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It was a dark and stormy night, which matched my mood perfectly. Firstly, of course, because it being a dark and stormy night meant that I was on a planet, which, ugh. Not a fan. At least the storm itself was still far away. Secondly, because two strangers had decided to tag along, and one of them just would not shut the fuck up.
“Come on, come on,” the Doctor said, leaping from rock to rock, their kilt flapping around in the wind. “No time to lose!”
“We’re coming, Doctor,” Ruby said patiently. “Only I’d rather not trip and sprain an ankle, you see.”
I didn’t say anything, although I did move slightly closer to Iris, so I would be better placed to catch her if she tripped.
“The source of the distress signal is 173 metres away,” ART said. “I estimate that you will reach it in 4.86 minutes. The sandstorm is estimated to hit in 3.47 hours.” Neither the Doctor nor Ruby had feed interfaces, somehow, so ART had given them a physical comms unit so it could continue to snark at them.
“Yes, yes, but you never know what’ll happen!” the Doctor said. “We still don’t know why they sent the distress signal. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the storm. What if it’s a vashta nerada infestation? Or, I don’t know, a virus? Ooh, did I ever tell you about the first human colony on Mars? Now that was a low point, let me tell you. Got a wee bit big for my boots, tried to mess with a fixed point in time, all that fun stuff.”
Do you have any idea what they’re talking about? I said to ART and Iris over the feed.
ART sent back some statistics demonstrating that, in the 7.12 hours that ART had been monitoring the Doctor, they had spent 4.9 hours talking, 2.08 hours listening to other people talk, and 0.14 hours not engaged in conversation. Ugh. They seemed competent enough, and whatever weirdness was going on with their biology didn’t seem to make them a threat, but they were unnecessarily enthusiastic about literally everything.
They’re certainly not from around here, Iris said.
That was undeniable.
We reached the top of a hill, and the source of the distress signal came into view: a small planetary habitat, with an unfamiliar logo. I zoomed in and sent a picture of it to Iris and ART.
“I recognise that logo,” Iris said. “It’s a company that recently underwent a hostile takeover. My best guess is that the inhabitants are indentured labourers, and their new owners decided it was cheaper to leave them than to rescue them from the storm.”
“People don’t have owners,” the Doctor said.
“I did,” I said, and then made a face, turning away from the others. I hadn’t meant to say that.
The rest of the walk to the habitat was tense. But at least the Doctor was finally silent.