"Hey, Doctor, what time is it?" She watched him as he looked at his ornate pocket watch.
"6:29 p.m. Didn't you change your watch?"
"No." She shrugged.
"Why not?"
"I may be travelling with you, but I still like to keep tabs on my family. For example, my parents would have had breakfast at Michelle's cafe this morning." She said simply, not afraid of being labelled a sentimental. Especially by the Doctor, who didn't seem to have a sentimental bone in his body- Mickayla would have to fix that.
"Oh!" The Doctor exclaimed, snapping his fingers and remembering as he rummaged through the pockets of his red, velvet suit jacket, "That reminds me... " He revealed a silvery object and Mickayla could barely stop herself from laughing. It was the watch she had been admiring in the Arashi system- the troublesome watch. She fastened the clasp around her wrist and the Doctor took her hand, sonic-ing the gift.
"There. Now it'll tell you the date and time, wherever and whenever you are." He smiled at her.
"Thank you." She smiled back warmly. Maybe he did have a lighter side, but Mickayla already knew that. A beeping form the TARDIS's monitor interrupted them. They looked over to the screen, watching the rotating circles and lines and dots. The Doctor seemed like he could make it out.
"I don't understand..." She said.
"The TARDIS displays in Gallifreyan. It looks like a message- it says, 'to our friends, peace go with you'."
"Who from?"
"Don't know. Doesn't say. It just looks like a general broadcast for all the passers-by. A billboard. But, I think I can trace it-" He fiddled with dials and buttons until the TARDIS gave another beep and displayed a sting of numbers on the monitor, "-aha!" The Doctor switched the controls and pulled the lever as they were tossed about through space. Then, they landed wherever in space the message had beckoned from.
"Whatever's out there must be friendly." Mickayla said.
"Friendly was never my style." The Doctor said with a slight scowl on his long face.
Together, they stepped out and onto a glorious meadow. The skies above them were a rosy pink and streaked with silver-laced clouds. All the grass under their shoes was also a warm pink-orange and the leaves were the purest white Mickayla had ever seen, so much so they seemed to sparkle. In the distance, rose-colored mountains supported a citadel that glistened in the soft sunlight. This was a magnificent planet.
"Hello, friends. Peace go with you."
Two orbs of light approached them and it seemed to Mickayla as if it were tangible. If she looked really hard at them, she thought she could almost make out a face. The lights pulsed in time to the the syllables of their words.
"We are the Jega." They introduced themselves, "Who are our friends?"
"I'm the Doctor- Time Lord. And this is Mickey. Human."
"Hello." Mickayla waved with just as friendly an air as the Jega.
"Yes, hello and welcome to out home." They responded.
"Yeah, where exactly are we?" The Doctor asked skeptically, scanning their surroundings as if he could see something Mickayla couldn't. She wondered how he could glance so critically around such a beautiful place.
"You are welcomed on our home of Deglas. Would our friends wish to accompany us to our home city?"
"Yeah, sure. Lead on." The Doctor said, "Deglas- isn't that one in the Alpha Cluster?" The Doctor asked, partly to himself.
The two Jega turned and began to drift off over the gently sloping hills of pink-orange grass, and the Doctor and Mickayla followed, each stepping bringing them closer to the citadel. From such a distance, they couldn't have told how large it was, but as they approached the glass dome, the Doctor and Mickayla gaped in awe- it was massive, looking as if it could easily fit an entire civilization.
"Incredible!" The Doctor whispered to Mickayla as he read readings from the sonic screwdriver, "The Jega are creatures of pure life-energy. You know the energy you're exerting just to be alive right now?"
"Yeah-?"
"That's what they are. It's like a tangible light, but it's not. They are physical beings, but they're just right on the line between physical and only mere energy."
The four of them reached the city's encasement and walked inside, onto magnificent streets. They whole place looked like a blend of old and new; modern transport used the cobblestone roadways, and tall buildings of innovative architecture were constructed in a Gothic design. Everywhere, the light orbs flitted about, some burning brighter than others and ranging in color from white, to blue, to a soft pink like their sky. Even pale shades of green that reminded Mickayla of fresh mint. The Doctor kept scanning with the sonic screwdriver as they walked.
"No climate change or global warming, no currency, I don't even see any sort of justice system."
"On Deglas, we have no need for justice. The Jega respect the fact that in order to have order, we must respect each other." They replied.
"Do you have any laws?" The Doctor asked.
"We've no need of them."
"Amazing! Mickey, they've evolved past evolving. They've created a virtually flawless system." The Doctor marveled, as if he couldn't believe it. Almost as if he didn't.
