Set after the tv-movie with Paul McGann as the Eight Doctor.
A Maltese fanfic/crossover/literary fiction/story, still uncompleted in Malta...
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The TARDIS time rotor made its familiar sound as it
began materialising. It slided up and down in the time console flashing
a familiar light pattern. "Interesting... The TARDIS is in some form
of advanced structure, probably quite a large spacecraft, piggybacked to
a large meteoric structure,"
The Doctor glared out towards the scanner screen which showed the
outside. A wall laced with monitors and in-wall keypads was in sight.
"Clearly early 21st century earth technology but something is quite wrong. The
temporal chronometer indicates the year is 2003 and the month is july..
again... It must be damaged. How could it get here, this place is many
light years away from earth, a different galaxy altogether. Clearly
this craft must have passed through an anomaly."
The Doctor ran an analysis of the surrounding materials to see what sort
of craft the TARDIS had materialised in, 'what's this
moonrock?' Can it be the Moonbase again, he wondered. But that was
not around in 2003. Perhaps some alien race had a base on the moon in 2003,
that would explain the existence of this technology. Still it was clearly
of earth origin. Earth definitely did not have a moonbase in 2003, the
Doctor thought.
The structure was embedded in a large moon that was travelling in deep
space. Highly usual. Only an advanced intelligence could have devised
this sort of travelling system, certainly not the 21st century human
technology.
'This can't be', he said, ' the earth's moon never left orbit. At least in N-Space.'
So was it either Earth's moon in some parallel universe or was it perhaps a
duplicate moon ?
N-Space was normal space, the Doctor's usual universe. But temporal
anachronisms and bizarre anomalies are to be investigated, the
Doctor decided, and rushed outside of the TARDIS.
Nearly one thousand years old, the Doctor was a Gallifreyan Time Lord.
Their people could regenerate twelve times, so you can say they had thirteen
lives to live. Most Time Lords would take a few thousand years before wearing
their bodies out and needing to regenerate themselves. He was an honest
man, with the best of intentions and a soft spot for humanity as he liked
to call it. He had travelled through time and space, across universes, wherever
he was needed basically. At times he travelled alone, at other times he
travelled with companions mostly from Earth. This was his eight regeneration,
he had a forced regeneration after being operated on by human surgeons who
didn't have the slight idea of what they were doing.
He thought it's quite quiet around, so it's safe enough to take a walk
around. Nothing better than an early walk in a moonbase corridor.
Perhaps I'll find some old friends, he thought to himself or to
his second regeneration's memory at any rate. Was he here before? Was it
a different place? He was not certain.
Eventually he stumbled into a number of dead Alphans, in a pool of red blood.
Fresh. Straight after the Doctor attempted to check whether the Alphans
are beyond help, a security squad armed with lasers entered and ordered
the Doctor to stop.
As the Doctor was arrested by the squad, he complained that he just arrived
and was just looking around. He gave them an innocent look,
"Listen I just don't have anything to do with this".
One of the men told him "Yes you just happened to be there".
"I'll just be on my way in my own ship."
"What ship? What are you blathering on about? Are you a lunatic also? We
didn't see no ship materialise on the lunar surface."
In Command Center, Security reported to Paul Morrow and informed him of the
blue obsolete police box which was parked in one of the corridors.
Paul probably thought this was someone's idea of a bad joke.
Paul thought that the commander would not have liked this latest
development. It was bad enough that they had been marooned on the
drifting moon ever since on that fateful day of September, 1999, when
BREAKAWAY had happened, i.e. the moon had left the orbit of the earth
after the nuclear waste dumps had exploded. In this universe, all nuclear
weapons were broken down in 1987. On the far side of the moon, Nuclear
Waste Disposal Area One was established as a part of the final answer to
the problem of radioactive waste disposal. The massive nuclear detonations
at Area Two had reduced tens of thousands of square kilometers of the
lunar surface to simply fusion plasma and was enough to blast the moon
out of orbit at a trajectory 52 degrees southward relative to the plane of
the ecliptic. As a result there were many earthquakes, natural disasters,
the ozone layer was damaged severely even more than it was before, and
many animals died as their natural habitat changed drastically.
"This is Earth's moon?" asked the Doctor while thinking that Koenig looked
somewhat familiar, he couldn't think where he knew him.
"Of course it is" replied John Koenig.
"Then if this is moonbase, where are the t-mat systems, I haven't seen them."
"T-mat systems, what are you going on about?"
"Moonbase was built with t-mat systems, everyone knows that."
"Stranger, I don't know what you're going on about. This is lunar base Alpha, not
something called 'Moonbase'. What's a t-mat?"
The situation sinked slowly in. The Doctor was not in his dimension or universe
any more, but in a parallel one, where the Moonbase was called Alpha.
