Garon Tor wasn’t exactly old, but neither was he a young man either. He had spent a decent enough time working at City Banking for the last twenty years. He’d gained enough qualifications to do any job he wanted in the city, but he had chosen to go into banking. He liked working with numbers more than he liked working with people. Something about facts and figures and equations made him feel more relaxed. People often annoyed him.
So right now, at this very moment stuck in a cramp, confined space with three other people, he wasn’t exactly in the best of moods. But in reality the three other people were the least of his problems.
There was a muffled boom from somewhere above him and a trickle of dust fell from the barely illuminated tunnel ceiling.
He finished washing his face in the puddle of water on the tunnel floor and then lay down on the floor, stretching his legs out as far as he could. He longed – no, he ached – to be able to stand up, but he knew that wasn’t going to be happening any time soon.
He took out his pen-torch and flashed it at the ceiling above him. He looked at the blue-tinged rock, hoping against all hope that it might somehow suddenly reveal a gap in the ceiling or at least a crack so he could see above ground again.
He laid there staring at the ceiling for a good few minutes until he was whisked back to reality.
“Garon?” came the female voice.
He tried to ignore it and tried to focus again on the ceiling. He almost felt like he could will a crack into the rock.
“Garon?” came the voice again.
Garon rolled his eyes and then rolled onto his side, craning his neck to peer into the darkness. A few metres away from him was a woman in her late twenties. She had straight red hair tied back into a ponytail. She was still pretty despite in the dirty, grey business suit that she was wearing.
“Zeela, can I not have five minutes to myself?”
“Five minutes lying on your back staring at rock isn’t going to get us out of this,” she said. Her yellow eyes had a look of frustration in them.
“We’ve been here for seven months, Zeela. What difference are five more minutes going to make?”
“It could make all the difference,” she said, clearly frustrated with him.
Garon closed his eyes. He liked Zeela. She could be bloody annoying at times, but she was generally a sweet woman. He’d never really paid her much attention at work, but now he was here with her…well, he had no choice really.
“Are you coming?” she said.
“Yes,” said Garon, opening his eyes and flashing her an angry look. He turned onto all fours and then began crawling down the tunnel. He followed Zeela for a few metres, not attempting to ignore her backside in front of him, until the tunnel turned to the left.
The light was better here and sitting further down the tunnel, cross-legged, was an old man with scruffy grey hair and a very untidy beard. Next to him was a bald-headed woman with piercing white eyes. She had a ridge running all the way from the top of her head down to her nose.
“Morning Cobalt,” said Garon to the bald-headed woman who nodded curtly to him.
“Morning to you, Mr Tor,” said the old man, his purple eyes twinkling in the light from the lamp.
“Good morning Bren,” said Garon, still not quite coming to terms with being in this scruffy gentleman’s company.
There was another loud boom from up above.
“Can I presume that Zeela’s impatience means that you’ve found us a way out, Cobalt?”
“I have not,” said Cobalt, shaking her head. Her voice betrayed no emotion.
“Then why the hell have you dragged me down here?” said Garon. “I was perfectly happy trying to think my way out of these blasted tunnels.”
“Miss Cobalt does have some news, don’t you, love?”
Cobalt looked at Bren and then back to Garon. “I do.” She opened up a silver carry case. “I’m afraid we are nearly out of water.”
“What?” said Garon, looking down at the remaining water pouches sat in the silver case. “I thought we had plenty.”
“We did,” said Zeela, “but it seems that Cobalt, here, wasn’t exactly telling the truth.”
Garon looked at Cobalt.
“Before you begin you’re inevitable tirade of abuse towards me, Mr. Tor, I must warn you that I acted in our best interests.”
“By lying about the amount of water we had left?”
“I’m as shocked as you are, Garon,” said Zeela, “but I understand why she did it.”
“The woman was trying to keep us alive,” said Bren, giving a sideways smile to the cool-looking woman.
“If I’d have told you we only had enough supplies for seven months you would have panicked.”
“But at least I’d have known how long I had left!” said Garon. He got off his hands and knees and sat crossed-legged. “And now we’re all going to die.”
