Krevell Costello grinned insanely as the Rsand creatures clawed the Doctor to the ground.

 "Nothing in the universe can stop me now!!"

 It was entirely fortunate, therefore, that they were in _another_ universe.

 Why it chose this moment to do this, and the manner in which it did this, is a matter for physicists. It was only later, when the Doctor had found out what had happened, that he began to wonder whether there wasn't someone "up there" giving him a helping hand. He eventually put it down to the incomprehensible nature of the universes.

 A medium-sized meteor skimmed off the rim of the ex-black-hole.

 If the Rsand on the Command ship weren't distracted at that moment, they might have fired their weapons on it and destroyed it.

 If the Rsand in the other ships had been monitoring nearby space instead of watching the events on the Command ship by means of a television-analogue or playing cards, they might have gallantly interposed their ships between the Command ship and the meteor. Or, more sensibly, shot the meteor.

 If the Rsand on the defender ship were so inclined, they might have destroyed the meteor, but they'd all unexpectedly and inconveniently been trimming their digit coverings at the time.

 The meteor zipped across a tiny fraction of a light-year and struck the Command ship, causing not a small amount of damage.

 Scant moments later, Jadi and Angela were sprinting for dear life down a corridor. Between them, they were dragging the unconscious form of Costello, who Jadi'd taken the liberty of clonking over the head when the panic started.

 "Cruk, cruk, cruk!" said Morok with each step.

 "Stop making chicken noises... Look out!"

 They dropped the body and ducked to each side as a Rsand appeared in the corridor ahead of them and fired. Jadi immediately tried to return fire, realised his gun was in the wrong hand, failed to swap it to the other hand, stuck half his body into the corridor, and fired. The Rsand crumpled.

 "What the hell was that move?" Angela shouted at him.

 "No time. Let's get out of here," Jadi grabbed Costello's shoulder and they hoisted him up again.

 Wil was going to answer that, but something unfortunate was happening in his trousers.

 "Er, Doctor, can we rest a moment?"

 The Doctor paused at an intersection, noted that it was clear in either direction, and ducked into an alcove. It was rather small and cramped, with something unpleasant, purple and organic squatting in the corner. A door slid shut behind Wil.

 The Doctor took a moment to examine the thing in the corner. There was a flickering monitor screen set in the front of it, with a weird keyboard below it. It was entirely possible that he could access the ship's computer system from here. Either that or email-bomb them into submission.

 "Doctor..."

 He turned.

 "I have to show you something," Wil said, reaching for his trousers.

 The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

 Wil stuck a hand in his pocket and produced one of his balls, a glass one.

 "Wil, this is neither the time nor the place for juggling," the Doctor said.

 "No, Doctor, it's..."

 The glassy spheroid globbed to the ground and reformed into a copy of Wil, except it was still completely transparent. The Doctor could see a distorted view of the alcove wall behind it.

 "Ramble here," said Ramble. "It revolting in Wil-Wil-Young's pocket. You be the Doctor?"

 The Time Lord looked at the creature, open-mouthed.

 "Because I'm your only crukking way of getting back to _our_ universe, that's why."

 "Why should I go back there? There I'm a wanted thief, here I'm free to do what I like."

 Costello, having just regained consciousness, cleared his throat.

 "Shut up," said Jadi, belting him with the butt of the Rsand weapon and knocking him comatose again.

 "Look, can't we just leave him somewhere? The Rsand won't care."

 "No, I want to interrogate him. I've been having a lot of trouble today, and this guy seems to be the cause of it."

 They ducked as another squad of Rsand appeared. Jadi returned their fire, and the squad shifted into cover.

 The corridor directly in front of them sloped downwards. He suspected by the angle that the Rsand probably just curled up and rolled down it. Shoving Costello over the lip of the corridor, he slid down after the body.

 At the other end was a puckered opening into the shuttle bay - a fairly small area containing two of the bulbous bug-shaped craft that the Rsand seemed to use for ferrying between ships.

 Angela scudded off the bottom of the ramp and looked around. "Are you seriously going to try and fly that thing?"

 Jadi was already tugging open an airlock with his free hand. "Relax, I watched when we were brought over here."

 Making a disbelieving noise, she began pulling Costello across the rough floor.

 "Why have you sealed the black hole?" The creature on the screen was twitching uncontrollably.

 "We?" K'Thixx bowed humbly. "No Rsand has done this. It was a human creature called the Doctor. We are searching for him..."

 "This is not good enough. The Hive Mother wants to talk to you. She is most displeased."

 The Rsand around the bridge clattered nervously, obviously imagining the wrath of the Hive Mother falling upon them all.

 K'Thixx thought desperately. "The human Costello who was helping us has been taken too. He will explain how to reopen the gap when he is freed."

 Jadi cursed and punched at a control.

 "Wouldn't it be easier if you put the gun down?"

 "Sure," he said, sticking it under her nose. "You try."

 With a chill of fear, she realised that the gun had fused with his arm, the skin beginning to turn chitinous. His sleeve had split, revealing the hardening up to his elbow.

 "Cruk!"

 "Exactly," said Jadi. She had to admire the way he was remaining calm, despite the fact that his arm was turning into something out of a horror movie.

 He threw a lever and was rewarded with the sound of engines firing. Immediately the shuttle scraped along the floor of the bay on its landing struts. Two of the struts were twisted beyond repair, and a third sheared off on the lip of the bay entrance.

 Then they were in space, points of light whirling around them as they spun out of control. Angela clutched her straps as the Rsand Command ship swung past for the third time.

 "I'm going to be sick!" she moaned loudly.

