Loving the Alien: Part Three

Episode Three of my Christmas Doctor Who story.

Part one is here.

Part two is here.

And now, part three.

 

Loving the Alien: A Christmas Story

 




CHAPTER EIGHT



The Chief Dalek observed the tall humanoid who had just entered the room. The humanoid was grey haired and wore a black coat, and carried with it an air of arrogance.


“IDENTIFY YOURSELF!” screamed the Chief. The other two Daleks repeated him. “IDENTIFY YOURSELF!” they squawked.


But the humanoid didn’t identify itself. Instead, it seemed to be talking to itself. “None of you are carrying flame units. Definitely not responsible for the fire. Imagine that – three Daleks and you’re not the worst thing to happen today.” 


The humanoid walked around the desk, moving towards the Chief Dalek. For some reason, the Chief found himself gliding back away from it. Which was ridiculous.


“STAY WHERE YOU ARE!!!” barked the Chief Dalek. The other Daleks chimed in, repeating the command. The Chief Dalek really wished they wouldn’t do that. It undermined his authority.


Not that it mattered. The tall humanoid continued to approach the Chief. “It’s alright – I’m not going to destroy you. I don’t need to. In ten minutes you go out into the street and UNIT blows you to pieces. Kate Stewart. Impressive woman. Anyway, if I could just get past…”









Now the Chief Dalek was really irritated. Well, he was always irritated – that’s how he started the day. But this was a whole new level of anger.


“EXTERMINATE!” he shrieked. “EXTERMINATE” chimed in the others, pointlessly. Seriously, why did they have to do that? After this was over, the Chief was going to have serious words about battle etiquette in front of alien life-forms.


The tall humanoid looked down at the Chief’s gun-stick. Its eyes widened and it dived out of the way, behind a hefty wooden desk. Excellent. The Chief liked shooting at things. He let forth a volley of energy blasts, strafing the room. Wood, paper and stone exploded as the Chief fired shot after shot at the fleeing humanoid.


“EXTERMINATE!!!” he shouted again. The other Daleks started firing too. “EXTERMINATE!!! EXTERMINATE!!!” they parroted. Now the Chief didn’t mind the repetition, caught up in the exhilaration of the shared moment.






The humanoid darted from cover to cover as the Dalek fire reduced everything in the room to splinters. Soon there was only one thing left in the room – a tall wooden apparatus bearing a large white canvas. On the canvas, in blue paint, someone had daubed the image of a tiny blobby creature, smiling and waving. The humanoid took the shelter behind the canvas.


The chief readied his weapon. This apparatus would offer no protection. His targeting scope centred on the crude painting of the blobby creature.


Suddenly something very odd happened. The image of the creature was replaced in his scope by the real thing: a white, lumpy creature with a tiny scowling face. It was right in front of his eye stalk!


“You leave Doctroo alone pleez!” shouted the tiny creature. It flicked something at the Chief’s eyestalk. Blue gunk coated his scope, obliterating his vision. The Chief span around, suddenly blind.






“My vision is impaired! I cannot see!” he screamed. He fired randomly, hoping to hit something. An electronic squawk from one of his companions told him that he had, indeed, hit something.


“SORRY!!!” he shouted. His audio receptors brought him the sound of more paint squelching and now, of course, his idiot soldiers were also shouting. “MY VISION IS IMPAIRED…” More firing of Dalek guns, and the patter of tiny feet running off into the distance.


His sensors were screaming, overloaded with information – the noise of the guns, the collapsing of the roof and, he noted, a sharp increase in the local temperature…


And then one of his companion’s blasts found its mark, and the Chief’s world exploded in light, and pain. And then darkness.





CHAPTER NINE


Flimbleby sat on the TARDIST console while Doctroo hit switches and pulled levers. The engines sang and the beautiful lights glowed. They were in flight. Doctroo stood back, cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck.


“Well, little Adipose. I think you just defeated a squad of Daleks. How do you feel about that?”


Flimbleby felt quite shaken. The big machines had scared him quite a bit, all shouty and full of fire. He had not liked that they didn’t have faces. Everything had a face – that was how you knew if people were happy or sad. Even adipose had faces, and they were just fat!


“I did not like the big Nerminates” he said. ”They were stupid and cross and they made everything blow right up.”


“That they did. Not any more though. And now we know that it isn’t the Daleks wrecking everything. I saw someone in the smoke – a human, I think. That’s who set the fire. That’s who we need to find.”


Doctroo walked over to one of his many bookshelves and tapped along the spines of the books, searching. Flimbleby hopped off the console and ran up to him, tugging on the leg of his trousers.


“Doctroo? I am quite hungry please.”


“Of course you are. Adipose. Greedy little things.” He flicked through the pages of the book, then a thought struck him. “Where are the other little Adipose? I’ve met your species before. You don’t travel alone, not at your size. You’re born in huge batches. So where is everyone else?”


Flimbleby was about to speak, but then he remembered. He was not meant to talk about this. It was a Big Secret. He would be in big trouble if he told. He had a think. What could he say? Doctroo noticed his silence and looked down at him.


“Flimbleby? Where are the other Adipose?”


Oh no!




CHAPTER TEN


The Doctor stood by the TARDIS bookshelf and looked down at Flimbleby, waiting for the Adipose to reply. Its tiny mouth was frowning and its beady eyes darted from side to side.


“Flimbleby?” repeated The Doctor. “Why are you alone? Where are the other Adipose?”


And then Flimbleby was off, scurrying off across the room on his tiny legs. The Doctor sprang after him, but the little creature was surprisingly fast for a waddling blob of fat. He disappeared into a dark corner of the room.


“What’s wrong, Flimbleby?” asked The Doctor. “Come back.”


“No!” Came Flimbleby’s squeaky voice from within the shadows. “You cannot even find me”


The Doctor sighed. “This is why no-one has ever had an Adipose for a companion.” He returned to the console. Back to business. His fingers danced across the controls, sending commands to the heart of his magnificent time machine. The central column rose and fell, casting light and shadows on The Doctor’s angular face.






“Let us assume that our art vandal will strike again.” He observed dials and pulled levers, thinking out loud. “Let us also assume that his or her targets will be remarkable in their nature. Great works by respected artists.”


He sprang back from the controls and the lights in the room steadied to a stop. The TARDIS had arrived. He moved towards the door, and then stopped.


“Flimbleby,” he said, loudly. There was no response. “Flimbleby, I’m going for tea with a very nice lady. Would you like to come?”


“You will ask me hard questions,” came a tiny voice from behind the bookshelves.


“Nooo… I promise not to ask questions. But I thought maybe you would like a little bit of tea? And cake?”


Flimbleby came scurrying out of the darkness towards the door. “Cake please!”




End of Part Three



Click here for part four