Post by Fitz Kreiner on Jul 29, 2010 14:53:52 GMT
A Jarring Arrival.
Captain Morris stood in his office, the receiver of the phone nestled between his head and shoulder, furiously typing. He had been on hold now for nearly ten minutes, and in that time, Loding had popped her head round the door to tell him that all trace with the UFO had been lost, most likely due to its crash landing. Morris had nodded his understanding as best he could with the phone wedged between his jaw and shoulder. Finally the rendition of Vivaldi’s Summer stopped and he was presented with a human voice again, to his dismay it was the same secretary who had spoken to him before.
“I’m sorry, but General Bailey is in a meeting,” she replied.
Morris rolled his eyes, he got the distinct impression that she was chewing gum whilst she was talking on a hands free kit and manicuring her fingernails. “I appreciate that,” he said, keeping his voice the right measure of calm, “But as I said, this is a code three emergency and I need to speak to him immediately.”
“General Bailey is in a meeting,” the receptionist repeated.
Morris sighed audibly this time. He hated dealing with civilian receptionists. The girl was probably fresh out of school and had no idea what a code three meant.
“I know the General is in a meeting, you have told me four times now,” Morris replied slowly and deliberately. “But this is of high importance. I don’t care what they say to you, go into the meeting and tell him that Captain Morris of UNIT is on the phone and has a code three situation.”
Morris heard the receptionist sigh. “One moment please,” she said.
The music restarted again and Morris sighed; these new regulations that had been brought in meant that he now had to inform General Bailey of any incident that may have extra-terrestrial connections. These reports would then find their way to Sir Daniel Ashfield and most probably from there onto a higher authority. Morris preferred it when these incidents were solely in the hands of UNIT and the army. The more civilians who knew meant the greater the chance of a security leak.
Morris rolled his eyes as the music ended and restarted again immediately from the beginning. He knew that ultimately this matter would end up on the desk of James Duncan, who had begun to spread his tendrils into other matters other than just the police, who he had recently ended up heading after the September incident. The man seemed to have his fingers in everything at the higher levels and Morris really hoped he wouldn’t end up as his boss as well. He knew that Duncan was getting rather pally with Ashfield of late.
“Hello? Morris?”
General Bailey’s voice snapped Morris out of his reverie and crashing back down to Earth. “Yes sir,” he replied.
“Well, what is it?” Bailey asked. “I got some garbled message that you were demanding to speak to me.”
“Code three, sir,” Morris replied. “Landed in Norfolk as best we can estimate; possible crash landing.”
“I see,” Bailey said thoughtfully. “Well, I’m going to be tied up here for some time. I take it you don’t need me to keep an eye on you, do you Captain? I assume that you’ve all necessary arrangements in place?”
“Yes sir,” Morris replied. “Mobile HQ should be ready for dispatch soon and I’ll be on site within two and a half hours. I’ve ordered a five mile exclusion zone around the landing site and local constabulary are already alerted.”
“Good man,” Bailey replied. “Well, I’ll leave it in your capable hands. No need to bother anyone else with this yet, I’ll see to that for you.”
“Thank you sir,” Morris replied.
“Very well, carry on Captain,” Bailey said before hanging up the phone.
Morris replaced the receiver and got to his feet. His field uniform was in a locker in his office, and crossing to the door, he locked it before opening the locker. It didn’t take Morris long to change out of his fatigues and into field dress. He pulled his cap on and grabbed his DMP windproof smock under his arm; the weather outside wasn’t promising to let up any time soon. At least that meant that there was little chance of the crashing UFO starting lots of fires.
Fastening his belt, Morris checked his pistol before unlocking the door and stepping out into the corridor. He was in time to see Loding walking up the corridor towards him; she’d also changed into field dress. He raised his eyebrows as she approached, awaiting what she had to tell him.
“All prepared, sir,” she reported. “Sergeant Lovatt will be arriving in fifteen minutes and the mobile HQ is being prepped.”
Morris nodded and opened his mouth to reply when he stopped and cocked his head. He could hear a strange sound faintly echoing down the corridors.
“Sir?” Loding asked looking at him.
Morris held his hand up to silence her. The sound was getting louder; an unearthly wheezing and groaning sound. It was a sound he’d heard before, only the once, but he recognised it immediately. How could he ever forget that sound?
“I don’t believe it,” he said softly.
“You didn’t call him?” Loding asked.
“No,” Morris said distantly.
There was something not right about the sound, at least, it was different to the last time he had heard it. It almost sounded as though there was a slip in the sound, making the groaning sound too prolonged. Morris remembered the last time he heard the sound and thought that it didn’t sound healthy, if he had thought that last time, this time, it sounded even worse.
Without a word, Morris set off in the direction of the noise. It was difficult to judge exactly where it came from, but he had a good idea; the lab. Loding was jogging along behind Morris, of that he was just aware, as they rounded the corridor.
