The TARDIS materialised and the group of four stepped out of it. The blue box was in a very tight space. "I don't know what's wrong though. She's sort of queasy. Indigestion, like she didn't want to land" The Doctor said.

"Oh, if you think there's going to be trouble, we could always get back inside and go somewhere else" Rose suggested. The four of them all broke out in laughter.

"I think we've landed inside a cupboard. Here we go" The four of them walked on forward. They went through a door which brought them into some sort of junction. "Some sort of base"

"Moon base, sea base, space base" Nova listed off. 

"I used to build kits of those all the time when I was younger" Tate reminisced.

"Glad we're indoors. sounds like a storm out there" Rose mentioned, before they made their way into the next corridor.

"Human design" The Doctor mused. "You've got a thing about kits. This place was put together like a flat pack wardrobe, only bigger. And easier" They walked along the corridor until they went into the next room. It was a small habitation area with a table and some chairs. There was also a big 3 on the wall.

"Oh, sanctuary base!" Nova chimed.

"Deep Space exploration. We've gone way out" The Doctor said. "And listen to that" He referred to the buzzing sound that was coming from below them. "Sounds like someone's drilling"

"Welcome to hell" Rose blurted out.

"Oh, it's not that bad" 

"Actually, Rose was reading off of the wall" Tate said. He pointed to said wall. The phrase WELCOME TO HELL was painted on the wall in big block letters. A vertical alien script was written underneath it.

"Hold on, what does that say?" The four of them moved closer to the wall. They attempted to read the alien script but it wasn't translating. "That's weird, it won't translate"

"But I thought the TARDIS translated everything, writing as well" Rose assumed. "We should see English"

"Exactly. If that's not working, then it means this writing is old"

"And how old would that be?" Tate wondered.

"Very old. Impossibly old" Nova answered. "We should find out who's in charge" She stepped over to the bulkhead door. She started to spin the wheel on it.

The Doctor continued on. "We've gone beyond the reach of the TARDIS' knowledge. Not a good move. And if someone's lucky enough---" They all yelped in surprise when Nova got the door open and it revealed aliens on the other side. They had tentacles where a mouth and nose would be. All of them had a tube going in behind the tentacles, and they carried a white globe in their right hands. These aliens were known as the Ood. "Oh! Right. Hello. Sorry. I was just saying, er, nice base"

The Ood's globes lit up. "We must feed" They all said in perfect unison. It seems that they communicated through the globes.

"You've got to what?" Nova asked.

"We must feed"

"Yeah, I think they mean us" Rose said. The TARDIS team backed away as the Ood came into the room. More of the Ood came in through the other doors. They all kept repeating, "We must feed" The Doctor and Nova got out their sonic screwdrivers, while Rose and Tate picked up chairs. The four of them were surrounded. 

"We must feed" Only one of the Ood spoke. It shook it's globe and then tapped on it. "You, if you are hungry"

"Sorry?" The Doctor muttered, lowering his sonic. Nova lowered hers as well. Rose and Tate both put down the chairs.

"We apologise. Electromagnetics have interfered with speech systems. Would you like some refreshment?"

Door 18 opened and some humans walked through it. "What the hell?" The man named Jefferson said. The Ood cleared a path for him as he approached the TARDIS team "How did?" Jefferson turned on his wrist-com. "Captain, you're not going to believe this. We've got people. Out of nowhere. I mean, real people. I mean four living people, just standing here right in front of me"

"Don't be stupid!" The voice that came through chastised. "That's impossible"

"I suggest telling them that"

"But you're a sort of space base" Rose stated. "You must have visitors now and then. It can't be that impossible"

"You're telling me you don't know where you are?"

"No idea. More fun that way" The Doctor added with a smile.

A woman's voice made a broadcast. "Stand by, everyone. Buckle down. We have incoming. And it's a big one. Quake point five on its way"

Jefferson opened a door, and he urged everyone to move through it. "Through here, now. Quickly, come on! Move!" Everyone moved through the door and into the corridor. As they were moving through it, some conduits go bang overhead. "Move it! Come on! Keep moving. Come on! Quickly! Move it!" They kept moving until they reached the safety of a control room. There was a whole team of people working inside it. Everyone turned their eyes to the four strangers.

"Oh my god, you meant it" a dark skinned man said. It was the same man that Jefferson spoke to on the wrist-com.

"People!" A woman beamed. It was the same woman that broadcasted the warning. "Look at that, real people!"

"Yep. People, that's us" Nova said.

