Lost in the Universe

ix

Quote of the day:

"It's my timey-wimey detector. It goes ding when there's stuff."

-Stuck-in-the-60s Tenth Doctor

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Word count: 2260

When they arrived at the med-center, a man and a woman were trying to hold a man down so they could put him in what Nina immediately recognized as a stasis chamber.

"Argh! Stop it!" The man yelled. He had his eyes closed shut, and was squeezing them tightly.

"Korwin, it's Abi," the woman spoke. "Open your eyes, I need to take a look at you." Nina tried to organize her thoughts as she watched the scene unfold. This was Abi, probably the doctor on board, Korwin was the engineer, McDonnell was the Captain.

"Korwin!" The Captain yelled out as soon as she spotted him. Nina immediately noticed how worried she was. They were probably family, most likely husband and wife. "What's happened? Is he okay?"

"Help me! It's burning me!" Korwin yelled. Nina froze. This sentence was weirdly familiar. For some reason, it terrified her. And by the look on the Doctor's face, he had noticed it.

"How long's he been like this?" The Doctor asked, keeping his eyes on Nina for a second. He was clearly going to question her about it later.

"Ashton just brought him in," Abi, the ship's doctor told him. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned Korwin, earning a frown from pretty much everyone else in the room.

"What are you doing?" McDonnell asked him, taking a step closer from Korwin, just behind the Doctor.

"You shouldn't get too close," Nina finally spoke up. The Doctor turned around to look at her and saw the pleading look on her face.

"She's right, step back," he said, trying to pull the woman back with his arm.

"Don't be so stupid," McDonnell exclaimed. "That's my husband."

"And he's just sabotaged our ship," Ashton said.

"What?" McDonnell asked in disbelief. She couldn't accept that the person she trusted the most would sabotage their ship, betray her.

"He went mad," Ashton explained. "He put the ship onto secure closure, then he set the heat pulse to melt the controls."

"No way. He wouldn't do that," McDonnell denied.

"I saw it happen, Captain," Ashton insisted.

"Korwin? Korwin, open your eyes for me a second," the Doctor called out to him once he had finished scanning him.

"I can't!" He yelled through the pain.

"Yeah, course you can. Go on," the Doctor called out for him. He granted a look to Nina, who was in the corner of the room all alone and hadn't said anything yet. He was clearly concerned.

"Don't make me look at you, please," he pleaded. The doctor sighed and made his way back down towards his feet, where he picked a hypo-gun up from a medical tray.

"All right, all right, all right," he gave in. "Just relax. Sedative?"

"Yes," Abi confirmed. The Doctor nodded and shot the poor man with the sedative, making him immediately relax on the bed and go to sleep.

"What's wrong with him?" The Captain asked, obviously very worried. The Doctor perched on the bed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Rising body temperature, unusual energy readings. Stasis chamber. I do love a good stasis chamber," he smiled at the Captain, pointing at the chamber. "Keep him sedated in there. Regulate his body temperature. And, just for fun, run a bio-scan and tissue profile on a metabolic detail."