The Littlest Timelord: The Fall of the Eleventh

Chapter 33

The Doctor turned to the fuming brunette.

"What do you keep in here? Why have you got zombie creatures? Good guys do not have zombie creatures. Rule one basic storytelling!" Clara yelled. She hit the Doctor again.

"Not in front of the guests," he told her.

Clara turned to them. "Who are they?"

"Friends. Well, people who aren't trying to kill us, so I don't need punching again."

Clara stormed away from the Doctor.

"All right, all right. Look, a deal's a deal. You got the girl and your daughter back. Now cancel the self-destruct," Gregor said.

"Ah. Ah. You know, I've got to tell you, I won't be needing you in my quiz team."

"What?"

"There is no self-destruct. Hey? Hey? Hey? Had you going though, boys, didn't I? I just wiggled a few buttons. Yeah, the old wiggly button trick. And the face. You've got to do the face. Save her or we all die. I thought I rushed it a bit, but..."

"Pretty good bluff if you ask me," Elise said.

The Doctor turned to her and smiled. "I know, right?"

"So you're telling us we're safe?" Tricky asked.

"Ish. Apart from the monsters and the TARDIS reinventing the architecture every five minutes. Guys, don't worry. The countdown's a fake. Look, just give me a second. I'll turn it off. I only made it look as though the engine was actually exploding." He walked over to the console and pressed a few buttons, only for an alarm to start going off. "Ah. That's not good. Okay, don't panic. Or maybe panic."

"Something you want to share with the rest of us?" Clara asked.

"It appears the engine is damaged. We're in trouble, Clara. Proper trouble. It needs fixing or we're toast."

"So now would be a good time to use that big friendly button, right?"

"Yes. Sorry, I should have had one built in." They all ran down the stairs and the Doctor soniced a panel.

"Where are we going?" Tricky asked.

"Detour. The center of the TARDIS."

The Doctor soniced as they walked through a corridor.

Something ran through the corridor in front of them.

"Shush. Something's in here," Clara told them.

"Those things, they've followed us," Tricky said.

"Doctor, what are they? What aren't you telling me?"

"Trust me. Some things you don't want to know," he said.

Something ran through the corridor behind them.

"They're on the move again," Gregor said.

"Run. Move, move!" the Doctor yelled.

They ran through the corridor until they came across Clara who was standing in front of a copy of the Doctor.

"Clara, stop. Don't touch it," the real Doctor told her, "There's a rupture in time somewhere on board the ship. A small tear in the fabric of the continuum. It must have happened when the TARDIS was pulled in by the salvage vessel. The TARDIS is leaking."