Things had happened differently here, while in the Doctor's universe the
moon had not detached itself from the earth, in this one it had, with
dire consequences. Victor had explained that a covert EGP pulse, that is,
a scalar EM wave was emitted in a new weapon experiment and this had
discharged on the moon in a sharp electrogravitational pulse (EGP). The
strong EGP pulse was absorbed and reradiated from the radioactive nuceli,
in the nuclear wastes on the moon dump areas, causing essentially a
terrible nuclear "accident". The effect was the same as an atomic bomb,
with the added on effect of disrupting the moon's orbit. Some of this
energy was absorbed by the moon's core, which gave the moon super-light
speeds at times, or so it seemed to those onboard Alpha.
So he was being accused of cold-blooded murder. Not a new situation for the
Doctor, but it was new for his eighth regeneration at any rate.
Perhaps there was some way in which he could just slip away from the mess
and let them settle it by themselves, he thought. No sense getting himself
imprisoned or killed.
"A Matter Transmission system used for transport of supplies initially." the
Doctor remarked, unsure whether he should have said this but he was afraid
they might start to get paranoid if he did not explain.
"I knew of some experiments in that matter, but in our time they have not
been very successful" Koenig noted.
"What's that police box we found? It's yours, isn't it? What do you need a police box for?" asked Koenig.
"Well yes, it's my TARDIS, a spacecraft which travels through time and space. Don't
you make too many questions?"
"Your what?"
"Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. It means that INSIDE is bigger than OUTSIDE."
"That's impossible" said Professor Victor Bergman.
"Not really, just have a look inside."
"This is a waste of time. We should be talking about the people
you killed." Koenig said.
"We can see if he's telling the truth about his TARDIS still. If he's not
responsible he might be able to help us" Victor surmised.
Alpha, well the moon with lunar base Alpha on it, had recently left the
Arkadian star system. The moon had been stopped in space near the planet
Arkadia by an unknown force, well the Alphans had recognised the hand of
the creator in these turn of events. How otherwise could it be explained.
Their presence helped restart the planet's ecosystem from the sterile
death it was in and the technicians Anna Ferro and Luke Davis remained behind.
Just after this, a mysterious radio signal was received from the surrounding
space it was thought. This matter still required explanation, Koenig thought.
An Eagle craft was sent out, carrying professor Victor Bergman, David Kano,
two sensor technicians and pilot Paul Morrow, to investigate the source
of the signal. They went into the system's asteroid belt but found nothing.
Suddenly the ship took a meteor hit and was slightly crippled but somehow
they managed to get the ship close enough in range to Alpha.
A rescue Eagle was launched which managed to dock with the damaged craft
and bring the men back.
"God was with us" Victor had told John after the rescue. "He still is", John answered.
"We still have things to do apparently" Paul noted.
Going back to the present, Victor, Paul, John, some security
officials and the Doctor approached his 'police box'. He took out his
key and proceeded to unlock and open the TARDIS.
John sighed as he watched the Doctor open, and said "Who goes in first?"
"I'll go in", Victor said as he stepped through. "This is amazing, no
it's impossible to be real."
"Perhaps it exists in a slightly different dimension" Paul surmounted.
"Well I like to think that inside is bigger than outside basically" the Doctor
explained.
"Doctor, tell us what you are doing here. Did you kill my men?" asked a
suspicious Koenig.
"The reply to your second question is: Of course I did not. The reply to
your first is: I travel through time and space and I don't completely
control the process through which this occurs. In other words while I
am in control sometimes I end up elsewhere. Only sometimes." the Doctor said
finally.
"You travel in this 'Police Box'?" asked Paul, " What a strange way to travel."
"I call it the TARDIS" the Doctor reminded them.
"Well if you aren't responsible for the deaths there must be something
you can do to help us find who is responsible, and perhaps help us find our
way back to Earth." Koenig commented.
"I may help you chart your location, but I suspect this is not the universe
I normally travel in, so I can't really help you find your Earth.
I'm terribly sorry I can't help. The Earth I know of, I have been to, is
in my universe and still has its moon." the Doctor ventured.
"No breakaway occured then?" Koenig asked.
"Not in my universe. I mean the one I came from. There is a moonbase like
yours but it is still there and it is quite different to this one."
Victor turned to John. "Impressive. A different universe, parallel to ours, where Moonbase Alpha
does not exist. Another moonbase is in place and it uses t-mats."
The Doctor hesitated for a moment.
"While your controls look like some Victorian junk, can you give us
hyperdrive capability at least? Victor, I didn't mean your junk..." asked Koenig,
looking at Victor as he said the last sentence.
"My TARDIS doesn't use a hyperdrive. The technology, I'm sorry is beyond
your capabilities to understand." the Doctor explained. "I could however
take some of you in my TARDIS but I cannot travel within
this universe. The reason is I need to get to my universe or I will be
stranded here just as you are stranded. I'm sure you'll understand me. I
should be able to take those who come with me, back to earth in MY universe.
