Fam Away From Home: Chapter 45
Masterlist
The ship went to shit once it was established that it was a ship. Something invaded and the more experienced medical professional was killed. The something was fast and it was cutting off the electricity one section at a time. Racing through the pipes and pathways, it got redirected from its goal several times, but merely consumed on the way.
The patients were gathered in the assessment area, all together, and the Doctor and Mabli had to detour to grab a chair with the still limp witch in it. She hadn't moved much, but the vibrations weren't coming off of her as harshly. Also, it was barely changing the air. The blonde stared at her vulnerable girlfriend as they moved her to the assessment area. She moved a strand of hair from her face, taking in the healthier skin. Astra was fixing herself. The Doctor held her hand and kissed it before they all entered the room. "You're probably wondering why I called you all here." She had to quickly explained the shit of their situation, but she wasn't the only one with experience.
The celebrity they'd met before had encountered this very creature before and she wasn't giving her companions much hope. The Doctor, of course, sorted a plan and got everyone to their stations. Ronan and Yaz protected the drive, the most important part of the ship and the target of the Pting. Yoss went into labor and took Mabli, Graham, and Ryan. The Doctor led the famous pilot and her brother to the director's cabin. She got them started and took off for her safety rounds. Unfortunately, Gifftan childbirth wasn't an area of her expertise so she went to the drive chamber where Ronan and Yaz were standing guard with stazers. "Anything?" she asked expectantly.
Her guards were looking quite bored. Yaz shrugged. "Mabli called, there were a few alarms goin' off in the Hospice pods."
The Doctor frowned dramatically and tilted her head. Next came the confused nose scrunch. "That's at the base of the ship. There's no power down-" She stopped and quickly turned, racing down the hall, clutching her stomach still in pain. Yaz was hot on her heels and Ronan behind. They all entered the corridor leading to the assessment area when they saw flashing lights. But the power had been cut for that room. They ran into the room and found everything not a wall in the air, except Astra and her seat. The wind from nowhere whipped harshly and the Pting was trying to crawl along the wall to get closer to her. The wind couldn't be holding him off, but something was making his approach very lethargic. Upon closer inspection, the Time Lord eyes picked up on air distortions around the Pting. Every once in a while the creature would pause in and open its mouth.
It all halted in a moment when Astra slowly blinked awake. She seemed to have no understanding of the chaos descending around her. She sat up herself and saw the mess with groggy eyes. The Pting lunged with a scream and the brunette turned around with Supernatural speed, catching it around the neck, its legs wrapping her forearm and mouth biting at her fingers. Astra threw him up the hole he must've come through and stepped back. The Doctor masterfully conducted herself through the debris, limping some, and hugged Astra - or tried to - from behind. Astra noticed of course and turned to her, hugging back in relief. She left one hand off the alien's back and looked at the healing corroded burns. Astra kissed the other woman's cheek and whispering in Latin with her hand down the injured stomach. The Doctor gasped and pulled back, glaring and understanding something she hadn't before. The two of them walked back to the doorway, away from the tiny being.
Yaz immediately hugged Astra once they were close enough. "Thank you for saving our lives," she said with immense weight.
"What is the situation elsewhere?" the man beside Yaz asked, standing very stiff.
The Doctor looked at him, the both of them, and made her way between, the brunette tucked under her arm again. "Eve's piloting the ship, Durkas is maintaining controls and signals, you were supposed to be guarding the particle accelerator...." The ship shifted midspeech and the group of five staggered some but regained equilibrium easily. "Mabli, Graham and Ryan are presumably delivering Yoss's baby, and the bomb's going to detonate, so I'm just going to move it away from the anti-matter generator room." Of course, they came to what looked like a regular wall until it opened on its own. The room hosted a massive that kind of looked like a coin case. It made donating more child-friendly in America. "Mind helping?" she mumbled in your ear.
"Mm, just moving a bomb, huh?" she clarified, trying to catch up with the drama that was the Doctor's life.
The Doctor smirked down at her, grabbing her sonic on instinct. It lit easily and she seemed surprised, gasping and smiling like a dope. "Clever sonic. Self-rebooting." She pointed it at the bottom of the machine.
"There's a bomb in this room?" the strange male asked in a strangely calm tone, as if he didn't truly care.
"Right in here," the Doctor answered honestly. Of course. In a life or death moment, that's when she was unafraid to give all the details. She started circling the machine, scanning the base of it the entire time. "Mabli said that Resus One would terminate the ship if they found a Pting on board. How would they do that? It's too far for missiles. It has to be the same for every Tsurangan Rescue Craft."
