Part 5 – The Hybrid Locker
“Martha?” the Doctor’s familiar voice whispered across the darkness
“Doctor!”
“Hang on a sec” he said, then came the buzzing and little blue flash from the sonic, followed by a delayed slamming sound as all the huge purple lights of the room switched on. Martha pulled her way out of a mass of plastic pipes and small pieces of metal that had buried her lower half. The Doctor, however, was already up and scanning the enormous room which spanned at least four football pitches square. The roof was a dome shape and the long purple neon lights spanned the curvature like the veins of a creature. The whole area was scattered with different objects; from pieces of ships that looked like art to unidentifiable artifacts and burnt out engines like the one they had ridden in on.
“What is this place?” Martha asked
“This is a scavenger ship” the Doctor said in a hurried voice, still shining the sonic over the area “and there’s only one problem with that”
“What’s that?”
“All scavengers are out to make a profit, which means that TARDIS will be sold to someone unless I stop them. If it gets into the wrong hands, the entire universe could be blinked out of existence if the wrong buyer took possession of it”
“Then lets get it out of here!”
“There’s just one problem” The Doctor stopped scanning “it isn’t here”
A door behind them opened and the silhouette of a humanoid stood in the yellow light that shone from within
“Intruders! You will come!”
The Doctor hesitated, the figure walked into the junk room and revealed himself; it was a Magreeth – the race of shape shifters from the planet of Ralkoom, the most cunning shape shifters of all, and yet here he was; in his natural state. The Doctor knew full well that this ‘Reeth’ could easily become a Sontaran or a Raxicoricon or even a Dalek, but he chose the feeble shape he was born as; withered and short, green and lumpy. Then the Doctor noticed a clamp around his leg and realised that this particular Reeth was a prisoner. With grace, Martha took the lead and the Time Lord followed a few steps behind. Through old tunnels and corridors lined with huge piping which fired out steam at regular intervals. After a long walk, the bright yellow service tunnels opened out into a regular hallway with normal white lighting. This trapezoid hallway went on for a further few minutes before the intruders finally reached the doorway into the main bridge. Martha looked around while they waited for the bridge door to open; nothing on the walls looked similar, every single panel was different and the welding was always shoddy
“Doctor, do they use the parts they salvage to repair the ship?”
“Sometimes, usually just the scrap metal is used for ship repairs, but they might find something that’ll make the ship faster or more durable”
“Like the shock core?”
“Nah, it’s not compatible. That’ll go for a fair price,” he leaned over to look at the Reeth “won’t it?”
“Prisoners will enter” he grunted, and the enormous doors opened. In front of them was the vast bridge; wide and complex; pieces of command consoles from a hundred different ships, freighters and battle cruisers, and hurrying about them was a veritable zoo of alien outcasts; a Judoon, a Vamproy, an Axon, a Sontaran, a bloodfist and a numerous others. On the far side was a dark figure, cloaked and facing out through the huge viewing glass before him. For a moment he stayed still, then turned slowly and graciously as the long black cloak swept across the floor. As the deep red eyes locked upon his, he took a deep breath and a step back
“What is that?” Martha insisted
“A Shadow Jailor; a prison guard of the galaxy’s most infamous villains sent to look over them by the Shadow Proclamation.”
“And now you are mine, Time Lord!”
TO BE CONTINUED
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