"Viva Las Vegas!" the Doctor exclaimed, bursting through the TARDIS doors—
—and onto the flooding, red-lit control deck of a submarine. The floor tilted, and he hurtled across the room, the others suffering much the same fate.
"Stranger on the bridge!" a soldier cried.
"Who the hell are you?" the captain demanded. His name was sewn into the shoulder of his uniform: Captain Zhukov.
Wanda rolled her eyes, adjusting the neckline of her deep blue strapless dress. "Not Vegas, then."
The Doctor didn't seem too worried. "No. No, this is much better."
"A sinking submarine?" Clara pointed out, incredulous.
"A sinking Soviet submarine," the Doctor realised, recognising the Cyrillic script on the controls.
"Break out sidearms! Restrain them!"
"Four ten, four twenty," a young soldier, Onegin, reported. "Turbines still not responding!"
"They've got to!" Zhukov cried.
"Sideways momentum," McKenzie exclaimed, clinging to a pipe as the submarine tilted and rocked. "You've still got sideways momentum!"
Zhukov looked her up and down, taking in the stiletto heels, the long red one-shouldered evening dress, the distinct lack of limb from the opposite shoulder. "What?"
"Your propellers work independently of the main turbines," she explained quickly. "You can't stop her going down but you can manoeuvre the sub laterally. Do it!"
"Get these people off the bridge now!" the second-in-command ordered.
"Just listen to her, for God's sake!" Wanda tried.
The Doctor whipped out his sonic, scanning all around. "Geographical anomaly to starboard," he announced, even as two Soviet soldiers grabbed him. "Probably an underwater ridge."
"How do you know this?!" Zhukov demanded.
"Look, we have just a chance to stop the descent if we settle on the ridge," McKenzie stressed. "Do it!"
"Six hundred metres," Onegin called. "Sir, six ten!"
McKenzie swallowed, holding the captain's gaze. "Or this thing is going to implode."
Zhukov narrowed his eyes, then nodded. "Lateral thrust to starboard, all propellers!"
"Sir?" Onegin hesitated.
"Now!" Zhukov commanded.
His second-in-command gave him an incredulous look. "You're going to let this woman give the orders?!"
McKenzie narrowed her eyes. "You're damn right you are, if you want to live."
"Lateral thrust!" Zhukov roared.
"Aye, sir!" Onegin exclaimed, stepping to it. "Six sixty, six eighty." They all stumbled as the submarine hit the ridge. "Descent arrested at seven hundred metres."
The captain turned to the Doctor and McKenzie. "It seems we owe you our lives, whoever you are."
McKenzie raised an eyebrow. "I'll hold you to that."
YOU ARE READING
One Last Chance |6| The Ascension
Science Fiction✅ approx. 215,000 words After the horrors of the war against Thanos, the Doctor and McKenzie are finally together again, albeit missing a limb. But that isn't the only thing they are bereft of. The death of their son cut them to the core and they wi...
