Post by Fitz Kreiner on Jul 19, 2009 14:11:03 GMT
2
Wherever I May Roam.
Wherever I May Roam.
Doctor Christina Miles walked into the sick bay. Carlo Ricci, the third member of the medical team, looked up from where he was administering an injection to a patient lying unconscious on one of the medibeds. Christina raised her eyebrows as Ricci beckoned her over.
“New case; came in ‘in the last hour,” he said looking down at the patient.
He was still wearing the casual base uniform of a grey t-shirt and black trousers and boots. The badge on his chest gave his number of 36 over the Union Jack, and his name, which the badge told as Wilks.
“I don’t think I know him,” Christina admitted.
“Kyle Wilks; newly transferred from Armstrong Space control.” Ricci replied. “According to his medical record, hasn’t been in space service five months.”
“Some welcome for him,” Christina said sadly as she smoothed down the young man’s wild hair. His breathing was deep and heavy and his forehead drenched with sweat. “Does he have any history in his file?”
“Not a jot,” Ricci replied reaching across and tapping the touch screen computer terminal at the top of the bed, bringing up Wilks’ medical record and turning it round so Christina could see. “Nether him or his parents, although his paternal grandfather was sectioned in the forties, but released after one week. Nothing else was charged or recorded.”
“Possible that it’s a throwback,” Christina mused looking at the LCD screen. “I don’t suppose we can get the grandfathers medical record, or anything from the institution he was interned at?”
“I can contact ISC medical,” Ricci said, “but Wilks wouldn’t have been admitted to service if he wasn’t mentally fit,”
“Which is what is causing the confusion and problems,” Christina finished for Ricci, nodding. “How this ‘Space Madness’ is affecting people who have been deemed fit and healthy is the problem, and why it never manifested itself in anyone in previous years. Surely if it’s prolonged exposure then the Chief would be a prime candidate for it.”
“Any chance you could get him to take some tests?” Ricci asked, smiling.
Christina laughed. “I could try, but I don’t hold out much hope, even if I said it was a medical order. We’ve been married too long.”
Ricci chuckled as he put the syringe back onto the tray on the small medical trolley beside Wilks’ medibed. “All seriousness though, this is one of the most advanced cases I’ve seen; severe anxiety, hyperventilation, he had to be sedated before he could even be brought to the sick bay.”
“You started the report?” Christina asked, looking back at the records on screen.
“Not yet,” Ricci replied. “I’ve been making sure that he’s posing no danger to himself or anyone else. It took large doses of Diazepam and Oxazepam to put him under.”
Christina thoughtfully ran her finger along her lower lip as she assimilated the information whilst staring at Wilks’ medical record. “That’s quite a combination,” she mused turning to look at Wilks; he was still slightly fitful.
“You think he could be a danger to himself, or anyone else?” Ricci asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Christina admitted. “I’ll need to know the complete story of what happened before he was brought here, and would probably need to talk to him as well. But if things come to the worst, then we may have no choice than to send him down to Armstrong, they may have more adequate facilities than we do on base.”
Ricci nodded as he started to clear the equipment away from Wilks’ medibed and wheeled the small trolley back to the main medical desk. “I take it you’ve heard that Johnson has gone AWOL as well?” He asked.
“Yeah,” Christina replied as she minimised Wilks’ medical record from the screen. “I had hoped that we’d get a chance to talk to him today. Personally, I was on the verge of discharging him from work the other day.”
“We can’t beat ourselves up for what we would have or could have done,” Ricci said. “What’s done is done. Everyone respects your opinion.”
“Thanks,” Christina said blushing slightly, before returning to her desk and reports she had to write. Logging onto her terminal, she pulled across the records on the clipboard. She was just about to touch the keys before the LCD screen when the screen flickered before blanking out. “What the-?” she started as the main lights for the sickbay flickered.
Turning to Ricci, the Italian could only shrug a reply before the lighting went out, plunging everything into darkness.
“What the hell?” Ricci said before crying out in pain as he walked into a work station.
