Post by Fitz Kreiner on Aug 31, 2010 22:12:49 GMT
Inside the Space Ship.
“Well, this wasn’t as easy as we thought,” Tom said, as Jess tried the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver again and still nothing happened.
“Don’t be such a pessimist and see if you can find a way to open this door,” she replied, putting the tool back in the pocket on the trousers of her suit. “I’m not going to let them kill that poor man.”
“He may be dead already,” Tom replied as he looked around the hatchway.
“What did I say about being a pessimist?” Jess asked.
“I’m just offering a realistic viewpoint,” Tom replied.
“Well how about putting your viewpoint to this panel,” Jess said, stepping aside.
Set into the hull beside the hatch was a small access panel. The only think marking it out from the rest of the hull was that it had small indentations cut into it at semi-regular intervals. Stepping over, Tom crouched down to look at it.
“It’s definitely not made for us to use,” he said, standing up and then looking at the ground, shining the torch around his feet. “However,” he added, stooping to pick up a stick, “maybe a good prodding with this can jig it.”
“Don’t get too technical now, will you?” Jess laughed.
“You remember what the alien looked like when they were carrying it up to the HQ thing?” Tom asked, looking over at Jess.
“Yeah, sort of an insect or spider sort of thing,” she replied.
“Yeah,” Tom replied. “Not human, so they probably don’t have hands or fingers or anything.”
“Ok, and?”
“Well, they probably don’t have door handles like we do,” Tom replied.
“So you’re just going to stick the stick in there and j-j-jiggle it Granville?”
“Granville?” Tom asked, looking round.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Jess replied. “Can you open it?”
“Let’s try,” Tom said.
Tossing the stick from one hand to the other and back again, Tom crouched down beside the panel. Carefully, he slipped the stick into one of the indentations and carefully jabbed at the inside. When nothing happened, he tried a different indentation before trying a third then fourth.
“Anything happening?” Jess asked.
“Yeah, the doors opened and the aliens have come out for a tea party,” Tom replied sarcastically.
“Yeah, ok,” Jess replied. “What do you suggest then?”
Tom stood up and tossed the stick over his shoulder. “Pass me the sonic screwdriver,” he said after a few moments.
“What are you expecting it to do?” Jess asked as she got the silver tool out of her pocket.
“A little more than the stick,” Tom replied as he returned to the panel. “The stick was too bendy, but this on the other hand,”
Tom didn’t have to finish his sentence as the hatch clicked before slowly sliding open.
“Bingo,” he grinned standing up and pocketing the screwdriver. “I would say ‘ladies first’ but that’s an alien space ship.”
“Well done, Sherlock,” Jess replied. “And I’d wallop you if you did make me go in first.”
“In you go then,” Tom grinned back as he stepped towards the hatch and away from Jess’s playful swing.
“Well, this was a bit of an anti-climax,” Jess said as she followed Tom into the drab brown chamber.
“Well, it’s an airlock, isn’t it?” he replied as he closed the hatch behind them.
“So what now?” Jess asked. “Knock and ask for a cup of sugar?”
“You’re sounding like the Doctor,” Tom replied as he located another access panel. “I can hopefully trip this and we can get inside.”
Jess stepped back as a green mist started to seep into the airlock from dark vents, which looked like holes in the rocky looking roof.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing up at them.
“Pressurisation,” Tom replied stepping back. “I guess the airlock is automatic.”
“Ok, so what should we expect in there?” Jess asked; an edge of unease creeping into her voice.
“The unknown,” Tom replied.
With a clunk and then a hiss, the inner airlock door slid open and a green mist flooded into the airlock. Tentatively, Tom stepped out and into the ship, Jess following behind him. Nervously, she reached forward and gripped his hand, making sure that she was following close behind him.
The inside of the ship was like nothing she had imagined. The interior was like she had just stepped into a cave filled with green dry ice with a red strobe light. Each movement seemed jerky and disorientating in the sickly light. The green of the mist and red of the light made her head swim and stomach turn. The mist seemed to cling to her and a foul smell seemed to seep into her pressure suit.
“The air can’t get in here, can it? The suits I mean,” she asked as she fought the urge to retch.
“No,” Tom replied, turning to look at her. “Although it bloody stinks,” he added.
Through the light, his face seemed to look alien and bleached of all colour. Jess wondered whether she looked as bad in the light and how the aliens could make sense of anything in it. Disorientating wasn’t the word, she thought as she stumbled after Tom. The ground was rougher inside the ship than it was outside, trudging through the copse of trees in the dark.
She put her hand out to steady herself against the wall as a disorientating dizziness washed over her. Peering at where she’d put her hand closer, the wall seemed to glisten in the lighting. Pulling her hand away, she was surprised and partly disgusted to see some glistening sticky strands come away too. Pulling at Tom’s hand, she quietly indicated where the strands were, not trusting to open her mouth straight away as she felt her stomach heave.
