The Time War
by Andrew K Lawston (LJ
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Art by Barbana (LJ | comment), Erisinia (LJ | comment), and Van Donovan (LJ | comment)
Book One: The Oncoming Storm
Part One
A slight draught kept agitating the cellar's single bare lightbulb, making it swing erratically on its short cable and transforming the dingy stone walls into a wheeling riot of yellow light and shadow. In happier circumstances, the two Gods tied up in the corner might have been captivated by the display.
At the moment the Gods looked human, or very close. A porcelain nymph with a proud jaw and steely eyes that belied her apparent fragility. She was tied to a wooden chair next to a giant with a voice of thunder and wild hair that spoke of struggles with titanic forces.
The light show revealed and concealed the Gods' faces by turns. Their eyes both danced with intellect and wit, and any onlooker other than their surly guard would stop and wait for them to speak, to receive enlightened wisdom, tempered by the experience of the centuries.
Unfortunately, the Doctor and Romana were just, on the whole, fed up with rebels.
'I mean it, Doctor haven't you noticed? They're always spoiled rich kids playing with Grandfather's gun. If I hear one more "they must think us fools" I'll scream.'
The Doctor was still looking infuriatingly relaxed in his bonds. 'Well, I'm pleased you're learning the value of life experience, Romana,' he said. 'But you'll come to notice most revolutions start from the middle classes. Why do you think I always clear off so fast?'
Romana cocked her head, raising a perfectly groomed eyebrow. 'You always say it's your insatiable wanderlust and mercurial nature,' she suggested, slightly accusing.
The Doctor shrugged. As he did so, both his arms slipped out of their ropes. He pulled them back on sheepishly, for the look of the thing. 'It's true, in a way. When you've seen so many uprisings, you get fed up with the same mistakes being made. Oh they say "thank you for overthrowing our evil overlords, Doctor, we'll build a better tomorrow for all," but give them five minutes and those evil overlords are out of the cells and on the talk show circuit.'
Romana turned to their sour-faced jailer, taking in the perfect teeth that gave the lie to his carefully distressed shirt. 'He's in one of those moods,' she said sweetly. 'Can you move me to a cheerier cellar?'
The guard scowled. 'Resistance i -'
'Finish that sentence,' Romana snapped, 'and we shall have to have words.'
She looked toward the Doctor with an air of triumph, but he held her gaze steadily. 'What? Resistance is useless. Patterns repeating, cycles in history, exactly what I've been saying.'
'All right, I'm listening. What's bothering you?'
The guard stiffened to attention; a fraction of a second later Romana felt footsteps on the floor above. There were some swishing and rummaging noises and the cellar door burst open.
A tall man with shoulder-length dark hair was framed in the doorway. He stomped down the short flight of steps and stared into the middle distance moodily. Romana felt hopeful – he was over thirty, and even had a couple of scars. Perhaps they'd finally found the real deal?
'How long, Karthor?' he barked over his shoulder at the smaller man slinking down the stairs behind him. 'How much longer must we skulk down here like vermin while the people suffer?'
Romana rolled her eyes and the Doctor failed to hide a wicked grin.
Karthor sidled up to his friend and clasped his shoulder manfully. 'Patience, Arfalon. The Sontaran horde grow cruel and careless, while every day fresh men come to my cottage to join with us.'
The Doctor's eyes widened. 'Sontarans? Here? Arfalon, if you've any sense at all you have to trust us. We're in the gravest – Romana, have I got something on my face?'
Romana's nose was twitching daintily as she tried to supress her giggles. She covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking as Karthor, Arfalon and the Doctor stared at her in bemusement.
Karthor recovered first. 'Trust you?' he sneered. 'We pick up two strangers round the corner from the invaders' mothership and you talk of trust? You must think us f -'
Romana interrupted him suddenly, blinking tears from her eyes. 'No, seriously, stop it. I'd injure myself. Cottage? Fresh men? Tell me you're getting this out of a book.'
There was an uneasy silence and the guard was starting to twitch gently. The Doctor looked aghast. 'Romana, I don't know if you noticed but these people have guns. I don't think it's terribly polite to... hold on, you're not getting this out of a book are you?'
Karthor spluttered and stepped forward, but Arfalon silenced him with a firm hand on his arm. His slate-grey eyes flicked between the two captives for a long moment before he came to a decision. 'Of course we get it from a book,' he said, coolly, 'But if you breathe a word of this when you get back to your time, we'll lose our grant and I will track you down.'
