Author's Note: This is a (very, very, extremely) delayed response to Jessa L'Rynn's Dalek Cann challenge. Possibly stepping out of the parameters a bit; you be the judge.

1

The Doctor smiled to himself. Today was going to be a good day. He just had that sort of a feeling about it. He was dressed in a new suit, a fine brown pinstripe affair. He'd gotten the odd dye off his red and white trainers. And the anthermic modulator was working again. Yes. It was going to be a good day. His smile widened as he sauntered down the corridor, hands in his pockets. He was pretty sure Jenny was up, but if he hurried he might even get first crack at the toast and marmalade.

As he walked, his smile faded slightly. Something was niggling in the back of his consciousness, an itching ache that trickled down behind his eyes. Something was happening that made the TARDIS uncomfortable. The Doctor's brow creased, his feet picking up speed.

What's the matter, old thing?

The corridors twisted and bent ahead of him, leading him to the source of the problem. He was hurrying now, eyes intent. Something was wrong. The Doctor paused-then he inhaled sharply, catching a scent in the still air.

Smoke.

He broke into a run. Dashing past the libraries, he raced through the solarium, eyes flickering. How could a fire have gotten started? How?! Where is it?!

Coming around a bend in the corridor, he skidded to a halt. The hall ahead of him was obscured in a billowing black-grey cloud. Most of it seemed to be pouring out of a doorway he could barely discern, the doorway to what he guessed was the kitchen.

"What?!" He exclaimed, staring. "What?!!"

The TARDIS vented its displeasure through his head, galvanizing him to push into the cloud, coughing as he breathed smoke that tasted of ozone and burnt plastic. He squinted into the darkness. Nothing to see. But there was plenty to hear. Boots clattered on tile, cupboard doors were crashing open and closed. And Jenny was cursing in her head.

Oh damn! Oh damnit, damn,damn, what the hell did it go and do that for?!! Oh shix, there's another flame! Oh he's gonna kill me! And the TARDIS- don't be pissed with me right now, I've gotta fix this- DAMN!

"Jenny? What…what…" the Doctor coughed, waving ineffectually against the acrid smog. "What…

Oh shix, shix, shix,damn!!! "Father, wait a moment! Have it out in a sec!"

"What?!"

A splash and a loud hiss. A fan clicked on overhead, drawing away the smoke as the Doctor stepped into the room, scanning the gloom with wide eyes. There was Jenny, a large jug in hand, staring at something on the counter that fizzled and smoked.

"What…what…what…" He took a step closer, squinting incredulously. "Is that the microwave?"

Jenny nodded, staring at the blackened lump, then glanced at her father, wide-eyed. "The thing just… exploded."

"I can see that!" The Doctor stepped across the room, eyes fixed on the mess in shock. "How..what…what…what did you do to the microwave?! I mean, a microwave! What could you possibly have done to a microwave, Jenny?" He skipped back from his inspection as the microwave let off a shower of sparks.

Jenny's petite shoulders rose in a shrug. "I don't know. I just stuck the pot of spaghetti you made in there, and then it-" She waved a hand toward the machine-"did that."

Her father's eyebrows were nearly touching his hairline as he stared at the lump of plastic and metal. Then he stiffened, and, slowly, turned to look at her.

"A pot? Did you just say you put a pot in the microwave?"

Jenny nodded. "Yes."

"One of the bluish metal pots? The febra metal?"

"That's what it was in." She stared back at him, puzzled and oblivious. The Doctor closed his eyes for a long moment. He drew a breath for good measure. The microwave spat wetly.

I am not going to yell.

"Think, Jenny." He gritted between his teeth, "On what principle, exactly, does a microwave oven work?"

"Dielectric heating." Jenny replied promptly. "The cavity magnetron inside emits electrical waves that form as microwave radiation, and those excite all the electrons in the object simultaneously so that they…oh…"

The Doctor rolled his eyes dramatically. "Yes, oh! Metal is conductive. Febra metal is super conductive. You don't give microwaves something to conduct off. Thus, you don't put metal in the microwave. Unless you want something to explode. Which I don't. Not in the kitchen."

"I didn't think-"

"Oh now that's the understatement of the day!"

