In the Time Vortex, just north of Icornia's third ice age and a stone's throw away from the era of Asimarvia's ill-fated robot uprising, a battered blue box marked "Police" was idling. Inside, there lived an old man who had, in several previous lives, been known as the Doctor. Now, however, an endless war had bled through into eternity and he'd renounced the name. No longer a healer, but a fighter. The Warrior Time Lord who will do whatever he must, at whatever cost, to destroy the genocidal menace that threatens everything - the Daleks.
The TARDIS was sulking, which it did more and more often since the Doctor had left, and the Time Lord who piloted her now was in no mood to argue. He felt the ship hiss in protest as another aeon relay was ripped out and replaced with a new one. The Warrior made no attempt to mollify her. She was lucky he kept her around at all. After all, he was fighting a time war. What good would he be without a reliable time machine? The Warrior knew he would never get rid of the old girl because, he told himself, anything else would take too long to get used to. Worse still, the High Council of Gallifrey might assign him one of those ridiculous Battle TARDISes and he'd never be able to pilot one of those on his own. They might even force him to take on a crew with a command structure and duty rosters and small-talk. The Warrior, who had defeated Daleks, fought the Nightmare Child and beaten a Carrionite at Scrabble, shuddered at the thought of sharing a TARDIS. No, better the rickety, obsolete devil you know. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't give the ship a fairly sizable overhaul. The unreliable navigation systems had been fine when he had nowhere to be. But these days he was in demand.
As if to emphasise that fact, the console above his head started beeping pointedly - the signal of an approaching ship and incoming transmission. The Warrior climbed out from under the removed section of dais in which he'd been working, on top of which the console stood, and reached forward to flick a switch.
"What?" the Warrior called.
"Doctor?" a crisp, female voice replied.
"He's not in, I'm afraid. But if you leave a message I'll make sure he gets back to you when and if this war ends with anyone still alive to hear it."
"Well if you won't answer to 'The Doctor', it would be an awful help if you gave us some other name to refer to you by," the exasperated voice replied.
"How about Winston?"
"Alright then, Winston. This is Cardinal Ollistra."
"Yes, I know. What is that ridiculous thing you're driving?" the Warrior said, glancing at the TARDIS scanner. Ollistra's ship was just a dot on the screen, but its readout showed a crew complement of 11,000 and 800 different types of temporal weaponry on a TARDIS about the size and shape of a matchbox. Even by Time Lord standards, that was showing off.
"An experimental model of Battle TARDIS, they're just giving me a lift."
"Oh? To where?"
"To your...charming vintage model."
"You should have let me know. I'd have picked you up at the airport," he replied sarcastically.
"Hmm. They're also to be our escort while I brief you on the mission."
"Mission? For pity's sake, Cardinal. Didn't I earn a break after that business with the Neverwhen?"
"That was three decades ago!"
"For you, maybe."
"Well, this one should be quiet...by your standards," Ollistra's voice added slyly. "We need you to meet with the Gebriq. You've been promoted!"
"Promoted?!" the promoted Time Lord spluttered.
"Yes. Congratulations, Ambassador Winston."