The lab had a series of glass windows running along the wall allowing him to see inside. They’d been put there when the lab was made when UNIT moved into the building, the lower half of the wall being just plasterboard, hence the sound coming through so easily. Through the windows he could see it, fading into being, incongruously in the corner of the lab; an obsolete Metropolitan Police Box.
Morris could now see that there was something that wasn’t quite right, something he didn’t remember seeing last time, there was steam and smoke curling off the outside of the Police Box. Wrenching the door open, Morris stepped into the lab. The smell hit him; an acrid smell that caught him at the back of the throat. The sound of the TARDIS’s materialisation ended with a rather loud thud which seemed to shake the entire room.
The door to the Police Box opened and Morris made to move forwards until a cloud of smoke billowed out, curling around the ceiling of the lab. He could hear someone choking, at what seemed like an incredible and impossible distance into the cupboard-like box. Several seconds later a figure appeared in the doorway, leaning heavily on the frame, a female figure in a close fitting dress, long hair and high heeled boots; Jess, he remembered. Moving forwards again, he helped her, coughing, away from the TARDIS and sat her down on a chair.
“What happened?” he asked, crouching down in front of her. “Are you ok? What about the Doctor and the lad?”
Jess looked up at Morris; her eyes were red, bloodshot and streaming from the smoky atmosphere of the TARDIS. She waved her hand at him as she coughed away his questions.
“Glass of water,” Morris said, looking over his shoulder at Loding, who nodded in understanding.
A fresh coughing sounded from the door to the TARDIS. Morris looked round to see a suited figure emerge, hand clamped round his mouth; Tom Rowan. The name came to him the moment he set eyes on the young man. He leant heavily on the bench near the TARDIS, just beyond the smoke, allowing Morris to see the fading black eye he was sporting. It was when he moved his hand from his mouth to wave feebly at Morris; he spotted the small cut on his lip too.
They’d landed here by accident, Morris concluded, looking at the clothes the two were wearing. He’d heard the stories about the unpredictability of the Doctor’s TARDIS; Lethbridge-Stewart had made numerous comments about it in his files. No doubt they’d intended for a ball or banquet somewhere and some when. That was when he realised the third figure was missing; the Doctor.
He looked back up at the TARDIS to see the Time Lord appear in the doorway. He had a handkerchief clamped firmly over his mouth and nose and was wafting the smoke out of the way, otherwise, to Morris, he looked perfectly alright. No different from when he last saw him, still the same Edwardian style clothes, just a slight change in colour scheme. He was looking around bemused, clearly surprised at his surroundings.
“This isn’t right,” the Time Lord began, removing the handkerchief from his face.
“Welcome back, Doctor,” Morris said, getting to his feet as Loding returned to the room with a glass of water for Jess.
“No. No, no, no, no, no,” the Doctor said, pocketing the handkerchief and walking round the room, eyeing the desks and benches. “We shouldn’t be here, you had nothing to do with this, did you Will?”
Morris smiled. He was right. “Not this time,” he said looking over the Doctor’s shoulder at the open door to the Police Box, where smoke was still seeping out. “I take it you’ve had a bit of trouble.”
“You could say that,” Tom spluttered, pulling himself up.
“I’ll say,” Jess added, sipping her water before looking at the Doctor, “we’re meant to be attending the opening of the first joint Human and Martian colony on Mars. It’s meant to be ‘the first major inter-species co-operative venture’ and a chance for me to wear this dress without the risk of being thrown into a war.”
“Ah,” Morris said, smiling and nodding. He had the feeling that he was now in the middle of a slight disagreement among friends.
“We aren’t too far out,” the Doctor said sadly.
“Only several million miles and a century or so,” Tom replied.
The Doctor turned and reached out to the TARDIS door and closed it, cutting the smoke off. Loding had already opened a window to allow the smoke to waft out into the cool October afternoon air.
“We would have made it if something hadn’t pulled us down,” the Doctor replied before looking at Morris. “Are you sure you didn’t call me back here Will?” he asked raising an eyebrow. “You look like you’re off to do something rather exciting.”
“How could I call you?” Morris asked, letting the last comment slip for the time being. “The space time whatsit was destroyed last time you were here. What happened in there?”
“I think it’s safe to say we almost crashed here and got smoked out,” Tom replied rubbing his red rimmed eyes.
“Something dragged us down,” the Doctor corrected, eyeing the field dress of Morris and Loding. “An event enough to pull us from the vortex, partly vaporise the fluid links, overload the Zeiton crystals and destabilise the navigational controls.” The Doctor paused as he looked over Morris’s uniform. “Something like a space craft emerging from Star Drive too fast and out of control before performing an emergency landing?”
Morris tried to keep his expression neutral at the Doctor’s deduction. How much did the Time Lord already know? He had hoped that he could manage this himself without the aid of the Doctor, not that he wasn’t grateful for his help in dealing with the Master and Autons. He knew there was going to be a tell on his face that the Doctor could find, so decided to move out of the Time Lords line of sight.
“Where did it land?” the Doctor asked.
