Chapter One - The Chase
The Black Guardian leaned back in his chair and smiled grimly.
"An interesting gambit," he mused aloud, eyeing his opponent with a frown.
The chessboard was shifting fast between them and he studied the structure of it with surprise. He'd been demonstrably ahead and now he was losing ground. He eyed the distant reaches of space and allowed himself a small smile.
He reached and shifted a piece on the board and the White Guardian's eyes narrowed in thought.
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" he asked.
"Why? Do you think that your pieces cannot counter it?" the Black Guardian asked smugly.
No, I have faith in them," his opponent assured him. "It just seems... desperate."
The smile fell from his face and his dark eyes snapped in anger.
"We'll see who is desperate, soon enough."
The Master looked up from the console of his TARDIS as the alarm buzzed and blinked at the screen in surprise. He had a pursuer.
"Who the...?" he snapped out with a frown. It was another TARDIS and he blinked in surprise at the screen. He could feel the faint Song of his people, but it was too dim and too far away for him to make out the details. The only one who seemed to know of his existence was the other version of himself, but why would he be pursuing him, instead of being pleased by his removal?
It read as a type-90 hospital craft, which was baffling. Where had his other self gotten such a thing? Still, it was probably not heavily armed, which was a benefit. His own TARDIS had excellent shields and a deadly weapons array,
Would Susan be on board the other craft? That was the real question. Would the other him risk bringing her near to another version of himself? He nearly laughed aloud at the thought. As if it would matter, why would she care about him, the cut-rate version of the one she had? She's take one look at him, the one that had failed, the one that had killed her, and she'd turn away in disgust. She'd be right to as well, he knew.
Still, in an insane, upside-down way, he trusted his other self to take care of her. He was clearly more talented at it than the Master was himself. He would never harm Susan, but he had no choice but to lose them. She mustn't be in the blast radius when he fired up the Lens. There had to be a way to discourage them from following. He frowned and reluctantly decided that he'd have to do it the hard way.
He sent his ship spinning through the void, seeding it in his wake with snap-mines, Möbius barriers, and various other goodies.
"Step lively, chaps," he growled, and set about to shake his pursuer.
Stripped of its chaotic, curling, overgrown pathways, the network looked rather forlorn, rather like a sheep that had been shorn. And it was rearranging itself. It was forming itself into a series of overlapping circles that formed a geometric shape that looked rather like a flower. It was the Lens. It wasn't being used, wasn't powering up, it was just... there.
"I've been trying to concentrate a lot of my repair efforts here," Aislynn said sadly, escorting Owen through the scorched medi-bay. "Unfortunately, it's going more slowly than I would prefer. However, I do have some goodies that you might like," she showed him the tools that were available. "Tissue regenerator… Bone-resetter, and pain dampeners," she pointed out. "There's a whole decontamination suite... well, there was anyway." She smiled at him. "I think a clever doctor could make quite a lot out of what is still available."
"I'm fairly clever, but I'd have to know how to use any of it, to be able to do much." He examined the tools and bits with interest, but without much understanding. "You got a manual for any of it?"
She crossed to a wall, where there was a half-sphere protruding. He had seen them all over the ship. "This is the database access." She tapped it, and a square of light appeared, projected images scrolling across it. "There are help files for everything in here. They are for all educational levels and include tutorials and demonstrations."
"Right. Well, let's see how clever I really am," he muttered and dived into the complexities of Gallifreyan medical technology. Aislynn tapped the half sphere, quietly uploading the file that Dar had given her, with all of the medical data on the Nanites. It would be available for him, if he wanted to look at it. With a small smile, Aislynn crept out and left him to his fun.
The Doctor ran into the console room to see Rose and Susan at the controls.
"So we've found the Master, I take it?" he asked, wondering why both women were giggling a bit.
"We've got coordinates to the main complex!" Susan crowed. "Because your wife is genius!"
"I think so too," said the Doctor as he headed over to help and Rose grinned at them both.
"You took your time!" Susan teased, since she was piloting in her jim-jams, her hair in a braid at the back of her head and her feet in slippers. Rose was wearing jeans, boots, and her favourite purple leather jacket over a blue t-shirt, but then, she'd been up all night working on the equations.
"I always dress for the occasion," he intoned solemnly and Susan stuck her tongue out at him.
"Not funny, Grandfather!" she shot back.
"He is a bit of a peacock, though," Rose teased and Susan nodded.
The Doctor was about to protest that, but then the TARDIS, ever so delicately, brushed against the first snap-mine. Alarms began blaring at once, the Cloister Bell donging loudest of all.
Everything within the TARDIS seemed to slow down, but the slowdown was asymmetrical. The north wall of the console room seemed to pull away from the south wall. It was as if the room was a rubber band, stretching out farther and farther, becoming impossibly long. All over the ship the same phenomenon occurred. The longer the room became, the more tension soaked into the atmosphere, leaving their ears protesting, as the air pressure changed. It was a grinding moment of wrong, leaving everyone on board clenching their teeth. Even the sound of the alarms was distorted, like they were wailing through a very long tunnel, or from the bottom of a well.