"So, essentially they're-" Mickayla met his gaze.
"The perfect planet." He looked back and Mickayla smiled, surprised when the Doctor didn't. He must think there's more to it. She thought, a little disappointed that nothing could ever just seem good to him.
The Jega left them to finish their own tour, and the Doctor and Mickayla spent the entire late of evening venturing the streets of the Deglas home city. Everything flowed and moved as one, happening right on cue in perfect unison, harmony and impeccable timing. It wasn't noisy or crowded the way most cities were, and it didn't smell of smog. The two tourists explored all the little nooks and crannies they could get into.
"Look at that, Mickey!" He hurried over to a small, telly-like machine and sonic-ed it, "It's today's news; the value of their natural resources are skyrocketing, yet they refuse to sell to neighboring constellations for fear of harming the planet's 'natural rhythm.' And here it says they're preparing to celebrate their two-hundred-year crime-free streak."
"What does that left column say?" Mickayla pointed.
"That's their environmental report- aces on water, air and soil. They haven't touched this planet in centuries. Finally, a race which knows how to treat their home!" The Doctor exclaimed, making Mickayla feel a sassy pinprick in her chest.
"Are you saying that us humans are sitting on our thumbs?"
"Tell me honestly, Mickey, do you recycle?" The tall man looked down upon her with one of his aggressive eyebrows cocked, a shadow of a smirk behind his eyes.
"I recycle..." Mickayla said defensively, and the Doctor gave her a cruelly teasing frown, "... sometimes." She heard the Doctor chuckle.
They arrived at one of the schools of Deglas, but it looked more like a library. Upon entering, they gazed upon the rows and rows of shelves, but on them wasn't books. Instead there were small metal cylinders.
"Ha! Compressed information, sorted by subject. They place the cylinder in that, there," he pointed to a device at the end of the row and watched as another Jega placed their chrome cylinders on the port, "and it beams all they could possibly know about its subject into them, directly to the brain." He scanned one with the sonic screwdriver, admiring the advanced technology in the way only the Doctor could. The sonic beeped, sparking his interest.
"Hmm, strange. I'm picking up all sorts of energy- massive amounts, everywhere we go. I wonder..." The Doctor walked up to one of the glass tubes that lined the wall, from which the Jega entered and exited. He sonic-ed the panel on its side and the door slid open, "Ooo, teleport. Fun. Mickey, wanna see if we can find out where our stray energy is coming from?"
His eyes gave her a taunting glint and she joined him in the tube. The Doctor sonic-ed it again, and Mickayla's vision pixilated as they broke down into tiny particles. She didn't have time to think about it before they'd arrived at their destination. They were standing inside an identical glass tube, but Mickayla saw as her vision re-focused that their surroundings had changed.
The Doctor let Mickayla push her way out of the narrow tube first, following her as he scanned with the sonic screwdriver. Tracing the energy the Doctor had spoken of, the screwdriver led them down a series of pristine, white corridors until they reached a door. It just looked like an ordinary door, but Mickayla guessed that whatever was behind it wasn't so ordinary.
The Doctor sonic-ed the panel beside the door and it slid open for them, allowing them entrance into a large room, just as white and pristine, but with a giant machine smack in the middle.
"It's a generator." He scanned it, "It's a generator, producing eighteen billion joules of power every second."
"It must take a lot of energy to maintain yourself outside a body." Mickayla said, trying to sound smart.
"Absolutely. But this is astronomical! This thing must be life support to the whole city."
"Our people designed this in order to protect our planet from us." The two guests spun around as a Jega spoke behind them. They hadn't heard it approach the open door, "Now, we have no need to burn our oils or deplete our lands for agriculture. This feeds us."
"Yes, and too much time outside of here, and you'll die. That's why the dome. It reflects all the energy back to you so none is wasted. You just rounded everybody up and moved them in here." The Doctor said, slight amazement shading his voice.
"It is with pride and humility that we say our system is flawless. Now, if our friends would follow me, you do not have authorization to be in here." It told them softly before floating away. Oddly enough, the Jega seemed so kind that Mickayla almost had an urge to follow it. It escorted her and the Doctor out to the city streets, close to the center of town.
<><><>
Lights blinked on the panels in the main Systems Control room in Deglas' primary energy supply plant. It was a slow job, uneventful at least, and when a small beep came from the stray energy monitor, it caught all the Jega's attention. Jega-theola drifted in its direction.
"What is this? A crack in the dome?" Jega-amerus asked behind her.
"No, 'tis not. it says there is energy coming from outside the dome."
"That is impossible, Jega-theola. It must be a malfunction."
