Free Doctor Who: Time Flight by Peter Grimwade

at the array of unfamiliar dials and switches. 'Always assuming this is the flight deck.'
     
    The Captain selected a control at random. 'Here goes.'
     
    Only a buzzing resulted from Captain Stapley's intervention. He tinkered recklessly with more levers and buttons.
     
    Andrew Bilton watched him anxiously. 'I hope you know what you're doing, Skipper.'
     
    'Not the remotest.'
     
    A sudden whir swung them round to face the screen which had opened with a view of the Master still at work in the chamber.
     
    'Now that's more like it.'
     
    They would now be forewarned of the Master's return.
     
    'If only we can hold up the Master until the Doctor's got through to Tegan and Nyssa.' The Captain had another go at shutting the doors.
     
    'Skipper!' Andrew could see the Master returning to the TARDIS with an armful of spare parts.
     
     
    There was only one place to hide. Stapley and Bilton dashed through the inner door of the control room and into the corridor.
     
    Leaving the door very slightly ajar, the two men watched the Master kneel under the console and insert the components from his own machine.
     
    The Master stood up and reset the coordinates.
     
    'He's going to take off again. We've got to get out of here!' Andrew whispered.
     
    But the Captain had no intention of leaving. The Doctor's TARDIS is our only link with the twentieth century. Where it goes, we go!'
     
    It seemed, for the moment, that the TARDIS was going nowhere. Lights flashed, the column jerked and thumped, but the Doctor's time machine refused to dematerialise.
     
    A gleeful Captain Stapley turned to his First Officer. 'Engine trouble?'
     
    'That's a bit of luck.'
     
    The smile faded from the Captain's face as he realised the implications of a serious malfunction. He voiced his fears to Andrew Bilton If there is a fault in the TARDIS, we could be marooned in this wilderness forever.'
     
    The rage and frustration of the Master knew no bounds. He pulled more units from the inner control systems and hurled them to the floor, then strode out through the double doors.
     
    Captain Stapley dashed back into the control room and knelt under the console. He began to remove various chipboards.
     
     
    'What are you doing?' asked Andrew.
     
    'A trouble shared is a trouble doubled,' said the Captain, replacing the modules in a random order.
     
    'Sabotage!' Andrew grinned.
     
    'I only hope the Doctor knows how to put all this back.'
     
    It was a mystery to the First Officer how the Doctor could begin to cope with the baffling technology that made such a machine work. He ran his eye over the intimidating control panels. 'I thought, after Concorde, you could fly anything. But I can't make head nor tail of this ...'
     
    He would have done better, however, to have kept a watchful eye on the screen.
     
    'I'm sorry the Doctor is not here to explain it all to you.'
     
    Bilton and Stapley sprang guiltily to their feet. The Master had returned. He waved them away from the console with the Tissue Compression Eliminator.
     
    'You seem to be having trouble with the TARDIS yourself,' bluffed Captain Stapley.
     
    The Master had now quite overcome his feelings of exasperation. 'It is no longer important to me,' he replied with nonchalant charm, as he detached several more components. 'I now have all that I require. The TARDIS, for what it's worth, is yours.' Pausing only to realign the coordinates, he turned to the entrance and swept out.
     
     
    To the dismay of Stapley and Bilton, no sooner had the Master passed through the double doors than they closed fast. Almost instantly a new sound came from the central mechanism. The column began to rise and fall; not falteringly as during the Master's attempted take off, but with a regular rhythm. They watched,
     
    almost mesmerised by the weird motion.
     
    After a few minutes the column slowed and stopped. Bilton and Stapley looked at each other. Where, or when had they gone?
     
    'Look!'
     
    Bilton followed