Morris could hear the levity in his voice, swiftly followed by sighs from Tom and Jess. He eventually smiled and turned back to face the Doctor.
“Colesham, as near as we can estimate,” he said. “Norfolk,” he added, catching the blank looks from Jess and Tom.
“Colesham?” the Doctor cried, “a wonderful little village with a lovely little pub. I took a trip there with dear old Alistair back in the seventies,” he added catching the looks from Jess and Tom. A sudden thought passed over the Doctors face and his smile faded. “I do hope it’s not landed on the pub,” he added softly.
“I take it that means the party’s off?” Jess asked.
“Well, it would be grossly irresponsible to leave aliens stranded on Earth,” the Doctor smiled. “They’re probably all scared out here all alone, trapped on a planet full of strange people and things. Poor things.”
“How do you know?” Tom asked. “They may some intergalactic nasty or something.”
“Oh Tom,” the Doctor said, a disappointed tone creeping into his voice. “Don’t be so pessimistic, not every species in the universe is out for themselves.”
“Just about ninety percent of them,” Tom muttered.
“Now then, Will,” the Doctor said putting his arm around Morris’s shoulders and leading him from the room. “I want you to tell me everything you know about this crashed space ship.”
“See to Jess and Tom, will you Loding?” Morris called over his shoulder as the Doctor lead him out of the room and down the corridor.
“You two ok?” Loding asked, looking from Jess to Tom the latter of whom merely nodded a part smile on his lips.
“I guess we’ve been volunteered to help you deal with this crashed space ship,” Jess said.
“You don’t have to,” Loding shrugged. “It’s a UNIT matter. If the Doctor wants to help us he can, you guys don’t need to.”
“Almost sounds like you don’t want us,” Tom said, pulling himself up to sit on the edge of the desk.
“No, not at all,” Loding said, thinking over what she’d said and wondering how it had come out to the two of them. “It’s just, well, you’re civilians technically. Well, more like civilian members of UNIT.”
“Because we’re not military?” Jess asked.
“Yes, to be blunt,” Loding replied. “We’ve had companions of the Doctor on our books before, working in an advisory capacity and similar roles. But ‘cause you’re with the Doctor, that allows you more freedom than most people would get.”
“Well, if the Doctor is interested, then we’ll be involved,” Jess said, looking over at Tom. “After all, who knows what sort of trouble he’d get into without us to look out for him?”
“Yeah,” Tom finally smiled. “Guess you’re stuck with us while the Doctor’s about.”
Loding smiled and looked over to the window before looking again at the clothes the two were wearing. “Well,” she said finally. “Might help to get you two some more appropriate clothes, it’s a bit wet out.”
*
Christopher Spinx couldn’t believe that he was running towards an aircraft crash. He wouldn’t know what to do if he got there. He’d often watch Casualty on a Saturday night, but if push came to shove, he wouldn’t know what to do if someone was bleeding badly or had broken bones.
He and Emily had stared at each other for several seconds after the craft had gone over and appeared to crash. Neither of them were entirely sure what had happened or what to do at first. Eventually she had moved first and swiftly managed to persuade Christopher to accompany her. He’d just managed to pluck up the courage to talk to her; he didn’t want to let it all fall down now. He was running on adrenaline.
Wishing he’d stopped at the pub to phone for help, Christopher leant against a tree to catch his breath. Just ahead of him, Emily stopped and looked round, she was much fitter than he was, he’d decided. One definite thing he had noticed was that both dogs were getting more and more wary the closer they approached the crash.
Around them, branches littered the ground, having been snapped off the trees as the craft neared the ground. Christopher could see the large black shape of the craft up ahead, at the end of a long patch of churned up field where it had landed and skidded to a halt. The shape appeared to continue to get bigger. Having only been on a plane three times in his life, and the last time being fifteen years ago, Christopher wasn’t sure how big a plane must be, but the shape was certainly not that of an aeroplane.
“This isn’t right,” he said. He didn’t know how he knew, there was a feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.
Emily stopped and turned back. “People might be hurt,” she said, the concern evident in her voice.
“But it doesn’t look like a plane,” Christopher protested. “It’s not right, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Well, it’s a military thing then,” Emily protested, “some stealth thing or something? Whatever it is, someone might be hurt.”
Christopher opened his mouth to argue again, but Emily had already started making out towards the crash. He could feel Sally pulling at her lead, yapping and growling at his ankles. Ahead he could see Emily’s dog, Cookie, also pulling her lead and barking. The feeling in his stomach was now a knot of anxiety and dread. He had a terrible feeling of foreboding about approaching the crashed craft, yet at the same time he didn’t want to let Emily go on alone.
Setting off after her, he caught up with her quickly. She’d slowed her pace as she looked at the craft. The look on her face told him what he had already guessed; she didn’t know what it was that had crashed. Something was ringing large alarm bells in his head and as stupid as it sounded, a small voice was screaming ‘UFO’. It was when a hatch in the side of the craft opened that everything he thought he knew about life changed.