“It’s like a spider’s web,” Tom replied, his voice strained.
“You mean; we’re in a giant web?” Jess asked, feeling a shudder go through her. She’d never liked spiders. It never occurred to her that she was walking into somewhere which might be full of giant spider like aliens.
“I dunno,” Tom replied, gently poking the sticky strands with a gloved finger. “It might be something like silk I suppose. I recon it’s something they’ve spun themselves.”
“Have you seen anything like it before?”
“No,” Tom replied. “I’ve not seen a great deal more than you, don’t forget.”
“You were living in the forty first century don’t forget,” Jess retorted. “Aliens galore there.”
“Yeah, true,” Tom replied. “I think we’d better get a move on, this place really does make me feel rather uncomfortable.”
“Me too,” Jess agreed following Tom, making sure to keep a tight grip on his hand.
The ground underfoot felt rocky and looking down, Jess saw that the ground was uneven as it felt and in places was metallic and in other places rocky and seemed to be made of the same sticky substance as the walls. She could feel the pull of the sticky substance on her boots as she walked.
“Why is it so sticky?” she asked eventually.
“I dunno,” Tom replied, “maybe it lets them walk on the walls and ceiling when the ship flies, like a spiders web. Would cut down the need for artificial gravity.”
“So, we could be walking on the wall then?” Jess asked, looking round. It was disorientating enough with the strobe lighting.
“Probably,” Tom said, stopping, stepping back and crouching down. “Might also explain why I just stood on this.”
“What is it?” Jess asked.
“At a guess; a data terminal?” Tom offered, removing the Data Pad from his pocket. “There’s one way to find out.”
“Well, bloody hurry it up,” Jess said. “I know this was my idea, but it wasn’t one of my best.”
“Oh, you’d noticed that, have you?” Tom replied, turning to look up at Jess, the red light casting blinking grotesque shadows through the visor of his helmet.
“Yeah, very good,” Jess replied, looking round nervously through the mist.
*
The Doctor had been leaping over the desks, his sonic screwdriver shrill in the air, with a greater ferocity since the cameras had shown that Jess and Tom were heading towards the alien ship. Morris had grown tired of sitting there trying to get a sensible reply from the Time Lord and had stepped outside, gesturing for Corporal Andrews to accompany him.
“Andrews, I want you to ready the men,” Morris said in a half whisper. “If the Doctor can’t get in touch with those things out there in the next ten minutes, I want you to lead the rescue mission to get those kids out of there.”
“Sir,” Andrews protested, “didn’t the Doctor say that we weren’t to do that?”
“I don’t care,” Morris replied. “I don’t want those two in there come morning.”
“Why morning, sir?”
“Need to know basis, Corporal,” Morris replied, glancing at his watch. “You’ve got ten minutes and then a further ninety to carry out the rescue mission, understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Andrews saluted, snapping to attention.
“See to it then, Corporal,” Morris said, returning the salute before watching Andrews hurry off.
“Will?” the Doctor’s voice shouted out from inside the trailer.
Turning, Morris jumped up the steps and stepped through the plastic strips and into the HQ. “What is it?” he asked.
“I think we’re about to meet our alien friends,” the Doctor smiled.
Morris saw past him to the computer terminal he’d been working at. The side of the CPU had been taken off and the Doctor had added several components to it. Where he’d gotten them from, Morris wasn’t sure, but then, he wasn’t a technical person, so they could have come from the spares that they kept in the lockers of the trailer. There were several pulsing blue lights and a green glow from somewhere within the workings of the computer, that didn’t seem right to Morris.
“So, erm, how are we going to talk to them?” he asked. “You said they didn’t speak like us.”
“Little trick of the Time Lords,” the Doctor winked. “The TARDIS is close enough for her telepathic circuits to still have some sway in helping us communicate, and the rest of it, well, that’s this little lash up here. It should help us understand what the aliens are saying and vice versa.” The Doctor grinned as though he were a proud child showing off a new toy.
“So, you’ve just rigged up a universal translator with our computers?” Morris asked.
“It’s a little more complicated than that, Will,” the Doctor replied, a small expression resembling hurt crossing his face.
“All right,” Morris said, “So what do we do? Or rather, what do I do?”
“You’re here, Will,” the Doctor said, clapping a hand on Morris’s shoulder, “to act as emissary for humanity. I know, quite the burden for you, but you’re the best man for the job who’s here. We simply have to speak nicely to our friends out there and convince them to release their prisoners, including Jess and Tom, making sure they’re not hurt and that their presence isn’t misconstrued as anything hostile.”
“So, pretty simple then?” Morris asked.
“Never say die, Will, never say die,” the Doctor grinned sitting down at the computer.
