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 her seat, twirling the chip between her thick finger and thumb. 'So, we're seeing this through, even though we know that they're a bunch of crooks and that this whole thing is a sham?'

'Oh, I don't doubt they'd pay over the prize money,' the Doctor said. 'I just don't think anyone would be free long enough to enjoy it. That sucks, doesn't it? They should at least let you burn a few thousand credits before locking you up for life and poking you full of holes.'

'Trust me,' Jack began, 'I've had dealings with them. They'd kill us in a heartbeat if we weren't of any use to them.' They'd already killed him more times than he could count. He wasn't looking forward facing them. Few things scared him in this universe, but he'd always come off second best against The Committee. They were the faceless men with immeasurable power. Then again, he hadn't had the Doctor with him before, either. That gave him a different kind of hope. They should go now before he lost his nerve.

'Doctor?' Lucy asked, still unsure.

'Come on, you two!' she said, trying to rally their spirits. 'At least now we know what we're up against.' She took the chip from Lucy's hand and slotted it in, letting the display show them the way. She scowled at the map. 'That can't be right. I've been out to that quadrant of space before. There's nothing out there except that miniscule little planet,' she said, pointing to the blue dot. 'That's just a ball of ice out in no man's land.'

'Well, we didn't expect they'd have engineered the inside of an asteroid either,' Jack replied. 'Everything so far has been a carefully orchestrated test. Why should this outpost be any different?'

As they were debating, a thin yellow ship, shaped like an arrowhead streamed past them. 'Looks like they're not worried,' Jack added, watching them disappear from view.

'And we still haven't seen Drax,' Lucy replied. 'He must be light-years in front.'

'Might not be such a bad thing to let The Committee have him,' Jack said. 'If he's the genetic future for them, they're sunk.'

'And we lose whatever chance we have of getting to them,' the Doctor replied. She leaned across and powered up the ship, setting their vector and flight path. 'Hope you both packed your thermals,' she added cheerily. 'It's gonna be mighty cold.'

'Phew!' Jack cried, pulling his coat around him tighter and tucking his hands under his armpits. 'I know you said it'd be cold,' he said, stepping down from the transmat platform installed inside a large ice cavern, 'but I'm liable to lose valuable body parts down here!'

The Doctor gripped her own coat tight, the collar pulled up high. 'Be glad we're not on the surface. The winds alone up there are cold enough to strip your skin from your bones.'

'It's not that cold,' Lucy said, staring around. She'd already clocked the holodeck, just off to the right, waiting for them to return with their flag.

'Fine for you. Your skin holds in the warmth,' Jack complained, watching Lucy moving around unaffected in only her coveralls and leather jacket, hanging open at the front.

The Doctor watched her breath frost into clouds under her nose. 'Shall we?' she asked, pointing the way.

A thin passage through the ice directed them forward. From somewhere within the ice itself, faint blue-green lights kept the passage gently illuminated, showing that it had been carved specifically, rather than a natural formation. The sheer walls caused the cracking and crunching of their feet on the ice to echo all around them, turning their trio into an army of footsteps. When the passage finally opened up into a wider cul-de-sac, the sight took their breath away.

'Wow!' Jack turned a slow circle, taking in the sight.

Huge icicles hung from the roof, appearing to defy gravity. More shot up from the floor all around them, smaller than their overhead counterparts. What they lacked in size they made up for in sheer numbers. They were jagged and twisted, but each had its own beauty, glittering brightly in every hue imaginable. It was like they were standing in a great cathedral of light.

'It doesn't look dangerous at all,' Jack said, wishing he could take a picture. As he uttered the words, there was a sharp crack and an icicle, bigger than a man, came crashing from the ceiling just feet away from him, skewering the ground before smashing apart in all directions and hitting their legs with icy debris. 'Okay, I take it back,' he quickly replied, watching for more deadly daggers.

Lucy stepped gingerly between the pillars of ice, searching for their flag. It was hard when the view of all the glittering icicles was so beautiful and distracting. It was only as she peered into one of the large upward pointing icicles, surrounded by a crown of smaller ones, she saw what was hidden beneath the sparkling ice. Brushing a hand over it, she dislodged a light layer of accumulated snow, revealing the flag. 'It's inside,' she called out quietly, so as not to disturb the delicate frozen stalactites hanging above them.

'How are we supposed to get that out of there?' Jack asked. 'I didn't bring my ice axe.' He kicked one of the smaller icicles with his heavy boot. It glowed momentarily and let out a gentle hum. He kicked it again, letting a proper note ring out. He kicked the one next to it, and a different note sounded.

