Mary stared in wonderment at the object on the television screen. It looked like a giant, crystal snowflake, except it was lying horizontal and suspended in the blackness of space. She wasn’t sure exactly how big it was, but it seemed rather vast. There were lights glowing inside the crystal structure, but they were flickering a dimming.
“She seems to have settled for now,” said the Doctor, as he finished checking the readouts. They had only left Kettleworth Woods a few hours ago and Mary hadn’t yet gotten used to being in this strange place that he called the TARDIS.
“Is that really space out there?” asked Mary, her eyes still fixed on the screen.
The Doctor smiled at her and nodded. “Indeed it is, Miss Auckland. And it feels good to get back out here again.” He looked down at the console. “Even if it does mean that I’m not in control of you at the moment.”
“So what’s that outside?” she said, turning to look at him.
“Well,” said the Doctor, rubbing his hands together, “this is something I’ve read about but never had the chance to witness myself.” He adjusted a dial on the console and the screen zoomed in closer to the snowflake. “It’s the year 3325. December 25th to be exact, and that is one of the Crystal Stations.”
“The year is 3325…” she trailed off, mulling it over in her mind. “Goodness me, that makes me…well, very, very old.”
“And yet you don’t look a day over 24, Mary,” smiled the Doctor, his eyes twinkling.
“And it’s Christmas Day?” She looked into the distance. “It was summer only a few hours ago.”
“That’s time travel for you.” The Doctor winked at her. “Merry Christmas, Mary.”
“So they still have Christmas in the future?”
“There will always be a Christmas,” said the Doctor. “Well, some variation at least. Any chance for a good knees up and your race will take it.”
“This is quite frankly the most unbelievable thing I have ever witnessed.” She smiled at him.
“There’s more to come, believe me,” he said.
“So, what’s a Crystal Station?”
“If memory serves then this should be orbiting one of the Earth colonies.” He adjusted the scanner and the view tilted down to show a red and white planet down below. The Crystal Station appeared to be orbiting the planet. “Ah, yes, the planet Tiski. One of your Earth colonies should be down there somewhere.”
“Earth colonies…? So Human kind takes themselves out into the stars.”
“Absolutely,” he said, turning the view back to the Crystal Station. “For a short period of time the Crystal Stations were designed to draw power from star, sun and moonlight. Much like solar power panels of the 21st century.”
Mary looked confused.
The Doctor waved it away. “It doesn’t matter. But what matters is that these Crystal Stations orbited each colony world and absorbed the light from celestial bodies. It was then beamed down to the planets to keep the colonies going.”
“You said for a short period of time?”
“Yes.” The Doctor looked sad. “They soon became unstable, unable to hold so much power, and were eventually shut down. After a while their power would fade and the dead stations would fall to the planet below.”
“It looks beautiful,” said Mary, “but it doesn’t look like it’s got much power left in it.”
The Doctor noted the flickering lights in the crystal. “Yes, it’s on its last legs, isn’t it? Sad that we’re the only ones here to witness its end.”
“Well, us and that man out there.”
The Doctor frowned. “What?” He peered at the scanner and sure enough there was a man in a yellow spacesuit, complete with rocket pack, floating towards the Crystal Station.
“Who is he?” asked Mary, “and how come he’s not dead.”
“He’s wearing a protective suit to keep him alive,” said the Doctor as the man arrived at the outer shell of the Station. He seemed to be fiddling with a control panel on the side of the station and then a door opened and the man went inside.
“The fool,” said the Doctor, “he’s going to end up trapped when that thing falls.”
“Should we go and help?” asked Mary. “I mean surely your ship can take us a little bit further across.”
“Let’s find out, shall we?” said the Doctor.
The inside of the station was completely different to the outside. Inside was gleaming white with metal floor plates with the odd occasional window looking out of the corridor into space. The TARDIS materialised in the corridor and the Doctor and Mary exited.
Although the inside of the station was spotless, the lights were faltering and flickering and the air was cold. Very cold. Mary could see her breath.
She gazed around herself in wonderment and the Doctor patted the side of the blue box. “Good girl.” He smiled at Mary. “She always seems to know when someone’s in trouble.”
“This is a bit disappointing actually,” said Mary, folding her arms and looking up and down the corridor.
“What were you expecting, the inside of a snowflake?”
“Well something a bit more…crystal-ly.”
The Doctor laughed. “The crystal panelling outside was designed that way purely to absorb the starlight. The inside always had to be functional. And this is just an outer corridor. There’ll be living quarters and mess halls and allsorts the deeper we go.”
“So people lived on these things?”
“Up to 40 per station,” said the Doctor. “Families as well.”
