Checkmate (Doctor Who fanfiction)

Staying Calm... Sort of

We wandered through city tunnels, and The Doctor rambled on about this and that as he always liked to do.

"This place is enormous and deserted. The majority of the race are probably still asleep. We need to find Amy. Looking for heat signature anomalies," he was saying. If it meant finding my best friend, I didn't care if he announced that he was about to blow up this entire underground city.

Nasreen still seemed under a mild case of shock. "But Doctor," she stuttered, "how can all this be here? I mean, these plants!"

"We must be getting closer to the centre of the city," he answered vaguely.

"And you're sure this is the best way to enter," I said skeptically. He nodded at me convincingly.

"Front door approach. Defiantly. Always the best way," he assured me. I felt his hand near mine in a discreet attempt to take my hand, so I folded my hands behind my back and put a good two feet of distance between us.

As if his previous words had activated a trigger unit, alarms sounded all around us, and a female computerised voice announced, "Hostile life forms detected area seventeen."

I turned pointedly to glare at him. He caught my eye nervously.

"Ah... apart from the backdoor entrance," he amended. "That's also good. Sometimes better."

"Hostile life forms detected area seventeen."

"Doctor," Nasreen said slowly as a group of about half a dozen lizard warriors approached us from ahead, and an equal clan from behind.

"Hostile life forms detected area seventeen."

I wanted to scream at that alarm to shut up already.

"We're not hostile, we're not armed. We're here in peace," The Doctor said confidently, holding up his hands in surrender. A lizard stepped forward and pulled the trigger of it's lifted weapon. The last thing I saw way the milky white vapor in my face.

***

I woke up to a sound that shouldn't have made me panic, but still did; The Doctor groaning in pain. My eyes shot open and I cringed at the light. When my eyes adjusted, I found myself on a near vertical examination table. Across from me, The Doctor was being scanned by two green line lasers on his table, which seemed to hurt since wave after wave of agonized moans left his mouth.

My whole body strained against the bondages, but I forced down the panic and calmed myself down. This wasn't Amy I was looking at being tortured, it was The Doctor, which made it okay. Was Amy strapped to that table and crying out, there was no force in the universe that was going to stop me from coming to her rescue. But she wasn't. Who knew where she was.

The thought of Amy made it hard to breathe with pure panic, so I focused on strategies on how to get out of here. Who else was here with us? Where were the exits? Were there any apparent unlocking device for my restraints?

"How can they have escaped? This proves all prisoners should remain under military guard," someone said. The voice sounded sharp, female, and vaguely like a snake, were a snake to speak.

My eyes finally relaxed and I immediately noted the dozen-or-so lizard warriors, The Doctor and Nasreen, and two lizard people I didn't recognize. One had the structure of a man and wore a lab coat. The other was a sharp expressioned female lizard wearing a tunic. I could tell she was the one who spoke by who spoke next and what his response was as he looked up from the control panel that was controlling The Doctor's laser beams.

"I'm sure you'd prefer to be in charge of everything and everyone, Restac, but we rank the same," he said in a calm but firm voice. Restac hissed and turned away from him. His tone softened at his next words. "Is there any word from Alaya?"