"Yeah, definitely real" Rose nodded. She proceeded to make the introductions. "My name's Rose. Rose Tyler. That's Tate Peltzer. This is The Doctor, and then this the Nightingale, but just call her Nova"

"Come on" Another young man said. He got up from the chair he was sitting in. "The oxygen must be offline" He approached the TARDIS team. "We're hallucinating. They can't be" Once he got a good look at them, he knew for sure. "No, they're real"

"Come on, we're in the middle of an alert!" Zach reminded everyone, as if the alarms going off in the background wasn't an indicator. "Danny, strap up" Danny went back over to his seat. "The quake's coming in! Impact in thirty seconds!" There was a countdown clock on a screen. "Sorry you four, whoever you are. Just hold on, tight"

"Hold on to what?" Tate asked.

"Anything. I don't care. Just hold on" The four of them managed to find something to hold on to. "Ood, are we fixed?"

"Your kindness in this emergency is much appreciated" an Ood said.

"What's this planet called, anyway?" Nova wondered.

"Now, don't be stupid" A woman sitting in a chair jeered. Her name was Ida. "It hasn't got a name. How could it have a name? You really don't know, do you?"

"And, impact!" Zach screamed out a warning. The whole place shook, though it was only for a few seconds. 

"Oh, well that wasn't so bad" The Doctor spoke too soon as the whole place shook again. This quake was much more violent than the first one. Consoles burst into flames. The quake eventually came to a stop.

"Okay, that's it. Everyone all right? Speak to me, Ida"

"Yeah, yeah" Ida confirmed.

"Danny?"

"Fine" Danny confirmed.

"Toby?"

"Yeah, fine" Toby confirmed.

"Scooti?"

"No damage!" Scooti confirmed.

"Jefferson?"

"Check!" Jefferson confirmed.

"We're fine, thanks, fine. Yeah, don't worry about us" The Doctor said.

"The surface caved in" Zach explained. He looked at a schematic of the base. Part of it was flashing red. "I deflected it onto storage five through eight. We've lost them completely. Toby, go and check the rocket link"

"That's not my department" Toby objected.

"Just do as I say, yeah?"

Toby left the room just as Ida started relaying information. "Oxygen holding. Internal gravity fifty six point six. We should be okay"

"Never mind the earthquake," Rose spoke up. "that's, that's one hell of a storm. What is that, a hurricane?"

"You'd need an atmosphere for a hurricane" Scooti stated. "There's no air out there. It's a complete vacuum"

"Well, if it's not a hurricane, then what is shaking the roof?" Tate wondered.

"You're not joking. You really don't know. Well introductions" Ida said. She started going around the room, pointing at everyone as she introduced them. "F Y I, as they said in the olden days. I'm Ida Scott, science officer. Zachary Cross Flane, acting Captain, sir. You've met Mister Jefferson, he's Head of Security. Danny Bartock, Ethics committee"

"Not as boring as it sounds" Danny added.

"And that man who just left, that was Toby Zed, Archaeology, and this is Scooti Manista, Trainee maintenance. And this? This is home" Ida pulled down a lever.

"Brace yourselves" Zach warned. "The sight of it sends some people mad"

The shutters overhead opened. They revealed a white, hot, angry disc with a black centre and black dots falling into it. The TARDIS team looked up at it. "That's a black hole" Rose put a name to the phenomena above them.

"That's impossible" The Doctor exclaimed.

"I did warn you" Zach said.

"We're actually standing underneath a black hole" Nova sputtered.

"In orbit" Ida added.

"But we can't be" both The Doctor and Nova said.

"You can see for yourself. We're in orbit"

"But we can't be"

"This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole without falling in. Discuss"

"That sounds bad" Tate concluded, looking between the two Time Lords. "That's bad, right?"

"It sounds bad" Rose agreed.

"Bad doesn't cover it. A black hole's a dead star. It collapses in on itself, in and in and in until the matter's so dense and tight it starts to pull everything else in too" The Doctor explained. He looked towards Nova, urging her to add on.

"Nothing in the universe can escape it. Light, gravity, time. Everything just gets pulled inside and crushed" Nova finished for him.

"So, they can't be in orbit" Rose realized. "We should be pulled right in"

"We should be dead" The Doctor said.

"And yet here we are, beyond the laws of physics. Welcome on board" Ida said.

"But if there's no atmosphere out there, what's that?" Rose wondered, pointing upwards.

"Stars breaking up. Gas clouds. We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above our heads, before falling into that thing"

"Sounds just a bit worse than your storm theory, Rose" Tate recalled back to when Rose thought it was just a storm.

"Just a bit" 

Rose agreed with a nod. "Just a bit, yeah"