"I assure you, Jega-amerus, it is not a malfunction."
The other Jega approached so that all six of them in the room were hovering around the panel and its beeping.
"It says the energy is strong. Perhaps the Jega could use it."
"To power the Generator." They all hummed enthusiastically, confused thoughts turning optimistic.
"We must retrieve this source of energy. Jega-tama and Jega-oerin," Jega-amerus instructed, "Come follow me, if you will."
The three of them darted off, heading for a new opportunity- something to better their race. A scientific advancement; it had been centuries since their last because of how far they'd come, but now was their chance to discover a power source of such incredible capabilities.
<><><>
There were no restaurants because the Jega didn't need food, and there wasn't much in the way of shopping but there was still so much to see; ornate buildings like churches, offices and schools held a variety of new discoveries. Their sun set and the stars came out above the glass citadel, and colorful lights swirled below as the Jega reverted to night-life. Every thing around them glowed in their colors so the whole city looked to be painted brightly. Mickayla noticed that they didn't have any street lamps.
Finally, the Doctor and Mickayla left the city, walking through the fields and meadows outside of the citadel. They kicked through the pink-orange grass and wildflowers, the line of white-leaved trees where they'd parked the TARDIS coming into view over the next small ridge. They were laughing as they came to its crest. They looked out right and left, their laughter quickly fading- there was no TARDIS. Panic crashed in on Mickayla's chest.
"Where's the TARDIS!?" The Doctor spun around, hands through his hair, sonic-ing the space around them. She could tell by the frustratedly desperate look on his face that it was no where to be found.
"Is this where we parked it? We could have the wrong hill..." Mickayla was trying to be optimistic, but the Doctor swiftly snuffed it.
"No, no, the TARDIS was here. Where could it have gone? Oh, this is not good. Not very good at all..."
"Do you think the Jega could have...?" Mickayla began, but she didn't need to finish that question. She and the Doctor exchanged a mutual look.
Now, all there was left to do was run. They ran back to the citadel in the mountains, Mickayla not noticing the burning sensation in her legs and throat from the adrenaline coursing through her. They got back to the doors, and she banged with all her might.
"Hey!" The Doctor yelled as he pounded with her, "Let us in! Where's my spaceship!?"
"Friends, peace go with you." The Jega opened the doors to them, and its calmness took Mickayla by surprise, like a wave in the water you didn't see coming until it crashed upon you.
"What have you done with the TARDIS?" The Doctor asked furiously, and Mickayla could tell that he was trying hard to keep his temper.
"I have no knowledge of such an object. Perhaps I could assist you-"
"No need." The Doctor said almost cruelly as he pushed passed it, "I'm going to find it, and if she's got so much as a scratch on her I'll use her to blow this whole planet to oblivion." He said in an unnerving quietness
"I wish you luck in your endeavors, friends!" The Jega responded, completely unphased by the Doctor's rage. He ran off with his companion through the city streets, scanning with his sonic screwdriver, searching for any sign of the TARDIS.
"You know, Doctor, you didn't have to be so harsh back there." Mickayla said, hands on her knees and chest heaving as they took a short break from running for a moment, the Doctor still scanning. The Doctor didn't hear her, only she could tell he was pretending because his eyes darted sideways to look at her.
"Now, that's strange..." He said, reading the screwdriver.
"What is?"
"The energy from the generator, it's changing."
"Changing how?" She stood straight, still breathing a little heavily.
"Becoming more powerful." He glanced at her darkly, "Mickey, I think I know where they took the TARDIS."
Mickayla understood. The two of them ran off again, f,Mickayla forcing her legs to move and not think about the pain. They, by fortunate chance, found another teleport on the side of the street. With aid of sonic screwdriver, Mickayla's vision pixelated again, coming to focus back in the building they'd been in before, with the generator. They remembered the way back to the room it was kept in, but this time, the blue box was wired in.
"What have they done...?" The Doctor asked solemnly as he walked forward, making to reach out to his ship.
"It is such a big source of energy." The Doctor and Mickayla whipped around as a Jega spoke to them from the door behind them.
"Blimey, you people are sneaky." Mickayla huffed from the surprise.
"This ship is mine," The Doctor said, "and I'm taking it back, now." He stepped forward again, halted by the Jega who was now screeching.
"No! The blue box belongs to the Jega, now! It is our life. Would you take our life from us?" The light orb started to glow a reddish orange color, like fire.
"Yes." He hadn't hesitated, once again beginning to walk toward the TARDIS. With an earsplitting cry, the Jega let out a burst of energy that pulsed through the room, causing the intruders' muscles to spasm. The Doctor and Mickayla fell to the floor, and the Jega approached them, forcing them to scramble as best they could on their unresponsive limbs out of the room. They fled the building.
