h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The muddy alleyway was lined with strange, stone and wooden architecture. A horse drawn cart squeaked down the alleyway, just getting out of the way in time for a blue police box to appear with a rush and a groan. Inside the box the Doctor was looking at the readouts from the TARDIS data banks.
"Where are we Professor?" asked Ace cheerfully as she entered the room,
"France" the Doctor replied simply, "during the revolution"
Ace sighed heavily, "Does this mean that I'll have to put on one of your stupid costumes again?"
"I'm afraid so" the Doctor smiled and led his companion through the corridors of the TARDIS to the costumes closet. Twenty minutes later the Doctor stood outside his ship, taking in the view of that alley. He was dressed in simple clothes of a revolutionary,
"I am not wearing this" Ace's voice protested from inside the box,
"Oh come now Ace!" the Doctor smiled, "No one’ll mind"
"I will!" Ace stepped out into the sunlight. She was dressed in the brown dress of a handmaiden, "I look like a china doll"
The Doctor smiled back and they walked together out of the alley and into the street beyond. A platoon of men in revolutionary uniforms marched past. The Eiffel Tower struck up from the ground in the distance. "Doctor" Ace tapped her friend on the shoulder,
"What is it Ace?"
"If we're in the middle of the French revolution, then what's that?" She pointed to a sleek, silver spacecraft with blue and red markings on it that was sitting in the middle of the road.
* * * * *
Onboard the ship two figures stood watching the screen. One was a tall, slender woman with scales down the side of her arms, legs and face, large watery eyes and skeletal fingers. Her name was Mhssca. The other was a featureless blue blob that sat on a hover seat as he had no way of moving himself. His name was Chekawowe.
"Is the chameleon circuit operating properly?" Mhscca asked her companion,
"Of course" Chekawowe wobbled as he spoke and his voice echoed these movements, "The natives will see us as a particularly big hay stack. Only time travellers will see us for what we truly are"
"In that case I shall ready the time frame remover" Mhscca turned and left the rounded chamber.
* * * * *
"There's always something isn’t there?" the Doctor sighed.
They stepped through the muddy street across the cracked pavements and approached the silver spacecraft. The Doctor circled it taking notes and muttering to himself. He finally came full circle and approached Ace.
"Do you know whose it is?" Ace asked.
"I have to say I don’t, its like nothing I have ever seen before, but if I had to make a guess I would say that this craft comes from the future... probably from the year four thousand AD." The Doctor explained to the curious Ace.
"Lets see if we can get in, eh?" said the Doctor and he reached inside his coat and drew out a small device with a blinking red light attached to it.
* * * * *
Mhssca reached the Time Frame Remover chamber and began working at the control panel. There was a bleeping from her personal communicator. She held it up to her mouth and opened the channel, "What is it?"
"There are two creatures trying to get into the craft" came Chekawowe's wobbly voice, "a man and a woman"
"Probably just lovers. You humans have a strange fixation with haystacks"
"No, the scanners have detected temporal residue on them"
Mhssca frowned, "You mean they're time travellers?"
"Yes!" Chekawowe insisted,
"I'll go and sort them out then" she closed the communications channel and picked up a gun from the table.
* * * * *

The Doctor ran the device along the side of the craft. The light on top began to blink more rapidly and the Doctor smiled,
"I think we've found the entrance" he reached into his pocket to get his sonic screwdriver. But before he could take it out a hand clapped down on his shoulder,
"What are you doing citizen?" asked the man that the hand was attached to. The Doctor turned and smiled, "I was just inspecting this spacecraft"
"Spacecraft?" the man asked, he was dressed in the uniform of a revolutionary,
"What is a spacecraft?"
"One of those" Ace gestured to the craft,
"That is a haystack" the soldier patronised her. The Doctor made to correct him but there was a whiz behind them and a hatch in the side of the craft swung down revealing an alien woman behind.