“I want the back-ups online within five minutes, we’ve the world’s weather in our hands,” Miles’ voice filtered from the main dome, through the doors to the sickbay. Eventually the doors were forced open and Miles squeezed through, brandishing a small torch. “Everything ok in here?” He said, flashing the torch around.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” Christina replied.
“No idea, love,” Miles replied before a scream of terror caused him to turn, the light arcing through the darkness, causing long and sinister shadows.
Christina was immediately on her feet and feeling her way out of her workstation to the source of the scream. It had come from the direction of Wilks’ bed. Following the beam of light her husband was pointing, she found her way to the bed and stopped when the light fell across it; Wilks was sat bolt upright, his eyes wide in fear and sweat cascading down his face.
“They’re here, in the shadows,” he stammered pointing into the darkest corner of the sickbay whilst gripping hold of the sleeve of Christina’s lab coat, his knuckles white. “They’re watching me; please don’t let them get me. Please.”
Shooting a glance back at Miles, Christina turned to where Wilks had pointed as Miles moved the torch beam across. She felt herself visibly jump when one of the shadows moved as the torch swept past, but by the time Miles had brought the torch back to bear, it was gone.
“What was-?” Miles started as the torch landed on a pair of the doors leading out of the sick bay. They were slowly sliding closed when there was no one there who could have walked through them.
*
“I don’t have to do a Barbarella do I?” Jess asked looking from the grey and white space suit she was holding to the Doctor. “Because if I do; you two are leaving the room.”
Bemused, Tom looked from Jess to the Doctor, who chuckled softly. “No, no need,” he said, “you just pull it on over your clothes, making sure it’s sealed of course.” To demonstrate the point, the Doctor stepped into the legs of the suit and pulled it up over his clothes, including his knee length velvet frock coat.
Smiling at his two companions as they climbed into their suits, the Doctor turned to one of the wooden roundels near the main doors and pressed a knot in the wood. With a hiss, the roundel swung down revealing a small control panel behind it.
“What’s that?” Tom asked, as he sealed the gloves on his suit.
“TARDIS airlock,” the Doctor said, turning and smiling as he pressed a button. With a flicker, a field of pulsating circles appeared around them and the doorway. “Once we’re suited up, this area will depressurise, to save us all getting sucked out of the TARDIS.”
“Ah, that’s good,” Jess muttered. “How do you know you’ve got this suit thing sealed properly? I don’t want to get all sucked out of a small hole by the vacuum.”
Turning, the Doctor gave Jess’s suit a look over. “It’s all sealed correctly, don’t worry.” He was half way to putting his helmet on when he paused and looked from Tom to Jess. “And there are radio units in the helmets, so watch the cheek.” He said with a wink.
Jess turned to Tom with mock indignation on her face as the young Time Lord playfully hit her on the arm. Picking up her helmet, she placed it over her head, and with a hand from Tom successfully sealed it, responding with a thumbs up.
“Aren’t these visors a little on the clear side?” Jess asked, through the radio headset. “I mean, all the piccies I’ve seen of astronauts they’ve reflective orange visors.”
“Don’t worry, they’re fully polarised.” The Doctor replied, pressing one of the buttons in the open roundel. A low roar of the decompression filled the air around the travellers before the doors swung open.
“One small step,” Jess said as she carefully stepped out of the TARDIS.
The sudden change in gravity gave her a sudden giddy wave as she was soon bounding effortlessly around the crater the TARDIS had materialised in. She turned back to see first Tom and then the Doctor follow her out of the ship. Tom soon joined her, covering the area in only a couple of long bounds.
“It’s like one hell of a weird giant trampoline.” She said through the headset.
“That’s low gravity for you,” the Doctor’s voice filtered through, making Jess jump. She’d forgotten about the radios in the helmets and wasn’t expecting him to answer from halfway across the crater. “It might take a little getting used to.”
Jess grinned as she took some exaggeratedly large steps around the rim of the crater. “Giant steps are what you take, walking on the moon.” She sang through the headset, almost stumbling as she came to a stop more suddenly than she’d expected.
