A Journey Across

Book 2 - Revenge of the Doctor

Chapter 1 - Hate

Two weeks ago

The ship jerked below Jeb. The last two hours were nothing but blackness. He had been trying to shut everything off, after the engine almost exploded. With a sudden roaring noise the ship jumped and Jeb almost hit his head on the roof. When he looked up again he could see a planet before him. Mostly green but some blue. He hoped for the best and noticed that the Exo had shut down. Without paying attention to the other indicators, he checked his orbit. Highly eccentric. In 3 minutes he would hit the atmosphere with 4km/s. He activated the reaction control systems, turned the ship around and fired up the Rapiers.

30 seconds before he hit the atmosphere he had slowed down to 3km/s. Not good but better than 4. Once again he turned the ship, this time slightly angled to his direction of flight. This reentry would be hard. He activated the autopilot just for safety.

A sudden rocking of the craft indicated reentry. Flames licked on the cockpit windows. His altitude dropped below 50km and the flames became a raging monster.

The ship now slowed down with over 10 gees. The rocking became more intense.

A warning light blinked up and the blarping of the Master Alarm sounded through the cockpit. "MBA undervolt". At the same time he lost reaction control. The ship started to spin controlless.

Like a meteor it raced through the sky, brighter than most stars. Drawing a line of flames behind, but nopony noticed, as it was deep night.

As the ship slowed down Jeb noticed a triple rainbow in ring form behind him. Strange, he thought and switched the Rapiers into Atmospheric Mode. They screamed as the turbo fans spun up to fast. At fifty thousands rounds per minute the ignition kicked in.

Jeb pulled up the craft only 2km above ground, with what little control was left. The craft zipped over a large ocean at speeds beyond mach 2. Behind it appeared a pair of rainbow rings.

Without any warning the ship dropped a few hundred meters, as one of the wings was bent from the forces acting on it, and Jeb hit his head this time. The last thing he saw was the fire indicator for the left engine light up.

As the autopilot registered that the pilot was unconcious, he took control. Horizontal speed was 650m/s. Vertical speed negative 10m/s. The machine lowered to 1.5km above ground. The radar detected mountains to the right. As the speed dropped further, the left engine failed completely. It had burned out.

At a speed of over mach 1 the autopilot lost control. The generators could not hold the voltage to support attitude control systems. With a ship almost unresponsive, the computer fired up the emergency brake rockets. The ship slowed down at a rate of 89m/s^2. The first trees rubbed it's underbelly as it dropped further.

The craft was suddenly hit leftside by a slightly bigger tree. One of the left wings now hinged only on the fuel pump and the ship dropped like a rock.

It slided about a kilometer before grinding to halt. The pilot was ejected as the computers detected failures in multiple critical systems.

Present day

"CLEAR!" shouted Rose. She stood before the control panel of the Titan. It had been replicated and connected with a big cable to the inside. The last two weeks everyone had been busy fixing the ship. A big blue generator stood beside the ship, feeding it with energy while they repaired it.

The gauges on the panel moved as the right engine started turning slowly.

She pushed the button on her radio, "We still have no go on the ignition. How are you doing Jeb?"

Jebediah Kerman, the little green Astronaut, was inside the ships hull, fixing up the electronics. He didn't mind laying besides powercables and pipes pumping explosive fluids. He grabbed his little screwdriver and adjusted a setting. "How is it now?", he spoke into his radio.

Outside the ship, the engine got kicked up, suddenly reaching over 10000 rpm. "Looking good", responded Rose, "It'll reach POI any second." The Point of Ignition laid at 50000 rpm, if the engine reached it you could switch from Closed System mode to Airbreathing.

As the needle of the gauge crept towards the 50 on the scale, the doctor came out of the forest. Behind him followed Twilight, hovering the left engine. Before Rose could say anything, the critical point was meet and the engine roared up. In the short seconds in which it balanced out, the noice was unbearable loud. The doctor ran besides Rose and started screaming into her ears, "WE GOT THE LEFT ENGINE FIXED! WE'LL HOOK IT UP LATER, OKAY?"

"WHAT?", came back, "WAIT!" The roaring of the engines became even louder before it suddenly faded into a low base humming. Rose turned to the doctor, "So, what's up?"

"I said, that we have fixed the left engine. Twilight will help me hooking it up again," said the doctor calmly. In the background Twilight laid the engine softly on the grass.

Jeb appeared from behind the ship and walked towards the console. He had his usual grin on his face, "It worked. Holy shit, I am a rocket scientist!"

The three others sighed, they knew too well that it was a miracle nothing exploded yet, but Jeb was the only one who knew the ins and outs of the craft.

Before anyone could say anything more, Rose's cellphone rang. She took it out and gave the doctor and asking look, "You know, when you said universal roaming you kind off underestimated it."

She looked back on the screen only to look back at the doctor, "You might want to see this." She showed the doctor.

The screen showed the caller number. It was '666 666 666'. "Answer the call", whispered the doctor, "but put it on speaker."

Rose did as he asked and laid the mobile on the control panel. A familiar voice, without any recognizable pitch, came out of it, "Hello, my friends. I know I'm on speaker, I was just making sure you are okay over there, fixing your ship and everything." There was a good bit of background talking.

"What do you want?" asked the Doctor, "Why did you call us?"

"Oh, as I said, just making sure you're okay. I have a great party over here. I invited everyone important," he answered, "Wait. Someone here wants to give you a sign. I'll give him the phone."

For a few seconds they heard only cracking as the phone was turned over. Then someone tapped on the microphone. tap tap tap tap ... tap tap tap tap. A short cracking later, Entropy spoke again, "You know I think I'll get him over to you. I can imagine what kind of fun you would have doctor."

The doctor's face went pale for the first time in two weeks. Rose picked up the phone, "Why did you call? You certainly don't call us, just to make sure were alive."

"Oh, yes I do. If noone had taken the call I would know you were dead. Can you wait shortly, have to talk to somebody," came out of the speaker. He must have laid a hand or hoof or whatever extremity he had on the microphone. About half a minute later he talked again, "Sorry for the interruption, this thing here wants to leave now. It was kinda busy dying when I saved it. Ohh, and it killed Applejack. What an amusement. Who flushed you out there again? Something with a 'R', Ricardo? Ridlay?" A short hissing was heard, "Ripley! Ah, yes yes. I'll drop you off at Sevastapol later okay? I'm kind of busy. " - he put the phone nearer to his mouth - "I'll call you back. Bye."

The call was ended. "Well, shit," said the doctor seconds later.