Going to your earth is something I can't do without risking stranding myself
in your universe."
"I volunteer myself" said Victor Bergman. "This is an opportunity of
a lifetime that I don't want to miss."
Suddenly Smithers, a security officer, entered the TARDIS whose doors were
left open. He is pointed a laser at the Doctor.
"Is this the way you treat your visitors here?" asked the Doctor.
"Well our visitors don't tend to be very friendly. More like deceitful
usually." said Smithers. "I'm fed up of this, I want to get home and now
this is the best opportunity."
"Calm down, Smithers, stop pointing that weapon." Koenig attempted to calm
Smithers down. Koenig starts suspecting that Smithers was responsible for
the earlier deaths.
"I will not. I will take this box and go to Earth whether or not this
alien wants to allow me to." Smithers shouted.
"Smithers - then you killed those men didn't you?" queried a worried Koenig.
"Yes, I did, didn't I make you worry... I was fed up with life here on this
barren rock. Now I want to say goodbye to all and leave." Smithers continued.
"You won't get anywhere. Only a Time Lord may operate the TARDIS." The Doctor
said, lying of course, hoping Smithers wouldn't see through his bluff.
"I'll kill all of you!" said Smithers. "I'll find a way to operate it just
the same." He started firing shots at random but Koenig manages to get
hold of him and wrestles with him. But not without a shot managing to
get through and hitting Paul. Smithers got placed under custody in
the Alpha Detention Centre while Paul was taken to the Medical Centre.
In the Medical Centre, Paul was operated by Dr Helena Russell.
"It's a difficult operation" said Koenig "but I thank God we've got you,
Doctor to help." The Doctor indeed assisted as best as he could with
medical supplies he got from the TARDIS and with his experience, Paul
could be saved.
After he recovered, Paul decided to go with the Doctor. Sandra Benes was
not happy at all about his decision, but he felt that he owed the
Doctor his life and he had to help him at least for a while.
As a parting gift, the Doctor took out one (was it a copy? I don't know)
of his travel logs, an old book, some hundreds of years old, with details
of many of his travels. He thought it might help them in case they came
across similar situations. The same perils might exist in both universes.
Imagine the cybermen attacking this moonbase. It would be difficult for them
to defend themselves. Or the daleks from Skaro.
Still the Doctor thought about what he could give them to help
them get back to earth. He tweaked a bit with their intranet and updated
some of their systems. He also installed an open source operating system which
they hadn't heard of. He spent quite a bit of time on Alpha, and they
encountered some aliens together, before the time came for him, Paul
and Victor to leave Alpha forever (these are stories for another day).
He even suggested some changes in the Alphan uniforms.
The Doctor came to see Koenig for the last time in Main Mission before
leaving. He also wanted to give Paul and Victor their last chances to
give their goodbyes to everyone. This was when Main Mission was being
closed down, the new Command Center was safer to use, better shielded
from alien attacks from the outside and it also was using the newer
systems the Doctor had installed.
Toni Verdeschi brought the Doctor a glass of his freshly brewed beer.
The Doctor didn't like it much actually but he did drink it as he thought
Toni could get offended otherwise. "How do you think it rates on a scale
from 1 to 10" asked Toni.
"Don't be afraid to tell him it's no good" Koenig quipped.
"Well, if I may say the truth, it's around a ... 2 !! " said the Doctor.
Everyone started to laugh at Toni and his beer...
"I prefer tea actually. Koenig, once I'm back in my universe, I'll be able to
eventually come back to you, but it might take me a while. For me, at least. For
you it will seem like a week or a month or so.
To help me though, I'll leave a tracker trasmitter here with you if you
don't mind." the Doctor expressed his concerns that he would be leaving
without helping the Alphans get back to Earth. "Otherwise what could be
done is everyone might evacuate Alpha and enter my TARDIS, and I could
take you to my universe."
"I think that I speak for most of us when I think we would not want to
go to another universe. This is good or bad enough for us and we won't
risk getting marooned in another one. Sorry" was Koenig's reply.
"I was about to suggest that I materialise my TARDIS around your moon, but
forget it, it's too dangerous. In any case, I promise to come back one day." the Doctor promised.
Joining the Doctor in his TARDIS, Paul and Victor became his new companions,
they travelled with him in the Doctor's universe. Young Toni Verdeschi
got promoted and took Paul's place.
The familiar wheezing sound could be heard in the corridors of Alpha, as
the Doctor's TARDIS dematerialised.
Through the Vortex, it crossed the barriers between the different universes
and eventually got to the Doctor's N-Space. The Doctor had previously christened the
Alphan universe A-Space for ease of reference. He would go back there
eventually even if it would have to happen in his next regeneration.
(C) C. Meli 1999-2007
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