The Ice Warrior's Grave

Chapter 4

Location: Space

All you could see of the Historian, who had returned to work as soon as she had eaten something, was her leather boots sticking out from beneath the console. The top of the console was covered in wires and gadgets thrown thrown here and there. K-9 sat quietly in the corner of the room long ago given up trying to advise the apparently deaf Time Lady.

"Mistress," K-9 started as a red light began to blink on the console.

"Not now K-9. Can't you see I'm busy? the Historian replied, briefly sliding out to glare at the robot dog before sliding back underneath the console.

"But Mistress there..."

"Shut up K-9 before I turn you off," the Historian cut K-9 off before he could finish.

"Negative, Mistress, you can not turn me off," K-9 replied.

"K-9," the Historian warned.

K-9 wisely did as he was told and stopped talking but he kept watching the steadily flashing red light on the console. For you see, the red light was an incoming distress signal that was coming from the planet known as Earth, which was the Historian's and also the Doctor's favorite planet. Any alien on Earth wasn't good because an alien usually means trouble even if they aren't dangerous.

A muffled shout came from under the console as the Historian tried to join two wires together and missed, hitting her hand instead. She tried again and this time she successfully got them joined. She put the wires back in their place and slid out.

"Well K-9 I think I've finally fixed everything," she announced standing up.

"Negative Mistress," K-9 replied.

"What do you mean, negative?" she exclaimed.

"The wire are not in their proper place," K-9 replied.

The Historian ducked back under the console and fixed the wires. "There, now they are". She then started to tidy away all the wires and other gadgets that were lying on the console.

"K-9 do you know what this is?" she questioned, holding up a small gray box with a couple blinking lights all of them currently red.

"Affirmative," K-9 replied, "it is part of the force field generator."

"Really?" the Historian queried. "Interesting. Is it an important part of it?"

"Affirmative Mistress, it is the secondary control unit."

"Oh is that all it does. I guess I should reconnect it," she said sighing.

"It is recommended," K-9 replied.

The Historian took it back over to the console, grabbing her sonic screwdriver on the way. She slid back underneath the console and started pulling out the wires that she needed. She connected it back into the whole contraption that powered the TARDIS's outer force shield and slid it back into place.

"There that wasn't so bad," she said standing up and brushing herself off. "And K-9 don't you dare say a word," she snapped glaring at him. K-9 wisely remained quiet. "Well I'm off to the library to get some well earned relaxing done. You stay here and tell me if anything starts goes wonky," she told K-9 as she started toward the door that led to the rest of the TARDIS.

"Affirmative Mistress," K-9 replied to an empty doorway.

On the far side of the console the red distress beacon continued flashing, but neither K-9 nor the Historian noticed it.