Ship of The Mara

The Doctor and Esra stuck to the shadows, they didn't want to get caught, but they had to move closer to the Mara and its troops to hear what orders it was giving out.

The Doctor was starting to feel just a little bit panicked.

Yes, the TARDIS was incredibly difficult to get into, but that didn't mean that it was completely impossible.

For a being like the Mara while in control of someone as powerful as Harry Potter? He had no idea whether they would be able to break into his ship or not.

That had always been the Mara's goal, from the very first moment he had met the creature. It wanted to seed itself throughout time and space, infecting as many timezones as possible to inflict fear across the universe.

He wasn't going to let it happen.

"I hope you have a plan, Doctor," Esra whispered into his ear.

"Of course I do, always have a plan me, just call me the man with a plan," The Doctor babbled, well in the knowledge that he didn't have a plan at all.

But then, when did the Doctor ever have a plan? Never, that's when. Things happened and he tended to just sort of make them work. He didn't need a plan at all.

Unnoticed, the pair had managed to make it close enough to hear what the Mara was relaying to its troops.

"This machine, this TARDIS, will gift us the entirety of the universe," The Mara said, gently resting its hand on the wooden panelling of the TARDIS' outer hull. "With it we shall travel back to the dawn of civilization on countless worlds, and I shall seed myself into the very nature of the universe until… eventually… all shall become me."

The Mara drew Harry's wand and brought it up to the yale lock that served as the entrance to the TARDIS' control room. Of course, it was in fact no ordinary yale lock, that was just the way the TARDIS represented the locking mechanism.

"Alohamora," the Mara said, flicking the wand toward the lock.

A bright glow of light emerged from the end of the stick and shot straight into the keyhole.

For a moment all was silent in the cargo bay of the Sumaran battle cruiser. Then a bright golden glow began to force its way out of the lock.

For one dreadful moment, The Doctor had thought that his TARDIS had been swayed by the magical incantation that had been used against it. The ship had never had to deal with the magical energy of the like that Harry's wand was capable of producing. In fact, that type of energy had never even existed before.

But the Doctor had learned many times that his ship was capable of improbable and wonderful things, so he was only half surprised when the golden energy blasted itself straight at the Mara in Harry's body and sent him hurtling across the room in one solid blast.

While he felt bad for Harry, considering it was his body that was getting damaged, he couldn't help the smug smile that spread itself across his features.

"Like I said," He remarked in a hushed whisper, "No one gets through the doors of the TARDIS without a TARDIS key, and considering magic couldn't get him through the doors alone it was unlikely that magic was going to get him a key either."

Somehow the TARDIS seemed to be, if not immune, at least resistant to the energy that Harry's magic manifested itself in. That was useful to know.

"Right then, the Mara is going to be busy with trying to get into the TARDIS for a while I reckon," The Doctor said, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically. "That means we've got a little bit of time for a little bit of jiggery pokery."

"What's… jiggery pokery?" Esra asked, unable to keep up with the Doctor's mind going at a mile a minute.

"Oh, bit of this, bit of that," He said, his eyes sparkling manically. "Basically, we're going to crash the ship."

Esra's mouth dropped open, she gaped at the Doctor like a fish out of water.

"Sorry, I must be mishearing things, it almost sounded like you just said that we were going to crash the ship," She hissed back, it was a ridiculous notion.

"Well, just a little bit, and we'll aim it at an ocean so no one left on the planet will be hurt. Promise," The Doctor reassured her. "Now, come along Esra, we've got work to do."

The Doctor extended his hand to the woman in front of him and waggled his fingers, a clear invitation for her to take the offered appendage.

With a slight huff of annoyance, she did just that.

They crept through the darkness as one until they reached the corridor that they had originally come from.

As soon as they were clear from the cargo bay, the Doctor started running, tugging Esra along behind him as he went.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Esra asked, panting due to the lack of running she'd had to do back on her own planet. Things were much simpler when she was working in logistics, she had never really been cut out for fieldwork.

"Course I do," The Doctor replied, "Sumaran ships all have the same basic layout, cargo bay at the rear of the ship and the command module at the front, both on the same level and both looking around about the same to try and fool enemy ships into firing on the wrong location. Quite ingenious, really."

"Right… Fair enough," Esra replied, understanding why their strikes from the ground had been having so little impact all of a sudden.

Every attack they made had the chance to be thwarted by the enemy's shields, and even if they did get through there was a fifty fifty chance that they wouldn't even hit the right location.

"I still don't understand what crashing the ship is going to do for us," Esra said, "Won't the rest of the ships still be firing on the planet? They were doing that before the Mara showed up, and they'll still be doing it after!"

The Doctor looked back at her as he ran and shot her a cocky grin, maybe he was the man with the plan after all.

"Quite simple, this is the command ship for the entire Sumaran fleet, it's the only one the Mara would have had the TARDIS taken to, and the only one the Mara would deem worthy to command," The Doctor explained.

"Which means if we take it down, then the rest of the ships won't have any orders to go off!" Esra interrupted.

"Bingo, and in that situation, do you know what sumaran ships end up doing?"

"They shut down and await new firing instructions because they all work off the same command web!"

The Doctor's grin widened.

They were going to get the TARDIS back and stop the Sumaran bombardment all at once, and when that was done all he would need to do was stop the Mara and save Harry.

He could definitely do that, right?