Doctor Who – Scavenger Hunt

Part 8 – Eye of the Storm

It was settled. The Judoon warrior, who still hadn’t identified himself, would repeatedly ram the gate with his head until someone on the other side was tricked into opening it, then the Doctor would find his sonic screwdriver and they would gain access to the junk room to find some way of getting back to the surface. From there, the Doctor would have the perfect way to send Critidan back to the stars.

“It’s time” he said softly, and they all got to their feet.

 

On the bridge, the rest of the crew continued to work as they had for the last 24 months at their respective stations. The ship flew in through the atmosphere and headed to the crash site of the mysterious other TARDIS.

“Sir",” Taan spat “there is a weather system in the locality of the drop zone, it could do some serious damage to our ship, request further instructions”

“Hold back, we can wait” Critidan peered at the differential time coordinator, there was still plenty of time before their rendezvous with the buyers. A red light began shining to the left of the bridge and a deafening siren blurted out a recurrent low alarm

The Bloodfist hopped light footedly across the bridge “The prisoners have esssscaped!”

“Find them! Find the Doctor!!” He shouted to the rest of the crew, who began scurrying around and disappearing off in different directions

On the other side of the ship, the three escaped prisoners had reached the door the junk room. The Doctor buzzed the sonic over the keypad which allowed access into the room but he wasn’t having much luck. From down the corridor came the sounds of a crew member in hot pursuit

“Doctor!” Martha shouted

“It won’t budge!” he gritted his teeth “come on!!!”

The sounds of the alien making his way down the corridor became louder and more distinct, then Taan appeared from around the corner in front of them. The Judoon stepped ahead of Martha and pushed her back against the door to protect her

“Sho! Co! Flo!”

“Disgusting creature” Taan, who was a good three feet shorter than his rival, shouted back. The Judoon was not impressed, and took it upon himself to prove exactly how powerful his race was. He dove forward, grabbing Taan by the neck and slamming him against a wall; holding him up so that they were face to face. The disgraced Sontaran squinted and then slumped down, by some miracle that thrust against the wall had hit the probic vent on the back of his suit and knocked him out cold. The Doctor finally got the door open, and upon his summon, the Judoon dropped Taan and followed them into the junk room.

For several minutes they scouted through the junk room for something that could take them back down to Earth, the Doctor was considering collaborating numerous pieces of equipment with his screwdriver to make some kind of Frankenstein jump port. Martha had no idea what she was looking for but in attempt to look useful she continued to stir around through various piles of scrap. Every once in a while she would hold up a large piece of useful looking metal and say “how about this?”, hoping that she’d gotten it right, but then her Time Lord companion would look and say something like “ahhh, that’s a…curling iron Martha” without trying to sound too patronising. The Judoon however had disappeared far into the room on his own mission. The Doctor realised his absense and began trying to shout over the taller objects which blocked his view

“Uh…Judoon? Whatever you’re called? Hello?” he turned to Martha “Rhinos, I dunno” Martha grinned at him before continuing to dig into piles of smaller rubbish and junk. A few moments later their Judoon counterpart stomped back onto the scene in a full Judoon officer uniform that he had found. The Doctor stood in amazement “Blimey”

The shame ridden Judoon officer stepped ahead with his assimilation tool and soaked up a garble of words from the Doctor and then pressed it into the port in his chest

“Language assimilated” he said loudly

“Oh that’s a shame, I was enjoying all those deep grunts, I’ll have to do it more often. Now!” he said, reaching down and picking up two ominous pieces of metal and shining the sonic over them at varying distances “If I can rotate the motor truncator of this hydro-lotiner and use it to displace the matter within a two metre radius we should be able to get out of here… I think”

“No need” the Judoon grunted “Spatial transference apprehension system working”

“Of course! That suit has a teleport for transferring prisoners off world! That’s brilliant - I could kiss you!” he paused to let the excitement go a little “of course, I wouldn’t, because, well, you know” the Judoon let out a short sound, almost the audible version of a dog tilting its head when it fails to understand something

“Let’s go!” Martha cried. The next thing she knew, there was a flash of light and then they were all falling over on the soft Arizona grass. Things looked very different to how she had last seen the area; far more trees and shrubs, indeed it was a veritable forest of life. It was a little hard to get a proper view though, as the wind was picking up and that dust they had experienced in 2007 was still very apparent.

“Come on!” The Doctor yelled as the noise of the storm increased “We have to find the TARDIS!” There was another flash of light in front of them and there stood Taan with a Sontaran blaster clutched in his hands ready to fire

The Doctor snapped his hand up to halt the warrior’s actions for just a moment “Taan! Stop! You have to help us!” the air barely carried his words “You know what Critidan is doing goes against every rule of the Shadow Proclamation!”

“And why should I care for the rules of that pitiful council? The rules of others do not rain down upon me, I fight for Sonta!” he snarled, preparing to fire

“And how do you think the grand martial would see this? Would your brethren applaud you for doing slave missions for an ex-council member?” the Doctor shouted over the howling winds “You can regain your honour! I can take you home!”

Taan thought about it for a moment, repeatedly lowering and then re-raising his weapon as if to suspect a trap, but then the truth dawned upon him “There is nothing waiting for me back home…” he began looking at the ground, then his eyes returned up to them “But for the glory of Sonta, I will do as I must” he said, and slowly lowered his weapon. The Doctor smiled and looked to his other two comrades standing behind him, “Alonze!” he shouted, and they were off again through the thick trees on the hunt for the TARDIS.

TO BE CONTINED