Trip and the Terrific Tardis Chapter 1
Feb. 21st, 2011 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trekwriter151Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, don't make money off 'em. Star Trek Enterprise owned by CBS/Paramount. Doctor Who is owned by RTD and the BBC. Just borrowing the characters and the Tardis for a while.
Notes: This is my first long crossover story (ENT/DW). Trip Tucker and Malcolm Reed gets an unexpected ride in the TARDIS, but what's really going on? Where's the Tenth Doctor? Why has the Tardis appeared in the 22nd century? And how are Trip and Malcolm going to get the TARDIS back to its rightful owner?
Rating:T
Timeline note: Enterprise (5th season, a year after the last episode "Terra Prime").
Doctor Who (4th series, when Donna is the Tenth Doctor's Companion, later 5th series with the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond,Rory Williams and River Song)
We're going to be bouncing around many time zones as our so-called "Disaster Duo" tries to figure out where the TARDIS should go.
Notes: This is my first long crossover story (ENT/DW). Trip Tucker and Malcolm Reed gets an unexpected ride in the TARDIS, but what's really going on? Where's the Tenth Doctor? Why has the Tardis appeared in the 22nd century? And how are Trip and Malcolm going to get the TARDIS back to its rightful owner?
Rating:T
Timeline note: Enterprise (5th season, a year after the last episode "Terra Prime").
Doctor Who (4th series, when Donna is the Tenth Doctor's Companion, later 5th series with the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond,Rory Williams and River Song)
We're going to be bouncing around many time zones as our so-called "Disaster Duo" tries to figure out where the TARDIS should go.
Chapter One
Present and Future Tense
Current Time: January 1, 2156 Enterprise NX-01, 0330 hours, Cargo Bay Two
Present and Future Tense
Current Time: January 1, 2156 Enterprise NX-01, 0330 hours, Cargo Bay Two
Commander Trip Tucker stared at the object standing in the middle of Cargo Bay Two. The blue paint gleamed under the Cargo Bay lights and the small double windows were in perfect condition. The rectangular box showed no signs of wear and tear, despite the fact Enterprise had found it floating in space. He rapped his knuckles on the small white sign on the door. Yup, definitely wood. A wooden box drifting through space.
Where did it come from, and why was it here?
He took another sip of the coffee in his mug and grimaced at the taste. Unfortunately, the Mess Hall was still recovering from the New Year's Party, and Crewman Cunningham hadn't programmed the coffee dispenser yet. Trip had to make do with the dregs at the bottom of the pot. A drunken Anna Hess adorned his mug with brightly colored ribbons and a shiny tag that proclaimed, “Happy New Year 2156.”
Trip regarded his mug with a sour look. If this was how his year was starting out, he really didn't want to know what was in store for him for the rest of it.
He heard the hiss of the Cargo Bay doors and spoke without turning around, “About damn time you got here, Cap'n---”
A familiar British-accented voice burst out in surprise, “What is that doing here?”
He winced and rubbed his temples. Knew I should've cut back on the bourbon. Aloud, he said, “Not so loud, Malcolm! My head's ringin' like a church bell.”
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed stared at the box, his jaw agape. It wasn't often that Trip saw the Armory Officer at a loss for words. He walked around the strange object, the sharp gray-blue eyes noting every detail. “I'm in some sort of nightmare from too many pints of Guinness. I am not in Cargo Bay Two with Commander Tucker, staring at a bloody call box...”
Trip's smirk grew larger as he reached over and pinched Malcolm on the arm.
“Bollocks!” Malcolm exploded.
“Just checkin'. You're not dreamin' this, and we're both here starin' at a—what?
“It's an old-fashioned police box.” Malcolm pointed at the sign above the door, white letters on a black background that said 'POLICE Public Call BOX'. Trip kicked himself for not noticing it earlier. “My mother dragged me to museums in London when I was a child and they had similar ones on display.”
Trip's bourbon-soaked, coffee-addled brain tried to translate British English to American Southern-speak. “A what?”
“Boxes like this used to be on every British street corner, Commander.” Malcolm slowly walked around it again, this time with a scanner in his hand. He shook his head at the readings, then continued, “If a person needed assistance, he or she could call for help from a call box like this one. Some of the busier ones were actually manned by a policeman.”
Trip chuckled. “You mean it's a phone booth​?”
