Until We Burn | Dr Who

Chapter Eighty-Four: Progeny

Despite our best efforts, the Tardis continues to shake. "What the hell's it doing?" Donna screeches as I beat the mallet against the console's edge. It only creaks in response.

"Control's not working!" Another tremor knocks the Doctor off his balance. He falls, coming up close to the jar that stores his hand, the liquid around it bubbling far more than usual. "I don't know where we're going, but my old hand's very excited about it."

She looks down at it in disgust and jumps away. "I thought that was just some freaky alien thing! You telling me it's yours?"

Martha grimaces with the effort of holding onto the console. "It got cut off. He grew a new one."

"You are completely... impossible!"

"Not impossible, just a bit unlikely."

One last explosion of sparks knocks us back. The ship falls silent.

Panting, the Doctor and I lock eyes. In an instant we are both on our feet and out the door, finding ourselves in a dark tunnel cluttered with walls of scrap metal and barbed wire. There doesn't seem to be a living soul nearby. "Why would the Tardis bring us here?"

"Oh, I love this bit," Martha says under her breath.

Donna sends her a strange look. "Thought you wanted to go home."

"I know, but all the same. It's that feeling you get..."

"Like you've swallowed a hamster."

We don't get a chance to react to her comment. A shout alerts us and several men appear, all dressed in army green with their guns aimed at us. "Don't move! Drop your weapons!" squeaks the boy leading them.

Leading by example, the Doctor raises his hands in surrender and turns them to show that they are empty. "We're not armed. Look, no weapons, never any weapons, we're safe."

"Look at their hands," another says. "They're clean."

"All right. Process them. Him first."

They seize the Doctor. My body moves after his as if on instinct, trying to block their path, but the gun is turned on me instead. "It's all right. Stand down, Inara," he warns. I begrudgingly step back, clutching at my still-injured wrist. "What's wrong with clean hands?"

"What's going on? Leave him alone!"

He is marched over to a giant tank of a machine, where they force his arm down a metal chute. "Something tells me this isn't about to check my blood pressure. I—" Whatever he is about to say next is cut off by his own screaming.

My heart races. Panicked, I swiftly grab the gun from the boy and turn it on his friends. "What are you doing to him?"

"Everyone gets processed."

"It's taken a tissue sample," the Doctor gasps. "Ina— Ow, ow, ow! And extrapolated it. Some kind of accelerator?"

"Get him out of that thing right this second or I swear to all the Gods, I'll—"

With a loud clanking of parts, the chute opens and he is released. My weapon falls, forgotten, as I rush to his side. I take his hand in mine and insistently pull it towards myself for examination. A thin streak of read covers the back of it, spotted with emerging droplets of blood. He gapes at it in bewilderment. "What on Earth? That's just..."

The glass doors of the tank slide open. From the blue light within, a girl emerges. She wears the same colours as our attackers, and her long blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail. Staring around her surroundings in wonder, she steps out. A gun is pushed into her hands.