"We've gotten through!" cried the old man as he circled the control console of his time capsule. The light from the honeycombed roundels on the gleaming white walls played upon his craggy, lined face, and made his brilliant, green eyes shimmer. He ran his hands through his tuft of silvery hair as he studied the picture of the space station on the console's view screen.
"I think we may be a bit late, old girl," he said as he stroked his white beard. "Better late than never. We sure had a devil of a time getting here, haven't we, old girl."
A wheezing and groaning sound filled the control room as the rising and falling glass tubes in the central column slowed to a stop.
The capsule materialized in its standard form of a blue box in the center of a wrecked laboratory. The old man emerged from it, saying, "Sorry I'm late boys! The temporal fallout was horrendous. Too much for this old type 40."
The old man soon realized that he was speaking to himself. The compartment wad crowded with bodies, but none of them living.
"Time Lords," he muttered as he looked at several bodies in red armor.
"Daleks," he said pushing over the burnt out pepperpot casings of his mortal enemies.
"Oh," he sighed sadly as his watery eyes rested upon some humanoids in different uniforms, "humans. Wait! These aren't just wounds from Dalek blasters. These are Staser wounds! What are Time Lords doing killing humans?"
A noise startled him and sent him diving behind a lab bench. It was, for the old Warrior at least, the unmistakable sound of a lone Dalek. He watched it through a half open door as it glided past.
"The fight's not quite over yet, is it?" the old man whispered to himself. He got up, peered cautiously out the door, and proceeded to follow the Dalek.
The compartment it led him to was the station's operations center. It rolled up to a control panel, plugging itself into it via its suction cup manipulator arm, and said, "This is Sector Prime Six. Time Lords have been exterminated, as well as the station's human crew. I am the only survivor. Awaiting orders. Reply! Reply! I am all alone. I require orders...please."
"Please?" asked the old man as he stepped out of his hiding place. "Since when have Daleks started minding their manners?"
Immediately, the Dalek swivelled about, aiming its gun arm right at him.
Miraculously, the Dalek didn't shoot. The old man noticed extensive damage to the front section of the Dalek that he hasn't noticed when he was following it. "Ah! I see you're not feeling up to your diabolical best. You might want to wire back your friends and let them know not all of the Time Lords have been exterminated.
"Which one are you?" it demanded.
"What do you care? A Time Lord is a Time Lord."
"I need help."
"So?"
"There is a Time Lord that would help."
"What's the name of this traitor."
"The Doctor."
The old man looked like he was slapped in the face. "Why would he help you?"
"He has compassion," said the Dalek.
"What do you know of compassion? You're a Dalek."
"I need help. I am damaged."
"In more ways than one if you expect compassion from your enemies.,
"I am alone."
"Thank God for that."
"I am frightened."
"Impossible! Daleks know no fear. They feel only hate for anything that isn't Dalek."
"Help me. Get the Doctor. He will help."
"He won't."
"He will."
"He can't! He died In a space ship crash on the planet Karn. The Doctor's dead."
"Help me!"
"I'll do no such thing! You want help, but what help did you give those Time Lords and humans? You want compassion, but what compassion did you show to all those men and woman you slain?
"Even your own people have abandoned you. You're damaged, diseased. That message you sent to the other Daleks sealed your fate. You betrayed your fear. Daleks do not fear. They have left you to die."
"Pity me!" cried the Dalek.
"You're more damaged than I thought. You're beyond help. If I was to fix you, you'd become a hate filled Dalek again."
"Then, destroy me."
"Gladly!" growled the old man as he ran out into the corridor, grabbed a Staser rifle off of a dead Time Lord, and ran back into Ops. He raised the gun to shoot the Dalek, hesitated for a moment, then threw the gun down with a curse. "Dann it!"
"You are the Doctor," it said with a hint of awe in its metallic, screeching voice.
"Doctor no more. The Doctor did die on Karn. It was his damned compassion that started this Time War when he failed to destroy your species when Davros first created you. I'm sorry you feel pain and loneliness. But that does not absolve you for all the death you have brought."
"What about sorrow."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I am sorry. If I felt then as I feel now I would not have done what I have done."
"This has to be a Dalek trap!" cried the old man in exasperation. "Pretend to understand compassion so as to lure the Doctor to you."
"If I can not be helped," said the Dalek, "and if I am guilty of all I have done before now, then I must die. Destroy me. End this pain."
"Destroy yourself!"
"I can not. I can not violate the law of survival, but I can no longer endure this."
"You still have some Dalek left in you," spat the old man as he worked some controls at a console. "I've set the station to auto-destruct. I'm turning this into a funeral pyre for the Time Lords and humans who died here. That hatch behind you leads to an escape pod. If you want to live, get in there before five minutes are up. If you want to die...well, you know what to do."
The old man turned around, waiting to see if the Dalek would shoot him in the back. When it didn't, he almost wished that it did. It meant that it wasn't a trap. For the last few minutes of its miserable life, the Dalek had a conscience.
"Thank you," said the Dalek as he walked back to his ship. The old man didn't reply, but after the explosion, he returned in his capsule, and noticed with some sorrow of his own, there was no sign of an escape pod amidst the burning wreckage.
The End.