Malcolm sighed and a slight smile quirked on his lips, despite a visible effort to stifle it. “Yes, a phone booth.”
“What's a policeman's station doin' floatin' in the middle of space?”
Malcolm sighed again. “I have no unearthly idea.”
Trip didn't say anything as he watched Malcolm finished his scans. He deliberately took another sip of the awful coffee, then said in a casual manner, “I saw you leave the New Year's party with Hoshi earlier.”
Malcolm shrugged, but kept his eyes on the tiny screen. “I walked her to her cabin, like a gentleman should.”
“Uh-huh,” Trip grunted. If he hadn't been so tired, he might have teased Malcolm more, but it was late, and Trip wanted to get back to his comfortable bunk.
“That's odd.”
He sighed at the tone in Malcolm's voice. It was going to be a long night. Morning. Whatever. “What's odd?”
“I'm getting some strange readings. The mass is all wrong, and there's some sort of energy signature I don't recognize.” He turned the scanner so Trip could see it.
Trip's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “What the hell---?”
“Exactly.”
Trip muttered something under his breath and passed his own scanner over it again. “I'm getting the same readings you are. This doesn't make any sense.” He glanced over at his best friend. “You know what this reminds me of?”
Malcolm raised an eyebrow, Vulcan-style. “That ship from the future we picked up last year? The one that was bigger on the inside---”
“---than it looked like on the outside?” Trip rolled his eyes. “Am I the only one with the sense of deja vu?”
Malcolm smirked. “Now that you mention it, no. And I hope we're not stuck in some sort of time loop and not aware of it.”
“We're not talking about dinosaurs and what era we'd like to visit if we could,” Trip pointed out. He shook his head again as he glanced at his readings again. “You guys go back to using these things in the future?”
Malcolm sighed and shook his head. “Perhaps. We're British. We take our traditions seriously.”
“Yeah, sure.” Trip tried to open the door, but it refused to budge. “I think it's locked tight. Do these things have keys?”
“They're supposed to. Perhaps it's still floating out in space?”
“Yeah, it probably fell out of the lock when Travis was reeling it in with the grappler.” Trip winced and shook his head. “What I'd give for a tractor beam.”
“Perhaps the Vulcans might lend you one if you asked nicely?”
“No way. Even if I asked nicely.” Trip rapped the wooden door again with his knuckles. “There's got to be some sort of mechanism that opens it.” He slid his hands on the wooden door and felt around, but there seemed no way to get it open, short of breaking the windows, and he didn't want to do that.
“I'll see if there's another way inside,” Malcolm said, his voice muffled as he walked behind the box. Together, the two of them tried to open the doors or the double windows set in the top panels, but to no avail.
“Any luck?”
“No, and I don't want to use a phase pistol on it. That would be destroying a piece of valuable history.”
“You think someone could've used this thing as some sort of escape pod?” Trip huffed as he tried to jimmy the lock. “This thing's sealed pretty good...it could be space worthy.”
“Perhaps, but it would make an odd escape pod. I'd be more likely to believe it was in the hold of an Earth Cargo Ship. There was some sort of hull breach and it got sucked out into space.”
That suggestion brought Trip up short. “You know, that makes more sense. Maybe there's an Boomer ship that's in trouble somewhere..We oughta let the Bridge know it's a possibility.”
Malcolm nodded and headed toward the comm speaker on the far side of the Cargo Bay. Trip glared at the double doors of the police box. Maybe I should just wave my hands and say 'abracadabra', he thought, or snap my fingers. He shrugged and murmured the magic words, and when that didn't work, he settled for snapping his fingers.
The door popped open a crack as soon as he did so. Malcolm halted abruptly at the sound, then made his way back to Trip's side. Both men stared at it, mouths agape.
“How'd you do that?” Malcolm demanded.
“I dunno. I thought about sayin' abracadabra' and it didn't work, then I thought about snappin' my fingers and---” Trip shrugged. “Obviously, it responds to certain gestures.”
“Or it probably likes you.”
Trip bristled at the words. “It's a phone booth, Malcolm---”
“A call box.”
“---it's not like it's sentient, for cryin' out loud. I bet it's rigged with some sort of motion sensor.” Trip shrugged and added, “Okay, one quick look, and then we can leave it for tomorrow. Or later. Whatever the hell the time is.” He pushed the door open all the way and...