He caught their expressions. 'Well? You are time-traveling adventurers, aren't you?'
The Doctor blinked. 'I wonder, could you untie me? My nose itches terribly and I have a feeling I don't want to go anywhere for a while.'
Two hours later, Romana and the Doctor were pretending to be drunk, while Karthor and Arfalon spilled all.
'Is good for th'economy, y'see,' Karfalon said as he refilled his glass, spilling as much wine again over the table. Someone's economy, anyway. Wurr a pivotal point in Berethinan history. Lotta people pay Visit Berethina to get here, n so they pay us for a "Sontaran Experience".'
'You said that ten minutes ago,' the Doctor laughed, wagging his finger unsteadily. 'I think you're thingy. Inebriated.'
Karthor blushed, but slurped his way through half his glass to show how sober he was. 'No, no, no. Is just our training. Haveta repeat every...thing. Evry tenminutes. Helps Time Tourists get over the vulture frock n unnerstan what's goinon. N'case they forget.'
'Thass right,' said Romana too loudly. 'The lady said you'd do that. Make us feel... nice. But why the silly book?'
Arfalon fielded that one, he seemed keen for any excuse to talk to Romana. 'Most of em don't wanna be too scared. So we put puns in. Parently cottages are vurr funny inna future. Vurr funny. Dunno why. There's another one bout scouting round the rear.'
The Doctor sat up straight and grinned widely. 'How about "we're heading for the biggest bang in history?"'
Karthor sniggered. 'Thass a good one, you should get em to put it inna book.' His face fell. 'Hang onna minute, though. Issa bit rude. Does that mean the other things are -?'
'You mentioned being paid,' the Doctor said smoothly. 'How does that work?'
'Guns,' supplied Arfalon, although he was still looking at Romana and rubbing his thighs. 'Bloody great big guns with flashing lights and shit. Help us zap the Snotruns and win the war.'
Romana took a moment to clear her head. The Doctor seemed to be a lot faster at neutralising alcohol, and his enthusiasm when the wine had been cracked open suggested he'd had a lot more practice. She looked at Karthor and Arfalon, although she tried not to look at Arfalon for too long. His slate-grey eyes weren't nearly as impressive when one of them was drooping half-closed, twitching only when she shifted in her seat and he thought he might catch a glimpse down her blouse.
'So... there's a lot of tourists about?'
Karthor's head slammed into the table, spilling everyone's wine. 'I meant "culture shock",' he muttered, and passed out.
Arfalon tutted, just about, and started refilling the glasses. 'Yurr,' he answered slowly. 'We've seen half a dozen groups already. Most of em wimps though. But th'Agency told us this war goes on another five years, none of em can get more n' a week off work.'
The Doctor leaned forward. 'Surely the length of time they spend here is immaterial. Your Agency could return them minutes after they left.'
Arfalon spat into the fire moodily. He glanced across at his gently snoring comrade and started trying to peel the label from the bottle of wine. 'Yeah, well. Thass what we thought. 28th Century types don't seem to wanna hang around after their first sortie against a Sontaran execution squad.'
'Well,' the Doctor said brightly, 'I don't mind tangling with a Sontaran execution squad under normal circumstances, but there's been a dreadful mistake. We signed up to learn scuba-diving in primordial soup, so we'd better pop back and...'
'Whatever.' Arfalon cut him off, and turned to Romana. 'Hey baby, wanna come with me? I've got more wine and... um... some computer pictures in my treehouse.'
Romana grudgingly gave the poor lad a point for at least listening to the earlier conversation. So she flicked his nose gently as she rebuffed him. 'Oh, Arfalon, that sounds lovely. But you need to be ready for all those men coming to your cottage tomorrow.'
The two Time Lords stood, trying not to smirk, and picked their way over to the stairs.
'Worry not, Romana!' Arfalon called, waving his arms from his seat, alone with half a dozen empty bottles and an insensible lieutenant. 'Before those men join our liberation force, they must first endure the trial of the Glory Hole.'
Romana paused at the top of the stairs, her mouth working soundlessly, but the Doctor shoved her through the door, roaring with laughter.
Back in the TARDIS and after a change of clothes, Romana had just about regained a straight face. Entering the console room, she was surprised to see the Doctor leaning heavily on the console, staring deep into the stationary central column. A familiar box of metal discs was lying on the floor next to K9.
