The Dalek Century 2900
This is a tale about Daleks and their effect upon the Galaxy rather than the Doctor himself. In fact, he doesn't personally appear in it, though he does affect the story. Still, the Doctor often bemoans the fact that he is the last of the Timelords. This tale looks at the evil which the Daleks were at the time and the fact that whilst he did destroy the timelords in doing so he might well have saved the rest of the Galaxy. The Galaxy that is, not just Earth! Please read and review, thanks, Ham
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'So the Galaxy-wide celebrations have gone as planned. A general outpouring of joy and satisfaction. The Galaxy has been in peace and prosperity for decades, even centuries now. Intelligent species across the stars share the Galaxy in harmony. Freedom and democracy are the norm in the known sectors. Many of the problems in the past due to abuse of power, issues of nationalism, religious intolerance, inter-species war or various forms of suppression of race or sex or economy are, thankfully, things of the ancient past. In general we shudder to think now of what people had to endure in dark years gone by. But enough of such gloomy thoughts! A toast and a celebration for the peace which the Galactic peoples have earned.'
Captain Yates switched of the com on his ship with a smile. The man making the address, an Osman actually, President Kentuck was known to be something of an airhead to be honest and a mild figure of fun. Still, as the position of galactic President was largely ceremonial and symbolic this scarcely mattered. Back to business. Yates was in charge of an exploring ship in one of the uncharted systems but he knew a thing or two about current affairs. Not that there was a great deal to know. The President was right about Galactic peace and plenty. In fact, some made the argument that the Galaxy was too much at peace and that a bit of shaking up or conflict would not be a bad thing. Yates wasn't sure about this!
'All systems steady,' his lieutenant said to him as the vessel, The Tennant, moved to the planet's yellow and red atmosphere. He was Captain of a fairly simple exploratory systems craft. looking for resources on uninhabited and unexplored worlds such as this one. The work was routine if a little dull. 'We are officially now entering planet s-947-p,' his Lieutenant informed. routinely Yates thanked her but was feeling a bit bored with this dull operation. Nothing much was on so he just on an off-chance checked out the number with any references to previous missions. There hadn't been many in this sector. But he did discover it had been given a name which his department had not officially ratified. It was called Skaro. A strange name. For some utterly irrational reason Yates felt a shiver of fear at the name Skaro.
If he had the time to think harder about this, there would have been a reason. Some of his crew were Human. Humans like much of the Galaxy had been involved in an nasty genocidal warfare with them in centuries past. Their homeworld had even been once occupied by them. But this all happened long ago, before Yates's grandparents were born. Even the Silvianss had moved of their ancient homeworld for geographic reasons. Not of much relevance for Yates's comfortable life.
He shrugged his shoulders. He was rather old for such superstitious thoughts, he thought been 28! It seemed unnecessary anyway, at first, as the ship landed without incident. About 8 people piled out to start analyzing the surface. All went well. In fact some data looked quite promising. Then he noticed something on the sensors. A small, unidentified metallic, object was identified next to those on the ground, with signs of life. 'Susan, unidentified object on your way!' he warned her though still not too concerned, the landing party were well-armed and trained for the unlikely event of an emergency. But Lieutenant Susan, a Silvian could now see the metal creature. It was a surprise because this planet was officially uninhabited. Susan hailed it in a variety of languages, offering peace and friendship. But it moved towards them in a menacing manner unacknowledging her advances.
It was a fairly small, metallic, bluey-silver round thing with 3 suckers prodding from its body, one from its head. It looked at the landing party. One of the men, a rather bad-tempered chap for this period of pax-galactica held his rifle up to his shoulder. 'I just don't like this... thing,' he declared. Then the creature fired a blast of energy from one of its suckers. To the watching Yates's utter astonishment and fear a bolt of deadly energy hit the man square in the chest, killing him in an instant. Then it took on the rest of the landing party, slaying 3 of them in a minute.
The party fought back but it proved a tougher creature than anyone imagined. In fact only the Lieutenant and one more of the party survived, though the metallic creature itself was destroyed. Yates was horrified by this turn of events. With such a casualty list, recently unheard of in such a mission, it was impossible to continue it. Captain Yates ran the image of the creature he had encountered through the computer records. He found that it matched that of Dalek. Again, Yates felt an irrational thrill of fear at the name. It was an old name, which in centuries gone by had wrecked terror in large parts of the Galaxy. 'The sooner we get off this planet the better,' Susan said to him and he had to agree.
'I hope you drive this properly, miss, female drivers,' Yates said, but he was joking. A few of both, sexes thought they had superior attributes, but this was rather rare and very frowned upon. In fact in the Galaxy all of the sexes were roughly equal much to the Galaxy's benefit. Though, curiously, it was only the Humans from earth that ever did have such a sexual divide in their society in ancient times. Though for other species, sexual issues could be... complicated! A short distance away was the home ship with battle facilities as good as anywhere in the Galaxy, though they weren't expecting action, peace been the norm throughout the galaxy for decades. Still, Yates thought it would be needed. 'More... Daleks on the way!' he cried as sensors from his ship indicated more small, Daleks rising from the planets surface at them.