"They can emit an energy pulse. Of course..." They leaned against a wall, recuperating once they were a safe distance from the power plant. Lucky for them, the Jega hadn't followed.
"If they can... do that... then how are we going to... get past them?" Mickayla asked between breaths.
"I don't know, but we need to leave." He said as they looked above them to the two Jega, floating like burning spheres of fire. The Doctor grabbed Mickayla's hand and pulled her along.
"If they drain the TARDIS of its power we'll be stuck here." She said.
"No. The TARDIS could keep them going indefinitely." The Doctor corrected.
"Well, we can't wait here indefinitely."
"And that's not the only problem..." The Doctor said ominously, his intense eyebrows raising.
"How do you mean?"
"TARDISes run off of huon energy- not the same as the Jega use, and very dangerous. Who knows what it will do to them after being exposed for too long?"
They took refuge in the school from before, with the shiny chrome cylinders of knowledge. They sat at a table near the back, facing each other in the dim light as they thought long and hard. After a while, Mickayla gave up on thinking and simply took in her surroundings, contemplating deeply on how intricate it all was, the way it all worked together.
"Look at it all;" she sighed, "vast knowledge that has shaped perfection- and it means that we get stuck here."
"Hardly perfection." He responded with cynicism, and Mickayla's snort of laughter showed she agreed, "No one should ever achieve perfection," the Doctor continued, "It makes them feel invincible, untouchable, entitled, but nothing ever is. Ever. It's dangerous to think that way."
"There has to be a way to disable their energy signature, or something. Maybe an energy bubble, like a shield..." Mickayla rambled, trying to say things that made no sense to her, but hoping the Doctor would understand. She trailed off, again giving up on her futile attempt to be clever. They sat silently for at least twenty minutes before the Doctor stirred.
"Wait, what did you say?"
"I haven't said anything." She looked up from the table where she was studying the wood's grain, and saw something that sparked in the Doctor.
"No, before. All their vast knowledge." He stood and walked slowly toward the shelves of metal cylinders, full of information, "If I can empty an info-cylinder and reverse the info beam, I could suck all the information out of them. Everything, it'd be gone. About the TARDIS, about us."
He selected one, holding the tip of his humming sonic screwdriver to it, "Come on- aha!" He tossed it to her and kept buzzing. For an hour, he modified the cylinders, and Mickayla hooked them about her in random places, belt loops and zippers, and the Doctor did the same. Honestly, they looked a little funny, but Mickayla didn't mind.
"Ready?" The Doctor asked her.
"Ready."
She gave him a nod and they stood, hand in hand inside the glass tube of the teleport, and the Doctor sonic-ed the controls. Mickayla's vision again pixelated as they were transported, refocusing in the energy plant. They stepped out, Mickayla giving a quiet sigh so that the Doctor wouldn't know that she was nervous.
"Hello, friends." Their heads whipped to the right as a Jega floated their direction, "It has been made known to us that you, our friends, are not welcome here. If you would kindly leave the premises-"
Heaving an annoyed sigh, the Doctor cut it off with a click of the metallic cylinder. The Jega's colors shifted for a moment, and it seemed confused, but it came back to a few seconds later.
"What do you know? It works." The Doctor said.
"What do you mean, 'it works'?" Mickayla asked.
"Well, it was just theoretical..."
"Thank you for visiting, friends." The Jega before them greeted them a second time, "May I assist you?"
"Yeah. Get out." The Doctor ordered it, and it complied without protest.
"Happy to be of service, friends." It floated off, leaving the Doctor and Mickayla alone, and they headed in the opposite direction.
"Do you know where they're keeping the TARDIS?" Mickayla asked as they jogged along.
"Nope, but I'm sure it's been moved since we were last here."
The sonic screwdriver knew, and they followed it around the corner and down the next corridor, coming to a stop in front of a door labelled High Voltage with a warning sign. They stood on each side of the frame and he gave her a look, as if to ask ready?, and she nodded back. Mentally, they counted to three and he sonic-ed the panel.
The Jega were no where to be seen, and the Doctor walked up to the TARDIS, placing his hand on the blue, wooden exterior, while Mickayla stood watch at the door.
"Oh, what have they done to you, ol' girl? You poor thing..."
"You two are so cute." Mickayla teased.
"She's exhausted." He ignored her. Down the hall, the Jega approached.
"Stop flirting and start doing- whatever it is that you do!" Mickayla hissed to the Doctor as the Jega saw the intruder, and it wasn't long before they were upon them.