“So how does this lash-up work? Call them up like a telephone? Or open hailing frequencies like Star Trek?”
The Doctor turned to look up at Morris. “Oh Will,” he said, a sad edge to his voice. “Just watch,” he finished with a smile.
Morris looked up at the large TV screen on the wall of the trailer. The blackness was replaced by a flicker as the Doctor worked. Shifting slightly, Morris glanced over to the private who was still stood on guard outside the office, containing the alien. He was stood nervously looking up at the screen, the anxiety evident on his face. Catching his eye, Morris nodded slightly and the soldier nodded back, the anxiety dropping from his face.
Casting a glance the other way, Morris looked towards the entrance to the trailer. He could hear the sound of running boots as Corporal Andrews gathered together a small group of men to go down to the ship to get ready to engage a rescue mission. He quietly hoped that Andrews could get his section down there and ready to get the Doctor’s two friends out there.
“Will?”
The Doctor’s voice brought Morris back to the matter in hand. Turning, he looked up at the screen and stepped back slightly; the flickering had stopped and there was an image on the screen. Morris swallowed hard as he looked at it; the face, if it could be called that, of one of the aliens.
*
“Will you hurry up,” Jess whispered through the headset. “It bloody stinks in here and, well; I just really don’t like it.”
Tom looked up from where he was crouched. The flickering blood-red lighting casting deep shadows through the visor of his helmet. “I’m going as quick as I can. The Draconian systems are different to this. It’s taking time, I’ve got to synch the pad to this ship and, well; other technical stuff.”
“You’re sure that you fastened this suit completely?” Jess asked, feeling a shudder go through her.
Tom stepped up and gripped her shoulders, looking straight into her eyes through the visor. With the strobing light, his movements seemed jerky and fragmented. Jess looked at him through the visor of her helmet, the green mist swirling between them distorting his features more, yet his eyes seemed to shine through the helmet.
“It’s this place, it’s totally alien and disorientating,” he said softly. “Don’t worry; stay as close to me as possible and we’ll be fine. On the plus side, they probably feel the same out there.”
Jess swallowed and nodded as Tom returned to where he’d been crouched. “How’s whatever you’re doing going?”
Tom looked back up at Jess. “From what I’ve found out so far, they call themselves Klil-Raäth; I’m trying to download info from what acts as their ship computer as to why they crashed here and what they’re doing. I think the old Doc may want to know that.”
“What about the people they’re keeping here to dissect?”
“I don’t know yet,” Tom replied. “I’m getting as much as I can, and hopefully they’ll be in that data.”
“I hope so,” Jess said looking around. “I want to get them out of here.”
“I know,” Tom replied.
Jess shuddered again and tried to ignore the smell that was still seeping through her suit, which wasn’t easy; not only could she smell it, but it caught at the back of her throat making her gag if she breathed in too deeply. Not only that, but she got the feeling that she was being watched. With the green misty atmosphere surrounding her, she couldn’t tell whether there was anyone else in the corridor with them. For all she knew there could be one of the aliens’ just feet away and she’d never know.
The thought instantly made her see shapes in the mist that disappeared almost immediately. Whether it was her eyes playing tricks on her in the alien atmosphere or if there really were aliens out there, she didn’t know, but it unsettled her. Swallowing hard, she took a closer step to Tom, until her leg was almost brushing against him as he worked, crouched on the floor.
“Oh dear, this doesn’t look good,” Tom muttered.
“What is it?” Jess asked.
“They seem to be sending a signal or something,” Tom replied. “I’m going to see if I can work out what it is.”
Taking another look around, Jess definitely saw a dark shape moving through the mist. It moved swiftly but jerkily thought the strobe lighting and mist. So swiftly, she wasn’t sure whether she’d actually seen it or not at first.
She looked down to Tom to see if he’d seen it too, but he showed no signs of having seen anything, still engrossed in what he was doing. Looking up again, Jess couldn’t see the shape any more. It must have been her imagination, she decided before looking round. As soon as she did, she wished she hadn’t.
Looming through the mist at her was a face; a hideous, partly insectoid face. Multi-faceted eyes stared at her through the green mist, a sickly, glistening carapace, the precise colour lost in the light and mist, with four glistening mandibles, green steam curling up from the mashing jaws. Jess could see her own face, looking as terrified as she felt, reflected back in the many eyes that were looking at her.
“Tom,” she managed to mutter.
The creatures face moved closer, and she could vaguely see the bulk of the body behind it, it was standing on the ceiling, its insect like legs holding it firm. Backing away, Jess fell over Tom, who ended up falling with her.
“What the-?” he started until he saw the advancing creature.
Dropping itself from the ceiling, the Klil-Raäth landed nimbly on the floor of the tunnel. Flexing its forelimbs, it reached out towards Jess and Tom.