Mary shivered. She was still wearing her dress from the 1940’s. The Doctor went inside the TARDIS and pulled out an old coat. “This used to belong to a friend of mine called Amy. It’ll keep you warm.” He also handed her a rainbow scarf. “Let’s go. We’ll sort you out with something more function later.”
As they made their way along the corridor the lights continued to flicker and the internal structure of the station groaned and creaked.
“The dying groans of a dead space station,” said the Doctor.
Eventually they reached an internal door. The Doctor pressed his hand against a black, glass handprint panel and the door swished open. It led to another corridor and at the end of that corridor another door. They opened the second door and stepped into a circular room adorned with computer screens on the walls and a column of crystal running through the floor to the ceiling.
“One of the collector rooms,” said the Doctor.
There was a clattering sound across on the other side of the room. The man in the spaceship was standing there, emerging from behind a large computer console. This time he’d removed his rocket pack and helmet. He had white hair and a short white beard and looked scared.
“Hello,” said the Doctor.
“Stay back!” said the man.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” said Mary.
“Who are you?” asked the man, backing himself up against one of the large monitors.
“Just travellers,” said the Doctor. “Travellers simply passing through.”
“No. No, I don’t believe you,” said the man.
“Well I’m sorry to hear that,” said the Doctor, looking downhearted, “but it’s the truth.”
“No, you’re from the government. I know.”
“You mean from Tiski?” asked the Doctor. “No, believe me we’re not from Tiski. My friend Mary is from Earth and I’m from-“
“Don’t lie to me,” shouted the man. He looked very distressed. “I’ve already told you lot that I’m coming here and they can’t stop.”
“Why are you coming here?” asked Mary.
“To get what I left behind.” He screwed his eyes shut and then shook his head. “I have my mission and you will not stop me. I don’t care if you send me to prison.”
“Believe me, sir, I wouldn’t dream of stopping you, but this station is about to fail. It’s about to fall.”
“All the more reason why you need to stay back and let me do what I need to do.”
“If we could just-” started Mary.
But before she could finish the man had pulled out what looked like some advanced form of gun and pulled the trigger. The light blinded them and then nothing…
When Mary woke up the Doctor was examining the monitors. She had a slight headache, but other than that she felt quite well.
“Ah, you’re awake,” said the Doctor.
“What happened?” asked Mary, unsteadily getting herself to her feet and then crossing over to the monitors. “Did he shoot us?”
“In essence, yes,” said the Doctor. “It was a very low-level stun gun. Knocked us out for about ten minutes. Well, me for around 7 minutes and you for ten minutes. Just enough time for him to get away though.”
“Down here I presume?” said Mary, noticing that a panel had been removed from the floor next to the column of crystal.
“Yes. He seems to be heading down through the station.” The monitors flickered and fizzed. “I’m afraid there’s not much power left here.”
“What’s he after though?” said Mary. “He seems really frightened.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” said the Doctor, indicating the access hole in the floor panels.
“You can’t seriously be wanting us to follow him? You said this place is about to collapse.” She shivered again.
“We have two choices, Miss Auckland,” said the Doctor. “We either follow him down there and get him to safety, or we leave and go on our merry way.”
“I suppose this is the part of the day where I let me conscious get the better of me?” She smiled at him. “Well, if I’m going to die it might as well be in a huge, crystal snowflake hundreds of years from home.”
“You’re not going to die, Mary,” said the Doctor as he peered down the shaft. The crystal column ran through the floor and down the shaft and there appeared to be metal framework leading down into the bowls of the station.
“So he’s gone down there?” said Mary, peering down the shaft.
The Doctor nodded. “Follow me and keep a tight hold of the frame work,” he said as the station creaked and groaned again and more lights flickered out.
The climb only took about five minutes, but for Mary it felt longer. When they reached the bottom of the shaft she rubbed her hands together. They were sore from gripping to the framework so tight.
“You all right?” asked the Doctor, who was already scanning the brightly lit room.
“I used to go climbing the trees with Hannah Carpenter,” she said, nodding, “much to my mothers horror. Broke my arm once cos of those blasted trees.”
“It’s bright down here,” said the Doctor, noticing lumps of broken off crystal strewn over the floor.
“And warm. Too warm.”
“Considering this is where the energy is pumped through it’s bound to get a bit overheated. Underneath these floor panels is nothing but space. The starlight is channelled through the crystal columns that are placed around the circumference of the station and converted to energy, which is then beamed from the underside of the station.”
“I told you not to follow me,” came the same man’s voice.
He was standing, once again with his stun gun aimed at them, a look of determination on his face.
“Whatever you’ve come down here for is not worth it,” said the Doctor.
“You know nothing!” the man spat.
“Listen, Mr…we don’t even known your name.”
“Henry. Henry Tomlinson.”
“Well, Henry, the Doctor has told me some pretty scary things about this station. He says it’s about to crash down to the planet below. You need to come with us.”