...before he could react, a force propelled him inside what should have been a tiny space. Instead, he found himself face-down on a smooth floor, the wind knocked out of him. There was another muffled 'ooof' next to him, then the door slammed shut behind him. He heard a tirade of English curses and knew that Malcolm had been pulled inside too.
“Malcolm?”
“The bloody door's stuck again! We're trapped inside!”
Trip carefully sat up and gaped at the cavernous space. Cavernous was definitely the word for it; this room was huge. The walls curved upward into a dome-shape, held up by tree-like support struts that looked more like pieces of art. Trip stared at the control platform in disbelief. The blown-glass column at its center glowed green and pulsed like the warp core on Enterprise.
A strange warmth radiated from the floor. Not that it was cold, really, but Trip felt something just at the edge of his consciousness. It lulled him into a sense of calm, despite his situation.
“Commander? You all right?”
Trip blinked in response. “Yeah, I'm okay. This place is weird.”
“Obviously bigger on the inside than on the outside, just like that other future ship,” Malcolm dryly commented, “not to mention a bit more...eclectic.”
“No kiddin'.” Trip got to his feet and cautiously approached saucer-shaped base of column. He looked down at the jumble of mismatched buttons and levers that adorned it. Wires crisscrossed every inch of the panels. It was an engineer's nightmare.
Malcolm frowned as his eyes swept the room. “One way out, through the locked doors. There's a spiral staircase on your far side, Commander.”
“Another level? This place is bigger than we thought.” Trip shook his head at the mess of wires in front of him. “I'm gonna need some sort of manual to figure this out. I couldn't even begin to tell you what half of these things do, and if I try to find the door control, I'm afraid I'll break something or blow us up.”
“God forbid. I wouldn't want to be in here if it does.” Malcolm circled the platform counter-clockwise, noting every detail of this strange ship.
Trip carefully surveyed the hodgepodge of parts: old typewriter keys, a computer screen more than a hundred and fifty years out of date, and was that an alarm bell? A gearshift from a car? The buttons from a cargo elevator? Parts from a streetlamp, a voltmeter, a telegraph and a rotary phone?
Malcolm uncannily echoed his thoughts. He pointed at a bucket seat at one side of the control column, obviously where the pilot was supposed to sit. “This whole thing is a kluge job.”
“Yeah, who the hell designed this thing? It looks like someone cannibalized parts from wherever they could and somehow managed to make it all work.” Trip shook his head. “I gotta admit, it isn't elegant, but it looks like it's holdin' together. Whatever source of energy this thing uses is self-contained, and it's intact.”
Malcolm bit his lip, then asked “If this is a spaceship, where's the pilot?”
“Maybe he or she's on the upper level. Let's go find whomever this ship belongs to.”
At Trip's words, the energy column thrummed with power and the walls trembled in its wake. Trip lost his hold, but grabbed the railing. Malcolm did the same on the other side. There was an ear-splitting grinding sound, as if someone had forgotten to take off the brakes.
“What'd I say?” Trip yelled over the din. He gripped the nearest edge of the console and pulled himself up to the computer screen. Information flashed faster than he could process it, but a number counter next to it changed faster, much faster.
And it was running backwards.
Where did it come from, and why was it here?
He took another sip of the coffee in his mug and grimaced at the taste. Unfortunately, the Mess Hall was still recovering from the New Year's Party, and Crewman Cunningham hadn't programmed the coffee dispenser yet. Trip had to make do with the dregs at the bottom of the pot. A drunken Anna Hess adorned his mug with brightly colored ribbons and a shiny tag that proclaimed, “Happy New Year 2156.”
Trip regarded his mug with a sour look. If this was how his year was starting out, he really didn't want to know what was in store for him for the rest of it.
He heard the hiss of the Cargo Bay doors and spoke without turning around, “About damn time you got here, Cap'n---”
A familiar British-accented voice burst out in surprise, “What is that doing here?”
He winced and rubbed his temples. Knew I should've cut back on the bourbon. Aloud, he said, “Not so loud, Malcolm! My head's ringin' like a church bell.”
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed stared at the box, his jaw agape. It wasn't often that Trip saw the Armory Officer at a loss for words. He walked around the strange object, the sharp gray-blue eyes noting every detail. “I'm in some sort of nightmare from too many pints of Guinness. I am not in Cargo Bay Two with Commander Tucker, staring at a bloody call box...”