The Ship was a mighty one, though part of a local force rather than a galactic one. Still, it seemed that it should have made short work of less than a dozen small Daleks. But as Yates watched the Daleks fought with a ferocity which the Galaxy hadn't seen for decades. They were swift, hard for the ships guns to spot, and then when they fired, hit the ship with a deadly power. Then, to Yates and Susan's watching horror, the ship was destroyed by a Dalek blast and exploded in a ball of flame in the atmosphere to few survivors. That was enough for them, not taking chances, the Tennant sped away into hyperspace.
Yates did wonder what it was about the Daleks that made them so hard to fight, but as it happened he was one of the few to wonder that. The power and danger that the Daleks might have posed was ignored for now, though it later became a matter of debate as to what, in that early stage, could actually have been done. Skaro was declared too dangerous for exploration and the sector was declared off limits for travel for those few that might have decided to travel in that border sector of the Galaxy.
2909
Report to Galactic Council on Thals contribution to Anti-Dalek force. All of our preparations are in place. But, naturally, casualty figures are unpredictable. We hope to return but with the Daleks, it isn't guaranteed.' The Thal Lieutenant commander sighed as his black-skinned fingers entered his report. He looked out nervously from the mother ships window. They were just passing the wreckage of a destroyed and broken ship. One destroyed by Daleks.
He was right to be nervous. Although he was in a fleet that was the mightiest that the Galaxy had seen for decades, containing Silvians, Human, Destryi's. Ironians, Kalgans, Osmans and others they were facing the Daleks! The date was close enough to the anniversary of the first major Dalek assault. The commander shivered at the memory. He had been there. The Daleks had come from Skaro which most had thought deserted, then ignored. But in a sudden and awesome assault, they had attacked and destroyed much of the neighbouring nation of Kalgon.
Actually, only the major Dalek assault had come from Skaro. Some colonies had been hidden on other nearby worlds, awaiting the order to attack. As much of the Galaxy's fleet as possible had been gathered, but this proved not enough against such devastating creatures. In fact, gathering all of the Galaxy's fleet proved not to be wise. Some Daleks were destroyed, but it took nearly a hundred shots to destroy a Dalek ship, but one blast from one of them could exterminate any other vessel.
The Daleks then attacked world after world, terrifying the entire east Galaxy with their slaughters, cruelty, and harsh cries of 'Exterminate!' There were those who had argued that one of the reasons that the Daleks attacks had proved so devastating. Military spending was at a low level in the galaxy at the time, some suggested more military muscle would have proved more effective. Lieutenant Detol was not convinced by this argument. An awful lot of the conventional weaponry proved useless against the Daleks, more of those might just have well proved to be white elephants. Indeed, some cleverly adapted civilian crafts turned out to be as much use as military ones.
Lieutenant Detol finished his report, looked out upon his fleet and considered all things Daleks. He did remember that recently matters were helped by the destruction of a large Dalek force on Allendham. The exact method was an official secret, but he was aware of it, been nearly there. It was an example of someone using non-conventional military means. A mysterious agent had helped. An unremarkable looking but remarkable man known only as the Doctor.
He had used the unique conditions of Allendham to create a planetary wide explosion to destroy the Dalek force. Of course, this had destroyed half the planet as well! Fortunately it was an uninhabited one! Detol remembered that the Doctor was an old man but active and gentle. But also rather well pleased with his contribution, which turned out to be of modest use and made no attempt to follow it up, vanishing from the scene rather rapidly. But he was a brilliant man and who he was remained a mystery. He had claimed to be a Timelord.
That was a bit of a galactic legend. Not unlike the old Atlantis one on Earth. The Timelords were rumoured to be a powerful people that looked after galactic affairs but were on a planet untouchable by anyone. Most sensible people didn't believe this legend and Detol certainly didn't and had better things to worry. There were not any official reports of anyone visiting the place after all. Anyway, that victory achieved by the Doctor was very brief. New Dalek forces in greater number appeared and assaulted the Galaxy. Which was why this particular fleet was assembled. Everyone thought it would be enough for the Daleks, it was everything the Galaxy could gather and throw at them.
But Detol was amongst the doubters. He knew how tough the Daleks were. He had been part of a fleet taking on the Daleks and had nightmares remembering the event. As it happened there were good and bad points about the battle. The good was that the Daleks were defeated and pushed back to the Skaro system. The threat to galactic civilization was ended. But this came at a terrible price. The casualty figures were horrendous. Nearly half of the fleet was destroyed. It became a by-word for a bloody, terrible battle. Also, the Daleks were not totally defeated. They continued to occupy Skaro which couldn't be taken. And after the destruction of the battle none felt like trying.
Not that that was entirely true. There were those that recognized the danger the Daleks still posed. But there was no way of attacking them. A few people thought they had seen a weakness and launched a daring mission to take on the Daleks in their own space. It was, it seemed, quite a good strategy. None survived this mission, save one who's mind was driven mad with the horror of what the party had encountered. So Skaro endured.