Doctor Who: The Time Destroyer
By Paul D'Arcy
Based on the Original Role Playing Game Developed By Ryan Blake
Episode 5
The third Doctor stood quietly and watched the Daleks spread out into a line, with the man dressed in the Time Lord robes in the centre.
'I'm not keen on riddles. Not before breakfast, anyway,' his future self replied.
'Then allow me to explain. I am the Doctor.'
The Doctors shared a look between each other.
'I am the darkest part of your own nature, created between your twelfth and final regeneration.'
'Well, that's a nice story,' the fourth Doctor placed his hands in his pockets. 'You'll forgive me for not believing you.'
'You may call me the Valeyard. My life has been denied me, Doctor. I want revenge. Revenge on the Time Lords, and revenge on you. Your death, and those of your other selves will bring me life.'
The third Doctor could see the Valeyard's eyes practically gleam in mad ambition.
'And how do you suppose my death is going to help-!'
The third Doctor bolted for the far end of the room. There was only one way out, now.
The transmat device.
It was a slim chance, yet it was all he could do. Fortunately, the Daleks didn't have him in their sights. He managed to flick the switch and throw himself into the transmat booth.
'No!'
The Daleks fired, but the shots went wild as the third Doctor felt himself dissolve in mid-air…..
…..And landed roughly on a metal deck, a second or two later.
He stood on a gantry, leading to an odd-looking hexagonal construct. The vortex was swirling in space, far off into the distance. Its myriad colours flashed and glowed. If his future self was right, and the vortex was a bridge back to the real universe, he had to find a way to get all his regenerations back there.
He looked over the side, and saw the planet Gallifrey below, spinning lazily in its orbit. He could see flaming pockets that were the planet's major cities. All of Gallifrey was dying, but was it real, or just some illusion concocted by the sick mind of the Valeyard?
The gantry that led from the transmit booth, down a series of metal steps and along towards a large cast iron tunnel. In the distance, he could see a similar gantry leading from the far side of the hexagonal construct towards another series of steps which led to another transmat booth.
Which meant that he had to hide. And quickly, too. The Valeyard probably wasn't going to waste time in finding him.
Desperately, he dashed down the steps and ran for the construct. He reached the opening and stopped. It was a single iron pathway which led through the construct and out the other side. There was no movement within. But there was something strange about it.
There didn't seem to be any obvious lighting panels, yet there was a gentle glow about the place. Almost eerie in nature, the glow was coming from several side compartments along the gantry, none of which he could see clearly. He moved in silently, to get a closer look.
The second Doctor risked a quick glance around the side of the Tardis at the group standing in the middle of the tomb. His future self was there, in his long red overcoat and mangy scarf. Surrounded by Daleks, and with all the arrogance of a megalomaniac, stood the Valeyard.
He exuded the kind of menace that had assaulted his mind. He was the reason why he'd gotten so drunk in the first place. With the excessive alcohol that he'd imbibed, plus the stuff the fourth Doctor had force-fed him with, he was only now slowly recovering from the major effects.
Considering himself fortunate that the Valeyard had stopped his psychological onslaught, he could finally place a face to the presence that had invaded his mind with so much ferocity. But that was about all he could do at the moment. Without a plan, and without any kind of weapon to use against the Daleks, there wasn't much that he could do except watch as the third Doctor disappeared using the transmat device at the far end of the room.
The Daleks ceased firing at 'Fancy-Pants' almost immediately. Once again, there was quiet in the Tomb of Rassilon. He noticed the fourth Doctor had sunk to his knees to get out of the line of fire. Now, he rose slowly from the floor.
'Damn you, Doctor!' the Valeyard spat in the direction of the transmat booth.
'We will pur-sue!' the nearest Dalek ordered.
'It doesn't matter,' replied the Valeyard. 'The Doctor can go nowhere. The booth is locked into one location. He can't escape from there.'
He turned to the fourth Doctor once again.
'Bring him.' He gestured at the tall, curly haired man.
'Well, actually, if it's all the same to you….'the fourth Doctor began.