Yaz circled the device in the opposite direction of the Doctor. "It's built in. Self-detonation."
"Bingo." The Doctor bounced her pointer finger at the woman. "Ten points for Yasmin Khan. And yes, I am keeping score, for all of you." She turned to the man. "Ronan, up your game. Jokes!" she tried to quip at the man.
"So, we're on a spaceship," Astra seemed to just be figuring out.
"Yea," the Doctor whispered.
"With a creature that eats-"
"Already been through this, Astra," the Doctor cut her off. "With Graham."
"Yeah, not me, and I have questions!" the brunette snipped with a childish stomp.
The blonde smirked over at her, thinking her tantrum was cute. She held out her hands and leaned down. "So..." Pressing her fingers to the base, a hidden compartment came out and there was a blinking ascendant inside.
"You're interfering with a bomb?" Ronan asked.
"Yes," the Doctor admitted with some weight.
"Is it going to detonate?"
"Yes."
They were both like robots, answering each other's questions in the same tone. "What will you do?"
"Speed it up. To save our lives."
The man looked behind the Doctor and asked Yaz, "Are you also experiencing comprehension deficiency?"
The Doctor bent down and Astra knelt, watching her.
"Oh, every day right now, mate," Yaz responded, maybe a little dramatically.
Astra could suppose she was also 'experiencing comprehension deficiency' but she'd slept half the episode away!
The blonde delicately lifted the bomb from its compartment. "Need to be so careful. Tiny little device. Could blow us all to pieces." Astra stood in unison to the Doctor and the blonde sort of appreciated it. She knew she wasn't alone and Astra likely had the perfect spell on the tip of her tongue. She didn't. Astra couldn't speak a spell faster than a bomb could detonate, but she could wield the energy and now she was picking up on the Doctor's plan. "And I'm going to set it off," the ancient alien added a little too casually. "Ronan, keep guard. Astra, come on." She walked out the door, eyes never leaving the device in her hand.
"What do I do?" Yaz asked after the two of you.
"We'll leave that to your discretion," Astra commented back, just loud enough for her to hear. The Doctor didn't need loud noises in her already super ears lest she jolt. She turned back to her girlfriend and rested her hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry you've been dealing with this with me unconscious."
"Couldn't be helped," the Doctor responded off-handedly.
"Okay..."
The witch was cut off by quick footsteps joining them. "I decided if we were about to die, not that I think we are," she added to the Doctor so she didn't get offended and start arguing. "I'd rather be around someone from my home, you know."
"That's funny because we're all completely different by Earth's standards," Astra quipped. "But yeah, friends rock, kinda thing."
"You know what's funny: I'm normally the one defusing the bomb," the Doctor added as they turned a curve. She held out her sonic, holding the bomb with one hand. She used her magic wand to open the door to a little room. She set it on the floor and turned to the brunette. "Pick a number between 1 and 100."
Perks of trusting someone, you could say the first thing that came to mind. "37."
A smile perked up her face before she turned to the bomb and sonicked it." A prime. Interesting." It started beeping and the Doctor left the room. She pointed to an alcove. "Get in that corner," she ordered. The younger females obliged and they all sort of huddled together.
"What was the number for?" Yaz asked, confused. And honestly Astra was confused too. And hungry.
"Number of seconds before the bomb goes off. I moved it forward a bit."
Astra hated when the Doctor explained late. "What?!" she yelped, surely attracting the Pting more. "Why didn't you say that? I would've picked a bigger number!"
The Doctor looked at her girlfriend with slight concern. "No, it's a good number, 37. Atomic number of rubidium, human body temperature in Celsius, ooh and Kepler-37b is one of the smallest planets I've ever been on. Had to have the TARDIS expand her shields so I could breathe and not float away." Was her defense mechanism story time?
"That's how you flirt? You compliment by number, my very small number. It's gotta be already halfway gone!" She pushed the other two girls behind her and held up her hands. She wanted to create a shield, but the Doctor put a hand on her shoulder. Of course, the thing had already gone after her once. With a groan, she kept her magic dormant, trying to make herself as small as she could with her energy. She would just have to catch a bomb explosion and try to make a magic wall really quick.
Yaz turned to the blonde she was squished in a corner with. "I'm really trusting you on this bomb, but I don't know what you're doing."
"Think of the Pting as a mouse, and the bomb as a piece of cheese." Yup, analogy time.
"A very large piece of cheese about to explode and take us all with it," Yaz quipped back.
