented. She jumped into his arms and he spun her around. As he did so, she opened her mouth.
‘Just say I love you,’ she thought, ‘just say I love you.’
Yet when Miccas put her down, and she stared happily at him, she could not gather the courage to do it. After all, telling someone you loved them either made everything better, or it made everything worse. She had learned that the hard way, long ago.
⌛
Two days later, Miccas and Daphne were travelling in downtown Lsiria, where the teleportation trans-mats were located. The trans-mats in Lsiria were practically intergalactic trains. Each stop on the trans-mat cost a certain fare and the further you went, the higher the fare.
Since Mecrellas was the furthest stop on the trans-mat, they both had to have ten drachmas to pay for their fares.[1] So content that Miccas paid for their tickets, Daphne paid the fare. They arrived at Grand Central Station, which was right in the middle of Lsiria, went to the Mecrellas terminal and was surprised to see it so busy.
“I thought people usually visited the games of Day 6,” Daphne observed, “not day 3.”
“Yeah, I thought so too,” Miccas agreed, “well, then that must mean that this day of the games must be really entertaining.”
“Ah, you bet, mate,” one of the other passengers said as they were waiting in line, “I heard that two cities on the planet are mimicking the Napoleonic Wars from Europe. Only this time, they are choosing to let it end with whoever has the stronger team rather than sticking to the historic script.”
“Celsius 8!” Miccas remarked happily, “so Mecrellas is back to using that one planet as its model.”
“Earth,” Daphne clarified, “I believe it’s called Earth.”
“She’s better at remembering all the planets in the neighboring galaxies,” Meccas admitted, “but I was better at avionics, so I’ve got that going for me.”
“Oh, shut it,” Daphne chided, “thank goodness they’re back to using Earth as a model for the games. Because whenever they used other planets, their wars and politics were so boring. And let’s not even get started on their sports.”
“Exactly,” the random passenger said, “I think the turnout for the Earth games was better than the other turnouts, so that’s why they went back to that. My boyfriend and I are excited. Earth had the best conflicts.”
⌛
As they waited in line, Meccas had to speak to his mother on the Star phone to inform her that he would have to delay coming home from the Academy by a couple of days. So, Daphne took that time to remove her Jupiter Pad from her backpack and look up the history of the Imitation Games.
She turned it on, the Jupiter pad lit up, she requested the history of the games, a miniature hologram of a Kellerphron female rose out of it and began to supply her with information.
“The Imitation Games,” the hologram explained, “was originally created and funded by politician and socialite Justica Grennoria, in the year 4021 D.E. With the technological advancements made in the galaxy during that period, not only was trans-mat teleportation between planets established, but also the planet Mecrellas had one of the most remarkable creations during the Eclipse Era. Powered by Gynomorphic generators, Conceptual geometers, Beam synthesizers and Orthogonal engine filters, they created the Vision Window Bridge.”
Here, a hologram of a bridge appeared over Daphne’s pad.
“The Vision Window Bridge had the power to affect the dipole repeller of a planet, and open a window between two planets on two different sides of the galaxy. Can you imagine looking out of your window one day and seeing into the home of another person’s room in a whole different galaxy? Well, the Vision Bridge made it possible. One planet could activate the Vision Bridge, and it would reveal what was occurring in different parts of history on another planet. This ingenious discovery inspired inventor and politician Justica Grennoria to invent the Imitation Games: a game where Mecrellas would glimpse a time and culture on a planet and mimic an important moment in time to them, be it a grand moment of peace or war. The first games were disbanded in the year 2530 A.R., shut down by the Shadow Proclamation, but the games resumed in 2570 A.R.”
“Computer,” Daphne requested, “why were the games shut down the first time by the Shadow Proclamation?”
“It was recorded that it was disbanded due to the interference of a rogue Timelord, listed under the title of The Doctor.”
⌛
Eventually Daphne and Miccas reached the front of the trans-mat landing, but it only could transport fifteen at a time. So along with thirteen others, they stood on the trans-mat.
“Good afternoon,” the automatic station computer greeted them all, “W
elcome to the Mecrellas trans-mat at Grand Central Station. You must all state the precise year that you wish to travel to, so that you will be successfully transported to your target year. Start with passengers from left to right.”
The furthest person to the left stated that they wished to be transported to the year 2576 A.R.
“If there are any other passengers who wish for this same target,” the computer said, “do not speak, I shall take your silence as confirmation that you all wish to arrive in the same time period. Those who wish to go to another time, state it in order.”
No one spoke up.
“We’re all going to the same area,” Daphne said to the girl to her left.
“Imitation Games,” the girl chuckled, “my mate and I are going there to celebrate our anniversary. How about you?”
“We’re just dating.”
“Ah.”
“Everyone,” the computer said, “stand still and prepare for teleportation.”
Before they took off, Daphne turned around and faced Miccas.
‘Just tell him,’ she thought, ‘just tell him that you love him.’
She opened her mouth, but closed it again.
They all stood in place, light swiveled around them and they were travelling through time and space.
To Draconis, on the planet Mecrellas.
⌛
And to Draconis, they arrived. Daphne breathed out merrily as she reappeared on the trans-mat of the Draconis Paddington Station, along with the other passengers.
“Tobey?” The woman who she was speaking to called out, “Tobey?”
Everyone turned to her as she began to move around the trans-mat, back and forth.
“Tobey?” She cried, then she turned to the others, “Have you seen my husband? He was right beside me!”
“Wyatt,” another woman nearby also cried, looking for her boyfriend, “Wyatt, where are you?”
These cries filled the trans-mat as more women began to look around for their missing males who travelled with them. In seeing this, Daphne turned around to see Miccas beside her.
“Miccas, can you believe—,” she was disturbed to find that she was standing next to an empty space. Miccas was nowhere to be seen. “Miccas!”