m_findlow

Title: The great race
Author: m_findlow
Prompt: 2 - Lucy, races, flag, on a holodeck at wintercompanion
Rating: Thirteenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Pairing: PG
Content notes: Spoilers for all seasons of both series, and the Torchwood Big Finish audioplays.
Length: 33,192 words
Author notes: Beta'ed by beesandbrews. I don't own them, they belong to their respective creators.
Summary: A new adventure awaits two old friends as they compete in the greatest race of a generation.

Lucy took the chip from the Doctor and hurried back to the ship. She slipped the chip into the slot and they watched as the next set of coordinates came up on screen.

'It's a hyperjump to the next checkpoint.' Lucy noted the unusual data. Without hesitation, she activated the drive and the ship leapt through a streak of white in the middle of the blackness of space.

No sooner had they dropped back out of hyperspace than the ship was jolted hard, sending both Jack and the Doctor tumbling to the floor. 'What the hell?' Jack tried to pull himself to his feet, but was knocked to the ground a second time as the ship juddered and shook.

'Something hit us,' Lucy reported, working her way through a series of red warnings flashing across her heads-up display. 'We're okay, I think. Whatever it was just clipped the left tailfin. No other significant damage to report.'

Jack finally got back to his feet, pulling up the Doctor with him. They both came over to the main windows, to try to spot what had hit them.

'Oh, my,' the Doctor said.

'That's a lot of asteroids,' Jack added.

They floated by in their dozens, like lazy cattle meandering across a country lane.

Lucy pulled up a wider navigation map. 'That's our checkpoint there.' She pointed to the tiny spec, an asteroid, surrounded by thousands and thousands more, that swirled around their target like a minefield.

'Exploded planet,' the Doctor said softly, staring out in awe at the debris field. 'It must have been a huge planet to create that much debris.'

'How the hell do we get to that one asteroid without being belted into a thousand pieces ourselves?' Jack asked. 'It's gonna be hard keeping a navigational fix on the thing. Looks just like every other damn asteroid out there.'

'You just need someone who can fly this ship,' Lucy replied. 'The nav comm just says we need to get close to it. It doesn't say anything about landing.' She felt a flutter of nerves. This was no simulator exercise. This was the real deal. 'Strap yourselves in,' she warned them. 'I think it's going to get really bumpy.'

Everyone took their seats, pulling both the lap and shoulder straps tight.

'You sure you're up for this?' Jack asked.

'I've been training for a challenge like this my whole life,' Lucy replied, projecting confidence she wasn't entirely sure she felt. 'You just keep an eye on the right asteroid.'

The Doctor leaned over the console, sonic screwdriver buzzing as she pointed it at the controls. Jack frowned. 'What are you doing?'

'A little navigational help,' she replied. 'Just follow the blue one.' She pointed to the navigation display. A single blue dot now shone brightly amidst a sea of red. 'Easy for you to say,' Jack grumbled. 'It's needle in a haystack stuff, and that's before Goose, here, tries to fly us in between every other piece of rock that wants to wipe us from existence.'

'Hang on, then.' Lucy gunned the engines, swinging wide left then sharp right to avoid the closest of the dangerous obstacles. She ducked and dodged, rocking the ship violently to avoid collision.

Jack gritted his teeth to stop them from slamming together, all the while trying to keep an eye on their target. 'You're going too far left,' he warned, the tiny blue dot drifting to the edge of his display, almost out of sight completely.

'Not much choice,' Lucy replied, banking again at the last second to prevent them from hitting a rock that was hiding behind a much larger one she'd just barely avoided.

The Doctor pointed out to their starboard side. 'There's one of the other racers!' A second later, it was careening straight toward them. 'Oh, hell.'

Lucy pulled back hard on the column, sending them up at almost a ninety degree angle to avoid being hit. An explosion rocked them, but just as amazingly, no serious alarms were wailing at her, proclaiming that they had about three seconds to live. As she recorrected their flight path, putting them back horizontal, all that remained below them was a field of floating bits of crushed metal and rock.

'Correction, that was one of the other racers,' the Doctor said, frowning deeply.

'They practically went sideways into that thing,' Jack replied, surveying the carnage. 'I have no idea how they managed that. That shouldn't have happened even if they'd lost steering controls.'

Lucy scowled at the view in front of her. 'I do.' A long silver cruiser was just a few hundred feet in front of them. Drax.

'I thought he must've been way out in front,' Jack said.

'Yeah, but he's such a blockhead he probably spent ages at that last checkpoint trying to figure it out. That ship collision was no accident.' As if she needed more reasons to hate him.

'A big ship like that is going to have a hard time negotiating a way through an asteroid field like this,' the Doctor said. 'He's at a natural disadvantage.'

Lucy seethed. 'All the more reason to start using his bulk to knock a few competitors off course.' She watched the silver dart clumsily skirt around several asteroids. It irked her that Drax made it look so easy. It was high time for them to level the playing field. She pressed them forward with more speed, determined to reach their flag before Drax did, taking advantage of their ship's more compact frame to weave in and out of the debris field.

The Doctor gripped her seat for dear life. 'You want to slow down a bit?'

'No, I don't,' Lucy replied, her eyes fixed on one thing and one thing only. 'You just tell me if we're too far off course,' she instructed Jack. She'd beat Emin Drax if it was the last thing she did.

'I wouldn't even fly my TARDIS like this,' the Doctor complained, gripping the back of Jack's seat hard as they were jolted relentlessly.

'You gotta admit, though, not too many people I've met can fly like you, Doc. And I've met plenty.'

'Was that a compliment?'

Jack kept his eyes on the map in front of him. 'It might be. But right now, if this blue dot doesn't stay still I'm liable to get a little car sick.'

