Chapter 11 (The Passage of Time)
The Doctor stood in the red light, motionless as he looked towards the darkened corridor. The Volatine survivors remained as quiet as they could, the occasional scared cry subdued by the occasional comforting voice of an adult.
“There’s no need for this,” the Doctor finally said, his voice sounding louder than he had expected. It made Holly jumped.
“There’s nobody there,” said Holly, sidling up to the Doctor.
“Oh, there’s someone there,” said the Doctor, his voice a little lower, but ominous. “Show yourself,” he said again. “There’s no threat here.”
A pinprick of light came on down the corridor, moving a little.
“Oh, lovely,” said the Doctor, holding his hands up, “so you’ve got a gun trained on me.” He looked up at his hands. “Do you understand what this is? This means I am unarmed and not a threat.”
“The creatures behind you are threats,” came an echoing voice from down the corridor.
“I beg to differ,” said the Doctor. “The people behind me are the descendents of the original crew. They are innocent.”
“I have travelled a long way to finish off what I started.”
“Let me guess,” said the Doctor, his hands still raised, “you’ve been in suspended animation? The power surge from the Corbix woke you up?”
“Step away from them, Human,” came the voice again. The light was wavering a little.
“I’m not a Human,” said the Doctor. “I’m assuming you have scanning equipment back there. Scan me. You’ll see I’m a Time Lord.”
There were a few beeps, whirs and then a high-pitched bleep.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the voice, “I still have a mission to fulfil.”
“But why?” said Holly, feeling braver. “You can’t blame these people for what their ancestors did.”
“But justice needs to be done,” said the voice.
“Justice for who?” asked the Doctor. “Volatinia is gone.”
There was silence again.
“I know that,” said the voice, finally.
“Then what is going to be the point of killing these people?” The Doctor lowered his hands a little. “None of them were even alive when the originals stole the ship.”
Silence.
“Goodness me,” continued the Doctor, “you’re the oldest one here.”
“What does age have to do with anything?” asked the voice.
“Everything,” said the Doctor. He finally lowered his hands all the way. “Be the older and wiser member of your race here.”
“What are you going to do,” said Holly, “when you’ve killed them all? Fly off to a dead world?”
The light moved a little closer to them. They could now see the creature standing in the shadows. It looked confused and unsure of itself.
“What is the point?” asked the Doctor. He indicated the people behind him. “If you kill all of these innocent people then you become the last of your kind. The only Volatine in existence. Is that what you want? Because I can tell you this – I once thought I was the last of my kind. You don’t want to live with that burden on your shoulders.”
The creature stepped further into the room. Its gun was lowered a little more. “I had a job to do.”
“Had being the operative word,” said the Doctor. He extended a hand. “Hello, I’m the Doctor.” He smiled.
The Volatine looked down at the Doctor’s hand and then cautiously lowered his gun. “My name is Takka.”
“Good to meet you, Takka,” smiled the Doctor.
But before the two could stop shaking hands a laser blast rang out. A bolt of blue light was fired from somewhere behind them, hitting Takka in the chest. He looked terrified as he fell forward into the Doctors arms.
“No!” said the Doctor. He turned around and standing there, a small blaster in his hands was the old and frail Sonax. He was shaking with fear at what he had done as Takka’s eyes closed and he slumped to the ground dead.
“What have you done?!” shouted Lucy.
“What I had to do,” said Sonax. “I am the last of your ancestors,” he said, turning to Kreek. “Takka would never have let me go free.”
“You never said anything,” said Kreek, looking at his leader in disgust. “All these years.”
“It was easy enough to hide away,” said Sonax. “None of you would have known me back then.” Sonax dropped to the floor, the blaster sliding away from him. “None of you.”
“Doctor?” said Holly, as the Doctor looked like fury itself was going to explode from his face.
The Doctor closed his eyes and lowered Takka’s body to the floor. “You had a chance Sonax. It doesn’t matter if you were the only survivor. The only one left. The man who was sent to kill you all was willing to give you a chance!”
“He never would have let us live,” said Sonax, his eyes staring straight ahead. “I had to keep you all safe.”
The Doctor closed his eyes and rubbed them. “You couldn’t have known that.”
“But then you couldn’t have known he wouldn’t have either, Doctor.”
The Doctor looked at Sonax. His face looked sadder than Holly had seen it in a long time. She crouched down beside him and rubbed his shoulder. “What do we do now?”
Kreek was standing in the clearing with the Doctor, Lucy, Mark, Felicity and Holly. He had a hold of Sonax’s staff. Takka’s body was wrapped in a sheet beside and freshly dug grave.
“Are you sure about this?” asked the Doctor.
“Absolutely,” said Kreek. “Sonax is an old man. He may have survived for this long, but he hasn’t got long left. We’ll keep watch over him, make sure he is cared for and when he passes away we shall mourn him, but we will not forgive him for what he has done.”
“I’ll make sure Takka’s ship is disposed of,” said the Doctor. “It’s only a scout ship so I’m sure we can cause a minimal explosion that hopefully won’t get noticed.”
It had started to rain and Holly looked up at the sky as the raindrops trickled down onto her face. “How are you all going to get back into space though?”
“We’re not,” said Kreek. “This is our home now. Our ship can never fly again.”
“But you’ll be discovered,” said Flick, who was now holding Mark’s hand.
The Doctor shook his head. “I’ll get that exclusion field set up again. This time I’ll modify it. I’ll put you all a millisecond out of time. No one will ever find you. You’ll be safe to live here forever.”
Flick looked at Lucy. “You’re staying, aren’t you?”
“This has been by home for twelve years, Flick,” smiled Lucy. “My family are gone. I have to stay.”