But the Valeyard wasn't listening. He turned and strode from the tomb without another word.
'Doc-tor! You will obey the Daleks!'
Oh.' The Doctor mumbled disappointedly as one Dalek followed the Valeyard out of the tomb. The other Daleks formed up behind the Doctor and escorted him down the corridor. which left the second Doctor with a choice.
Either he could follow his next regeneration using the transmat booth, or he could follow his other self, and hopefully discover what this strange, malevolent Valeyard person was up to.
Silently, and with a little effort, as he was still feeling the effects of the alcohol, he followed the group from the tomb.
'So, do you really want to destroy me, Valeyard? I mean it's so terribly inconvenient for this sort of thing to happen, you know!'
The Valeyard continued down the darkened corridor without acknowledging the Doctor.
'Because, as I said before, my life is not stable. Thanks to your fifth regeneration, I have been thwarted in my attempts to gain a long-lasting life. Therefore, I have created this time line to bring all your other selves here, where I will destroy you, in order to gain a complete new life cycle for myself.'
The second Doctor kept some distance behind the group as they moved through the dark confines of the tomb corridors. Fortunately, the voices carried enough so he could hear them.
'You realise, of course, that you can't do that,' replied the tall, curly-haired Doctor. 'You'd need an explosion powerful enough to rip through the fourth dimension…'
'..Creating a destination paradox that would result in the total atomisation of your life, yes. And your previous and future lives, as well. Which is why I have brought you here.'
He saw the Valeyard gesture towards a door at the far end of the corridor. Gently, his future self opened it and stepped inside. The Valeyard, then the Daleks followed.
The little man crept up to the door, and peeked inside. The Daleks were facing the other Doctor. He noticed several large machines off to one side, and he stealthily moved behind one.
He heard his future self gasp in astonishment.
'Great skies! What have you done?'
Overhead, the multi-coloured swirling mist of the time vortex revolved at tremendous speed above the Third Doctor's head. It generated so many strange, eerie sounds. It was like listening to a distorted version of Earth whale song, echoing across time and space.
It was truly, one of the marvels of the Universe, even though it was an unnatural marvel.
But that was nothing, compared to what he'd found inside the docking bay.
The Tardis.
He felt a surge of excitement and relief as he reached into his pocket for the key. He slotted it into the lock and stepped inside.
The console room never looked so warm and inviting. The Time Column was still in the console's centre, the wall scanner was switched to the 'off' position. Still, something set the hackles on his back to rise. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something was definitely wrong.
He stepped to the controls and keyed for a biological scan of the area. If those Daleks were around, it'd be difficult to rescue his other selves.
And that was when he realised the problem.
'This…isn't my Tardis!' he murmured. 'It must belong to one of my other selves.'
He frowned at the control for a second, then back at the door. Swiftly, he made for the door again.
Taking a quick peek outside, he was relieved to find that he was still alone in the bay. He carried on walking towards the far end, and was astonished to discover another, identical Tardis in the next alcove. Then another, and another, and another. By the time he'd reached the end of the docking portals he'd counted ten separate, yet identical machines to his own craft.
Which raised a question in his mind.
'If these are all mine, where are the other Doctors?' he wondered out loud.
A gasp came from the fourth Doctor's lips. He was standing amongst thirteen stasis field beds. Each one was angled at forty five degrees. Between each bed, a stasis convertor was feeding power to each one. Most of them were occupied by his other selves. He made a quick count.
'You haven't found all of me yet, have you?' he taunted.
He could see his earliest incarnation. The white neck-length hair. Even in stasis, his original features were couched in a grouchy frown. The next three beds were empty. There was a man in cricket whites, another in a horrible multi-coloured, three-quarter length coat, and blonde, curly hair.
A smaller man was lying next to him. He was dressed in a white cotton jacket and trousers, with a jersey covered in question marks.
'Oh, dear. Oh, dear,' growled the Doctor.
'Are you frightened now, Doctor?' asked the Valeyard. 'Or are you disgusted about my plan?'
'The only thing I'm disgusted with, Valeyard, is my lack of dress sense.'
