ENEMY WITHIN

Chapter 11

"Doctor!" Donna cried out, kneeling beside his body. Angry, she looked up at Blite. "What'd you do that for? He was trying to help you!"

"And I helped him in return." The captain replied with a melancholy tone. He looked at her with wistful eyes. "There is no Trixie, miss Donna. There never was. I made her up. It's all about image in my line of work, these days. The stern—but also very hip, ship's captain. Not always easy to keep up appearances, you know. So, I'd wind people up from time to time about my fictional dream girl." He shook his head. "It's a lot less strange then some of those weirdos surfing the Optiweb, posing as their favourite celebrity or fictional character on MeBook. I mean, what's with that?"

This bloke was definitely ready to be sectioned to the nearest padded cell, Donna decided. He was one finger away from being vaporized, and all he's thinking about is his imaginary girlfriend? The Doctor was still out cold. All she could do was keep captain fruitcake talking, hoping he wouldn't get so sorry for himself, that he let his hand slip off the switch.

"But surely, there must be someone who would miss you if you were gone?" Donna asked him.

"On my own, I'm afraid." The captain shrugged. "My parents are dead. I have a brother but we aren't close. We only vone each other once a year, every winter solstice eve. He never even bothered to send me a birthday salutation this year. To be honest, I never had much time for relationships. I'm married to my work. This ship is my whole life." Blite's free hand stroked a bit of machinery lovingly. "I've served on her, ever since I was a young lad. She's wonderful! Really far-out, ya' know?. My dad helped to design her and I watched her being built, day by day. Dreaming of sailing off into the stars on her. And, as you can see, my dream came true. She's my best friend. The idea of parting from her...it's simply unthinkable to me. This ship is all I've got."

There was a groan from the Doctor, as he lay prone on the floor. As he regained consciousness, Donna helped him to sit upright. The Doctor glared angrily at Blite and was about to say something biting, but the captain cut him off.

"No, don't say it. I am sorry, Doctor, but it had to be done. Besides, maybe if I'm holding down this switch, you can get to engine room one and at least fix the auxiliary rotational atomizer drive. It's not connected to the main drive. That way you could steer my ship out of here much faster. It would only be hours, instead of days to get clear. Then you and your girlfriend here..."

"Erm—we're just friends!" Donna and the Doctor blurted out, pointing at each other and shaking their heads..

"Hey man, whatever you say. I can dig it." Blite shrugged. "Anyway, with the ol' girl here safely underway, you'll be free to go after the Toxil-Maacht. They have a lot to answer for. Especially their Special Procurer. That cat's a real drag.."

"Listen, Blite." The Doctor said desperately, as he got up off the floor. "I'll come back for you. I give you my word. Just hold on to that switch. I've got my TARDIS here on board.. I can use it to work out a way to save both you and this ship."

"You hang on, captain. We'll be back." Donna told him, with a parting smile of encouragement, "Just like the Doctor said"

"Right on, miss Donna. Have a nice day. And thank you for choosing the Abundance." A sad-faced Captain Blite answered woodenly, automatically reciting the personal farewell he'd given every single passenger for the past twenty years.

The Doctor and Donna left Captain Blite holding down the switch, as they raced back to the first engine room. It looked much the same as the room they'd just left; grimy, steamy and dark. Finding the right bit of machinery didn't take the Doctor very long. With the aid of his sonic screwdriver, and Donna holding a small pen torch so he could see what he was doing, he'd got it up and running in no time.

Next, it was a mad dash for the lift, a wild ride upward—Donna was at least prepared for it, this time. And then another full tilt run down yet another drab corridor to the main flight deck. To Donna, the ship's controls looked more like it had been cobbled together from the set of a low-budget sci-fi film. In a sort of Buck Rogers meets Star Trek kind of way. There was even a large view screen on the wall in front of the captain's chair.

Though the room was half taken up with the equipment required to pilot the ship, the rest of the bridge was obviously kitted out for comfort on long flights through the stars. Walls were painted in soothing pastel colours. The crew's chairs and tables were outright tacky looking, though. They seemed to have been copied from some alien's idea of fifties and sixties lounge furniture.

The Doctor wasted no time in critiquing the décor, but hustled over to the navigator's console. He began plotting a course to take them away from the moon. From there, the Doctor slid over to the pilot's controls. Donna watched as his fingers flitted over the instruments. His hand reached over to the side of the captain's chair and gripped what looked like a sportscar's stick shift. He went to push it to the left, but it was locked in place. He couldn't get it to budge.

"Oh, no, no, no!" The Doctor shouted, clearly frustrated. "Arrrgh! They've deadlocked the controls!"

"They've already sabotaged the engines and planted a bomb. Why would they need to lock the controls for?" Donna asked.