Then, when it seemed as though they couldn't stand it anymore, when everything was stretched to the breaking point, the pressure ended, releasing its hold, and the TARDIS rebounded, as if someone had let the stretched-out rubber band go, with the characteristic "snap" from which snap-mines took their name.
Everything not physically bolted down went flying violently into the opposite wall, which was the people, and tools, since all the furniture was firmly attached to the floor. Additional alarms started screeching, joining the first.
"What the hell was that?" Rose shouted.
"A snap mine!" Susan gasped out, shocked to her core. Had the Master actually dropped mines behind him? She couldn't quite believe it.
"Well, that wasn't fun, but we seem to be okay," Rose said as she checked the TARDIS.
"That was just one," the Doctor contradicted. "If we hit a cluster of those, it'll tear the ship apart!"
"Excuse me?" Rose gasped.
"They'll pull her in a dozen different directions at once!" he shouted. "We'd never survive it."
"Right! So, let's not hit any more of them!" Rose insisted and the others nodded.
"Good plan!" the Doctor shot back.
Aislynn went to her desk in her office a few doors down, and pulled the tablet Dar had given her out of its cage, opening it up. She didn't want to, but Owen needed more help than she could give.
So she typed out her first chat message.
"You said a doctor survived the war?" she typed.
"Yes," the answer came back immediately.
"Do you think she would consult for Dr. Harper?"
"I think that when she finds out that I didn't bring her in immediately, she's going to twist me into a pretzel and re-engineer me as a wombat," came the reply.
"Perhaps we could arrange… I don't know, a video conference of some sort. For Dr. Harper."
"I think that could work, assuming I can still use a keypad after I tell Susan," he replied.
"I can provide scans and other data which I believe she would want to see. If you can arrange something… I would be grateful."
"My honour, my Lady, She's off-world right now, but as soon as she returns, I'll arrange a chat," he replied. Aislynn nodded. She would have time to collect her thoughts, which was good. She was feeling very nervous just then.
The Doctor grimaced.
"I'm reconfiguring the shields!" he told them and Rose nodded, picking up his part of the piloting.
"What are you doing?" Susan asked, shouting over the alarms, as she ran diagnostics on the ship.
"A Cow scoop," he shouted back, trying to push the mines out of the way, so that they could keep clear of any clusters. It was hardly the best solution, but it was the only one he had. Susan's TARDIS was a hospital ship; she had no weapons.
"What about the other ones?" Susan asked. "That will only stop the snap mines."
"I know, but I know what to do with the Artron Bursts," he replied. He slowed the TARDIS, Susan and Rose following him, waiting for his orders. He looked out over the mines and thought. He frowned and drew upon his experiences in the Time War.
"Why are we slowing?" Rose asked.
"I'm broadcasting the deactivation sequences hard-wired into the mines by the builders," he told her and waited. The Master had changed the codes, of course, and it took him precious seconds to work out his alterations and send the correct sequence. They went silent and inert as they slipped past the now harmless mines and headed out towards the Master's position again.
"Brilliant!" Rose crowed and he grinned.
"Yeah, I really am," he chuckled.
Koschei picked himself up off the floor, bruises blooming on his body, and felt Susan's shock and dismay in his mind. What the hell was his other self doing? He could have seriously injured Susan, which couldn't have been his intention. Whatever else he thought about his alternate universe self, he could not imagine that he'd ever intentionally harm her. Even at his craziest, the very thought of hurting her had made him feel ill. He didn't understand what the other him was thinking.
"Are you all right?" he asked Adie as she struggled to her feet as well.
"Yes, I am fine," she responded, though she was wide-eyed and scared looking.
"Strap in," he ordered and she scrambled into a chair and belted herself in place, as he did the same.
He'd avoided reaching out to the Master since the last time. He was almost afraid to do so, to stick his hand into the blender of the other man's pain again, but just then he had no choice. He had to understand what the other him was thinking.
/Stop that!/ Koschei sent directly to the Master. /What the hell do you think you're doing? Leave the girls alone and stop this, before someone gets hurt!/ Before Susan gets hurt, he really meant, but he doubted the Master would need clarification on that.
Koschei had been the Master for most of his life. It had made him who he was. Whoever he might have been, before Rassilon had gone in and rewired him, that potential self had been warped, twisted, and changed. For all his gentle kindness, his loving nature, the ruthless practicality of the Master still lived in him. He had chosen to use it to serve his loved ones, these days. He'd channelled his rage at all he'd been driven to do, into saving as many as he could from the same fate.
If he could see that his past was foolish and destructive, why couldn't the other version of him see it, too? He was baffled by why the other him was going in the exact opposite direction from where he ought to be. Why was he not coming to Susan?
