Disclaimer:

Much as I hate to admit it... the Doctor, the TARDIS, and related matter belong to the BBC. This story and its setting, however, belong to me.

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The Islander

by infiniteviking

Prologue

Space, true empty space, is a great deal emptier than most people think. Even in the latter centuries and among the most thoroughly populated sectors, interstellar ships are few and far between, and the vast distances between stars are home to little more than dust clouds, radiation waves, scattered electron fields, solar winds and the occasional vagrant black hole.

Take this little area for example: the heart of the Great Void between Altair and Deneb.

A small cloud of Dark Matter drifts over the emptiness in what is no doubt the most exciting event that has occurred here for over two thousand years. Light-years away, the great star Deneb is dying, an enormous red giant, producing unbelievable amounts of energy, building up to a supernova. Light-years away in the opposite direction, white-hot Altair shines impassively.

Faster than light or time, silent and insubstantial as a ghost, barely even in the same dimension, the shadow of a tall blue box with a blinking light on top flashes through the cloud and is gone. The Dark Matter swirls slightly, eddies a bit and settles back to the serious business of random drifting.

Time continues.