"Insurance. They've left nothing to chance. The Toxil-Maacht know what they're doing is illegal, and they don't want any evidence of their crime to reach the Shadow Proclamation." He ran his fingers through his hair and stared at his friend. "Don't you see what this means? They aren't planning on killing a million people down below, Donna. They're going to murder over six billion. The whole planet."

"There must be something we can do!" Donna said, staring at the Doctor, who was looking around helplessly at the controls. He looked almost like he wanted to cry. His face had gone pale. He was breathing heavily, clenching his hands. "Doctor? It's not like you to give up. There must be something. Anything." She said to him.

"I can go back to the TARDIS and try and find a way to defuse the bomb from there." He sighed. "But, the ship will still be stuck here, next to your moon. If the captain's hand even twitches that switch..." The Doctor shook his head sadly as his voice trailed off.

"Where's a tow service when you need one?" Donna muttered.

From the captain's seat, the Doctor looked up and stared at her. Abruptly, his eyes lit up with joy.

"Oh Donna Noble! You are dead brilliant, you are!" He shouted, bouncing up from the chair and wrapping his arms around her in a hug.

"What'd I do?" She asked, puzzled.

"I'm so thick!" The Doctor smacked his head. ""I must be getting senile. Or turning into a conservative. Same thing, really. What I mean is, I've overlooked the obvious!" He told her, shaking his head at his own lack of foresight, as they headed back to the lift. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"What? Call some outer space auto club for a tow?" She asked jokingly.

"Nah, why bother them? I can use the TARDIS to tow this ship clear to deep space!" The Doctor grinned.

Back in the TARDIS once again, the Doctor speedily set about towing the other ship away from Earth's moon, and out towards deep space. Then, he began configuring the coordinates to take him back to the ship to rescue Captain Blite. But, he was too late.

As the Doctor was about to set the coordinates, the TARDIS was rocked by a massive explosion. Both he and Donna were unceremoniously swept off their feet. Picking himself off of the floor, the Doctor rushed to the console monitor.

"You alright, Donna?" He asked her, staring with dismay at the monitor screen.

"Yeah. Just bruised my dignity a bit, that's all." She said, deciding not to tell him that her dignity wasn't the only thing that had a few bruises. "I gotta' say, Doctor. Traveling with you is like the morning after a wild hen night, sometimes. What was that?" She asked, limping over to stand beside him.

"Captain Blite." The Doctor said softly, his face suddenly looking old and sad. After a brief pause, the Doctor whispered, "He's gone."

"Don't take it so hard, Doctor. I think he had it planned this way, all along. I doubt either one of us could have changed his mind." Donna told him, placing a hand on his arm. "He told me that ship was all he had. Maybe he couldn't handle being on his own."

Nodding gravely, the Doctor solemnly switched off the monitor. He stared down at the controls, knowing too well that if he didn't have his TARDIS and friends like Donna...and Rose, he might have easily gone the same way.

"I feel awful." Donna said, feeling guilty. "Maybe if I'd stayed with him, kept him talking, instead of running off with you..."

"If you hadn't been with me, I might not have thought to tow this ship out of the danger zone." The Doctor reminded her. As he began setting new coordinates for the TARDIS. "Very probably neither of us could have saved Captain Blite. But, we did try, Donna."

"Funny." Donna said. "He was at least partly responsible for the deaths of his entire crew and two passengers. Yet, I couldn't really hate him. And, in the end, he helped to save six million people."

"I don't think it's all that strange." The Doctor said to her, as he set the TARDIS in flight once again. "There's a mixture of good and bad in most intelligent life forms, I've found. Oh, there's beings out there that are indeed totally evil beyond redemption. Like the Weeping Angels, the Dominators or the Daleks, for instance. And humans like Gengis Khan, Hitler and George W. Bush. In reality though, it's actually fairly rare to find a being who is either all good or all bad. I even met a Dalek once, with Rose. She changed it. It stopped killing. That's never happened before. A Dalek not killing every living thing in sight? Impossible! Yet, before is died, it just wanted to stand and feel the sunshine. I wouldn't have believed it, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."

"Where are we off to now?" Donna asked, watching the Doctor's hands busily tweaking several controls on the TARDIS consle.

"I'm taking you home to be with Wilf. I want you to keep a close eye on him. Don't let them give him, you or your mum any injections." He said, giving a dial which looked like a combination lock a quick twist.

"Don't you worry about that. They're not giving us any jabs!" Donna confirmed. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

"And I'm sure you will." The Doctor said under his breath. He smiled to himself thinking about Donna's potential reaction.

"What did you say?" Donna asked suspiciously.

"I said, I hope your mum won't be feeling ill." He lied.

"Where will you be, then?" Donna wondered, as the Doctor landed the TARDIS in a secluded alleyway behind Royal Mercy Hospital.

"I'm think it's time for me to meet the Toxil-Maacht's Special Procurer." The Doctor told her.

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