Chapter 1
Jenny woke up with a start as her ship rocked from a collision. Her twin hearts beating frantically in her ears.
ba-da-da-dum-da-dum,
ba-da-da-dum-da-dum,
The heartbeat of a Time Lady, and from what she could tell, the last one in the universe.
Jenny moved to the front of the ship and flipped a few switches to stabilize her spin. Her blue eyes darted across the readouts to see what it was she hit. She was relieved to find she didn't hit anything, but something collided into her.
"Alright, Looks like we got some salvage." Jenny said to herself. She took the band from her wrist and tied her hair into a ponytail. Her hands danced across the controls and tractored the debris into the small cargo bay of the Messaline ship she stole what seemed like centuries ago.
It was a small one man freighter, a single cabin and small cargo bay. The Messalines were in constant war for what seemed to be centuries, when it really only turned out to be a few months. The casualties amounted to the millions, but each side was able to quickly clone new troops that were fully combat capable and ready to go. Her father and companion Donna visited, and the Doctor was inadvertently cloned, which lead to her. The Doctor hates the military, so of course, she was rejected by him. Near the end, she was killed, and the Doctor and Donna left. Her being a Time Lady, allowed a partial regeneration. She guesses she was mostly dead, not all dead, or she would have a different face.
"Lets see what I got," She said to herself. She didn't have anyone else to talk to, so she's taken to speaking to the ship. It was her blue box, and it took her wherever she wanted. Over the years, she's grown quite attached to it, even whispering how sexy his throbbing engines are when she's fixing his warp coils. David (That's what she calls her ship) and her had quite the run. She mostly hauls cargo from planet to planet, and has set up a decent trade route. When she's in the black, she mostly hangs out in deep space and enjoys the quiet.
Jenny walked to the back of her ship. The steel walls was a gunmetal grey with light panels that activated when she approached. She contemplated upgrades, adding a few rooms and expanding the ship. But space fold technology was in it's infancy, and even though she knew how to make a pseudo-TARDIS, the ramifications could… and most likely blow up whatever star system she was orbiting at the time.
She opened the cargo bay. It was roughly thirty meters square, and was littered with boxes and tools. A smile crossed her face when she found a large pock covered meteor roughly three meters across. She walked around the meteor, running her fingers over the rock. She was shocked to feel a small amount of heat emitting from it.
Pulling out a handheld scanner, she saw there was a metallic core that carried an electric signal. She rummaging through a nearby toolbox and saw what she needed; a long probe that emitted a high pitched sonic sound. A sonic screwdriver.
"This should work." She said to herself. With a few adjustments, she pointed the device to the rock and pressed the tiny controls on the familiar rod. a high pitched 'eeeeeeeeeeeee' emitted accompanied with a blue light emitting from the tip.
. She smiled to herself at the sound. She knew she looked for any excuse to use the sonic screwdriver because it reminded her of her father.
It only took a moment, when the rock exploded. It left behind a metal husk that has lain dormant inside. It took only moments before a wind up hum emitted from it. A menacing mechanical eyestalk raised up and looked at Jenny, who was frozen in horror. With a tinny, electronic voice that sent millions to their deaths, uttered…
"Exterminate the Doctor!"
Jenny had a moment to react and ducked behind a bulkhead before the laser blasts erupted from the assault arm of the Dalek.. The Dalek was worse for wear being in space for eons. It must have somehow survived the destruction of one of its ships, and floated for millennia, gathering dust and debris to form a crust around it.
Jenny pulled her sidearm, leaned over and aimed at the eyestalk. With two quick shots, the eyestalk and the laser were destroyed. The suction cup arm that was left waved around helplessly.
Jenny poked her head around her cover and saw it was spinning in a circle. the top dome swiveled back and forth while the blasted gun arm limped about helplessly. Looking at the abomination, fear gripped her chest. She's never seen a Dalek, but she seemed to have almost an irrational hatred for the creature. She grabbed a loose pipe and strode up to the immobile domed creature. It's head swiveled around as it screamed.
"Damage, Damage, Suffered damage. Exterminate Doctor."
Without any remorse she began to beat the tin dome, the pipe vibrated with each strike, sending pain through her hands and arms. She screamed in rage as she kicked and pounded on the Dalek, resulting in tiring her out, but doing no additional damage.
"I'm… not the… Doctor!" she screamed as she stabbed a vent that was located at the base of the dome with the pipe.
"You lie, you have the genetic code of the Doctor… must exterminate the Doctor." the Dalek screamed frantically. Each strike she did, the plunger arm swiveled in that direction, as if trying to touch her.
"NO!" She screamed. "I'm Jenny!" She hated being thought of as her father. She was her own person, and to have a mechanical abomination assume she's just another face her father wears cut her to the core and enraged her to no end. She was Jenny. She had her own hearts and her own path. She was not the Doctor!
There was silence from the Dalek, the stalkless dome turned to face her.
"Unable to attack, unable to move, must destroy the Doctor. Initiate self destruct."
Before she could say anything, everything on her ship powered down. She was dead in the water.
"What did you do to my ship!?" She screamed and began another round of beatings.
"Electro magnetic pulse. Disrupt attempts to jettison Dalek. Self destruct initiated. Powercore will become critical in five minutes."
"David!" She screamed. "Not David! Stop! I'm not the Doctor! I'm his clone, but I'm not him!"
