Lost In Thought

Time Lord Defeated

LizBeth:

Where else did you go to get peace? 

An empty, atmosphere-less planet, where we had to just walk across the red sands with spacesuits on. His was garishly orange, while mine was just dark blue. Only one that fit me. "This, this is beautiful. We need to do this sort of thing more."

"Yeah, it is. So's that." He pointed over the crater, where there was a Base with a capital B, five outlying domes around a central one and shuttle pad connected to the central dome by modular walkways. "Oh, beautiful."

"We're supposed to be away from people today! You so knew this would be here when we landed!"

Which was when something jabbed me in the back. "Rotate slowly." Seriously? That, that was some short ass human robot, holding a stupid gun on us. "You are under arrest for trespassing. Gadget gadget."

Unable to do anything in the vacuum of Mars, I couldn't take it without  getting shot, so had to be escorted to the main dome, where we had another person aim a weapon at us. So much for that peaceful day. "State your names, ranks, and intention."

"The Doctor."

"Elizabeth Caine."

"Doctor."

"Professor and Archivist."

"Fun."

Not a chance. "Babysitting."

Some other man ran in, utterly lost. "What the hell? It's a man and a woman. A man and woman on Mars. How?"

"They were wearing these things. I have never seen anything like them."

Because I made them? But they weren't even looking at us, just their boss. "What did Mission Control say?"

"They're out of range for ten hours with the solar flares."

The boss was getting annoyed with her team. I knew her. I definitely knew her, and I wanted to work it out myself instead of going in her head. "If we could cut the chat, everyone."

Setting off my brother. He always did love the sound of his voice. "Actually, chat's second on my list, the first being gun pointed at our heads." You and I both knew that it wouldn't hit, I'd just put up a shield. "Which then puts our heads second and chat third, I think. Gun, heads, chat, yeah. I hate lists, it's LizBeth who likes things ordered." Because it made it easier to find things! "But you could hurt someone with that thing. Just put it down."

"Oh, you'd like that."

"Most people in the universe would, Captain."

Her gaze moved to me, as I was the one who hadn't been annoying. "Why should I trust you both?"

I was trustworthy. "Because I give you my word. And forty million miles away from your home, my word is all you've got. My brother and I are harmless to you, I swear it."

"Keep Gadget covering them."

Personally, that was a pretty good set up, but the repeating of its name was seriously annoying. "Auto-glove response, it's clever. You know, it's only a single number change to turn it to a complete neural interface-" The Doctor cleared his throat. "Ignore me. That's very unlike me to say that sort of thing, you're rubbing off on me."

"Gadget gadget."

That was already driving the both of us up the wall. "Does it have to keep saying that?"

"I think it's funny."

It really wasn't. "I hate funny robots."

Someone else then spoke over the intercom. "Excuse me, boss. Computer log says we've got two extra people on site. How's that possible?"