War of Fiction

[Dominic Smith]

Prologue

The vast console chamber hummed with energy in the shadowed darkness, the only light to be seen emitted from the flashing buttons and switches on the grand console that stood as the nerve centre of not only the room, but the entire ship.

The occupants of the vessel lay sound asleep, each exhausted after the harrowing experiences of their past adventures together in the dangerous fields of time and space. Their gently breathing bodies lay oblivious to the console at all; their only faint reminder of the ship at all was the gentle vibrating hum that ran throughout the entire giant structure of the magnificent vehicle that lulled them into their slumber.

The self-confessed captain of the ship, the Doctor, was perhaps the one most immensely submerged into sleep, breathing deeply as his ancient body rose and then fell with every great breath he took. In his mind his thoughts were like no other being in the galaxy. Horrific images of monsters that curdled the blood swarmed in and out of his train of thought, but one image remained, recurring time and time again. Only the dream kept changing ever so slightly with each repetition, each time it became more frightening, more torturous, more real.

His two friends, Earthlings he had taken onboard his massive time and space machine were screaming for him. He was stuck in a vast city, surrounded by buildings of which no to looked the same. He frantically raced around the maze of structures, the walls closing in on him. Voices laughed inside his head, calling for him to die, calling for him to suffer. Yet one voice urged him on, telling him he must find his friends. The voice multiplied time and time again, until half-a-dozen harmonious warnings rang in his mind, all different yet at the same time all one...all the same.

He managed to find his way out of the maze, in what appeared to be a vast market square. There, amongst hundreds of blood-thirsty warriors stood the ones he searched for, being held at knife point by masked figures who's breath rattled like the instrument of a snake, spelling out death with every lingering pant.

He ran towards his friends but two figures grasped him by the arms, their very hold burning his flesh like a piece of kindling, with no mercy. He tried to scream out to his friends but no sound came out. All he could do was watch as their captures grew ever closer, swords raised high until they plunged them into their prey...

[Dominic Smith]

Chapter One

The Doctor awoke with a husky scream that rang out across his bedchamber. He got up and hurriedly put on his cloak. He never seemed to bother with changing clothes to go to bed in; for one he never seemed to need to sleep that much anyway, and secondly was because of times such as this.

The TARDIS had lurched off course, out of the swirling time vortex and into normal space, but was gaining speed. The console of the ship was going mad, all emergency warnings had been activated and the power source was overloading, sending streams of sparks across the room like a deadly fireworks display.

The Doctor entered and flung himself at the massive control system and began to twist and turn the various knobs and switches lining the six panels. His actions however were in vein, and there was little he could do to stop the ship lurching into the depths of space.

As the TARDIS continued to rock and sway this way and that, the Doctor’s recently introduced friend Jennifer entered the console room. She flew through the vast doors that led into the darkened chamber, and as her chestnut brown hair battled to stay in the immaculate position she styled it against the lurching of the ship, she staggered her way up to the control panel.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked, yelling over the sound of the exploding console.

The Doctor looked at her for a moment. He admired her beauty and stared into her deep eyes. He had invited her to join him completely out of the blue. It was just an urge he had to bring her along with him. Perhaps it was because she looked so stunningly like Barbara, one of his first travelling companions he had cared for so much.

‘We’ve been knocked out of the time vortex, probably by a passing meteorite. Now we’re hurtling into deep space,’ he explained, dragging himself away from his companions appearance to the question she had asked. He turned back to the console and began to fiddle once more with the vast field of controls before him.

‘Can’t we stop?’ Jennifer shouted back, slightly worried by the fact that the Doctor seemed unable to control the ship seeing as she had been told he had quite a connection with the machine. She looked at him as he frantically hit at the sparking controls, his eyes unfocused on the task in hand, but on something else.

‘No we can’t,’ the Doctor replied, returning the favour of bringing Jennifer back to reality. ‘The emergency brake’s been disconnected by the initial impact.’

The Doctor’s other friend, Ace, had yet to arrive in the console room. Like the Doctor, she had changed sinse their first adventures together in time and space. She was getting older, she was not as quick on her feet as she once was, and somehow the bond between the two travellers seemed to have faded slightly. Nevertheless, she pulled on her clothes and ran to join her two friends in the console room.

After another round of questioning as to the reason behind the turbulence the TARDIS was experiencing, the Doctor began to open up the console and rewire the broken circuits that stunted his control over the ship.

Trying to do her best for the situation, whilst the more technically-minded Jennifer assisted the Doctor, Ace decided to open up the scanner. She activated the switch and pulled down the monitor, but as she did so, a spark blew inside the console and the Doctor flinched.

‘Ace,’ he moaned briefly, removing his head from inside the console for a split second to give her a blank emotionless look before returning to his work.

‘Sorry Professor,’ Ace sighed before looking back at the now operating monitor. She stared at the vastness of the space they were hurtling into. She tried to keep her eyes focused as the countless white dots of stars zoomed out of view. She managed to stop herself by going cross-eyed but then saw something odd on the screen. A large empty space was fast approaching them. A circle of nothingness ringed by a single continuing beam of dull light that grew and grew as the ship flew towards it at a tremendous speed.

She tried to call out to her friends about what she can seen, but as the TARDIS entered the black hole, the console exploded in a mass of blinding white light and all went quiet…