“But what if I wanted to see you again?”
The Doctor tapped on his chin, considering the question. “I can give you a ring. It will allow you to pass through the exclusion shield. Any time you want to visit you can.”
“Then that’s settled then,” said Kreek. “And any of you are always welcome back here.”
“I am sorry though,” said the Doctor.
“What for?” said Kreek.
“For what Sonax did.”
Kreek smiled and hefted the body of Takka into his arms. “People do wicked, evil things.” He gently lowered Takka into the ground. “I don’t always believe that people are evil though.” The Doctor helped him as the others stood back. “I once heard a story that some very clever people once tried to bottle evil in an attempt to erase it from the world.”
“An interesting idea. It’s been done before.”
“Evil cannot be contained though,” said Kreek. “Evil will always find a way to corrupt even the purest of souls.”
The Doctor looked at Kreek as he picked up a spade-like instrument and began shovelling. “Indeed.”
The Doctor and the others had bid Kreek and Lucy goodbye and returned to the camp site where Richard, Graham, Andy and the others were waiting.
Flick spotted her father and ran to his arms, hugging him tightly.
“You know,” said Arthur, “it doesn’t matter how much older you get, you always seem to get yourself in trouble.”
“I’m sorry,” said Flick, “I just had to know.”
“And did you find your answers?” he said, looking down into her eyes.
“I think I did,” she said, looking back at the trees. “You know, this world is so much bigger than we thought.” She took Mark’s hand and looked at him. “Do you think she’ll be alright out there?”
“She’s been alright for twelve years,” said Mark, nodding. “And besides...you’ll no doubt be back up here next week.”
Flick smiled and hugged Mark’s arm. “After a good long sleep and a nice cup of tea.”
“We were worried when our policeman friend went off all guns blazing,” said Arthur.
“Where is Takka anyway?” asked Nicole, who was still sat with Andy.
The Doctor smiled at Arthur and Nicole. “He’s gone to join his people.”
“He could have said goodbye!” said Nicole.
A good few hours passed and the Doctor headed back into the woods to pick up the TARDIS. The rest of the leaders had returned to the area the cars had been parked to find them miraculously back in their original place.
“So....” said Graham, pointing to them and then scratching his head. “They were...what?”
“Takka said stuck in the folds of the exclusion field,” said Nicole. She looked at Graham’s bemused face and laughed. “I don’t get it either.”
“I guess it’s something like losing your mobile phone in the folds of the bed sheets,” suggested Holly.
Andy frowned at her and smiled.
“I’m used to all this,” said Holly.
They finished loading up their cars and waited. The sky grew dark again until it filled with the sound of the TARDIS materialising. The leaders and Tom all looked unfazed as the blue police box appeared in front of them, the Doctor stepping out and smiling.
“I thought I’d have got a better reaction than that!” said the Doctor, shutting the door behind him.
“Yeah...” said Flick. “When you’ve seen a spaceship, been in a spaceship and met a bunch of alien refugees, a small blue box from the 1960’s doesn’t really come that high on the list of things to make you go wow!”
“Oh,” said the Doctor, touching the side of the box affectionately.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Doctor,” said Holly, patting the box, “the TARDIS will never fail to impress me.”
The Doctor smiled at her and then kissed her on the top of her head. “Bless you, Miss Dangerfield.”
“But what about this time field thing?” asked Flick, looking at the ring the Doctor had given her.
“It’s already done. Already up and running. You step into those woods now and you won’t find an entrance to a spaceship or Takka’s abandoned ship. They’re safely locked away forever.”
“Hmm,” said Tom, stroking his beard, “it might be an idea for the company to rule this site off their lists of places for survival courses though.”
“That could be a good idea,” said the Doctor.
The leaders began boarding their cars and the Doctor and Holly wsaid their goodbyes. Andy, Graham and Nicole were the last to go. Andy spotted Richard stood beside a tree looking a little distant. He shook the Doctor’s hand, gave Nicole a kiss on her cheek and then walked over to him.
“Is everything okay?”
“It’s just been a long day,” said Richard. “It’s made me come to a decision.” He looked up at the sky. “There’s so much out there, but seeing you and your wife and what’s to come makes me realise the life I am missing.”
Andy extended his hand and shook Richard’s. “Take care, won’t you?”
“You too,” said Richard. He watched Andy and Nicole get into Graham’s car and smiled sadly. This was 2007 – seven years before he had left his own time. Their child would now be seven years old.
Flick gave her granddad a hug and then crossed over to the Doctor. “Thank you for this.”
“You’re welcome,” said the Doctor, “but you’re going to have to keep quiet about this. All of you.”
“We understand, Doctor,” said Arthur. “There’s no chance anyone on this planet with ever discover the Corbix, but that doesn’t mean that any alien radars out there might not pick it up one day.”
Flick took Mark’s hand, nodded her goodbye to Holly and then the three of them got into their car and drove off.
The Doctor stood with his hands in his pockets looking back into the darkness of the trees. Holly came up beside him and took his head. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good,” said the Doctor. “It’s the silence I can’t abide though.”
“I know what you mean,” said Holly. “It’s so quiet without her.”
“Doctor,” said Richard from behind them. “I think it’s time.”
“Time?”
“Time that I went home.”
Holly felt her heart sink a little more. She didn’t really know Richard that well, and she knew he was always going to leave, but it didn’t make the prospect of another TARDIS departure feel any better.
The Doctor patted him on his back and then went to unlock the TARDIS. He took one last look at the woods behind them and then the three of them headed back into the box.
The End
Doctor Who: Resurrection returns on Saturday December 24th with the 2016 Christmas Special - "Ghosts of the Past".
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