"Genetic match is perfect, you are the Doctor." the Dalek said. Jenny had enough. She grabbed her sonic screwdriver and ran behind the Dalek. It took a short sonic burst to unlocked a back panel and examined the wires inside. There was an inspirational flash, as she was able to somehow tap into her father's knowledge and insight of thirteen lives. As much as she hated the idea, she was the Doctor's Daughter, and had access to all of his genetic memories.
Reaching into the innards of the Dalek, she felt the green wire. (how can she feel colors?) and yanked with all her might.
"No… stop! You disconnected the reactor. Life.. support failing. You're killing me." The Dalek screamed.
"You were going to kill me!" she screamed
"Exterminate! Must kill the Doctor! Attempting to re-route." She could hear tiny switches inside the Dalek re-routing systems to the generator.
Jenny reached in and yanked another wire.
"I can do this all day." She said coolly.
"Life Support falling." The Dalek said with a slow drawl. She could see the lights dim. Part of her was thrilled to watch the Dalek slowly power down. Who knows how many lives it had taken. "It's getting dark…"
"Good. That's what you get for trying to destroy my ship you miserable trashcan!" Jenny said.
"Doctor… Doctor… Jenny… I'm… scared! Life support… at three percent… please."
Jenny ran her fingers over the dome of the Dalek. The hatred she felt, she knew was passed to her by her father, and it sickened her. She wanted her own emotions, not some pre-disposition given to her by a random genetic sample. Was what she was doing right? She knew she could have disabled the self destruct sequence, she could have done so many other things… but she literally ripped this creature's heart out with her bare hands.
She has heard stories about her father over the years. They say the Doctor is a savior. The Doctor heals. The Doctor never kills. Looking down at the wires in her hands, and hearing the ragged gasps of breath from the disabled Dalek, she knew one thing. The Doctor can… and does kill. She cursed herself as she thrust her hand into the innards of the Dalek. Her fingers ripped wired out and re-plugged them into open ports.
"I'll reconnect you to basic life support if you can agree that I'm not the Doctor." Jenny said, her hand hovering over the final plug.
"You… are not… the … Doctor." the Dalek said.
Jenny plugged the wire deep within the innards of the Dalek. The power came on with a low hum. She heard a sigh of relief as Jenny spent the next few minutes plugging and unplugging wires while the Dalek stayed silent. Jenny stood up and wiped the oil and grease that was on her hands onto her pants.
"I reconnected your life support, and disabled anything that you can use to try to kill me." Jenny said. "I'm crazy, what am I going to do with you? I guess I can sell you to a zoo somewhere, or give you over to the authorities and let them dissect you or something. "
"You are not the Doctor" the Dalek said. "You are the Doctor"
"You are not the Doctor" the Dalek repeated. "You are the Doctor"
"The Doctor would let me die. He is a good Dalek." The Dalek said with a tone of pride. "You are not the Doctor, you let me live. That shows weakness, compassion, sympathy. Emotions that have been proven fatal to non-Daleks. Emotions that have caused extermination!"
"My dad is the most compassionate man in the universe" Jenny said, kicking the Dalek. A loud metallic clang echoed through the cargo bay.
"The Doctor has destroyed millions of Daleks. The Doctor is genocide for the Daleks." The Dalek said.
"You keep killing everyone else. You are genocide!" Jenny countered.
"You are not Dalek. You kill yourselves, Daleks do not kill Daleks."
"If you see the Doctor as a Dalek, and you see me as the Doctor, then you should not want to exterminate me as you do not exterminate Dalek!" Jenny screamed. The Dalek seemed to be frozen with that logic.
"I… I…I must consider this."
Jenny's head hurt with trying to think Dalek. She admitted to herself the only reason she saved chrome dome was because she knew her father would let it die, and the thing she tried so very hard all these years was to distinguish herself as her own person, not an accidental clone of the last known Time Lord.
"Do you have a name, Dalek?" Jenny asked. She knew he was crippled, The specs of the Dalek flashed in her mind. She knew every square inch of that monstrosity, just like she knew how Cybermen worked, or how to speak in pheromone; all gifts from her father.
"Designation of this unit is seven, nine, three, omega, alpha, … "
"I'll call you Foreman." Jenny said. The name rang familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
"Designation associated: Foreman" Dalek Foreman replied.
"I'm going to bed, if you get into trouble I will throw you out of my ship. You did enough damage to David when you let off that EMP pulse. It's going to take all night for him to recover. BAD DALEK"
"I am a bad Dalek?" the Dalek Foreman replied. Jenny sighed and headed to the cargo bay, but paused for a moment, as she spied a large yellow caution cone. Grabbing a black permanent marker, she wrote in big letters 'BAD DALEK'. Storming back to the disabled tank of death, she slammed it onto his head pushed the monstrosity into an empty corner of the cargo bay.
"Don't you move until I get back!" Jenny screamed, and gave Foreman another swift kick. The last one landed awkwardly, and she stubbed her toe. She cursed and limped out of the cargo bay. She locking the door behind her. Forman may be able to repair itself, they have nanobots that fix things. She removed enough components that it would take a while. At least long enough for her to get some much needed rest.
She laid down on her bed in what she called 'the captain's quarters' and drifted off to sleep. Where did she get the name Foreman?