The Sun, the Time Lady and a TARDIS

Spark

Sizzle

A defining alarm blares in Sonya's ears as she frantically dodges sparks from the control panel while trying to program the TARDIS to land.

"What! What! No no!" Sonya shouts out suddenly, her eyes wide as she stares at the screen in front of her. The readout was clear as day while she clung to the edge of the console for dear life. The ship shook violently, trying to toss the Time Lady inside around as it bucked sharply from side to side.

Another spark and angry whine from the rotor before the Ship landed with a jarring thud to whatever surface it could find.

And then everything went dark.

"Nononononono!" Jumping up quickly from where she had sprawled out on the grating, Sonya began flipping various switches and twiddling knobs wildly, panic beginning to set in as the ship remained unresponsive. "No! You can't land here!" She cried out, her head tipping back so she could shake the dangling hair from her eyes. Already the temperature was beginning to rise increment by increment.

It wasn't enough to really be noticed, but every few seconds she glanced over at the flickering screen to see the internal temperature rise a decimal or two.

"Lady, work with me here! Give me something, please!" She whined desperately, hands slapping down on the console sharply only to receive another angry whine from the rotor and a spark to the hand for her efforts.

With a soft hiss, Sonya pulled away and fell back into the seat behind her, nursing the small burn she had gotten with a low sigh. "Well... Isn't this great...."

Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes and rubbed her unwounded hand over her face with a sigh. "Why did you have to crash on Mercury of all places?"

On the TARDIS, there aren't 'day times' or 'night times'. There isn't an afternoon, there is no midnight, or break of dawn, or even tea time. The TARDIS is neutral, a place where there was no sun or moon to judge the proverbial time of day.

Despite this, many species needed their sleep. Well, Timelords rarely did, but Theta's companion, Robin, certainly needed hers. So he had set up an automatic system on the TARDIS, that would make the console room and hallways bright or dark at different times of the 'day'. Right now, it could be considered dawn; Theta leaned on the railing next to the console, watching little packets of star like light release from the heart of the TARDIS, less and less time passing between each interval. They dissolved into the water of the small room, making it a fraction lighter each time. Theta smiled, shifting his grip on the railing slightly and tilting his head upwards. He could see why so many species loved dawn, or just suns in general. Light, it was beautiful.

Speaking of dawn. He glanced over to one of the doorways to the console room, frowning. She was usually up by now. He got that other species needed their sleep, it just, it was boring sometimes. And when Robin was involved, lonely. He still hadn't told her the truth, you know, that it hadn't been 4 years since they last traveled (as he had told her), but almost 30. He hadn't told her that the last time he had seen her, alive at least, had been 10 years ago. He couldn't; how could he? It was just easier to tell her that he was the same Timelord she had known; that he hadn't had other companions since then. That he hadn't killed. Maybe he was being a wimp about it, but in his eyes, he was... protecting her, in a sense.

Theta sighed and shook himself out of his thoughts, promising himself that he would stop thinking about it for, at least, the TARDIS's artificial day. He smiled as he heard the telltale footsteps of someone coming down the corridors; Theta straightened up and brushed his jacket off, as if brushing off his previous mood.

"Robin! You certainly took your merry time. How long was it this time, 8 hours? I don't see why you lot want to waste so much time alseep when you could be doing other stuff!" his tone was, of course, light and teasing "I hope you slept well, though?"

As he was talking, a light began to flash on the console, but Theta didn't pay it any mind, as his back was to it. Though he should have; it was on the, as Theta sometimes called it, 'uh oh someone's in trouble' panel. It flashed a little brighter, as if that would make him notice. It didn't

Robin peeked one eye open, scanning around her room to see the telltale signs of approaching dawn. She groaned, lifting her pillow and slamming it over her head. "Come on, Lady, give me this one day." It seemed her pleading wasn't going to work with the ship this time. Her Time Lord had been kept waiting long enough. Still, her bed was still beckoning to her. As much as she wanted to give Theta what he wanted, she really did need the sleep. Didn't matter, though. Lady wasn't going to shut off the lights any time soon. Groaning in annoyance, she rolled herself off the bed, tossing the pillow halfheartedly at the wall. "You owe me tomorrow, though, and you know it." She stretched her arms up into the air before trotting off towards the bathroom to take a shower.