"It's not a perfect analogy, I'll admit. Astra could've picked a bigger number!" she yelled defensively. She walked out into the hall, looking up the other way because they were in a dead end. "Where is it? Come on." As the beeping sped up, she returned to the pod and looked down at the bomb. "As the bomb gets closer, the energy's building, getting ready to blow. The Pting must be attracted to that, surely." She turned back to the two of you and the three of them huddled back in the corner at Astra's gesturing. She also put herself back at the front. She must really believe she could protect them from the vacuum of space. "That's what I've been working on this whole time. Oh, please don't be wrong. I'd be so embarrassed."
"And dead," Yaz added.
The little thing came walking up the hall, chewing on a power coil.
The Doctor gloated from the corner she was stuffed in, "I'm not bad. Admit it. I'm not bad. It's all in the timing." The Pting turned to look at the girls, hissing at them. His already big eyes dilated when fixed on Astra. "Not her, mate," the Doctor scolded firmly, arm peaking around the witch's side to hold her midsection. Then she softened her voice so he'd listen. "Get some'n you can actually eat." She nodded to the bomb, pointing a little. The little monster tilted its head at the energy that couldn't defend itself. The ship was trembling more now. Whatever was controlling it was failing. "Really, get a shift on."
Stumbling in, the Pting hopped over the door sill, picked up the bomb and finally swallowed it whole.
"Whoa," Astra toned.
"Wait for it," the Doctor added and ran forward, sonicking the door shut. The inside of the Pting blew and it relaxed, floating around the room with a calmness. "Absorbed every bit of energy. One massive, massive hit. Bye-bye, Pting. Intruder ejected." She pressed the button with a two-fingered salute and the outer airlock hatch opened. The Pting was sucked out. "First problem, gone. That should keep it fed for a very long time. Still not home and dry, though." The ship jerked again and the Doctor fell against the door, Astra and Yaz grabbing a wall. The blonde led them through the halls again and they entered another room where a lady dressed in white was laying on the ground, not moving. "Eve!" the Doctor called and the women fell around the woman.
Yaz set a massive machine in her hands that Astra just noticed down on the ground. "What happened?" she asked the man hooked up to the base at his feet.
"Her heart couldn't take it. She gave me control," he croaked out.
The Doctor gave Eve a once-over. "Do you know how to do this?" she asked the man.
"I'm a Cicero. I studied for this." The Doctor stood and walked over to stand with the pilot. "We're coming into Resus One. Resus One, request emergency assistance landing. Bringing her in safe," he called out, likely over his headset, though Astra couldn't see how he keyed up.
"Thank you. Both," the Doctor bade to the man then to the body.
Later, they were all standing in a room with Eve Cicero written in an alien tongue on the outside of the room. Astra stood beside the Doctor while a lady she hadn't seen yet seemed to be the authority onboard explained to the Doctor what was going on. They must've talked. Well, enough for the Doctor to leave the kind of mark she did just by talking to someone. "They, er... they say quarantine scanning and craft detox should take no more than three hours, then they'll admit us to the facility. They're booking your teleport to Seffilun, as soon as you've spoken to the investigators."
The blonde had one of the brunette's hand in her own, the other behind her back. "Thank you, Mabli. I'll be sure to tell them how brilliant you were." She used her free hand to hold Mabli's arm.
"You all were. Light in dark times," she commented gratefully.
Astra was so confused, but got the gist. She knew the woman wasn't talking about her and she couldn't help but marvel at what the time traveler did wherever she went. Mostly, because she found trouble wherever she went. "People prevail. Hope prevails," the Doctor commented. She was such a sap. Astra couldn't help but smile at her.
The male pilot who was apparently related to the now-dead impromtu... pilot spoke to the stiff man who also seemed to have been close to the dead woman. "What happens to you now, without her?" the pilot asked.
He of course did not react, despite the information he was about to admit. "I've come to the end of my service. There is only shutdown." Oh, Astra's God. He was really a robot?!
"I'm sorry, Ronan. I wasn't always kind to you," the man confessed.
"No."
"You gave her great service."
Ok, Astra was bored again. But, then, she knew nothing of the backstories here.
"As did you," said the robot.
"Will you incant for her?"
"It would be my honour."
The Doctor brought Astra forward with a joined hand. "Could we join you?" she asked. It seemed it would be her honour as well.
"Please," the family member obliged.
The robot began what the Doctor and all the rest who knew the words joined into: "May the saints of all the stars and constellations bring you hope as they guide you out of the dark and into the light on this voyage and the next, and all the journeys still to come. For now and evermore."
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