These people are in the first stages of a time-travelling civilisation, Romana,' he said quietly, without turning around. 'And they've been doing it for a while. Doesn't look like they're about to loop themselves out of existence. It's the kind of thing that makes you think about your own history.'
Romana sniffed. 'I hardly think that lot are going to become E-Space Time Lords.'
'I wasn't thinking about Time Lords. I was thinking about vampires.' Romana's hand flew to her throat instinctively, but the Doctor continued, finally turning to face her. 'Well, vampires and Time Lords, I suppose. Their war. Must have been a fairly odd war, don't you think? Two ancient races, both with regenerative powers. Both almost indestructible, in their own way. An impasse, I imagine.'
Romana gestured towards the box. 'But it wasn't, was it? Rassilon created the bowships, destroyed the Great Vampires.'
The Doctor nodded vaguely, wide eyes staring into the past. 'Yes, and thank goodness for that. And thank goodness he stored the account in a physical database where we could get at it. Still... patterns in time... cycles in history...'
'Doctor, are you quite sure you neutralised all that wine?'
The Doctor snorted abruptly and whirled round to pull the dematerialisation switch. 'I've not metabolised a drop, Romana, not one drop. For one thing it's terribly rude, and for another it's been a long time since I had a nice glass of Côtes du Rassilon.'
Romana froze. 'Coincidence?' As she spoke, the central column slowed as the TARDIS landed. A short trip then, travelling in time but not space.
Already pulling his coat back on, the Doctor shrugged. 'Coincidence? No such thing. Now, we should poke around this temporal tourist board just in case, but if I don't get my hands on a greasy kebab in the next ten minutes, the booze backlash'll bounce back and destroy my shoes.'
From its humble beginnings as a market town on a small tributary of the River Rillion, Rillionbridge expanded dramatically following the Sontaran liberation on Krilluary 11th, 1786; the area swarmed with citizens desperate to visit the birthplace of the legendary Arfalon and Karthor, and the local economy reaped the benefits. When the Temporal Era dawned in 2757, the renamed Arfalon City was the undisputed centre of the entire planet's economy, and home to more than 115 million Berethinans.
The next time monsters visited, in the Long Night of 2972, it was a cultural beacon across the galaxy, a metropolis of glittering spires, lush gardens and the best theatres anywhere in the known universe.
It took ten years to rebuild New Arfalon after the Long Night, and the city never regained its former status. What was left for its people to strive for, after hearing the voices of the Gods?
'Exterminate!'
Romana threw herself down the fire escape into a damp, overgrown alleyway, just as the door exploded behind her in a blaze of light.
Pulling herself to her feet, she grimaced, then hopped gracefully into the scrubby bushes as a second Dalek assault squad glided past the alley's mouth.
'Not a full-scale invasion,' she muttered, looking at the single Dalek saucer that filled the sky over the burning city. 'What are you up to, you bullying bollards?'
As if in answer, a grating screech of a voice echoed down the passageway. 'Locate the temporal unit. Locate and identify. Exterminate all resistance.'
A sudden chill settled on Romana's bones. From her hiding place, she looked out at a street ablaze, the road filled with broken glass, fallen Berethinans, melted masonry. She fought down the surge of panic. The Daleks had launched their assault before she'd arrived on Berethina. But what if...?
There was a heavy thump beside her. Despite her predicament, something about the noise reassured Romana even as she jumped out of her skin. Sure enough, the Doctor lay sprawled in a tangled heap beside her, his scarf falling around him in graceful coils.
'Are you all right?' Romana asked briskly.
'Oh yes, I just thought I'd nip out the window while they murdered their collaborator.'
There was a muffled 'exterminate' and a gargling scream from above. Romana winced. 'Anyone interesting?'
'Security chief.'
'Security chiefs need a support group.'
A charred corpse thudded into the ground between the two travellers. The Doctor glanced at it as he stood up and dusted off his coat. 'This one doesn't.'
As they ran through the burning streets, Romana was aghast at the carnage. Broken bodies lay on the tarmac, some with arms outstretched in supplication, others face first in the ground, with gory holes between their shoulderblades. Shooting unarmed civilians in the back; a brave tactic for an army of heavily armoured killing machines.
Pounding down one particular street, the Doctor grabbed Romana's hand. For an instant, she was glad of the warmth of his touch, but every time she blinked, she flashed back to the blossom-laden boulevards of Paris, 1979.
