Chapter 5 (All That Glitters...)
Charlie Banks was cold and fed up. Him and the rest of his team had spent the last few hours combing the area around the beach, cliffs and scrubland up above, but apart from a few random rocks and slabs they hadn’t found any sign of the Time Lord.
He glanced back towards the spikes. He couldn’t see them. It was too dark. All over the planet were identical spikes. It depressed him doing this job and he longed for the moment he could get out of it. He’d seen plenty of innocents locked away in his relatively short time here and he’d seen plenty of innocents get killed.
He saw himself as a decent enough man, but was scared about what was to come. He sighed and turned back to the commander of the group.
“Anything, Banks?” asked the gruff commander, wiping rain out of his face.
“I can’t see a single thing, sir,” said Banks.
“Well keep looking.”
“Yes, sir,” said Charlie.
He turned and almost tripped over a slab on the ground. He frowned, checked no one else was looking and then knelt down over it. He placed his hands either side and gently slipped it to the side. Underneath was a dark hole which led into the ground. He stroked his chin.
“Banks!” came the commander.
Charlie quickly slipped the slab back over the hole and then got up and ran over to his commander.
“Well?” said the commander. “Anything?”
Charlie looked back at the slab and then back to his commander. “No, sir. Nothing at all.”
Holly was surprised that she managed to actually get a good nights sleep in. It wasn’t comfortable by any means, but it was mostly undisturbed. She woke up just before the sun rose. She wasn’t sure what time it was, but she felt reenergised. She got up and stood beside the window, gazing out at the sun as it began to rise over the cliffs.
The weather actually looked pretty nice, and if she hadn’t been locked up in a scary-arse prison, then she may have actually thought the sunrise looked beautiful.
She looked to Lilly who was still fast asleep with her face turned away. Well, she assumed she was still fast asleep.
There came a gentle rapping of knuckles on the bars of the cell door. Holly looked up. Standing there was the guard who had brought them in.
“Yes?” said Holly.
He was holding two bundles in his arms. He grabbed the door and quietly slid it open. “Your clean clothes.”
It hadn’t occurred to Holly that they’d need to get out of their regular clothes and into something else. It had, after all, only been a day. She smiled weakly at the guard and took them from him.
“These will last you a week, miss,” he said.
He seemed friendly. He looked like he didn’t belong here.
“Thanks.”
“There’s a weeks worth of clean underwear in there as well,” he said slightly embarrassed. “At the end of the week put your dirty clothes in the bag and it’ll get washed up. You’ll be provided with clean ones at the start of next week.”
“Thank you,” said Holly again. “What’s your name?”
“That’s not relevant, miss,” said the guard, turning to go.
“Please,” said Holly, grabbing the bars of the cell door gently. “If I’m gonna be here for a while I might as well get to know you by your name.”
The guard stopped, smiled and turned to face her. “It’s Charlie. Charlie Banks.”
“Nice to meet you, Charlie,” said Holly, “considering the circumstances,” she added quickly.
Charlie nodded and then turned to leave.
“Stop flirting with the guards,” said Lilly, her voice muffled by the covers.
“I’m not flirting,” said Holly. “You stop pretending to be asleep.”
“I’ve been awake for a good few hours, Dangerfield,” she said, turning over and arching her eyebrows. “You talk in your sleep, you know.”
“I do not,” said Holly, flinging Lilly’s bundle of clothes over onto her bed.
“Oh, joy,” said Lilly as she pulled out the prison garb - blue with black crosses scattered all over it.
“Matching underwear too,” groaned Holly, looking at her own collection.
Charlie Banks rapped his knuckles on the bars again. “Get yourselves dressed, ladies, and then I’ll take you down for breakfast.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” said Lilly sweetly.
The breakfast area was halfway down the spike and was a communal area that ran around the perimeter of the inside of the spike. The same deep shaft ran through the centre and the lift took groups of prisoners down a section at a time.
Lilly spotted Shrall sat at a table delicately putting some form of porridge into his mouth and she nodded at him.
Shrall nodded back and then took a huge gulp of water from his glass at the table.
Charlie guided Holly and Lilly over to the serving hatch were a wicked looking woman with grey hair and a pointed nose slopped the porridge into their bowls.
“More joy,” said Lilly as they headed towards Shrall’s table.
“Why with him?” hissed Holly, quiet enough for Shrall not to hear.
“He’s alright,” said Lilly. “Plus he’s on his own.”
“Poor guy,” said Holly sarcastically.
“You’re okay with us sitting here, aren’t you, Shrall?”
Shrall nodded but remained silent, indicating for the ladies to sit down.
The three of them sat there in silence for what seemed like an eternity until Holly broke the silence. “So…you’re a terrorist, yeah?”
Shrall simply stared at her whilst Lilly closed her eyes in disbelief.
“I’m sorry,” said Holly quickly.
“No need to apologise,” said Shrall. He looked at Charlie and clicked his fingers. “You, guard. More water.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Charlie, his arms folded.