* * * * *
The Frenchman had just enough time to say, "Devi-" before a star of red energy blossomed from the end of the alien's gun and impacted in his chest. The Communist collapsed backwards; his entire body was fused into one fleshy-fabric lump.
"Bring him onboard" the woman ordered,
"Why?" asked Ace. The woman gestured to her gun,
"Good reason" the Doctor agreed.
In disgust the Doctor and Ace lifted an end of the lump each and lifted him up the entrance ramp and into the bowels of the craft. The corridors were pipe-like with arches as regular intervals. The woman led them through corridor after corridor; Ace supposed that, like the TARDIS, the ship was dimensionally-transcendental. The doors they passed were egg shaped and had complicated looking locking mechanisms set into the wall beside them. They stopped outside a door two decks up from where they'd entered the ship and the woman tapped at the locking mechanism. It bleeped and chirruped before the door slid diagonally aside. The room inside was a laboratory with complicated equipment. The Doctor's face had lit up and he was looking around like a child in a toyshop, "Well blow me down with a weasel" he exclaimed, "A Ionian multi-visor derepressor"
The woman nodded and pointed at a metal bench sat against one wall, "Put the body there" They did as instructed. When they straightened up the alien was talking to someone over some form of high-tech walkie-talkie,
"Yes I have the time travellers with me"
"Well bring them to me" ordered another wobbly voice across the link. The Doctor and Ace were taken down the array of endless corridors until finally they came to a point where the woman told them to stop.
"Taking us to her leader" the Doctor murmured.
The egg shaped door slid open revealing a complicated control point for the ship with a large egg shaped chair, the chair quickly spun around. The Doctor was shocked by what he saw, a wobbling blue blob was seated in the chair, the Doctor could make out a few features on what appeared to be a face but they were constantly changing.
"These are the time travellers?" The blob demanded. The woman nodded.
"I am Chekawowe"
"Oh, urgh, pleasure" The Doctor extended a hand cautiously but retracted it when he realised that Chekawowe had no hands.
"Why were you trying to break into our ship" Chekawowe asked in a calm measured tone.
"Well its not everyday you see a ship of such amazing proportions just lying around" The Doctor replied.
Chekawowe gave an understanding noise. "And you are?" he asked.
"Oh, I am the Doctor and this is Ace" he said pointing to his young companion.
"Did you say Doctor?" the blue creature seemed to stir. The Doctor nodded.
"Excuse me, take them to a detention cell, I shall deal with them when I return!" Chekawowe ordered and he slithered out of the room and went through another egg shaped door which slammed shut afterwards.
* * * * *
Inside his communication chamber Chekawowe triggered a projection of a dark robed figure, nothing of its face could be seen, and it was surrounded in a shimmering mist.
"Well?" an impatient voice demanded.
"The...The Doctor is here" Chekawowe said his voice more wobbly than usual.
"The Doctor!" the figure in the projection hissed, seeming darker within his robes. "I did not plan to involve the Time Lords. Not yet, what have you done with him?" the figure asked.
"He is my prisoner" Chekawowe replied.
"Good, keep him until I arrive to deal with him in my own way!" the figure said coldly.
"As you wish"
The projection flickered and disappeared.
The Doctor and Ace had been waiting in their cell for many hours before the door opened and Mhssca entered, cradling Chekawowe in his arms.
"Doctor" the blob wobbled out of Mhssca's arms and onto the floor.
"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked the blob.
"Talking to you" Chekawowe replied, "It's what all the best villains are doing these days"
"No, no, no, I mean" the Doctor corrected him, "What are you doing in the French Revolution?"
The blob sighed, "I was once like you Doctor"
"A Time Lord?"
"No, I was similar in form. I was a scientist and I was investigating time engineering. Unfortunately during one experiment I exposed myself to a flow of pure temporal energy. I managed to get out of the way before I perished, but unfortunately I was left like this."
"That still doesn't answer my question"
"We are here because we are trying to remove nanoseconds of time from different points in time"
"For what?"
"For POWER!"