“Don’t lose hope, chief,” said Bren,
Garon glowered at the old man. “We’ve been stuck in these bloody tunnels for seven months. We can’t stand up. We can’t get out. All this whilst a bloody war rages above our heads. So tell me, all of you, how the hell are we going to get out of this?”
Mary looked at herself in the mirror and frowned. She didn’t feel comfortable in this at all, but she didn’t have much choice. In fact the Doctor had been quite apologetic. Not long after they had dropped the Tomlinson family off on a far away planet the Doctor had disappeared into the inner rooms of his time machine and returned with a box containing some of the strangest clothes she had seen.
“I’m afraid my ship hasn’t quite finished rebuilding herself yet. The TARDIS wardrobe and all her garments are slowly reappearing from the dimensional pockets they were sucked into.”
She had lost him after ‘dimensional pockets’. Anyway, the gist of what he was saying was that these were the only clothes he could find her.
As her other clothes were more or less ruined from her experience in Kettleworth Woods and all the climbing should had done on the crystal station she didn’t have much choice. She was standing in a blue blouse, blue top with rainbow stripes across the chest and a pair of what the Doctor had told her were called tracksuit bottoms. All this was topped off with a pair of leather boots. She had refused the blue bobble hat he had handed her.
There was a knock on the door. “Can I come in, Miss Auckland.”
“Be my guest,” she said, frowning at her reflection.
The Doctor stepped in, looked at her and tutted.
“And this is absolutely all you have?”
“Not exactly the clothes for a 1940’s girl, but they’ll have to do I’m afraid.” He looked around the room. “This is your room as well. Used to belong to my friend, Holly. Although it’s changed somewhat since then.” He looked wistful at the memory.
“My room?” said Mary. “Doctor, I don’t intend on staying for long.” She had been quite clear that, whilst she was intrigued to know more about him and his adventures, she wasn’t going to go gallivanting around time and space with him.
“I know, I know,” he said, holding up his hands, “but I’m afraid the TARDIS isn’t responding to me at the moment. We may be stuck trying to get you home for some time.”
“I have a job and a life to get back to,” she said.
“And this is a time machine. Once I can get her back under my control I’ll be able to get you back the day you left. Nobody will be any the wiser.”
Mary sighed and then looked at her reflection. “Oh, if mother could see me now.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said, clapping her on the back, “and before you know it the wardrobe will be back and you’ll have something else to choose.”
They made their way back to the control room. She still hadn’t gotten over the fact that everything inside was crammed into that small, blue box she had stepped into. It didn’t even feel like what she thought I spaceship should feel like. She’d seen the comics and it didn’t look anything like this. It was all huge screens and big chairs. This felt more like the inside of a building rather than a spaceship.
She stepped over to the console and ran her fingers across the various dials, careful not to press any of the switches.
The Doctor walked around to the other side and continued to play with some of the switches.
“Who’s Holly anyway?” she asked, remembering that she’d been stood in someone else’s bedroom.
“Just a friend. Long gone now,” he said, sadly.
The thought of someone else being on this craft reminded her of their other companion. “How’s Kyla?”
“Still sedated,” said the Doctor.
“Shouldn’t we try and get her home?” asked Mary.
The Doctor looked at Mary, but before he could respond the sound of the engines filled the room. The TARDIS was landing.
“Ah, maybe I can finally make some calculations,” said the Doctor, pulling a notepad out from his inner pocket.
The TARDIS began to vibrate. At first it was gentle, but it started to get more and more violent. The engines thudded, signalling the ship had landed, but the box continued to vibrate.
“Doctor, what on Earth is that?” said Mary, starting to feel quite sick.
“I don’t know.” He flicked a switch and the small television monitor above the inner door flicked on, but it showed nothing but darkness.
“Can we at least get out of here,” said Mary. “Before I throw up?!”
“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, activating the door controls.
The great double doors swung open, but instead of a landscape outside it was a solid wall of blue rock with a hole in the middle big enough for someone to crawl into.
“Okay, that’s not strange at all,” said Mary, walking over to the hole.
“Fascinating!” said the Doctor, joining her. “I think we’ve landed inside something.”
The TARDIS shook even more.
Mary started climbing into the hole. “I feel sick, Doctor. We need to leave.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “but let’s be careful.”
