Sentinel's Orbit (Chapter One)

This story contains graphic sex, violence and bad language. Do not read it if these sort of things offend you. Also, this is a fan fiction story using characters from the television series, Doctor Who, property of the BBC. No ownership is implied nor profit gained from the use of them in this context.

Sentinel’s Orbit
By Brian Flynn

Chapter One

Finding a good, sturdy metal computer console, the woman crouched behind it, her back resting against it. She let out a few quick, labored breathes, collected her thoughts. She was small, light. She probably wouldn’t be much good in a brawl but her skills with a pistol had been honed, her aim deadly.
She wore a form-fitting black leather outfit that showed off her small, perfect ass and revealed a cute bit of cleavage formed by a V-neck. She held a hand to her chest just over her small breasts to make sure her heart was still beating. Her face could have been girl-next-door pretty but had been battered and beaten in the last few years: her bright red hair was never longer than a quarter of an inch – she regularly shaved it – and there was a long, red scar that ran from her scalp on the right side of her head down at a severe angle through her eye to her top lip. The pigment in that eye was gone now. Her sight had eventually returned after the initial injury (thank God for modern medical techniques, even if they were black market) but had never been as good as it had once been. There were only four fingers on her left hand, her pinky finger having been snipped off in a particularly grueling torture session.
Turning around, still crouched, she fired three quick shots in the direction of her enemy: her former partner. The man who was responsible for the woman she was today: the bad as well as the good. They had come to the dead space-station that was orbiting the dead planet Skaro in search of some kind of valuable object which her partner refused to disclose any further details about. Once there he promptly tried to eject her out of the airlock. They had been traveling together for four years now and this was how he repaid her for all the times she had saved his life. Granted, it had been give and take. He had taught her how to shoot, taught her how to survive torture sessions as well as just about any kind of hairy situation. He had also, though, involved her in all kinds of trouble from day one. And now he was trying to kill her.
She had her back to the computer console once again, looked over her shoulder around the console, down the hallway.
“Still alive, Glitz?!” she called out. Like the rest of her, the voice would have been cute, almost annoying, at one time but years of uppers and tar-sticks had graveled her voice.
There was a moment of silence as she waited for Glitz’s answer.
“Course I am!” Glitz replied. He sounded farther away then he probably was. It was one of his strengths. “How are you holding up?!”
“Oh, I’m just fine, thank you!”
Turning again, she fired three more shots. She was back into hiding position in no time at all. Glitz only laughed from his obviously safe position.
“You’re a feisty one, Mel!” he said. “I’ve always thought that!”
Melanie Bush smiled sadly to herself. She would have to kill him in order to get out of here alive.

Thousands of years in the past, on the surface of Skaro, Bettan was fiddling with a computer in a small control center.
“Damn!” she exclaimed and threw down her spanner in disgust. How had the Kaleds ever got this equipment working? She had been examining the computer for several hours now and had achieved nothing. The control center had been built by the Kaleds during the war to monitor their orbiting space station, Sentinel. It had been abandoned for years as the costs to maintain it became astronomical and the war demanded all their attention. Now that the war was over, the Thals had become interested in finding out whether the space station could be brought up to full capacity once again.
“Problem?” Sevrin asked, poking his head into the control center.
“The usual,” Bettan said. “These systems don’t make any sense. I don’t think we can get it working.”
Sevrin wandered into the room, sat on the edge of the computer. Bettan pulled out a set of wires, began to piece them together in a futile attempt to get the power working. Sevrin began to fiddle with the controls. He was particularly interested in a switch marked “transport.” He reached for it.
“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” Bettan said to herself and connected two wires together that she had ignored before. At the same moment that she connected them and the power came on, Sevrin pressed the transport button. There was a loud humming noise and a bright light began to blind Bettan.
“Sevrin,” she said, “what did you”—
Then she simply disappeared in a brilliant flash of light leaving behind the wires and the woman’s clothes. Sevrin sat on the computer, jaw open, wondering what had happened to his friend.

Thousands of years later, on Sentinel, Mel had finally managed to seal the door to the computer room. Feeling relatively safe now, she looked over the large, imposing computer. The technology was ancient and, from the look of things, the station hadn’t been used in thousands of years. She booted up the main program drive and tried to decipher the language the computer used. Luckily, her relationship to a certain time-traveler had left an aura around her; one which still worked with the spoken word but was a little less successful with the written word.
She had gone through the main programs (life support, security, etc) when she found a program that was still waiting to be activated. It was a transmat program by the look of it; an ancient, experimental one. She hesitated for a moment. What if it was some kind of trap? Would she be able to get out of it? Considering that the system was several thousand years old, she figured that she could make it work. She activated the program.
A flash of brilliant light flooded a corner of the room that was occupied by a small, dark recess in the wall, obviously designed for the transmat. Soon, the light formed into the shape of a naked woman sitting on the ground.
“—do?” she said.
She looked around in confusion, saw Mel.
“Who are you?” she asked. At this point, she noticed her nakedness and made a half-hearted effort to cover herself up.
“We don’t have much time,” Mel said. “Can you fight?”
“What?”
“Can you fight? Can you fire a gun?”
“I can hold my own.”
“Good. Now get up.”
Bettan stood up and nearly fell over. She was dizzy, disoriented.
“What the hell?” she said.
“You’re probably suffering from some kind of transmat sickness,” Mel said.
“Transmat?” Bettan asked.
“Your signal's been in a sort-of holding pattern for a few thousand years.”
“Thousand years!”
“Yes,” Mel said, “a thousand years. All your friends, your family, everyone you knew is dead. Now let’s get you an outfit…as much as I’d like to see you running around stark naked.”
At this, Bettan dropped the pretense of covering herself and put her hands on her hips. Mel got a good look then shook her head.
“We don’t have time for this,” she said. “There must be another one of these suits around.”
After a few moments, the two women had found a locker tucked away in a corner of the room which contained an outfit matching Mel’s. Bettan put in on and Mel “helped” by basically feeling her up. She took great relish in zipping up the Thal.
“Why are we in such a rush?” Bettan asked as they finished.
“My former partner is trying to kill me, for one,” Mel said.
“And?” “And a Dalek regiment is on its way here.”
“Daleks?!”
Mel nodded.
“I imagine you’ve heard of them,” she said.

To Be Continued...