He looked at the beds on the other side of the room. He noticed that several of these people were in their mid-thirties. There was a man with brown, curly hair. Not quite as long as his own. He wore a blue cravat and a suede jacket. The next bed was empty.
But the next four were taken up with a bald, tall man in a leather jacket, another tall man with a god-awful quiff. Next to him lay a much younger man who wore a bow tie and had a large shock of brown straight hair combed back over his head, and the next bed was empty.
'Your other selves will all be here soon. I don't actually need them, Doctor. It's just I wanted to see all your agonising faces as you feel creation unravelling throughout your entire regenerations.'
The fourth Doctor took a deep breath.
'May I ask how exactly you intend to accomplish this?'
'It's very simple, really. The vortex is a on a path of destruction, not only through space, but time as well. It is centred around Gallifrey and reaches into your time streams, allowing me to bring you and your other selves together. I only have to ignite a Nullitrion device in the centre of the vortex and it will destroy everything, not only here, but also in time. Since most of your regenerations are here, it will destroy you, Doctor. But I have developed a safe zone in the upper atmosphere. I've constructed a docking platform there with a protective field surrounding it using the power from Rassilon's Time scoop.'
'I'd have thought that the Time Lords would've had something to say about that!' the Doctor put his hands in his pockets as he spoke.
The second Doctor could tell that his future self was checking over the machinery that kept the other Doctors in stasis.
That's it! He thought. If I can release the others, there may still be time to save the situation!
He examined the array of cables, and connections running from the back of the machine he was hiding behind. He'd noticed the other machines which looked similar to this one. If he could somehow deactivate them….
'That's why I've involved the Daleks, Doctor. They have provided the diversion. The Time Lords will die.'
And the rest of the universe? Won't it be destroyed, too?'
'Only a portion of it. Some races will survive, of course, but the effect from the vortex's destruction will probably be localised to this galaxy.'
The Doctor stared at him in grave horror.
'You will be responsible for the death of millions. Billions!'
'You mean 'you will be responsible, Doctor. But that is of no matter. My revenge will be complete. You will die, and the Time Lords will die, leaving me…'
'Leaving you as the Master of all Time?' the Doctor concluded
'Exactly.'
'Well, you'll have a legal dispute on your hands about the name, I think,' he replied.
One of the Daleks moved forward to aim right at one of the Doctor's hearts.
'Move into position!' it said.
Reluctantly, the fourth Doctor took his place on the stasis bed. The Valeyard flicked a nearby switch and a strange blue light covered his entire body. The fourth Doctor entered stasis, another victim of the Valeyard's mad ambition.
The second Doctor pulled a couple of wires out the back of the stasis machine. Immediately the blue light covering the fifth and twelfth Doctors disappeared silently and they awoke.
Both Doctors looked at each other, noticed the Daleks, and then the Valeyard.
A cruel glare of victory emanated from his face. Both Doctors crept silently off their respective stasis beds and moved towards the door, as they spotted the second Doctor creeping towards them. The Twelfth Doctor motioned for him to join them as they moved silently towards the door.
But the Valeyard noticed them.
'Stop, Doctor!' they heard the Valeyard say. All three men were running for the door. Luckily, the Daleks were slow in turning their way.
It is the Doctor!' the Daleks shouted in unison. 'The Doctor must be captured!'
Just as the escapees reached the door, the fifth Doctor turned to face his would-be captors.
'Why don't you just shut up?'
He pulled out a cricket ball from his pocket, and threw it as hard as he could at the Valeyard.
'Un-der a-ttack!'
Their nightmarish voices sounded as one as the Daleks tried to track in on the ball. One of them even got a shot off, but not before the ball struck the Valeyard right in the face. He dropped to one knee in pain, blood squirting from his nose.
The Doctor had bought enough time for he and his other selves to escape. He slammed the door shut and ran as fast as he could, along with his other selves back through the winding dark corridors.
'What on Earth does he want?' asked the twelfth Doctor.
'Whatever it is,' replied the fifth Doctor, 'I bet it's not a fez he's interested in!'
