"Anything on your tracker?" Celestia asked Deeva as they walked, her fingers intertwined with The Doctor's.
"I think so. Large chamber up ahead. This is it." She said when they arrived where the tracker was pointing.
"The door's locked. Let's have a look at the locking system." The Doctor said, as he let go of The Celestia's hand to remove the metal cover. "Hmm. Not very helpful. All the control mechanisms are burnt out. They must have been subjected to some kind of massively disruptive energy burst." The Doctor guessed.
"Like an ion storm? They're pretty common in the Garazone sector." Deeva said.
"Yes, of course! No wonder the hibernation unit malfunctioned." Celestia said, understanding the reason.
"It's a wonder it didn't knock out the emergency lighting cells as well." The Doctor added.
"Well, I suggest we attempt to force the door." Deeva said.
"You must be stronger than you look." The Doctor said. Then they started scraping the heavy metal on metal.
"Is that far enough?" Deeva asked.
"Yes. That should suffice. I can just about squeeze through." The Doctor said as he passed through the door. "What's that awful smell?" The Doctor asked as he coughed. "It smells like" The Celestia cut him off.
"Like death."Celestia said as she and Deeva squeezed through as well.
"This certainly isn't the freezing chamber." Deeva guessed.
"No, quite the opposite. No wonder this place smelt of death. There must be hundreds of corpses." The Doctor explained.
"All of them at various stages of Cyber-conversion." Deeva deduced.
"Are you sure you didn't major in Cyber-studies?" Celestia asked her.
"Hmm?" Deeva said, not listening what the Time Lady said.
"You seem remarkably well-informed." The Doctor agreed with the Time Lady.
"This chamber must have been fully operational when the ion storm hit." Deeva changed the subject, making Celestia look at her in question. "The systems failed."
"And all these, prisoners of the Cybermen, captured to increase the Cyber-race, died in lingering agony, trapped in mid-conversion." The Doctor said.
"The human elements rotted, and yet the cybernetic replacements look" Deeva said but Celestia cut her off.
"Like they're straight off the production line. This is a factory ship, sent out to gather new recruits for the Cyber-cause." She explained.
"I wonder how the process worked?" Deeva wondered.
"Morbid curiosity? The Cybermen must have set it in motion, then submitted themselves to freezing, to ride out the storm thinking they'd be safer in hibernation." The Doctor explained when Deeva's tracker bleeped.
"There's another large chamber near here. Shall we take a look?" Deeva asked the Time Lords.
"Yes, let's." The Doctor said as he took Celestia's hand again. As they walked, Celestia couldn't help but study Deeva's behaviour. She wondered whether it's possible for a human to know this much about Cybermen.
"What are you thinking about?" The Doctor asked her telepathically.
"Deeva."
"What about her?"
"It strikes me odd that she knows too much about Cybermen."
"Yes, that was really odd."
YOU ARE READING
Fixing The Problems
FanfictionCelestia is a Time Lady from Gallifrey who is the best friend of The Doctor. She met him when they joined Time Lord Academy. They immediately got along and became best friends. She is also coming from a family of, what some people might call, "witch...