Trip's smirk grew larger as he reached over and pinched Malcolm on the arm.
“Bollocks!” Malcolm exploded.
“Just checkin'. You're not dreamin' this, and we're both here starin' at a—what?
“It's an old-fashioned police box.” Malcolm pointed at the sign above the door, white letters on a black background that said 'POLICE Public Call BOX'. Trip kicked himself for not noticing it earlier. “My mother dragged me to museums in London when I was a child and they had similar ones on display.”
Trip's bourbon-soaked, coffee-addled brain tried to translate British English to American Southern-speak. “A what?”
“Boxes like this used to be on every British street corner, Commander.” Malcolm slowly walked around it again, this time with a scanner in his hand. He shook his head at the readings, then continued, “If a person needed assistance, he or she could call for help from a call box like this one. Some of the busier ones were actually manned by a policeman.”
Trip chuckled. “You mean it's a phone booth​?”
Malcolm sighed and a slight smile quirked on his lips, despite a visible effort to stifle it. “Yes, a phone booth.”
“What's a policeman's station doin' floatin' in the middle of space?”
Malcolm sighed again. “I have no unearthly idea.”
Trip didn't say anything as he watched Malcolm finished his scans. He deliberately took another sip of the awful coffee, then said in a casual manner, “I saw you leave the New Year's party with Hoshi earlier.”
Malcolm shrugged, but kept his eyes on the tiny screen. “I walked her to her cabin, like a gentleman should.”
“Uh-huh,” Trip grunted. If he hadn't been so tired, he might have teased Malcolm more, but it was late, and Trip wanted to get back to his comfortable bunk.
“That's odd.”
He sighed at the tone in Malcolm's voice. It was going to be a long night. Morning. Whatever. “What's odd?”
“I'm getting some strange readings. The mass is all wrong, and there's some sort of energy signature I don't recognize.” He turned the scanner so Trip could see it.
Trip's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “What the hell---?”
“Exactly.”
Trip muttered something under his breath and passed his own scanner over it again. “I'm getting the same readings you are. This doesn't make any sense.” He glanced over at his best friend. “You know what this reminds me of?”
Malcolm raised an eyebrow, Vulcan-style. “That ship from the future we picked up last year? The one that was bigger on the inside---”
“---than it looked like on the outside?” Trip rolled his eyes. “Am I the only one with the sense of deja vu?”
Malcolm smirked. “Now that you mention it, no. And I hope we're not stuck in some sort of time loop and not aware of it.”
“We're not talking about dinosaurs and what era we'd like to visit if we could,” Trip pointed out. He shook his head again as he glanced at his readings again. “You guys go back to using these things in the future?”
Malcolm sighed and shook his head. “Perhaps. We're British. We take our traditions seriously.”
“Yeah, sure.” Trip tried to open the door, but it refused to budge. “I think it's locked tight. Do these things have keys?”
“They're supposed to. Perhaps it's still floating out in space?”
“Yeah, it probably fell out of the lock when Travis was reeling it in with the grappler.” Trip winced and shook his head. “What I'd give for a tractor beam.”
“Perhaps the Vulcans might lend you one if you asked nicely?”
“No way. Even if I asked nicely.” Trip rapped the wooden door again with his knuckles. “There's got to be some sort of mechanism that opens it.” He slid his hands on the wooden door and felt around, but there seemed no way to get it open, short of breaking the windows, and he didn't want to do that.
“I'll see if there's another way inside,” Malcolm said, his voice muffled as he walked behind the box. Together, the two of them tried to open the doors or the double windows set in the top panels, but to no avail.
“Any luck?”
“No, and I don't want to use a phase pistol on it. That would be destroying a piece of valuable history.”
“You think someone could've used this thing as some sort of escape pod?” Trip huffed as he tried to jimmy the lock. “This thing's sealed pretty good...it could be space worthy.”
“Perhaps, but it would make an odd escape pod. I'd be more likely to believe it was in the hold of an Earth Cargo Ship. There was some sort of hull breach and it got sucked out into space.”
That suggestion brought Trip up short. “You know, that makes more sense. Maybe there's an Boomer ship that's in trouble somewhere..We oughta let the Bridge know it's a possibility.”