The Doctor looked annoyed at him. 'Do you have to do that? Honestly, it's like travelling with a five year old sometimes!'

'How many icicles do you know that make music?' Jack retorted. 'It must have something to do with how we get that out.'

The icicles flashed in a sequence, two at a time and rang out a gentle tune.

The Doctor looked confused as she listened. 'Is that?'

'Yellow Submarine?' Jack responded. He'd thought he must be imagining things. The tune couldn't have been more out of place.

'It's definitely Yellow Submarine,' Lucy said.

The Doctor's eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. 'You know that song?'

'Of course I know it,' Lucy said. 'I have no idea what a submarine is, or why it's yellow, though. Even less why anyone would be living in one, come to think of it. My brother used to sing it all the time. It drove me crazy because it sounds so silly.'

There was a thunderous rumble as ice began to rain down on them from above. The whole roof was shaking violently. Jack tugged his coat off and held it over their heads as they all hunched under it, trying to get whatever protection they could.

'What do we do?' Lucy asked over the rumbling from above.

'I think we're supposed to replicate the tune,' Jack replied.

'I can't believe that song is actually popular somewhere other than Earth,' The Doctor said. 'It's not even a good song.'

'It's the Beatles!' Jack said, defending them with his last breath. 'What else were they gonna send out on those first intergalactic probes in the sixties? Who knew it would catch on?'

'Who cares?' Lucy yelled. 'Let's just do it.' She picked up one of the broken icicles and whacked it against one of the other larger ones, generating a note, then testing them each of them in turn. They appeared to be arranged in an ascending scale.

As the roof began tumbling down around them, they discovered that by standing right next to the central icicle, they could avoid the worst of the falling debris A few steps further back however and they were liable to be skewered. That was assuming the whole place didn't cave in first, burying them beneath the ice to slowly freeze to death.

'Okay, you take those four,' Jack said, pointing at Lucy. 'And Doc, you take the middle four. I'll take the last four,' he said, picking up a lump of ice and handing it to the Doctor to use. She gasped at the burning cold of it in her hand.

Jack drew in a breath and got the ball rolling, remembering the lyrics like it was yesterday.

"In the town where I was born, lived a man who sailed to sea…" It was remarkably hard to hold the tune over the rumbling and shaking. It hardly felt like the time or place to impress an audience with his repertoire. Instead he let the words carry on without him, keeping his gaze fixed on his two companions.

"And we lived beneath the waves, in our yellow submarine."

He gave a flourish of his icicle, using it like a baton to ready his two friends as the chorus was about to begin. He caught the briefest embarrassed eye roll from the Doctor.

"We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine..." They tried to stay on key, but it was difficult with the ice tumbling down around them. Each of them floundered from one icicle to the next, watching them light up and ring out.

"We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine." The were all singing along now, trying to find the right sequence.

Jack frowned up at the roof as ice continued to fall, persevering as best he could. "And our friends are all aboard, many more of them live next door, and the band begins to play… Please, he begged, I don't wanna be trapped forever in the freezing cold. If I'd wanted that, I'd have stayed in Cardiff. Determined, he sang even louder, trying to bring encouragement to his friends.

"We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine..."

They must have managed enough notes in the correct order because the rumbling suddenly stopped, a few final icicles plunging down around them before it all fell eerily silent again. There was one final crack, a long jagged splinter forming in the huge central icicle, breaking apart and releasing the flag.

Jack gave a nervous laugh. 'Who thought Brit Pop might save your life one day?'

'Mortified,' the Doctor said. 'Absolutely mortified,' she repeated, clearly praying she would never have to lower herself to that ever again. 'We're never going to a karaoke bar, do you hear me?'

'You don't know what you're missing,' Jack replied. Getting Owen so hideously drunk one night that it was all too easy to convince him to get up and sing "Like a Virgin" all on his own, was a memory that wouldn't fade easily. It was unlikely to fade from the memories of anyone else there that night either.

They rushed and stumbled back through the mass of treacherous ice, reaching the passageway and running the rest of the way. Jack's hands were so cold he could barely feel the flag, its metal rod just as frozen as the ice he'd been holding. He passed it to Lucy to scan.

'Wait,' the Doctor called out, stopping her just inches from the holodeck.

'What?'

'Jack should do it.'

Lucy frowned. 'Why?'