“More water.”
“I’m not your slave,” said Charlie, turning his face away.
“MORE. WATER. NOW!”
Holly watched in wide-eyed terror as Charlie growled to himself and then returned to the table with another jug of water.
“Thanks, friend,” said Shrall.
Silence again.
The silence was broken when Zia came clattering over with her bowl and glass of water. She took a big gulp, wolfed the porridge down and then leaned in close to the other three.
“Morning Zia,” said Holly.
She winked at Holly. “So,” she said in a hushed voice, “how are we breaking out of this joint?”
The Doctor was dreaming.
He didn’t often dream, but when he did the dreams usually meant something.
In this particular dream he was floating over a mountain range. There was a castle far down below and the sun was high in the sky.
He passed through a cloud and when he emerged through the other side he was in the space/time vortex. He could see the TARDIS spinning away from him and he desperately tried his best to reach it.
And then he saw a figure floating through the vortex. He couldn’t quite make out who it was or whether it was even male or female.
“Hello?” he called out.
“Hello,” came a disembodied voice. “And good morning.”
“What?” said the Doctor.
His eyes flicked open. He was staring up at the rocky ceiling of the cavern they had based themselves in. Ziggy was knelt over a bowl of warm water, his shirt off and washing himself.
“I said good morning,” said Ziggy.
Nao walked in, stopped and frowned at the Doctor and then sat down on a rock. “There’s hot tea in the pot.”
“Thanks,” said the Doctor, sitting himself up and pulling his shoes on.
“Home made bread as well,” said Ziggy, nodding his approval at Nao.
“Yeah,” said Nao, taking a bite into the soft white bread. “Ziggy only married me for my bread.”
“Ha-ha,” said Ziggy, throwing the wet cloth at his wife.
“Steady,” said Nao, laughing back at him.
The Doctor smiled at their antics. Even on a barren, horrible world like this, and in such a dire situation, he was pleased to see the Human spirit filter through still.
“So,” said the Doctor, putting on his grey jacket and clapping his hands together, “we better get started on this plan.”
“Way ahead of you, chief,” said Ziggy, putting his shirt back on and getting into his combats. “We’ve already got our plan worked out.”
“I beg your pardon?” frowned the Doctor.
“We’ve been up hours,” said Nao. “Sleep is for the dead.”
“Nice,” said the Doctor as he grabbed himself a hot tea and warm bread. “So what’s this great plan then?”
“Well,” said Nao, pulling out a piece of A4 paper with some hastily scribbled line drawings on. There was a picture of the spire, the sea and mountains in the distance. “Our main objective is to get into the spike.”
“Obviously,” said the Doctor, arms folded and doubt in his voice.
“The only entrance is at the top of the spire where the prisoners are transported in.”
“So we can’t go that way,” said the Doctor.
“No,” said Ziggy, sitting down next to his wife, “but the spire goes all the way down to the sea bed and around ten foot underneath the surface of the water is the waste disposal shoots.”
“I see,” said the Doctor. “And you think we can swim down and through the hatch?”
“Exactly,” said Nao.
The Doctor held up a finger. “A number of problems.”
“Go on,” said Ziggy, his arms now folded, ready for the Doctor to shoot their plan down in flames.
“Firstly we need to get across the beach and under the water, into the sea and over to the hatch in the spike without getting caught.”
“Already thought of that one,” said Ziggy. “Next problem?”
“We then need to get the hatch open and swim up through gallons of waste.”
Nao wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, gotta admit I’m not looking forward to that.”
“So tell me your solutions.”
“Unfortunately it requires us causing a distraction.” Ziggy turned towards the cavern exit. “Could you come in here please, T23?”
The Doctor had almost forgotten about the android as he ambled in politely and then stood before Ziggy. “Yes, sir?”
Ziggy nodded towards the robot. “T23 here is going to cause that distraction. We send him up to the beach and he causes one hell of a commotion. In the meantime we leg it over to the west of the cliffs, and then drop into the sea and swim for the spikes.”
“Poor T23,” said the Doctor, looking a little sorry for the robot.
“Don’t worry,” said Nao, “we’ll get him out as well.”
“And what makes you think we’ll be able to avoid detection?”
“We don’t,” said Ziggy, “but we have no other choice. We’ve been wandering up here for a while now and so far we’ve not been detected. That leads me to believe that the spike has a low-range detection field. They probably don’t expect anyone to come on vacation here. We should be able to do this.”
“And once we’re there? At the hatch?”
“You use your screwdriver thing,” said Ziggy.
The Doctor put his hand to his pocket and pulled out the screwdriver. “It’s a risky one.”
“But the only thing we can come up with,” said Nao. “Will you help us?”
The Doctor sighed and looked from Ziggy to Nao to T23 and then up at the cavern ceiling. “It seems I have no choice. We have to get Holly, Lilly and Zia out of there.”
To be continued...
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