'I'm trying,' Lucy apologised, struggling to keep up herself with the view speeding past them as the ship banked violently in every which direction.

'You're doing great, kiddo.'

Lucy managed to slip under an enormous chunk of rock and would have hooted with delight at having seen the much larger silver ship disappear from the corner of her eye, having finally passed it, but there wasn't time to celebrate. Concentration was everything. She had the asteroid in her sights when everything flipped upside down, a bone shattering crash nearly throwing her from her seat. 'Did we get hit?' Another brutal jolt sent them rocking.

'That wasn't a wayward asteroid,' the Doctor said. 'That was Drax's ship that hit us.'

'I really don't like this guy anymore,' Jack said. 'Where was the rule that said contestants trying to wipe other contestants off the map get disqualified, huh?' He flinched as the console in front of him sparked, the navigation map fading from view as systems went haywire. 'Uh, oh.'

'I've got systems crashing all over the place!' Lucy held fast to the yoke even though it ignored half her instructions.

Jack was out of his seat in a heartbeat, and the Doctor was similarly scrambling out of her own seat harness.

'You do the engines,' Jack said.

'And you take the navigation systems,' the Doctor replied.

'What about me?' Lucy asked.

'Just keep us from being smashed to atoms!' Jack yelled, grabbing the edge of the console to stop himself falling, before reaching for the panel beside it to try to fix the damage.

Jack cursed as sparks stung his hand that was lodged deep inside the panel. 'Oh, come on baby,' he pleaded. 'You don't wanna be crushed by an asteroid, do you?' The ship rolled seventy degrees and only a last minute grab stopped him from flying head first into the back of the bridge. 'Really need some power here, Doc!'

She was battling to stay upright herself, one fist clutching tightly to a sparking panel, the other clamped around her sonic screwdriver. 'I've already cannibalised about fourteen different systems just to stop the ship from imploding on itself. What more do you want me to do?'

'If we don't get stabilisers working, we won't have a ship to worry about!' Jack retorted.

'Shut up, both of you!' Lucy yelled. It was taking every ounce of her concentration, but she had the asteroid in her sights. Since the navigation had gone down, she'd been focused on nothing else. They just needed enough power to get there safely.

'Can't you divert some juice to the shields?' Jack yelled out.

'What shields?' Lucy yelled back.

'You don't have shields? Why are you only telling me this now?'

'Oh, sod it!' the Doctor cried out, pointing her screwdriver at the entire back panel, buzzing and glowing more than it ever had. On Lucy's console, displays and lights began to reappear, lighting up the bridge like a Mexican wave. 'How's that for power?' she cried, an exhilarated smile breaking across her face even though she was still clinging to the panel for dear life.

Jack whooped out a cry of delight. 'And we have navigation back online. Now get us the hell out of here!'

Lucy didn't wait for an engraved invitation. She pushed the engines to maximum as her two compatriots shuffled back to their seats, strapping themselves in. If they survived this, there'd be time enough to tinker with the ship afterwards. For now, just having it back under control was all she needed. She swept around several more wayward fragments of rock, before Jack's display glowed blue and strong.

'We're right in front of it,' he reported. He turned to face her. 'How the hell did you do that? That we're even still alive and in one piece is remarkable enough. But to keep track of that little chunk of rock without so much as a map…' he shook his head in disbelief, 'well, that's nothing short of incredible.'

Lucy tried hard not to blush at the effusive praise.

She flew closer, just a few hundred feet from the asteroid's surface, letting the weak gravitational field keep them centered. She peered out through the windscreen in front of them, then ran a scan of the surface. 'There's nowhere for us to dock the ship. I've scanned the entire thing and there's nothing.'

Jack scrutinised the rough terrain. 'Could we have locked on to the wrong target?' He typed commands into the display.

'What are you doing?'

'Checking the location of other ships in the area, and, yep, right there,' he said pointing. 'Other side of the asteroid, there's a ship in a low, stable orbit, just like us. Right place, but we need a way down there. Whatever it is, it must be under the surface.'

'There must be a transmat beam or something,' Lucy replied.

Jack glanced at the various control panels dotted around the ship's interior. 'Does this ship even have a transmat?'

Lucy rolled her eyes at him. 'Of course. I just don't like using it. Transmats can be hacked, and I don't want anyone trying to sneak aboard.'

Jack looked around. 'I don't think you have to worry about that. There's only us, after all. Who else is gonna want to hitch a ride with us?'

'Okay, hang on a sec while I disable the security.' She stood up and walked over to a small panel at the back of the bridge. Keeping her body between the panel and her teammates, blocking their view, she keyed in the master override code. It wasn't that she didn't trust them, but it didn't hurt to be a little cautious, either. 'There we go,' she half muttered to herself. 'Okay, won't be long,' she said, standing on the spot where the transmat could activate.

'Wait a minute,' Jack said, stepping forward. 'You're not going down there on your own.'

'Why not?'

'Because I'm losing faith in anything around here being safe. I'm coming with you.'

'Fine, but let's hurry. Drax has probably already scanned his flag.'

'Hey! What about me?' the Doctor cried.

'Stay here with the ship,' Jack said. The instruction was calm yet assertive. Lucy could tell Jack was one of those natural born leaders, accustomed to taking command and having his orders followed to the letter.

'Oh, no way,' she said, pushing up out of her seat. 'Wherever you're going, I'm coming too. I'm not just some ship babysitter. I'm the Doctor.'

The response amused Lucy. Okay, well maybe not everyone followed his orders. Certainly not the Doctor.

Jack sighed. 'Fine, then move that very sexy butt of yours.'

She skipped across the room, squeezing into the narrow space already only big enough for one or two at best. 'My butt is not sexy, by the way,' she argued. 'And don't even think about touching it, Jack.'

Jack rolled his eyes. 'Spoilsport.'

Part six...