Before You Die

“Why on earth didn’t you tell the Tardis to show a picture of a Gangore army coming our way!” I hissed as I caught my breath, leaning against the inside of the Tardis door.

“Do not insult her,” the Doctor responded with his ear on the door. “Do you think they’re still coming?”

“They’d have to be idiots to give up that easily,” Ben commented from his perch on a bar about three metres above the controllers. I looked up at him curiously. He jumped up there fast.

“Well,” the Doctor said beginning to head towards the controls. “I've known Gangores to be stupid. But the military is usually made from the brightest of the population. After all, they were smart enough to take the Tardis.”

“And you were stupid enough to lose it,” I muttered walking over to Ben and climbing up to where he sat. He shuffled over and made space for me. It didn’t seem like it, but it was actually quite a private place to talk. And it’s a good thing it was because the first thing Ben said to me was, “What the hell are you?”

“Well that’s not at all abrupt,” I replied, looking down to check that the Doctor was immersed in his thoughts. “But it’s good to see you figured it out. I thought the half yellow and green spot was a dead giveaway. I’m a, er…” I leaned over to him and whispered, “Human Timelord,” in his ear.

“A WHAT!?!”

“Shut up,” I said in shock at his exclamation which had caused the Doctor to look up at us.

“Stop canoodling you two, I need help,” he called.

Climbing back down all the railings I landed lightly on the ground and walked over to the control panel beside the Doctor.

“You and your boyfriends Erica Scotts,” the Doctor said with a sigh as he flicked a few switches.

“Oi,” I warned. “Call Ben my boyfriend again and we will see if you can regenerate more than thirteen times.”

“Was that a threat I detect?”

I shook my head and ran around to the other side of the panels. Pulling up a screen I scanned the surrounding area noticing that we were surrounded, but so were the Deknera. It appeared that the Gangores had already invaded their underground fortress and there were some minor skirmishes. But the assassins were holding their ground.

“I want to know what they are up to,” the Doctor said as he typed in commands to the Tardis. “I do not want to know how stupid this is.”

It took me a moment to realise he was actually conversing with the Tardis.

“Doctor,” I prompted. “The Tardis isn’t talking to you.”

I almost jumped backwards when I saw the words “Yes I am” appear on my screen.

“What did you do to it?” I asked in astonishment, looking around for some sort of off switch, which quite obviously I couldn’t find.

“Just a bit of tinkering and voila; talking Tardis.”

“But you’ve been trying to do that for years and all of a sudden you manage to do it in two seconds?”

“I pushed the right button,” he smiled cheekily. “After all there are over a million in this place. I doubt any team of Timelords managed to uncover all the secrets of their Tardises.”

I shook my head at him and went back to my own screen. Quickly, I got the Tardis to scan for any warnings from planets within our galactic region. After a moment when the scan was completed, I found that there were none. Well, at least for Earth.

So the Gangores had snuck in-

“There was a warning that was transmitted from Ferion two days ago,” the Doctor called across.

“Which is not within our Galactic Region,” I muttered, realising it was out by a couple of light years. Oops. Extend your search next time Erica.

“No, but Torchwood should have picked it up.”

“We…they don’t look beyond the Galactic Region. There’s no point.”

“Well, obviously there is. But apparently some Gangores were chasing Deknera in the direction of Earth. It can be fairly assumed then, that the argument of the Gangores and Deknera has nothing to do with us.”

“If this has nothing to do with us then I may as well be a unicorn.”

The Doctor’s nonplussed face looked up from his screen in bewilderment. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly as I flicked a few switches. Immediately the lights dimmed and from memory of what the Doctor had done before, I hit another button and the 3D hologram of our special region filled the room.

A gasp came from Ben but I silenced him with a ‘SHH!’

Walking around, I called out to the Doctor, “I need a 1000 light year radius on Ferion.”

The whole hologram moved and I heard Ben stumble around as he waited for the movement to stop. I'll admit it, it was a bit disconcerting.

Ducking beneath the desk I saw a few unused buttons which I flicked before coming back up. The hologram went back three days and showed the two ships flying around Ferion at light speed.

“The Gangore ship came from Ferion,” Ben stated. “The Deknera were already on their way to Earth when the Gangores began to follow.”

“So the Deknera were possibly telling the truth,” I responded. “The Gangores however, have more than one motive if they are chasing both the Deknera and they want the Tardis.”

“Maybe they want the Tardis to go back in time and find the Deknera.”

“But WHY?” I asked exasperatedly.

“Because they want to take over the world,” the Doctor finalised.

I looked over at him, crestfallen.

“Not again,” I muttered, slumping in annoyed defeat on the Tardis controls.