'It wasn't my fault! I just happened to mention that he'd-!'
He was interrupted by the crashing sound of wood splintering before a laser blast. The Daleks had destroyed the door, and now they were after them with a vengeance.
They kept running, following the corridor until they'd returned to Rassilon's tomb.
'The Valeyard's created the time vortex. He intends to fire a Nullitrion torpedo into it which will destroy Gallifrey and unravel our time streams until we no longer exist.' The second Doctor answered them, he wasn't a young man anymore, and he was getting tired. The twelfth Doctor noticed, and grabbed his arm.
'C'mon! To the transmat booth!'
Seconds later, all three men squeezed into the cramped space and felt their matter particles dissolve.
'So, ten Tardises, and no operators. I wonder which ones of me is missing?' the third Doctor wondered out loud. He'd been looking for his own ship for the last ten minutes and was down to just four possibilities. He pushed the door open easily and stepped inside.
There was the console, the Time Column set in the middle. The background hum was exactly the same resonance as the Tardis he knew so well.
And all the controls were set in their rightful places, just the way he liked them. Yes, this desktop version was exactly what he'd wanted.
This was definitely his ship.
He quickly perused the console. Everything was on standby, which was good. From here he could locate his other selves and find out exactly what this Valeyard fellow was up to, and all without being discovered by any invasive scanning techniques that the Daleks or the Time Lords had concocted.
A quick location scan revealed that the docking bays were in orbit around Gallifrey.
That's unusual, he mused. Normally, the sky trenches would've picked something as large as this construct up and dealt with it within minutes.
A short sharp image came to mind, of when he and his two other selves had landed on the planet. The Capitol Building, the Parliament of the Time Lords had been all but disintegrated. A large Dalek spacecraft had collided with it and the place was in flames. So too, was the rest of the city, with the dead bodies of literally thousands of his fellow Time Lords scattered across the landscape.
He shook the memory away and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. He keyed for a life form scan. He got very little results. Then he tracked in on power registrations. There was a room near the Tomb area which registered faint, but regular power emanations.
And three distinct beings running away from it very fast
'Now, why hadn't they been picked up on the life form scan?'
Perhaps old Rassilon hadn't wanted anybody to detect the life forms in the tower, just to ensure that they couldn't escape his clutches. Or perhaps it was simpler than that. Maybe the Valeyard had erected a series of scan inhibitors in the tower so no one could find him and those nightmarish Daleks.
Either way it didn't matter.
He couldn't worry about that now. What mattered was that he had to find the cause of all this chaos. He continued through the scanning routines.
The three Doctors materialised on the gantry. The second Doctor still looked haggard.
'You all right?' asked the twelfth Doctor as he steadied the elder man with one hand.
'I-I'm fine! I'm 'strifically coordinated!' He drew himself up and adjusted his long black jacket.
'No,' replied the man wearing cricket whites and a beige coat. 'You're drunk!'
The second Doctor stared at him wide-eyed.
'Perhaps so, but it was all very, very necessary!'
'Why's that?' asked the latest incarnation, adjusting his own jacket and bow tie.
'Because he was invading my mind. Don't underestimate him,' he whispered. 'He's very powerful.'
'Yes we know. Do you know what he plans to do?' asked the fifth Doctor.
The second doctor nodded drunkenly.
'He's planning on firing a Nul'tron device.'
'Nullitrion?' the Fifth Doctor corrected him.
'What's his target?' asked the twelfth Doctor.
'The vor…The vor…'
'The vortex?'
The second Doctor turned a nasty shade of green and sank to the floor. The other Doctors stared at each other in concerned curiosity.
'If the Valeyard were to fire a Nullitrion device into the vortex…' the fifth Doctor began.
'…It would start a chain reaction that would destroy Gallifrey and the surrounding systems.'
The twelfth Doctor finished the sentence.
'It wouldn't just stop there. It would act like a domino effect across space.'
'What do you mean?' The fifth Doctor frowned.
'The Valeyard's going to destroy the Galaxy!'