A while later, she exited her room, finally ready for whatever mess Theta had decided upon going to today. She had to admit, she was taking her time this morning. This probably wasn't a great schedule to keep for a growing girl. She rubbed her eyes as she stepped into the console room, hair still dripping wet. As if she cared. She prepared herself for her friend's inevitable complaint, shook her hair at him in response. "I'll have you know I'm supposed to be getting closer to nine hours of sleep. Can't you just, I don't know, go wander around outside for a while or something? It's not like you have to stay in here and - no hold on, whats that?"

Robin sped over to the console to examine the bright blinking light, still having little more than a clue to what it might have meant. "So this is either the 'oh no something really bad happened' one or the 'congratulations you've got mail' one. Remind me again how those things are different, anyway?"

Letting out a soft breath, Sonya sat up and looked over at the console with a wry smile, her ears twitching slightly at the faint sounds of humming coming from it. "No I'm not mad at you." She finally huffed and got back to her feet, wandering over to the console and flicking a few switches to bring the lights on low then turning the screen so she could see it properly while she worked. "Mainly frustrated with myself. Do me a favor and have a quick scan around the area, see if you can pick up anyone nearby that can give us a tow?"

With a soft pat on the control panel, she slid underneath and pulled the grating up so she could drop down below and begin assessing the damages she's received. "Blimey, what a mess..."

Clicking her tongue against her teeth, Sonya pulled her sonic from her back pocket and began working, trying to ignore the sweat beginning to bead on her forehead and slowly running down the back of her neck. "How's the systems?" She called up, her head poking out of the grating as she squinted at the screen above her then nodded her head with a grim expression. "Thought so. Well do what you can, Lady. Keep yourself safe too you know..."

Trailing off, Sonya shook the thought of being slowly cooked alive inside of one of the safest ships in the universe and got back to work, rerouting several wires towards the core instead to boost her power while cutting off power to a dozen or more rooms at the same time. "Alright, gimme a little groan, Lady!"

The ship hummed for a second then a loud grating noise echoed around the control room, making Sonya slam her hands over her ears with a grimace. "Alright! Stop!"

Once the sound faded away she climbed back out and sat on her heels, eyes pointed into the dark hole below her in thought. "This is going to take a lot more than I thought it would..."

Theta leaned away from Robin as her hair-water went flying everywhere, including a few drops to the console. The Timelord put his hands on his hips, giving her a dry look, though a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth as he talked.

"Oi, you're going to get the console wet, Ms. I'd rather sleep than have fun" okay, not the best insult ever, but he wasn't trying to insult her! That was his excuse for not coming up with a better name, anyways "You remember where your elbows took us when we used to travel? Let's not find out where your hair wants to go, okay?"

Theta finally released the smile that was struggling to escape, shrugging in dismissal of her question (he sometimes did go other places. but most of the time he couldn't leave her alone in the TARDIS, not when he knew that she would die in a few short years. and yes, this included when she was sleeping.) His smile dropped, though, as she pointed out the flashing light on one of the hologram panels. He turned towards the console, narrowing his eyes at the blinking light.

"They really aren't different; mail just sounds better" Theta muttered, tapping the button to bring up the message. It was just a list of coordinates; no words along with it, no binary, nothing. The concerning thing, though, was where it had been sent from; a TARDIS. That told Theta two things; one, a Timelord/lady was in trouble. And two, it was just the coordinates, meaning the driver was in trouble or too rushed to type out a message or explanation to the coordinates. Theta frowned, getting to work on typing in a set of coordinates right next to the other TARDIS's location in to the navigation panel. He pressed a few buttons, and they were off.

"I know it's a bit early in the morning, but I've got to check on something; there's a TARDIS distress signal nearby" he squinted at the coordinates, realizing something else about them "It's in the Sol system, but... it's not on Earth. A bit closer to the sun, actually"

Robin frowned, steadying herself as Theta launched them into a sudden and unexpected flight. She yawned, covering her mouth with her arm as she took in what he'd said. "A TARDIS? I'm fairly sure this is one of the only ones. There is that Doctor fellow, though. What's he done this time?" She moved her arms behind her for the vague placement of the railing, and leaned back on them as they reached the end of their trip. Rather quickly, too. Slightly surprising, but not much so, seeing as Time Lords were involved and they tended to display a wider variety of their alien tendencies when in proximity. The weirdos. 