The Doctor knelt close to the base of the holodeck, drawing her screwdriver from her coat pocket. 'I want to see what happens when he gets scanned.'

'Well, thanks for making me sound like a guinea pig.'

'Just shut up and get on there,' she said, losing her patience, and pointing her screwdriver at him like an animal trainer.

Jack took back the flag and stepped on the platform, his coat still draped over his arm, trying to keep at least one hand warm. If he'd been hoping the scanner might warm him up, he was sadly disappointed. 'Come on,' he muttered to himself, literally hopping up and down on the spot, trying to keep from freezing, 'hurry up.' The flag finally dematerialised, replaced by a chip. He quickly pocketed the data chip and yanked on his coat, shivering beneath the thick wool.

The Doctor frowned, a clear look of disappointment on her face. 'That wasn't what I expected.'

'Okay, but can we discuss what you expected back on the ship?' Jack said. 'I'm freezing my arse off here!' He was already standing in the transmat circle, waiting impatiently for the other two to join him. He half contemplated leaving them there if they didn't get a move on.

Back on board, Jack let out a shuddering breath and cupped his nose. It hardly helped since his hands were just as cold. 'Dow, wad was id you were so addoyed dabout?'

The Doctor rolled her eyes at Jack's childishness. 'Why didn't they pick up anything when they scanned you?' she asked, slipping out of her own coat and folding it.

'Whaddyou bean?' he said, before finally letting go of his nose, rubbing his arms up and down the rest of him to warm back up.

'If they're looking for genetic markers or distinctive traits, you should have lit up their sensors like a Christmas tree,' she said.

'There's nothing special about me,' Jack replied. 'And you don't know how much it pains me to say that. Genetically speaking, I'm no different to anyone else. I just can't stay dead.'

How many people had tried over the years to understand what made Jack tick? Some had merely been interested at a personal level, others had poked and prodded him, cutting him up for scientific satisfaction. He shuddered to think of those times. He was who he was. With a few evolutionary adjustments, he was still basically just human. What did it matter if he couldn't die? The Doctor had said it himself. Or was it herself, now? He was an impossible thing that shouldn't exist. If the Doctor couldn't make heads or tails of it, what chance did The Committee have?

The Doctor seemed to accept this as an explanation, already moving on to the next thought. 'Right, so final checkpoint, Lucy?'

Lucy walked across and rifled her hand into Jack's enormous coat pocket, fishing out the chip and inserting it into their ship's computer. 'It's the finish line, back where we started the race.'

'So, first to cross and the line, grab their flag and log it wins?' The Doctor surmised.

Jack slid into his seat, pulling the straps over his shoulders and powering up systems in anticipation of their immediate departure. 'Sounds right to me. How fast can this ship really go?'

'Strap in and you'll find out,' Lucy replied already clipping her own straps.

Jack gave an excited laugh. 'I love this bit. Fire her up, baby!'

Lucy flipped switches and set the controls, the ship lurching forward with an unexpected burst of speed. 'She's small, but she's fast,' she said, stars zipping by in tiny streaks of white, loving the feeling of being pressed back in her seat. She never got to really open up the engines like this when she was on transport duty. That had been reserved for those times when she and her brother had been mucking around, trying to outdo one another by sending the ship around in loops and long corkscrew movements. First to throw up always had to clean the house and cook for a week.

'Look over there,' Jack pointed. He had spotted a hulking red and white striped ship. It was puttering along rather than speeding, as if damaged or running on one engine only. They passed it easily and caught up with a second, just hovering without moving. Lucy caught a glimpse of the ship's emergency beacon on their radar before an ambulance ship was seen heading towards it. There wasn't time to stop and help anyone else. Besides, it looked like they were already getting assistance.

'Is there any way of telling how many are in front of us?' she asked.

Jack fiddled with the radar, extending its reach, searching out moving objects. 'It looks like just the two signatures up ahead.' He leant back in his seat, staring aimlessly out at the view. 'I wonder what happened to Markle?' he mused. 'Surely he couldn't have made it past that first checkpoint. I kinda hope he didn't even try to attempt crossing. He might have been a stingy old bugger, but he was a good egg.'

Lucy ignored any thoughts of Jack's former partner. Two ships! she thought. They were still in contention if that was the case. She pressed the engines harder before a bolt of bright green shot past their windshield, followed by another from an opposite angle. 'They're shooting at us!'

'Lasers,' the Doctor replied.

Jack leant forward, spotting the barely concealed little satellites. 'Not just lasers. Death rays. Dozens of them, too small to show up on radar, but powerful enough to slice through a ship like a hot knife through butter.'

