Skyride

The Doctor and River decide to go check on the planet where the Doctor had settled the dinosaurs from the Ark. While riding a hoverbike.


The trees whipped by so fast they sounded like bat wings.

"Through there!" the Doctor's long arm reached forward and pointed toward a low break in the trees. River tilted the airbike and zoomed down through the hole, the Doctor holding tight onto her waist.

The T-Rex that had been following them ran into the half-fallen treetrunks with a thunk and bellowed with rage.

The Doctor turned back to look, his hair streaming in his eyes. They shot out onto a golden plain, grass waving, and something blotted out the light.

The Doctor instinctively threw up an arm, warding off the talons of a low-flying pterodactyl. "Left! Back into the trees!" he yelled.

"Make up your mind, Sweetie!" River slewed the airbike left and zoomed back into the trees, the Doctor holding onto her waist with both hands.

He'd decided to check up on Siluria 2, the planet he and Brian Williams had resettled the Ark dinosaurs on. River had refused to go out on foot, and had insisted they take the airbike. He was pretty sure she'd been tinkering with it, because he didn't remember it working the last time he saw it in the garage.

Something huge and heavy passed over them and the Doctor ducked instinctively, his hearts beat frantically in his chest and he twisted to look behind them, and saw a lumbering apatosaurus, hide a mottled green, blending into the forest. River had driven right between its legs.

It turned to look at them, its small head swerving around on its long neck. The Doctor turned back forward and hunkered down. River's hair batted in his face, but he held on.

He heard a high, fluting whistle away to the side, another came from a different direction. Suddenly they were surrounded by a whole flock of the weirdly high pitched, almost gulping sounds.

He felt River's hearts kick up under his grasping hands, recognizing the sound. She leaned forward, the bike leapt faster, she slalomed through the trees, grass and ferns beating at the undercarriage.

A whole pride of velociraptors leaped out of the forest in pursuit. Leaping over bushes, foot-talons gleaming, greedy little arms reaching and powerful legs pumping as they chased down their prey.

He was reminded once again why "prey" sounded like "pray."

"They're catching up to us," he mentioned nervously. His eyes glued to the colorful conglomeration of leaping lizards behind them.

"I'm aware of that, Sweetie." Her voice was a low and controlled, and very sarcastic, growl. Clearly a sign to "Shut up, I'm concentrating."

He buttoned down his lip and tried not to squeeze her too hard.

Frantic footfalls behind them were almost (but not quite) drowned out by the screaming of the airbike's engine. River turned the bike and roared out over a lake, leaving an arrowing wake behind them.

A huge head rose up almost directly beneath them.

The airbike ramped up, the Doctor screamed in River's ear. She kicked the throttle and turned the ramp into a soar, clearing nearly the whole small lake before splashing down near the shore.

For an instant everything was muddy water, seaweed, bubbles, and the throbbing of the airbike's engines under and around them.

They burst up out of the water with huge gasps, squirting up onto the verge like a submerged bar of soap. The forest grew close to the water here, so River had to wrench the bike sideways to avoid a tree trunk in their path. The Doctor, wet, found himself slipping sideways and clamped down on the airbike with his knees to keep from flying off.

"Yow!" that was hot!

He slapped at the scalded material inside his thigh as River found a straight path through the trees. Something hit the back of the bike, weighting it down. He instinctively whirled backward with an elbow, hitting something meaty and scaly. The weight toppled off the bike, large back legs flailing as it landed in a bush. He just saw the bony, dome shaped skull of a pachycephalosaurus pop up and glare at them as they disappeared down the trail.

Beyond it, behind them, more velociraptors thudded down the trail, or the same ones, come from around the lake.

"There's more of them back there!" he yelled into River's ear.

"I know! Hang on, the Tardis is just ahead!"

He gripped her sides, the wind whipping their clothes, water droplets flying, stinging, as their soaked clothes flailed themselves dry in the backwash.

River's wet hair felt like a nest of snakes snapping at his face.

They broke out of the forest back onto the golden plain. Dinosaurs converged on them from every direction. Brachiosaurs, ankylosaurus, stegosaurs, even the waving fan of a dimetrodon. Small bipedal plains dinosaurs, leaped and gibbered in the grass, converging on them like a sea.

The Tardis stood in the center of the plain before them. River was leaning so low over the handles of the airbike that she was virtually a hood ornament.

"We're not going to make it!" he yelled. The dinosaurs were waddling, and running and bounding closer.

"We'll make it! Shut up!" She was fiercely concentrating, fiercely determined.

If he had to bet on River, or a planet full of dinosaurs, he'd bet on River in a heartbeat.

That didn't stop his hearts thudding like a dropped boot when he saw the huge bulk of a Tyrannosaurus Regus looming toward them over the plains. Four times the size of a regular T-Rex, there had only been a couple left on the ark. One of the rare examples of gigantism in the animal world, they'd apparently done well here.

"River!" he squeaked.

"I see it!"

How could she not, all the other dinosaurs parted before it like a bow wave. It was going to be a race. Every dinosaur's trajectory altered as the bike screamed toward the Tardis. Tracking them, aiming directly for them, focused entirely on this loudly shrilling stranger in their midst.

River kept the bike high and fast, skimming just above where the small dinosaurs could leap. He could still feel occasional thumps on their undercarriage as skulls hit.

Something in the casing under him cracked.

The bike cut out. Dead silence.

He screamed so high inside he couldn't hear it. River worked the throttle, to no avail.

"Hold on," River warned. "We're going to crash."

She sailed them in on their trajectory. The Tardis getting closer, the T-Regus looming nearer, the dinosaurs converging. They sailed lower, grass lashing at the undercarriage, slicing at their legs.

"Brakes!" the Doctor yelled. The Tardis sped toward them. They were going to crash into it!

"Gone!" River yelled. "Cinch up!"

He grabbed her tighter, somehow.

She grabbed the handles and wrenched them sideways, the butt of the airbike hit the dirt, then the front, they slewed forward sideways, plowing a furrow in the golden plains. Dirt fountaining up around them.

They skidded to a halt. The shadow of the T-Regus blocked out the sun over them. A blast of foul breath blew heat and humidity over them.

They jumped, leaped the carcass of the airbike and ran the last few yards to the Tardis. They both snapped their fingers. The Tardis doors flew open, they dove inside and slammed the doors.

The Doctor soniced the console and they dematerialized.

They lay on the floor, panting, soaking wet, covered in dirt and dinosaur spit.

The Doctor turned on his side and just stared at her.

She glared back. "I didn't know retuning the bike's engine frequency would turn it into a dinosaur call!"

She huffed and stomped away.

He put his hands over his face and laughed.