Jenny glared up at her father, before glancing again at the slag of a machine, still fizzling slightly. She sighed.

"Sorry."

"Sorry's one thing-" The Doctor reached out a hand, then snatched it back, shaking burnt fingers.

"Ooh! But if you'd thought before you acted, it wouldn'tve happened."

Jenny nodded, chagrinned. "Yeah. Sorry." She stared at the smoking slag, her thin frame so chastened that it almost made the Doctor smile at the sheer eccentricity. He glanced at the microwave again, and couldn't help it. A grin quirked his lips.

"It's a new record, I'll have to say. Exploding something before you've been awake an hour." He glanced at the mess again, and shook his head. "I'm not letting you forget this, you know." He turned to Jenny, his eyes laughing.

"Come on, help me get this cleaned up. We can stop by Earth for a replacement and breakfast."

The mess wasn't as bad as it looked. Before long the only remnant was the faint smell of ozone and burnt spaghetti. Jenny walked with her father towards the console room. It seemed like an awfully long way today. Jenny reached out for the room's signature in her mind. What she got in return felt like a slap across the back of her head.

"Ow!"

"Looks like you've gotten on its nerves." The Doctor commented, strolling along. Jenny shot the wall of the ship an annoyed glare.

I didn't know it would explode.

Nothing. She brushed fingers along the wall.

Alright, sorry.

The wall warmed beneath her fingers. Her father shot her a sideways smile.

"Much better. Ah, here we are!"
Pushing open the door of the console room, the Doctor bounded up on to the grate that surrounded the time rotor.

"Come up and hold both grava-thrusters and the stabilizer matrix. This'll most likely be a bumpy ride. Seems like any time I head to the fiftieth century it gets rough, no idea why. But, best gizmos around, so allons-y. Double check that calculation you just input. Last thing we want to do is bounce in the wrong direction and land somewhere nasty."

"Again." Jenny added. She leaned sideways, flicking two dials, hitting a lever with her foot.

"Again." Her father agreed. "And mind where your feet land."

"Always do."

"Ha. Famous last words."

Jenny ignored the comment, her fingers dancing over the controls.

"Everything ready over here."

"Get over at the gravimetric pump, then."

Jenny complied, stepping over to what had once been a bicycle pump and working it. The Doctor ran his eyes over the settings approvingly as he passed, pausing to look over the readings on the main monitor. His brows knitted together.

"Now that's strange." He hit several keys, and brushed fingers across the screen, bringing up new images. "What's this about?" He moved to another monitor, checked it, then pulled the main monitor over, looking from one to the other. Jenny watched him from her position at the stabilizers.

"What's going on?"

"Something very very odd." He said absently, checking figures, murmuring to himself. "This can't be right. Not right at all. Not remotely, conceivably, possibly at all."

"What?"

"These readings. We're picking up readings from…no. That can't be right." He smacked the side of the monitor with the flat of his hand, eyes on the figures. "No." he repeated incredulously. Leaving the readings, he took off around the console, turning knobs and flicking switches.

"Jenny, we're going to have to leave the trip to Earth for later. Lock on to the emission tracking that I just input. There's some sort of spatial disturbance coming through, and it's got to be a big one if we're picking it up from all the way out here. Really shouldn't be there, really really shouldn't be there. Hold the flux slip and the sec-well, make it tertiary stabalizers."

"These are figures for a quasar." Jenny said, typing in commands with one hand, holding two red switches down with the other.

"Look again." Her father said around the rotor. Jenny tried to look over the figures more closely, though her perusal was cut short as the ship juddered, making her grip the trim for support and race to work the gravimetric pump again. Her father bounded past her to input calculations.

"Right, get ready with the landing protocol." His daughter nodded, and after a moment the ship settled out of the Vortex.

"Very nice." The Doctor said, patting the trim of the console. He pulled the main monitor sideways, glancing over it. His brow creased.

"Signal's gone. I could've sworn it was just here." He glanced at Jenny. "You stayed on its track, right?"

"Yes. It was right at these coordinates. Did we miss it by a week?"

"No…Odd. Very odd. Something like that shouldn't just…" He turned, pensive, and strode across the room, grabbing his overcoat off the rack. Opening the door, he stepped out.