She found herself blinking as often as she could.
Eventually they neared the quiet street where the TARDIS had landed just hours previously. Romana quickened her pace even as she saw the Doctor skidding to a halt.
Just in time, she heard the harsh Dalek voices, and flattened herself against the nearest wall.
'Analysis confirmed. The temporal unit is a TARDIS.'
'Nature of Exo-Space Continuum is suitable for isolationist life-form.'
'Logical. We have found Gall-i-frey.' As the Dalek finished, there was a gentle tinkling noise.
Then there was silence.
After a couple of minutes, Romana peeped around the corner. The TARDIS was standing alone in an empty street, with just the faintest ultra-violet traces to indicate the Daleks' teleport.
The Dalek saucer was climbing slowly into the air, and as her heartbeats slowed, Romana again became aware of the city's many little sounds: the crackle of flames, the tinkle of rubble settling as it cooled, even the few furtive noises of the bravest survivors poking their heads from hiding.
The Doctor was still rooted to the spot, ashen-faced. 'They think this is Gallifrey.'
'Well, good for them. The Daleks are hardly the first to try their luck.'
'No,' the Doctor agreed. 'But what will they do now they think they've found it?' He pointed into the night sky, where Romana was horrified to see at least a dozen saucers joining the Dalek landing craft. And, hanging silently above them...
'A Dalek Death Wheel. Lethal gas, planet-splitting tectonic cannons... Romana, our presence here just condemned this world.'
Romana swallowed hard. 'Can we get up there? Save these people?'
The Doctor's eyes remained fixed on the nightmare as he rubbed his chin. 'Well, we could do something intensely brilliant. But I'd say we've got less than half an hour before that Death Wheel's in range to deploy.'
Romana brandished her sonic screwdriver. 'Saving a world in twenty-five minutes? Old school rules. Bring it on.'
High above what he thought was Gallifrey, Davros slapped a control on his chair to pump another dose of relaxants through his remaining veins. His surviving ventricle had been showing its immense age recently, and his sentimental streak couldn't help but fear the passing of his original heart, clinging to a thought that it might house his... well, his sentimental streak. All life clings to life, he reflected as he gazed hungrily at the bridge's main viewscreen, but only my Daleks have the audacity to dictate that life's very terms.
The nearest Dalek drone swivelled to face him. 'Death Wheel within disruptor range.'
'Closer,' Davros croaked eagerly. 'Prepare... the mantle spike!'
There was a barely perceptible pause while the two Dalek Commanders flanking Davros flicked their eyestalks at each other. A silent order was given and Berethina's continents grew microscopically larger on the screen.
A shower of sparks erupted from the central column and the Doctor whipped his hand away with a grimace. 'They're moving in,' he yelled over his shoulder, 'getting ready for the kill.'
Romana was elbow-deep in K9's circuitry as the little dog gamely struggled to override the dimensional stabiliser. 'Typical Daleks, want to gloat,' she snapped.
The Doctor shook his head, thumping an uncooperative panel. 'Typical Daleks never gloat. They just kill. This must be going all the way to the top.'
Yet another flag popped up on the fault locator with a smug chirrup. The Doctor switched it off quickly, but the steam billowing in clouds from the console told the whole story.
Across Berethina, people cowered from the shapes in the sky. Not the Sontarans again, they'd been assured, but no one could account for the silence from New Arfalon.
The people in the northern hemisphere cowered even more from the largest of the craft, which drew unmistakably closer with each passing minute. It was a giant ring built around a big scary central pointy bit, and it was pointing straight at them.
And then the voices came.
'Mantle spike within range,' the drone reported.
Davros flailed his good hand towards the comms unit. 'So pass the Time Lords.' With a vestige of vitality, his clawed fingers stabbed the console to open a channel. 'Peoples of Gallifrey. Look to your skies. Gaze upon the true Lords of Time. The Daleks.'
Davros raised his voice over the rising hum of the charging mantle spike, warming to his theme. 'You entombed us, you thwarted us and you eluded us, but your arrogance has brought about your downfall. When you fled to E-Space through your CVEs, you never once thought that superior Dalek equations would track you down.'
'Please shut him up, Doctor!'
'Doctor? Romana? What's going on? I can't sleep with all this shaking and I'm hungry.'
The two Time Lords turned to see a dark-haired youth standing in the interior doorway with his hands on his hips. He was wearing flannel pyjamas, covered in little gold stars.