 Jadi was too busy punching booster controls to notice. Gradually the craft settled, and Jadi aimed it towards the derelict station and the Rsand ship that it was mated with.

 In reply to her unanswered question, he merely said "Where the hell else are we going to go?"

 "Ramble not juggling ball, Ramble Scrabethst!" The creature shifted to another pose. Instead of moving its limbs, it would simply distort and reform, so it seemed to occupy a series of still forms separated by moments of fluid motion.

 "It's true," said Wil. "He's some sort of spy or something. I picked him up on the way to the bridge."

 "Wil, I've told you before not to pick up strange aliens," the Doctor sighed.

 "Ramble have important information for Doctor." Ramble's hands morphed to an outward gesture.

 "Can you make it fast? We don't have much time."

 "Okay. Ramble give short version. Rsandric where Rsand and Scrabethst live in peace, Rsand in hive, Scrabethst in caves. This happen for many cycles."

 The Doctor nodded, though he suspected there was something the creature was leaving out.

 "Rsand have spaceships, but not go nowhere much. Then three cycles ago, they built lots more ships, all climbed aboard and left. Scrabethst found spare spaceship and some of us worked out how to fly. We followed Rsand. On way we looked at records on ship, found Rsandric dying. Must save other Scrabethst. Help?"

 "But how did you know about the Doctor?" Wil asked.

 "Doctor visited us once before," Ramble explained.

 The Doctor shrugged. "I've never been to this universe before. It must happen in the future."

 "You don't think it could have been some sort of screwy alternate version of you?" suggested Wil. "One who swings naked from the chandeliers and sleeps with Daleks?"

 "No," said the Doctor. "I don't."

 "Tell that to the Kaled mutant climbing up your leg."

 The Doctor sighed heavily. "Wil, please keep your wit under control for the time being."

 "Sorry, Doctor."

 The Doctor paced thoughtfully. "First thing to be done is that we have to persuade the Rsand that we're on there side, and Costello isn't." He stopped. "That man puzzles me. He sounds like he wants to rule this universe, but he's destroyed Arcis, his only means of getting resources to and from our own universe."

 "And that's the other thing that puzzles me. A black hole is a dense core of matter creating a singularity. It should be impossible to destroy unless you happen to possess god-like powers. And I'm pretty sure Costello doesn't." He stopped and looked at the organic computer hunched in the corner. "Something doesn't add up."

 "We _are_ in another universe," Wil said.

 "What?"

 "We're in another universe. Perhaps things work differently here. Maybe Alpha Centauri are orange and _don't_ resemble giant p-"

 "You could be right," the Doctor cut in. "If there are different physical laws..." A broad grin spread across his face.

 Jadi waved his free hand, the one that was melded to the Rsand weapon. "I thought we could take in a movie. I hear Galactic Punisher 32 is playing."

 Ferris gave him a swift kick from where she was standing behind him. Jadi swung around and waved his hands around, inadvertently almost sticking the gun up her nose.

 "Look," he said. "Either shut up, or shut up. The choice is yours."

 "Shouldn't you be watching where you're going?"

 "Don't tell _me_ how to -"

 There was a sudden lurching crash and Angela fell forward, landing in his lap.

 "That's the second time today that's happened," she said quietly, inches from his face.

 Jadi suddenly felt the strength drain from him as she drew nearer. He felt her place her hand against his cheek, the warmth of her breath as her mouth dipped towards him.

 "Attention humanzzzz!" blared the radio. "Return the zzzuttle now or you will be dezzztroyed!"

 Angela leapt off him as if someone had electrified his trousers. "I'll... check on Costello." she said, vanishing through the aft hatch.

 Jadi stared after her for a moment before giving himself a shake. "What the hell's wrong with you, Morok? Not going _soft_ are you?"

 He snatched up the radio-transmitter-analogue and announced a clear and precise message: "Eat me!" Ha! Still got it.

 A second round of fire struck the shuttle, shearing off a tail fin. Not that this made much difference - fins are virtually useless in space - but Jadi had thought it was a particularly nice bit of styling. He was rather fond of fins on a spaceship.

 Obviously he was going to have to get rough. He spun the craft through ninety degrees and fired the rockets enough to get momentum going, then fired the retro rockets in a precise sequence which sent the craft through a corkscrew. Silent beams of energy flashed past, missing entirely.

 "Zzzzztay where you are, humanzzzzz" said the radio.

 "I'm doing my best!" He shouted back. "You try flying an unfamiliar shuttle, one handed and with half the control lines broken." OK, so the bit about the control lines was an exaggeration, but judging by what had happened to the landing struts, the control lines were more than likely to break when they landed. Along with the rest of the ship, naturally.

 Jadi located the Rsand ship, which was docked to the station. Once aboard, they'd be able to either interrogate Costello, find out what the Rsand were doing to the station, or maybe even both. That's assuming they survived the landing.

 He swung the shuttle around and aimed it for the docking bay on the other ship.

 "Er, didn't we do that already?" Wil pointed out.

 "Yes," said the Doctor briskly. "And we're going to do it again. And again and again if necessary, until we get it _right_!"

 "Just checking," said Wil.

 "Good, is everyone ready?"

 "Rsand must not find Ramble. Doctor stick Ramble in trousers! Ramble not like inside of Wil-Wil-Young's trousers." Ramble shrunk back into a small spherical ball. The Doctor picked him up and stuck him in a pocket.

 Wil broke into a broad grin and was about to say something, but a look from the Doctor silenced him.

 The Time Lord touched something by the door, and it whizzed open. Waiting right outside were a half-dozen Rsands, all pointing guns at them.

 "I knew that was going to happen," said Wil.

 To Be Continued...