Stellar Collision

Chapter 7

The Doctor stared at the closed apartment door for a moment. He knew he was going to have to find some way to get through to her. The psychic connection he'd been experiencing was tied to her somehow and he had high hopes that it was a "her" inhabiting his universe. He sighed and decided to check in with the TARDIS. Maybe if he gave Dayle a chance to calm down she'd more easily take in what he'd told her as well as what she'd witnessed with her own eyes.

The TARDIS sat undisturbed at the end of the hall. Fortunately, she didn't seem to be blocking any exits or walkways but her presence there was a mystery and a novelty to the residents of this floor. He spotted an elderly woman poking the blue box with her cane. When he approached, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"Do you have something to do with this strange cabinet?" she demanded. "It wasn't here when I checked my mail earlier." She leaned in conspiratorially, "I swear, it's like it's alive. You can feel a humming when you lay your hands on it."

He cleared his throat, smiled brightly, and the Doctor did what the Doctor does best- he improvised.

"Miss, I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the box. It is VERY very dangerous."

The woman gasped and ambled some distance away- quite fast for someone of her age. The Doctor was impressed.

"Is it a bomb!?" she squeaked, eyes wide.

Oops. He didn't want to start a panic in the building.

"Oh no no no" he assured her, flailing his arms a bit. "Nothing like that. It's just an... electrical box. Somewhat like a generator but it's been installed to... help make the building more energy efficient."

She stepped a bit closer again. "Are you with the electric company then?" She looked him up and down, taking in his torn sleeve and blackened clothing. "You boys used to at least wear a uniform shirt. And generally it had two sleeves."

The Doctor nodded, "Yes, well, I'm more of an underground repair man, you see. Been working away in those tunnels. Getting all the wiring hooked up for the new electrical box. Very dirty. And electrical." He silently berated himself. Not his finest bit of improv.

The lady seemed to be buying it though. "Is that the way that works? Huh. Well, I hope you have good benefits. Looks like a dangerous job." She finally headed down the hall to the elevator.

The Doctor slammed his face into his palm. Ridiculous.

Once he ascertained there was nobody else around, he dug in his shoe for a spare key.

He took a deep breath. Come on Old Girl. Let me in.

He jammed the key into the lock and it turned easily. The door swung open and he was thrilled to see that the TARDIS had completed the healing process.

Closing the door behind him, he rushed to the scanner. He knew the TARDIS would have stored any data from the time of the collision in the data core. Something like a black box on an airplane.

He pressed a few buttons and a readout appeared on the screen. He squinted at the figures, calculating space time coordinates in his head. Well they were certainly all over the place. Beneath all that were the results of a scan the TARDIS had automatically performed on the stranded ship he'd been trying to save. A single word caught his eye: Hologram.

"What the..." he whispered. He tapped a few keys on the console and the scanner answered his next question.

Origin of technology: Tregannon

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at the screen. So, the technology used to project the hologram of a stranded ship had belonged to a species called the Tregannon. The Doctor frowned, remembering that he'd encountered them once before, back in another lifetime. Back when he had curly blonde hair and an atrocious multi colored coat. He and his companion at the time, along with the Brigadier had found a Tregannon named Sancreda who had been abandoned on earth centuries before. The creature had wreaked all sorts of havoc on Lanyon Moor before he had been destroyed by the Brig.