“You don’t understand,” said Henry. He was beginning to get more and more frustrated.
“Then tell us,” said Mary.
He looked to his right and nodded to something behind some jagged crystals. A blonde woman and two little boys emerged, looking worried.
“This is why you came down here?” asked the Doctor.
“Why else?” said Henry. “But you already know that.”
“For the last time,” said the Doctor, “we’re not for the government.”
“Maybe we should listen to them,” said the woman.
“Fiona, we can’t trust them.”
“Listen,” said the Doctor, “why don’t you tell us what happened?”
Henry looked at Fiona and then back to the Doctor and Mary. “All four of us used to live on the station. When it started to go into shutdown a few days ago we were ordered to evacuate. I had to leave first with some of the equipment whilst the Fiona and the boys were loaded onto the family transports.”
“Except we weren’t,” said Fiona. “There must have been some confusion because the transports left without us.”
“I didn’t even realise until we got back to Tiski.” He shook his head. “I tried to get back up to the station but they wouldn’t let me. Said it was too dangerous. I begged and pleaded with them, but.... It’s a criminal offence to set foot on one of these once the evac orders been given.”
“So you took it upon yourself to get back up here to them?” asked Mary. “And you’ve been living down here?” she asked Fiona.
“It was the warmest place,” said Fiona. She stroked her boy’s hair. “We just waited and hoped that someone would come.”
“I stole a rocket pack and made my own way,” said Henry. “I’ll go to prison, I know it.”
“But how were you going to get them back to Tiski?” said the Doctor. “You only have one rocket pack.”
Henry shook his head in frustration as the crystals in the chamber flickered and dimmed. “I don’t know, I don’t know…”
“Look, we can get you out of here,” said the Doctor. “I have a ship.”
“It’s true,” said Mary. “And we can take you back home.”
“I can’t go back. I’ll be arrested.”
“Then I can take you somewhere else. Somewhere were you can start a new life.”
“Are you serious?” asked Fiona.
“Absolutely,” said the Doctor. The station creaked again and the lights flickered. “But we need to leave now.”
The climb back up the shaft wasn’t as hard as the climb down. Mary suspected it was more because it was a matter of urgency. The station was now starting to tremble and vibrate and the lights were nearly all out. Mary went first, followed by Fiona with the Doctor and Henry each carrying a child on their back, the children’s arms wrapped around their necks.
“Keep going,” shouted the Doctor up to the rest of them. “This place doesn’t have long left.”
They finally emerged into the upper control chamber and got their breaths back.
“We lived here for five years,” said Fiona, looking around the control room. “Five years.”
“You’ll have many more years to come, Mrs Tomlinson. You, your husband and your boys.” He tussled the hair of one of the youths who smiled up at the Doctor.
The station lurched to the side and they were nearly thrown off their feet.
“We better get a move on,” said Mary.
The crystal running through the station began to crack and disintegrate. They Doctor nodded. “Come on.”
They ran through the linking corridor and back to the outer corridor until the familiar site of the blue TARDIS appeared before them. A steel girder came crashing down, just missing the Doctor, as he fumbled for the key.
“Please cooperate for us again, old girl,” said the Doctor as he ushered them all inside.
A few minutes later the ship was hanging in space once again, watching the station flicker before finally going dark. There came a huge groaning sound from the internal structure of the station and slowly the giant, crystal snowflake began to fall towards the planet below.
“What about the people on Tiski?” asked Mary, looking worried.
“The government will have predicted planet fall and evacuated the area.”
The station continued to fall towards the planet gathering more and more speed as it entered the atmosphere. Now its crystal panelling was burning off the structure leaving only the dull, grey metal of the inner hull.
Mary, the Doctor and the Tomlinson’s watched as the station became a flaming speck against the red and white colours of Tiski before finally disappearing from view.
“It’s done,” said the Doctor, rubbing his hands together. He looked at the Tomlinson’s who looked sad. “I can’t promise you I’ll get you to a better planet. My ship’s been playing up since I got her back.”
Henry smiled. “Anywhere’s gotta be better than down there. And I’ll be with my family as well.” He hugged as wife tightly.
“Pot luck it is then,” said the Doctor, pulling the lever to dematerialise the ship. “Take us somewhere nice. Family friendly. Centre Parcs maybe,” he said.
Mary and the Tomlinson’s frowned at him.
“Take us somewhere peaceful.” The Doctor looked at Mary. “Oh, and Merry Christmas to you all.”
“Merry Christmas, Doctor,” she laughed.
A few corridors away, in the TARDIS medi-bay, the teenage Kyla slept in her stasis tube, but she was smiling. It was a contented smile. “Somewhere peaceful,” she whispered in her sleep. “Merry Christmas…”
And then all was silent again.
The End
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