The Doctor shrugged. 'Stun him, K9.'
The shrill whine of K9's snout blaster was drowned out by the TARDIS engines as Romana flipped a row of switches.
Davros reached greedily for the big, round, red, mantle spike button.
Berethina vanished from the screen.
A familiar, hated voice cut in across the communications system. 'Attention Daleks. This is the Doctor, Lord President of Gallifrey.' The rich tones rolled around the bridge, over frantic Dalek squawks about the Ka Faraq Gatri. 'You are committing an unprovoked act of aggression against a world under our protection. Withdraw immediately, or suffer the consequences.' There was a pause. 'The consequences probably won't be nice.'
'Doctorrrrr,' Davros rasped, drawing out the final syllable until someone could tell him what the hell was happening. After a second the viewscreen adjusted magnification until it picked out the tiny blue box which now occupied the planet's orbit impossibly. 'We are both now leaders then? No longer men of science?'
'There are many sciences to master, Davros. You're nothing but a biologist, a crude geneticist on a good day. Are you sure you want to tangle with highly evolved temporal physicists who have got their freak very firmly on?'
Several Daleks began to retort angrily, but Davros cut across them all. 'Dalek temporal technology is peerless. We can traverse the barriers between universes in ways your Time Lords never dreamed. Your complacence and arrogance have doomed you.'
'No, Davros, they've doomed you. You're a universe away from home and the main Dalek fleet, and you've rushed to our decoy just as we planned. Did you really think Gallifrey would be so undefended? Tell them about the transduction barriers, Romana.'
A female voice took over briefly, a voice Davros vaguely remembered. 'Yes, we've got, um, transduction barriers. And stasers and validium and stellar manipulators and... impulse laser?'
'Oh yes, all that too,' the Doctor's voice agreed. 'But let's not boast, it's terribly vulgar. For all we know, the Daleks have all sorts of defense technology. We won't know for at least another 30 rels when the War TARDISes enter Skaro's temporal orbit.'
Davros was now uncomfortably aware of a dozen Daleks glowering in his direction. Doubt blossomed in his mind. Clearly this wasn't Gallifrey, he'd allowed himself to get carried away by his creatures' bloodlust. And yet...
'Most amusing, Doctor,' he drawled with a calm he didn't quite feel, 'And most convincing - to a Dalek. But I am not so... single-minded. War TARDISes? Decoy planets? Preposterous. No, this is just your meddling again, Time Lord.'
The Doctor covered the microphone as the TARDIS lurched again. 'Isn't there anything we can do to get rid of them?'
Waving away a fresh cloud of smoke, Romana shook his head. 'We're pushing our luck as it is. We don't belong in this universe, the TARDIS is trying every trick it knows to eject that planet!'
A sonorous chime rolled around the console room then, cutting across the crackling controls and fizzing displays. In spite of the doom its mournful peal portended, the Doctor smiled. 'We went about this in entirely the wrong way, Romana. I'll need to get rid of that planet immediately.'
Romana was aghast, but her lips were barely moving to protest when the Doctor yanked a heavy lever.
Davros cackled as Berethina appeared again on his scanner. 'At last you realise the futility of your defiance, Doctor! This world will burn as a symbol of your folly!' As he spoke, he reached again for his big red button.
This time, the whole Universe disappeared.
The people of Berethina never quite worked out what happened that day. One moment the skies were full of sinister alien craft and angry voices. The next, the sky had vanished. As they sat in fearful darkness, the survivors of New Arfalon's Time Agency chatted about the plans they'd put in place if they survived the attack.
So when the sky reappeared, there was an armada of Berethinan destroyers from ten thousand years in the future, already sweeping in to bombard the Dalek fleet.
The largest of the alien craft was never account for, although discredited holo-footage from one amateur astronomer showed a blue capsule occupying its last known coordinates. A bomb, perhaps?
'What will we do now?'
'Do? Same as before, we carry on looking for a way out of E-Space. At least now we know there's some kind of trick to it.'
'But we've got a Dalek Death Wheel stuck in the TARDIS!'
'Ah. Well, we've had worse guests. The old girl's put them in the ocean on Level 10,040. That should keep them happy.'
'Doesn't that make them prisoners of war?'
'Romana, they're Daleks. They're always at war. No, they'll bustle around with probes and drills and things until they realise there's no point. Then they'll power down for a good sulk until we find somewhere quiet to drop them off.'