Mickayla erased the memories of three before an energy pulse hit her, smacking her into the door frame behind her. She slid down, dazed and no longer able to tell her body to pick her back up as her muscles locked. The Doctor turned, cylinder in hand, but it was too late. With blurring vision, Mickayla watched as he hit the floor under another energy pulse, this second one rendering her unconscious.
<><><>
Mickayla blinked her eyes against the sudden, harsh light above her head as she came to, shapes and colors becoming solid objects as she re-captured her senses.
"Enjoy your beauty sleep?" She heard the Doctor's voice beside her and turned her head to look at him as he smirked sarcastically. Only when she saw him, strapped to an upright metal table, did she realize that she was, too.
"Doctor, what are they going to do to us?"
"Don't know." They quieted as three Jega entered the room, and Mickayla gave a tug on her restraints.
"Our friends have betrayed us. We so graciously accepted you into our home, and our friends betrayed us." The Jega who spoke sounded distraught, "To redeem yourselves, you will donate your life energy to the Jega."
"How much?" The Doctor asked through narrowed eyes.
"All."
As it said this, Mickayla pulled against her restraints harder, fighting to save herself. Of course, they wouldn't budge, and she called to their captors.
"But that will kill us!"
They ignored her and begun placing sticking probes over her body; on her face, neck, arms, legs and abdomen, doing the same to the Doctor. A disembodied, female voice echoed through the room, and as it died down, a whirring picked up. A large machine with two arms- one for the Doctor and one for her- descended above them.
"Energy converter prepping. "
It started as a low hum, slowly but steadily increasing in frequency. Lights above them flashed on, paling Mickayla's skin and casting strange shadows over her. Its voice spoke again once the machine was up-to-speed.
"Energy converter active. Standby- conversion in twenty seconds."
She knew that struggling was useless, so Mickayla closed her eyes, breathing hard, and tried not to think about her family, unsuccessfully.
God, if this is it... she tried to find the words.
If this is it, the give my family peace. Oh, and maybe make it quick.
"Conversion in ten... nine... eight... seven..." she gripped the edge of the cold metal and cast a glance at the Doctor.
"Six... five... four..." she squeezed her eyes shut once more.
"Three... two... one..."
She took a deep breath as she anticipated her death, and she waited. And waited. The lights on the energy converter dimmed suddenly until they were off, and the humming of the machine stopped. Now, there was only one little hum beside her. Mickayla laughed; in the little wiggle room they had, the Doctor had managed to reach the sonic screwdriver.
"You could have done that sooner." She said, smirking as another buzz released their restraints and they slid down onto the floor. Without time to do anything else, the Doctor and Mickayla ran hand-in-hand back to the room the TARDIS was being drained in, painfully pulling the probes from her light skin as they ran. They didn't know the way so it took mostly guess-work, but eventually they found themselves in corridors they recognized. When they found the TARDIS, the Doctor ran around and around it, looking the ship over.
"What are you doing?" Mickayla asked, not bothering to guard the door; the Jega knew where to find them.
"Trying to figure out how to make it let go of the TARDIS without hurting her."
"Her?" She gave him an amused look. He sonic-ed it here and there, focusing on the foreign wires that were attached to it until they began to spark. Just then, the door to the TARDIS's prison slid open, revealing about a half-a-dozen Jega.
"Inside!" The Doctor instructed, and they dove for the TARDIS doors, pulling them open as a Jega released an energy pulse. They hit the floor inside the TARDIS with a thud, the Doctor scrambling to his feet and pulling the doors closed. Mickayla stood and leaned on the railing.
"Blimey, those things are nasty." She huffed, watching the Doctor as he pulled and pushed and spun everything on the controls.
"Come on, old girl- just a bit more! Come on!" The panel started sparking, and the whole room went dim. Then, both hit the floor as it too off, more violently than usual.
"Haha!" The Doctor gave a victorious whoop, "I did it, she's free! We've got the TARDIS back, Mickey!" She walked forward to stand beside him, not sharing in his excitement.
"Now, turn it back on." She told him, referring to the Jega's generator which, to Mickayla's understanding, would have had to let go of the TARDIS somehow- and she had a guess at what the Doctor had done.
"They tried to kill us."
"They tried to keep themselves alive."
"At our expense."
"That's not their fault, now, is it?"
He looked down at her, and Mickayla made it a point to gaze deeply into his grey eyes. They stared at each other, and he looked as if he were about to say something but bit his lip. Still staring at her, he reached over and flicked a single switch, turning the Jega's life support back on. It was only then that he looked away, and he didn't look back as she thanked him.