Malcolm nodded and headed toward the comm speaker on the far side of the Cargo Bay. Trip glared at the double doors of the police box. Maybe I should just wave my hands and say 'abracadabra', he thought, or snap my fingers. He shrugged and murmured the magic words, and when that didn't work, he settled for snapping his fingers.
The door popped open a crack as soon as he did so. Malcolm halted abruptly at the sound, then made his way back to Trip's side. Both men stared at it, mouths agape.
“How'd you do that?” Malcolm demanded.
“I dunno. I thought about sayin' abracadabra' and it didn't work, then I thought about snappin' my fingers and---” Trip shrugged. “Obviously, it responds to certain gestures.”
“Or it probably likes you.”
Trip bristled at the words. “It's a phone booth, Malcolm---”
“A call box.”
“---it's not like it's sentient, for cryin' out loud. I bet it's rigged with some sort of motion sensor.” Trip shrugged and added, “Okay, one quick look, and then we can leave it for tomorrow. Or later. Whatever the hell the time is.” He pushed the door open all the way and...
...before he could react, a force propelled him inside what should have been a tiny space. Instead, he found himself face-down on a smooth floor, the wind knocked out of him. There was another muffled 'ooof' next to him, then the door slammed shut behind him. He heard a tirade of English curses and knew that Malcolm had been pulled inside too.
“Malcolm?”
“The bloody door's stuck again! We're trapped inside!”
Trip carefully sat up and gaped at the cavernous space. Cavernous was definitely the word for it; this room was huge. The walls curved upward into a dome-shape, held up by tree-like support struts that looked more like pieces of art. Trip stared at the control platform in disbelief. The blown-glass column at its center glowed green and pulsed like the warp core on Enterprise.
A strange warmth radiated from the floor. Not that it was cold, really, but Trip felt something just at the edge of his consciousness. It lulled him into a sense of calm, despite his situation.
“Commander? You all right?”
Trip blinked in response. “Yeah, I'm okay. This place is weird.”
“Obviously bigger on the inside than on the outside, just like that other future ship,” Malcolm dryly commented, “not to mention a bit more...eclectic.”
“No kiddin'.” Trip got to his feet and cautiously approached saucer-shaped base of column. He looked down at the jumble of mismatched buttons and levers that adorned it. Wires crisscrossed every inch of the panels. It was an engineer's nightmare.
Malcolm frowned as his eyes swept the room. “One way out, through the locked doors. There's a spiral staircase on your far side, Commander.”
“Another level? This place is bigger than we thought.” Trip shook his head at the mess of wires in front of him. “I'm gonna need some sort of manual to figure this out. I couldn't even begin to tell you what half of these things do, and if I try to find the door control, I'm afraid I'll break something or blow us up.”
“God forbid. I wouldn't want to be in here if it does.” Malcolm circled the platform counter-clockwise, noting every detail of this strange ship.
Trip carefully surveyed the hodgepodge of parts: old typewriter keys, a computer screen more than a hundred and fifty years out of date, and was that an alarm bell? A gearshift from a car? The buttons from a cargo elevator? Parts from a streetlamp, a voltmeter, a telegraph and a rotary phone?
Malcolm uncannily echoed his thoughts. He pointed at a bucket seat at one side of the control column, obviously where the pilot was supposed to sit. “This whole thing is a kluge job.”
“Yeah, who the hell designed this thing? It looks like someone cannibalized parts from wherever they could and somehow managed to make it all work.” Trip shook his head. “I gotta admit, it isn't elegant, but it looks like it's holdin' together. Whatever source of energy this thing uses is self-contained, and it's intact.”
Malcolm bit his lip, then asked “If this is a spaceship, where's the pilot?”
“Maybe he or she's on the upper level. Let's go find whomever this ship belongs to.”
At Trip's words, the energy column thrummed with power and the walls trembled in its wake. Trip lost his hold, but grabbed the railing. Malcolm did the same on the other side. There was an ear-splitting grinding sound, as if someone had forgotten to take off the brakes.
“What'd I say?” Trip yelled over the din. He gripped the nearest edge of the console and pulled himself up to the computer screen. Information flashed faster than he could process it, but a number counter next to it changed faster, much faster.
And it was running backwards.
Dr. Who/Ent crossover
Date: 2010-10-31 06:48 pm (UTC)