Jenny double-checked the readings, and turned away with a pat on the console trim, jogging across the room. Pulling her satchel from the rack, she glanced at her gun for a long moment, her head cocked. Then she shrugged to herself and turned away, dropping the strap of her satchel over her shoulder and stepping out the door.

The Doctor was standing, hands in pockets, peering at the low ceiling of the room they'd materialized in.

"A basement. Why does it have to be a basement we land in? Simultaneously some of the most boring and nerve-wracking of places, basements. Nasty things always seem to be happening in basements. And they all seem to have the same rubbish lighting."

He turned in a circle, studying the wires and tubes snaking across the ceiling, the dark rectangular bulks of machinery that loomed up in the grey half-light cast by an overhead panel, the concrete floor beneath his feet.

"Hmm. Not much down here, is there? Definitely nothing that could send out a signal like that."

He glanced around the room, brow creased.

"Let's poke around a bit." He said slowly, "But keep a weather eye out. Anything nasty pops up and you-"

"Get back to the TARDIS." Jenny said, finishing the well-known sentence. Her father nodded absently, striding away.

"You take that side, I'll take this."

"Right."

Jenny strode down a corridor between the towering metal boxes. Her eyes darted between the great cubes, scrutinizing, analyzing. What were these things? Storage units? Machines of some sort? Her eyes flickered into the shadows between the rectangular blocks. Nothing to see, yet.

The air tingled against her skin, prickling with static. She shrugged deeper into her denim vest, trying to shake the uncomfortable sensation from her skin.

Electrical current in the air, maybe. Which meant these things were probably mechanical. She paused, listening. There was a low hum in the air, a sound was more felt than heard. In the half light it gave the impression of life to the shadows. Jenny glanced over her shoulder. Nothing there. But the deep shades and stark patches of light set her on edge.

She took a few steps. Something tickled her awareness, and she whirled on her heel, arms up in a fighting stance. Only the ranks of machines met her eyes. She sighed, glancing between them.

Oh what I'd do for my gun right about now.

The Doctor peered at the tall metal rectangles as he walked between them.

We must've ended up in some sort of power station. Enough of these electro-synthetic units to power a small city. Very nice, but that wouldn't attract the TARDIS. Or cause such a massive disturbance. There's got to be something around here that's at least jumping time streams like mad to set her off.

He walked as he thought, glancing over the large power synthesizing units. Coming to one of the room's walls, he followed it, reading over the signs that dotted the concrete; green, yellow, even a deep mauve sign that stood out against the grey.

Maintain Ear Protection at All Times

SARNA

DANGER! Do not contact synthesizer openings

The Doctor turned as Jenny came jogging up beside him.

"See anything?"

"Nothing to report in the left quadrant."

He nodded. "No, not much down here."

Glancing at the signs again, murmured to himself.

"Sarna. Now what's that? Company? Research project, maybe? Something that's using all this power, most like." He glanced up at the ceiling.

"Oh, and look at that. Flux systems and power couplings in every direction. Power being produced as well as used, then. Lots of it. Curiouser and curiouser, as Mr. Carrol wrote..." With another comprehensive glance around the room, he turned back to his daughter.

"I say we take a look upstairs, poke about a bit. See if we can dig up the source of that little spatial disturbance anomaly."

"Think we won't be noticed?" Jenny asked.

"Nah." The Doctor tapped his knuckles against the nearest synthetic unit. "These'll cover the TARDIS's signal pretty well, and if they haven't noticed us by now then they probably aren't-"

A ringing klaxon blared through the room. Green and yellow lights flared from the walls, casting wild shadows across the room.

To the right and left, doors crashed open, admitting a throng of red-clad bipeds that quickly formed a ring, hemming them in. Long bronze rods leveled themselves at father and daughter. The Doctor threw up his hands.

"We're not armed! We're not armed!"

The individuals in the front of the crowd stepped closer, the reflective silver of their helmets showing him his own position, frozen against the flank of the nearest machine. The long rods in their hands trained their points on his chest, tips sparking with orange-red light. The Doctor held himself perfectly still, hands high in the air.

Jenny, put up your hands. And please tell me you're not armed right now.