The Doctor gripped the back of Jack's seat, pulling herself forward for a closer look. 'They should have all been decommissioned and banned,' she said, sounding displeased. 'It was your Agency's task to make sure of it,' she lectured.

'We did decommission them! Contrary to what you think, the Time Agency did a lot of good work,' Jack argued. 'Obviously The Committee somehow got a hold of the blueprints.'

More streaks of green criss-crossed their path. Though none had found their mark yet, Jack knew it was only a matter of time. He watched as they gained on the blue ship in front of them. It took a direct hit, straight through the hull and out the other side, then several more finished off the job, imploding it from the outside in, before the remnants of the ship blasted outwards. Bits of it showered them as they were forced to fly through it.

'I can try to fly scatterplot,' Lucy suggested. 'Try to confuse their targeting systems.'

Jack shook his head. 'That'll just slow us down,' he replied. 'We need to go faster. That's the only thing that will work.' It was clear he didn't like their chances.

'I can't go any faster!'

The Doctor reached over and jammed her screwdriver into the console. 'Remember that fifth gear Jack was fiddling with earlier? Well, now it goes to six. Second star to the right and straight on til morning.'

'Huh?'

'Just fly, Lucy!' Jack yelled, gripping the edge of his seat hard as a laser clipped the very tip of their nose.

She forced the yoke forward, the inertia catching her off guard as she twisted it sideways every so slightly, driving them into a stomach-lurching spin. She held the column hard, bolstered by a second pair of hands, helping her to keep it in control. She didn't know whose hands they were, but it hardly mattered.

The ship spun and rolled, over and over again, but continued surging forward simultaneously. Lucy's world tipped upside down and right way up so many times it became impossible to tell one from the other, flashes of green all around, but none hitting them in their crazed flight path. She could hear the ship's outer hull straining from the motion, trying to tear itself apart. Then the green flashes stopped.

Lucy gripped the yoke hard, knowing she had to get the ship out of its chaotic roll. If she didn't, the inertia was likely to cause the ship to tear itself apart. She forced it back in the other direction. At first the ship resisted her commands, but its helter-skelter movement eventually slowed. It gave one last sideways roll before righting itself and finally coming to a halt.

'Urgh,' the Doctor groaned, resting a hand on the seat in front. 'I think I'm going to throw up.'

'Me too,' Jack said. 'How the hell are we not dead yet?'

Lucy didn't answer. All she could see in front of her was one familiar silver cruiser. Drax. She leaned forward. 'He's stopped. Why has he stopped?' The finish line was just a few more parsecs away. He should be streaming ahead and towards victory.

The Doctor spied the tiny plume of white issuing from the side of the ship. 'He's been hit. He's leaking atmosphere. We have to help.'

Lucy looked at the Doctor like she was mad. 'Help? He doesn't need help.'

'He hasn't issued a mayday,' Jack said, checking for outbound signals. 'No one knows he's in trouble. He could be passed out already. He'll be dead before anyone thinks to come looking for him. Assuming they bother about casualties.'

'We're not helping him,' Lucy said, putting her foot down.

'We have to,' Jack said, not liking the idea any more than she did.

'You don't know what he's done,' Lucy cried. 'He left me and my brother for dead. He's killed other racers. He's tried to kill us as well. We should do the same. He doesn't deserve to be rescued.'

'The Committee set up this whole race with the express purpose of weeding out everyone except the best,' the Doctor replied. 'They don't care if we all die trying to win it, just so long as they collect as much data as possible. He's as much a victim as we are.'

'Please, Lucy,' Jack begged. 'The right thing isn't always the easy thing, or the pleasant thing, but it's still the right thing.'

Lucy was astonished by Jack's insistence, and she was literally shaking with indignation. Despite that, she relented, knowing Jack could easily overpower her and wrest away control of the ship if she disagreed. 'Fine. But we'd better hurry. I hear oxygen deprivation kills brain cells and he doesn't have that many to begin with.'

They quickly swung their ship around to hover above the stricken vessel, locking onto its transmat beam.

'The remaining atmosphere down there will probably be pretty thin,' the Doctor said.

'I'll go,' Jack volunteered. 'Did I ever mention I once dated a deep sea diver? You wouldn't believe how long he could hold his breath. Comes in very handy when you-'

'Yes, Jack, enough,' the Doctor said, shoving him in the path of the transmat.

'Be back soon,' he promised.

Part eleven...