The two of them clambered out of the TARDIS control room and into the blue, rocky tunnel. They turned back to look at the TARDIS but it seemed to disappear into the rock with only the small opening showing any sign of the machine. With a loud bang the doors of the TARDIS swung shut and the engines of the ship started up.
“No!” said the Doctor, quickly crawling back to the doors. He put his key in the lock, but with a violent shake the TARDIS quickly dematerialised.
“No…”
“What just happened?” asked Mary. The TARDIS was gone and the tunnel now stretched outwards where the TARDIS had once been.
“The TARDIS couldn’t cope with materialising within solid rock.” He felt around the tunnel but there was no evidence that anything had ever been there. “She’s gone.”
“We all heard it, Garon, you don’t need to keep banging on about it.”
“So what was it?” asked the worried looking man, trying to smooth his greying dark hair back in place.
“Probably just another bomb,” said Zeela.
“It sounded different,” said Garon.
“He’s right there, Zee-Zee. Sounded like engines,” said Bren.
“Maybe they’ve finally come for us,” said Garon.
“Doubtful,” said Cobalt. “The explosions are still going on above. They won’t come and rescue us in the midst of that.”
Garon frowned at her. “Well thank you, beacon of hope.” He closed his eyes. “The water situation-”
“We’ve already discussed this,” Zeela interrupted him. “We’re going to have to ration it even more.”
“There’s the puddle,” said Garon.
“The puddle you wash in?” said Cobalt.
“The puddle I wash in, yes.” He pointed back towards the darkness. “It drips constantly. We can surely drink it.”
“Garon, chief, you smell of vinegar. I ain’t drinking that.”
“Better than smelling like you, Bren Fasko.”
“All right, gentlemen,” said Zeela, holding out her hands. “Bren is right – we can’t drink that water. You may be able to wash in it, but I wouldn’t fancy drinking it.”
Garon closed his eyes and thumped his fist down on the rocky surface, instantly regretting it. “There must be something we can do.”
“Other than sit here, I don’t expect there is much else we can do,” said Zeela.
“Well, we all knew it was coming, didn’t we?” said Bren, drawing his knees up to his chest and looking up ominously at the rocky ceiling.
“I thought it was just rumblings in the media myself,” said Garon. “Never thought it’d happen.”
“I did,” said Zeela. “It was inevitable really.”
“Not inevitable, Zeela,” said Cobalt. “The last thing I heard was that your government was trying to broker a deal with ours.”
“It obviously went horribly wrong,” said Garon. “Probably anti-interspecies protestors again.”
“You surprise me, Garon,” said Zeela. “I would have thought you’d have been keen on keeping our race pure.”
“Sweetheart,” said Garon, flashing her a smile, “I like the ladies no matter what planet they come from.”
Zeela frowned and shook her head, but she couldn’t help but stifle a smile. Garon was an insufferable big head sometimes and loved himself, but she couldn’t deny that he could charm the ladies. That’s when he wasn’t trying to charm the banks numbers.
Her mind started drifting to her own, failed relationships and how she had never truly found someone she really, really cared for. She lived for her job and, no matter how much she hated it, that was her life.
She was about to sink into the misery of her memories again when something caught her attention. There was a sound coming from the tunnel behind her. It was faint at first, but it was getting closer. It sounded like someone – no, two people – crawling through the tunnel.
“Can you hear that?” asked Zeela.
She didn’t need to ask them. Garon, Bren and Cobalt where already looking past her into the darkness.
Zeela scrambled backwards to sit with the others as they stared into the darkness and waited.
“Who’s there?” shouted Garon.
“It’s impossible,” said Zeela. “No one else could have gotten down here.”
But sure enough a face emerged into the dull light followed by a second. The first was an older man, possibly in his late 40’s. He had a thin face with short grey hair. The second person was a young girl, possibly in her early twenties, with dark haired tied back into a ponytail and dressed in an odd mismatch of clothes.
Come to think of it, thought Zeela, the man’s clothes didn’t make much sense either. It was the faces that intrigued her the most though. They definitely weren’t Halleans or Rathtoks. They looked almost Human.
“Who on Hallea are you?” asked Garon.
“Oh, hello,” said the man, smiling widely at them. “This is my friend Mary and my name is the Doctor. We seem to be trapped down here.”
“Join the club,” said Bren.
To be continued...
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