Robin stole a glance at the holographic panels, taking a moment to figure out which one must be the view from outside and.. Um. That... was the front of the TARDIS. Just. The front of it and nothing else. Actually it looked a bit, well.. very close up. "Hold on did you just put us on his TARDIS? Well, I mean, how else are we getting into it, I guess. Right?" She shrugged, sluggishly reaching the doors and pulling both pairs open extremely cautiously. She wasn't entirely sold on either Time Lord's ability to park, and didn't want to get thrown out into the vacuum of space or anything. 

One thing, for sure, it was dark in here. And warm. When Theta said closer to the sun, he meant it. She pushed the sleeves up on her shirt and stepped inside, looking around for where the alien might have gone in a time like this. "Uh. Hello? We got your distress signal, and, um. Looks like you could use the help, if I'm honest. Are you actually in here, or have we got some room hunting to do? I don't know about you, but I'm sure I'll be ancient by the time that's finished."

Hearing a sudden voice, Sonya jumped from where she was crouched under the console and bashed the back of her head underneath it. "Ow!" Muttering a soft curse under her breath, she stood up quickly and looked over at the doors, blinking in surprise at the sight of them being wide open only to reveal another console instead of the surface of the planet outside. "Oh.. Well then! Hi!" She said cheerfully, wiping her dirty hands on her shirt before waving one in the air with a wide grin on her face.

"I wondered if anyone might be travelling nearby, good thing too." She added cheerfully, an arm coming up to wipe across her forehead with a soft huff of air. "It's been getting hotter by the second and I don't know how much longer it'll take me to fix this... I mean... The core is nearly blown, she's shot her rotator gears and several other energy regulators." Rambling off a list of the things that went wrong, Sonya dropped down under the console and below the floor so she could dig around in the dangling wires again.

"Anyone else with you? You said 'we' I take it someone else is with you."

Theta nodded at Robin's question, watching her with concern as she sluggishly made her way into the other TARDIS; maybe he should go off exploring somewhere else whenever she was sleeping; it would pass the time, and she would probably be less of a zombie in the mornings. Shrugging in approval of his own idea, he followed Robin into the other TARDIS.

It was incredibly dark, lights only just bright enough to see what you were doing, though quite not bright enough to reach the dark corners of the room. It was incredibly hot, as well; Theta could feel beads of sweat popping up on his brow as soon as he stepped past the safety of his own TARDIS. He squinted over at the figure by the console; he didn't recognize who it was, at first, but as soon as she started talking he recognized her as Sonya. His eyebrows rose in surprise; out of all people to crash a TARDIS, she had been the last on his mind. She was an excellent driver (well, better than him and the Doctors, but that wasn't saying much).

"What did you do?" Theta stepped closer to the hole in the grating, trying to see each piece of damage that Sonya was listing off, and succeeded in spotting a few burnt out devices in the mess of wires, but for the most part he had to imagine what had been done to the poor TARDIS.

Robin's eyebrows almost raised off the top of her face. Can eyebrows do that? Whatever - they did it in cartoons, good enough for her. For a moment she considered the possibility of the Doctor having regenerated into a woman, but she knew that voice all too well. The question was if she should be glad to hear it or not. At this point, she wasn't sure. Safe to be cautious, nonetheless. Stepping carefully, looking around as well as she could in this darkness, she tried to position herself as out of the way as possible.

"You know, I'm pretty sure you're supposed to fly ships around planets. And, you know. Not directly into them." Robin looked on at the Time Lords, feeling a bit more than just out of place in a situation like this. She wasn't tech savvy, and she certainly couldn't understand space ships. She fidgeted for a moment, contemplating moving around to see the damage, but reconsidering as she'd probably just be in the way. Not to mention that she could barely see the floor, let alone into a hole in it. "So I'll just, uh. Stand over here, then. Knock yourselves out. And, uh, hopefully not literally." Robin shrugged, fanning herself with one hand, as if it'd do something.