/It's all pointless and irrelevant, now! The entire purpose for you being this way is gone and dead! So, what's the bloody point? /
/Rassilon's breath!/ Came the unexpected response, bitter and frustrated. /What are you doing? Just get Susan out of the blast radius./
/Blast radius? What the hell are you talking about? Let the girls go already!/ he sent back, now more confused than ever.
The Master rubbed his hand over his eyes. He could not fathom what had gotten into his other self. That wanker had everything, everything, that anyone could ever ask for. He certainly had everything that the Master most desperately wanted. What was he going on about, girls? What girls? It made no sense.
/Just...,/ his voice was tired suddenly. /Go. Just go. Get Susan out of the blast radius and... just… live./ He hung up. He had no expectation that the damnable wanker would actually go, but he doubted that anything he could say would talk him down at this point.
"Oh bloody hell!" Koschei gasped, understanding washing through him. "Adie, what was that about bubbles?" he asked. "Could they be used somehow like a bomb, or to fire the damn weapon?"
"It was one of the first configurations to be abandoned," Adie replied looking confused by the question. "It involves storing the clones in a series of probability bubbles and firing the weapon. It raises the damage output by several orders of magnitude, if I'm recalling it correctly, especially if fired from within a TARDIS. The disadvantage is that it can only be fired at point-blank range. You'd lose the TARDIS as well as its pilot. The only thing it would be good for would be a suicide run."
"Yeah, that's about what I figured," Koschei groaned and Adie's eyebrows rose.
"You think he's making a suicide run? Why? I thought he was all about survival?"
"Yeah, when Rassilon was running the show, sure, but now? I'll bet there would be no way to regenerate from something like that blast, would there?" he asked her, eyes bleak.
"No, but he'd probably also take out that solar system…"she muttered and he frowned in thought.
"Auxiliary scanners on-line," he murmured. "Maybe he's seeing something that we aren't?" Adie leaned over his shoulder as he worked, watching the scans, intent on the data that spooled by and then suddenly jabbed her finger at the screen.
"There, look at that: that's got to be a group of Möbius Loops. That's what he must have been doing earlier; he was breaking them off, so they were clustered by themselves. Why would he do that? That's quite a piece of engineering to be able to pull that set together like that," she marvelled.
"No one ever said I wasn't a brilliant engineer, Adie," he mused aloud, his hands teasing more data from the scans. "Let's see more detail."
"That must be where he is planning to set off the Lens. If he wants to kill himself, fine, but why do all this? Why fire the Lens and why here, next to those Loops?"
"What's inside of them?" he asked, running a spectral analysis on the bubbles. "Why now? I told him about Susan long before this, what's he thinking?" The first streams of information started to come in and he frowned. "That's weird," he muttered. "Bio-metals?" He felt his hearts stuttering as the data poured across his screens.
"These scans are very odd," Adie told him with a shake of her head. "Look at this! What is that? Have you ever seen anything like these before?" She was staring at the information, looking perplexed, but he was trying not to hyperventilate.
"Yes, actually," he moaned and leaned back in his chair, suddenly feeling his age in a way he almost never did. "I have seen it before…in the Rani's lab."
Crab puffs, Jake decided, get old fast. In fact, two weeks of a steady diet could make a person really start to dislike crab in general. They had another week to go before the next bridge appeared and Jake was trying to figure out how to entertain five Mashas and keep them from worrying too much. Madison wasn't that hard, she was tough, no-nonsense, and direct. Give her an objective and she'd take it, no questions asked. London and Kayla though, they were thinkers and that meant more work for him. Kimberly just needed a lot of reassurance.
"Are you sure it'll be there?" she was asking him and he showed her Adie's schedule again on the notepad.
"See, it's right there," he promised. "Adie hasn't failed me yet."
Adie was taking on mythical proportions for them all. They'd all been cloned from her and she was a Time Lord who'd actually stayed in captivity for a hundred years just to protect them. Adie was a name he could invoke to keep them all calm.
"Okay, if Adie says so," Kimberly agreed and Jake smiled at her. He wasn't sure how Adie was going to feel about this when they got back someday, but he also couldn't exactly warn her.
"He's certainly making a mess, isn't he?" the Doctor muttered and Susan just nodded, still stunned by it all.
She had never imagined that the Master would be so reluctant to talk to her that he'd do something like this. Calling the Vortex a "mess" was being charitable. He had thrown up all sorts of barriers in their path - Möbius Spheres, Time Loop fields, Snap Mines, Artron Bursts, and other goodies. Their TARDIS was still in pursuit of his, but was having to fly carefully to avoid the obstacles. The Master was trying to shake them off but hadn't managed it yet.
But why? She was utterly baffled by his actions. They needed each other, that's how it always was, so why was he doing this? Why go to such lengths? Did he not want to see her? That thought hurt. Maybe this version didn't love her, didn't want to be with her. She hid the hurt of that deep, away from Koschei.
"Fine," she muttered. "If that's how it is, well fine, but he's going to have to say it to my face."
She was so deep in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice the concerned looks that Rose and her grandfather exchanged.