“You ok?” Tom’s voice filtered through into Jess’s helmet.
Nodding inside the protective suit, Jess gave another thumbs up. “Yeah,” she replied before turning to the edge of the crater and pausing. “Wow,” she breathed softly looking at the sight that lay before her before turning back to the Doctor and Tom. “You two have to see this, it’s awesome,” she said before turning back.
Bounding across the lunar surface in long strides Tom joined Jess at her side, coming to a stumbling halt sending a cascade of loose dust and stone slowly tumbling down the crater. Lying across the surface of the Moon was a large metal structure. Wider than it was taller, it stood about two stories high and was arranged almost in an arc around a large central dome. There were several annexes that looked as though they had been added after the main building had been built. Three small domes were positioned along the arc of the base, including what looked like a docking port for rockets. The larger dome was mostly transparent, made of very thick plastic or glass, and a large machine could just be seen inside, directing up to the Earth.
On the side farthest from them was a long thick metal tunnel that snaked across the Moon’s surface towards another series of large metal and glass domes and spires in the distance. The low level of light glinted off them, making little points of light mixing in with the small points of light from what could only be windows. To Jess, it looked exactly like something out of a science fiction series.
“It’s a moon base, isn’t it?” Jess asked, not bothering to look round as she knew her words would be transmitted through the radio sets. “Like in Space 1999?”
“It could be for anything,” the Doctors voice crackled through the radio sets as he stepped up to the edge of the ridge. “Depending on what time period we’re in.”
“What about just a colony? Y’know; people living on the moon?” Tom suggested.
“Possibly,” the Doctor said, pointing to the distant structures. “That part certainly seems to be; however, this closer one I’d say is more a science research station.”
“Does it give you any idea of what time we’re in?” Tom asked.
“I’m not sure,” the Doctor replied, his gloved hand going up to his helmet in an automatic reaction to thoughtfully tap his lip, before returning to his side. “It’s a mixture of architectural styles. Definitely twenty first century; the arced shape is the original base, and different annexes have been added over time. I would imagine that the distant one is a newer addition.”
“Can we have a look?” Jess asked, trying to lightly bounce but the low gravity making her jump slowly down the shallow ridge.
“I see you’re already on your way,” the Doctor smiled making to set off before pausing. “That’s not right,” he said simply.
Jess and Tom turned to look at the base. The light from the larger dome was flickering before it went out, plunging the base into darkness. All lights on the outside of the base blinked off as well, almost concealing the vast metal structure in the darkness.
“Did you hear that?” Tom asked suddenly spinning round, blowing up a cloud of dust about himself.
“What?” the Doctor asked turning. “You’d be hard pushed to hear anything that wasn’t sent through the radios. You didn’t sneeze did you Jess?” He chuckled.
“No, there’s something else. Something out here with us” Tom said, his voice getting slightly panicked.
“Yeah, the Clangers; look out for the Soup Dragon!” Jess laughed. “It’s the Moon; there are no Martians, Daleks or Targan Slime Monsters or anything.”
“It’s most probably a bit of interference from the Moon base, there’s nothing to worry about,” the Doctor said gently. “Now why don’t we head over to see if there’s anything we can help out with at the base?”
“There you go; interfering again,” Tom replied, taking a deep breath.
“That’s the spirit, Tom,” the Doctor grinned clapping Tom on the back and causing the young Time Lord to stumble slightly in the low gravity.
Unseen by the Doctor and his companions as they walked down the slight decline of the ridge towards the Moon base, a Cyberman stood silently observing them from farther in the distance. The low light almost obscured the silver creature, as it stood in the shadow of the nearby low mountain range. When the travellers were out of sight, it moved, with slow deliberate steps towards the TARDIS. Reaching the blue Police Box, the Cyberman reached out with its large three digit metal hand and touched the door. Standing back, it brought its hand to its chest unit and a small antenna slid up. The metal covering behind the creature’s mouth slid up and it sent out a report, its audible words lost in the vacuum.