"It's not like I did this on purpose! She started acting strange just a little bit before she crashed. Something went wrong in the flight pattern. Almost like something knocked her off course..." Standing up again, Sonya rubbed a hand on the time rotor with a sad look on her face. "It was just... Strange to say the least. We were going for a quick trip to Sumar so I could pick up some stardust for a friend of mine and then, crash! Here we are. She's diverting as much power as she can at the moment to the shields, but I don't know how much damage she took in the generator."

Pausing, she cast a look over at Theta, blue eyes squinting slightly in the low lighting before they widened in recognition. "Thet! It is you! Oh thank goodness, I was worried I was explaining this to the Judoon for no reason at all." A forced laugh burst out from her as she rubbed at her hair anxiously, her gaze darting over to the side where the console was before she dove back underneath again.

"Anyway, you see the damage. And I don't know, but there's just... Something plain wrong here. It's almost like she was roasted by something, looks like someone took a blowtorch to her central wires, but that's impossible because I checked everything before I borrowed her." Trailing off, Sonya pulled herself out of the grating again and sat on the edge, legs dangling down in the open area as she chewed on her lower lip in thought, one hand coming up to tug on a loose strand of hair.

"You two didn't see anything while you were coming to my rescue, did you?"

Theta frowned, considering Sonya's words. Something that had burned the TARDIS and pulled her off course; it wasn't hard to find a conclusion, and it made sense, though not at the same time, because of how easy it was to think of what could have gone wrong. Things couldn't just be this simple, could they?

"We didn't see anything; we were in the vortex when we recieved your message. But, here's a crazy idea... maybe you just flew too close to a sun, or a solar flare knocked you of course? I mean, it makes sense for what happened to her. And you did land really close to Sol"

He circled around the hole as he started to talk, trying to discern anything more about the interior damage. He didn't know much about the workings of Type 40s, sadly, them having been far out of date when he had started to learn about space/time crafts. But it didn't take a genius to figure out that there were parts burnt to little recognition, and that they might not be salvageable. He gestured over his shoulder to his own TARDIS, though the gesture might have been lost in the darkness.

"I probably have some spare parts lying around somewhere in there; we could switch out all the burnt parts for new pieces, see if that gets her running again" he wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and resisted the urge to take off his jacket and/or bowtie in order to get cool "I hope you know how to reinstall parts in here"

Robin yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. To be honest, she wasn't sure if going back to bed was an appropriate action, right now. Sonya needed some help, very clearly, but there was a large problem with that. Robin didn't even know how to fix a car, let alone a time-space machine. She supposed she could try to run back and forth for parts and whatnot, if she actually knew what they looked like. Or she could hold something down? She was small, was that an advantage?

Robin strolled over towards what was apparently a hole in the ground, but looked no different from the rest of the floor, to her. "So, uh. I've come to a consensus." She looked up towards the Time Lords, the definition of confusion on her face. "It's dark in here. I'm gonna go get a flashlight. Assuming that is a thing we have?" Her question was directed at Theta specifically, seeing as even if Sonya did have one, there was no way she was finding it like this. And, you know. She wanted to be at least a little useful.

Peering up at Robin, Sonya smiled wryly and waved a hand in a 'go ahead' motion. "Great idea. Could you grab me something to drink while you're at it? I'm parched here." Swiping a hand across her forehead, she dove back under the console to begin tearing out several burned wires.

"And, Thet. It's impossible for a solar flare to melt anything in Lady, her shields are backed by an external source." She added idly while tossing a piece of partially melted wiring out. "Not to mention even without that, it would have only sent her off course. No, something else did this and I won't rest easy until I know what it was. Because if it's something inside Lady... Then it's still in here."

Pausing in her actions, Sonya put a hand to her forehead and frowned slightly, her thoughts beginning to jumble into an unrecognizable state before she forced them back into the proper order. "And if something got onto the ship... Then it came in with me during our last trip."

