Foreword
It must be noted, and strongly, that the following story is purely a piece of fan-fiction.The characters, locations and settings that feature are purely the work of the writers, actors and producers of Doctor Who.
In writing this, I am in no way attempting to pass myself off as anything but an ardent fan.
This story was born out of a single image. A dead TARDIS, adrift in space.
How it came to be there, in that state, and just where it is going may be answered one day.
Adrift
A Tenth Doctor story
The slender man in a blue suit stepped away from the large control console and looked at it, his face a mask of puzzlement. As it started the de-materialisation process, he noticed it. The wheezing of the engines was more laboured than usual. The rise & fall of the Time Column which held some of the most delicate and crucial systems was definitely slower.
"Eh?" he said, his voice echoing his expression. He started to scratch his head, then started to walk around the console.
"Come on, you're not supposed to do this" He reached forward and flipped a switch, then span a dial uselessly.
"You're not even due for your service" he stopped and thought carefully "well, yes, you are, officially, past your service point"
He prodded another button, then stopped dead as a new sound emerged.
The sound of a huge bell.
"Oh what now?" he started to move around the console again and pulled a display screen closer to him. When he saw the readings, he yanked a pair of glasses from his pocket and rammed them on
"That's not possible" he muttered. "That really, really, is not possible"
With a burst of sudden energy, he began sprinting around the console. Buttons were pressed, dials were spun and,
what a normal person would think was a bicycle pump, was pumped vigorously.
The wheezing of the engines slowed, and the man ran towards the two simple wooden doors at the bottom of the ramp. He flung them open to see..
Space. Normal, empty space.
Except it wasn't entirely empty. Drifting aimlessly, spinning in the darkness was a shape. As it drew nearer, he recognised it.
It was his TARDIS.
Or rather, what remained of it. The familiar blue box was dead in space. The entire top was gone, as though it had been sheared off. Except that wasn't possible.
As it spun into the light from his own doorway, he saw into the heart of the machine, and it was black.
Too black.
No light reflected from the darkness, and he felt fear. A deep, rending feeling that welled up inside him.
"No.. No...no no no" he muttered. The TARDIS was dead, and the energies inside had collapsed into themselves.
Light & time and space entered the box now, but never escaped.
His own vehicle, that had survived encounters with Daleks, Cybermen and countless hordes was now spiralling through the universe as a mobile black hole.
What he didn't notice, until he felt the tug at his neck, was his tie was pointing towards it.
He looked down at his feet and saw they had slid further than where he had stopped.
It was pulling him in too now, and if he went in, so would his TARDIS, this TARDIS.
His hearts leapt at the thought. The same TARDIS, from two time periods merging? Where one nothing more than a shell surrounding a black hole?
He turned, and with a supreme effort, pulled himself back inside fully. He slammed shut the doors and used the handrail to drag himself towards the console.
He scratched his head again while he stood there, trying to think of what he could do to prevent a merging that would shatter the universe.
It took him only a few minutes, but it felt like hours. More buttons, more dials. His fingers were a blur of motion as looked back towards the doors.
Towards his future.
And the TARDIS, this TARDIS started into life, the console rose & fell, still slow. The engines groaned and wheezed, and the bell, that damned bell, rang.
It was slow, so slow, but with a shudder that threw him from his feet. The machine vanished into the corridors of time that it had travelled for centuries, and
with a forlorn look to the door again, he keyed a final command into his console.
The TARDIS, the blue police box that had protected him for most of his life materialised again.
He knew where he had come, and opened the door to a snowbound scene. Waiting there was a familiar figure. A solitary Ood. And his destiny.
And somewhere, adrift in time & space, a black hole wandered through the universe.
Lyndon Barry - December 2009