*
About bloody time, Miles thought as the base lights flickered back on. Looking down he clicked the torch off and slipped it back into his pocket. He had followed whoever had left the sickbay through the doors, but so far hadn’t found a trace of them. It was probably easier for them to hide in the dark, and it was possible they could have given him the slip.
That wasn’t the only thing bugging him; the blackout. There had been some power fluctuations in the past couple of weeks, but nothing as bad as that; the power of the base had been off for a full five minutes. The overwhelming urge to head back to the dome and check on the Gravitron was almost tugging at Miles, but he wanted to know if there was someone arsing about. He wouldn’t stand for that, not when there were people like Wilks, with a delicate mental state. He thought his crew knew better. Sighing loudly, Miles headed back to the sick bay.
“Any luck?” Christina asked, looking up as he entered.
“No one about at all,” Miles replied almost downbeat. “If I find out someone’s been arsing about through here, they’re for the high jump.” Pausing he turned to Christina, “What do you think he meant by ‘they’re watching me’?” he asked nodding to Wilks prone body as his wife finished setting up the automated medication.
“Possible paranoid delusion,” Christina suggested. “I’m not a psychologist, Pat; all I can do is my best. Unless we have a psychologist sent over from Armstrong.”
“I’ll have to see to it.” Miles said, looking over to the door and seeing his number two, van Weesenbeek, standing at the door to the main dome, an urgent look on her face. “Excuse me,” he said, laying a hand on his wife’s shoulder as he moved past her.
Swiftly crossing the sickbay, Miles followed van Weesenbeek into the corridor antechamber separating the main dome and the sickbay. Long cushioned benches lined the chamber and there were high observation windows along one wall. A low table sat near one of the benches, a discarded cup of coffee sat on it.
“Well,” Miles asked in a hushed tone. He wasn’t sure why, it just seemed appropriate from van Weesenbeek’s face. He’d got better at judging the different looks on Anneke’s face the last two years.
“All Gravitron systems were knocked offline just prior to the blackout, the cause of which we are still trying to determine, chief.” She reported giving a quick glance out of the observation widows onto the lunar landscape before looking back at her superiors pained expression. “We are having some troubles reinitiating the gravometric alignments in the probe, but I have teams working on it.”
“How long until it’s up and running fully again?” Miles asked, scenarios of extreme weather systems causing untold damage on Earth running through his head.
“Thirty minutes, tops,” Anneke replied holding her hands up. “I know, I know; we will try to get it done in half of that.”
“Do we have any dangerous weather fronts encroaching major population centres?”
“Not yet, chief,” Anneke replied. “Although we do have a force nine Cyclone building in the Caribbean, threatening a devastating move on Florida and Louisiana, and the possibility of a wave of supercell thunderstorms ravaging central Europe, although initial suggestions state that the first of these won’t become a threat for at least five hours.”
“You got Ulrich monitoring them?” Miles asked, more in agreement rather than querying.
Anneke nodded in agreement, despite knowing she didn’t have to as she followed Miles back into the dome. Already technicians were busying themselves over the probe in the main dome as a group of workers in protective clothing worked on the Gravitron relays in the sectioned off workstation. Ulrich, a short Danish scientist, with thinning brown hair was stood with a small electronic notebook tapping in figures, coordinates and data, comparing them with the readouts on the smaller screens around the desks. When Miles and van Weesenbeek entered the main control, he looked up and hurried over.
“All storm systems are developing at a greater rate than we first thought, chief,” he admitted as he turned the small personal computer he was carrying around. “My estimations state that if we haven’t got the Gravitron back in full working order within the estimated thirty minutes, we may not be able to stop severe flooding down the Rhine and Seine valleys.”
“But that shouldn’t be a problem, should it?” Miles said casually. “Worst case scenario, yeah?”
Nervously, Ulrich shuffled his feet and a pained expression adorned his face. “Erm, no, not really chief,” he said carefully. “It seems that the power outage blew a few more systems than we thought. Unless we’re lucky, we won’t have the Gravitron back up and running within two days.”