"Yeah, yeah" Theta waved a hand in the direction of the TARDIS, though it would be no help whatsoever in showing Robin where to go "I think I've got a box of flashlights and lanterns in the study; the one by the greenhouse, I mean, not the one we accidentally flooded. They've been sitting there for a while, though, so watch out for corroded batteries"

Satisfied that Robin would know where to go (hopefully), Theta turned back to Sonya as she began to pull wires out of the hole in the floor; his nose wrinkled up at the acrid smell that drifted up from inside the hole and from the wires "you don't mean...? Are you saying that whatever did this... is still here??" Theta couldn't help but feel a chill rise up along his spine, despite the stifling temperature in the room, ever slowly climbing "what planet did you two last go to, out of curiosity?" Well, less curiosity, and more dread, but what were words?

Robin nodded with a frown of confusion, seeing as she wasn't sure where the greenhouse was, exactly. She figured it wouldn't be too difficult to figure out. That, and she didn't have a reason not to try, seeing as she didn't know nearly enough about space or mechanics to do anything of use otherwise. Sighing, she turned around and carefully moved herself back into the brightened machine, eyes blinking harshly to adjust to the light. "Alright, greenhouse. Just like the medbay. Smell for antiseptics. Except it's the greenhouse and I'm more than likely going to be smelling plants and manure. Can't say its any less pleasant. Lady, can you help me out here?" She laughed, shrugging as she picked a direction aimlessly and started sniffing. Now the batteries. What to do about them... Well, she supposed, one problem at a time.

"Er..." Sonya scratched her head with a dirty hand, her eyes shut in thought as she tried to remember exactly where it was she landed last before flashing an apologetic smile at Thet. "I don't know, but the people there were blue and did not like the color of my shirt." She plucked at the grey t-shirt she wore then shrugged before vanishing back down below.

"From the looks of things it either exudes a lot of heat, or it spews acid." She called up after tossing another lump of melted wire before a loud clang followed by a growled string of curses followed. Moments later she reappeared, one hand clutching her head the other dragging what looked like a metal box behind her as she climbed out of the hole. "This thing tried to kill me!" Sonya accused, pointing at the box as she glared at the offending object in distaste. "It jumped off of a shelf and tried to brain me!"

Theta chuckled in humor at the description of the planet. He'd never been... wherever that was, but they seemed like a 'cheery' people. As Sonya worked, he fished through his pockets to find some sort of bag to keep all the melted wire she was throwing from inside of the hole. It might be good to see what had caused the TARDIS's malfunction through an analysis, later, if they didn't figure out what caused it right now. That way, they could avoid the planet where whatever thing or creature that caused this lived on. Plus... the wires kind of stunk out in the open like this. Eventually, he found a small ziplock bag; Theta put a few pieces of wire that were cool enough to touch into the bag.

"Wait, what is that?" Theta straightened back up and placed the small bag on the console, squinting at the strange box. He looked up huffed in amusement at the Timelady "I don't know, Sonya, things don't just jump off of shelves without someone bumping something. But I guess it's not too uncommon for things to try to kill you..." the last part was muttered quietly, though he made sure that Sonya heard it; he'd used to be a little shy about teasing her, but after he'd learned she wouldn't brain him for doing it, it had become a sort of habit to make at least one cheeky comment when she was around.

Robin blew a piece of hair out of her face unsuccessfully as she walked back into the room, a lantern and a couple of torches in hand. She figured they probably wouldn't need all of this at once but it wasn't a bad plan to have it here. Because, whoo. It was a long walk back. Nearly tripping in the dark, she fumbled over herself and dropped them on the ground. Oh, brilliant. At least the lantern was hooked on her arm and not in her hand. "I bring you the gift of light," She sighed, and rather anticlimactically switched it on. It was bright, she supposed, but not extraordinarily. Still, a rough transition from the pitch black she'd just been tiptoeing in. "Figured we could set this one down somewhere and hold a torch if we needed it. Once, you know. I gather those up again." Robin brushed the stray hair back out of her eyes and set down the light, looking around for the little shadows that would be the three torches she'd accidentally scattered. 

"And, uh. For curiosity's sake, what's gone wrong? In simple human terms I might comprehend, preferably," Robin called out, feeling around for where one might have landed. Geez, how far did they roll?