Return Of The Movellans

Chapter 1

Donna Temple-Noble was depressed. She didn't understand why, but she kept feeling that there was something missing, as though she had lost something tremendously important to her. It had been bothering her for over two years now and she still couldn't work out what it was. Her husband Shaun had suggested that she talk to a therapist and see what they could find out. Fat lot of good that did! Each therapist she spoke to was just as baffled as she was and just made some excuse for her feelings, from guilt to child trauma. None of which explained a thing.

Donna was even worried that she was getting paranoid, because Mum and Gramps both at times seem to know what the problem was and sometimes she caught them giving a distant look, but they never said a word. Of course, these 'depression moods' weren't happening all the time, but they were frequent enough to make her feel there was something not natural about them, especially considering how well her life has been going since her wedding day and that mysterious lottery ticket. She never did find out who sent it...

After a rather explosive argument with the latest therapist she had gone to see, Donna had stormed out of the building and decided to take a walk and try to clear her head and calm her nerves. She was currently taking a stroll around the park and was trying to recall when her problem started. It seemed to her that her depression started after an army of over-sized pepper-pots had taken the Earth halfway across space before putting it back again. Donna had always been annoyed that she kept missing all these alien visitors, yet she couldn't work out the reason why she missed this one. Somehow, there was something important to her about the Dalek Invasion, almost as if...

Donna felt a chill run through her, which was odd considering the heavy coat that she was wearing. The park seemed awfully spooky at the moment and it unnerved her. The place was deserted, with the wind making small howling noises and blowing Donna's red hair into her face. Autumn leaves rustled across the grass, like a swarm of insects moving to their hive. In the playground, the children's swings moved back and forth in the wind, squeaking unwelcoming noises and giving the impression that there were ghosts riding on them. Maybe coming here for a breath of air wasn't a good idea after all. Donna was getting an eerie sense of foreboding, as though she was about to meet a living ghost herself.

Her thoughts were rudely interrupted as a cold, firm hand touched her shoulder. Donna spun around to see a bloke with silver braided hair, wearing a white catsuit of some kind and holding some kind of plastic cone at her. His face was cleanly shaven, with no stubble showing, or any spots come to that. His facial expression was completely blank with no emotion showing at all, which somehow reminded Donna of the Android character in 'Star Trek The Next Generation'. He stood completely straight, apparently not cold or shivery from the wind. But the oddest thing was that Donna could have sworn that he was not behind her a moment ago. He just seemed to appear out of nowhere. 'Oh great', she thought to herself, 'now I'm being pestered by some hippy! And just when I thought my day couldn't get worse!'

'What's your game, Mate?!' she snapped.

'You are Donna Temple-Noble?' inquired the man in an unnervingly flat tone.

'That's Mrs Temple to you, mate,' she replied hotly, 'So don't get any funny ideas.'

'Identity confirmed. You will accompany me', he stated in the same flat tone.

'What are you, a drug-dealer or something? Go away!'

'Negative. I require you to come with me.'

Donna couldn't believe the nerve of this guy. Some people just can't get the message. And there was something about the man and his flat tone that was making her feel really uneasy. He almost seemed inhuman. All the more reason to get rid of him.

'Are you dim or something?' she snapped again, 'I am not going anywhere with you!'

'Correction. You will accompany me to the teleport co-ordinates.'

'You're completely barking aren't you? Read my lips!' said Donna, pointing to her mouth, 'I. Do. Not. Want. To. Go. With. You!'

'Correction. You have no choice in the matter' replied the man, before raising his cone at her. To Donna's utter amazement, a lightning bolt shot out of the cone and struck her in the face. Pain shot through Donna's senses and spots appeared in front of her eyes.

'I don't believe it! He just shot me!' Donna thought, as consciousness rapidly ran away from her. In the split second before she blacked out, a strange, golden beam of light seemed to come out of her own head, floating around her before zooming straight towards the sky and beyond the atmosphere of the planet. Then she passed out completely.

The Movellan Trooper observed the strange light heading out through the atmosphere. He could find no logical reason for this occurrence. It was, however, of no consequence. Picking up the Earth Woman, he transmitted his coordinates to the ship and within seconds he and the woman were engulfed in an energy beam, bathing them both in red light, before they slowly faded out of sight. In a couple of more seconds, the light beam itself faded from view as well.

There was nothing to suggest that either person was ever there in the park at all.

******

Leaving the Earth's atmosphere, the strange beam of light zoomed into space and entered the time vortex itself. The vortex constantly shifted in its size and nature, sometimes resembling a swirl of thunderclouds, sometimes a blue flowing tube, but the tunnel itself was the same. Despite, the constant change of colour in the vortex, the light beam stood out from the shifting chaos, its golden, dust-like form glowing brightly. Zooming through the swirling tunnel of time, it looked as though it had reached its destination, a blue Police Box spiralling through the vortex. But all of a sudden, the vortex seemed to curve in on itself, just for a moment, but long enough to deflect the beam away from the blue box, and send it further down the vortex, until it reached another, thinner shaped police box. With no where else to go, the beam hit the light on top of the box and entered inside...