Doctor Who: The Forest of the Daleks
A Ninth Doctor Adventure
They say when you meet the Doctor it's like having your whole world turned inside out. Wherever he goes, destruction follows in his wake and if you meet the Doctor, and survive, there will always be someone telling you how lucky you were. I disagree. I believe you're lucky to meet the Doctor because not everybody does and when there's danger, the safest place in the whole wide universe is to stick close to the Doctor. I wish Aurelia had known that. Sorry, I realise you probably don't know who Aurelia was. Now I come to think about it, I don't even know who you are. I can't think who'd want to watch one of my holo-recordings. Anyway, I suppose I'd better start from the beginning. I'm Oliver, 2nd Lieutenant in the Firaxian Grand Army and if you haven't realised it yet, you're standing on Firaxia. My home planet. Now, I'm not one for history lessons but I don't want you going in blind so I guess I'd better fill you in.
The Firaxian Empire covers…I mean covered, pretty much the entirety of the Firaxis galaxy except for a tiny planet in the far corner of our solar system. It lay so far outside our reach that not even the light from our three suns could touch it. You could assume that no life could possibly survive on its surface and for millennia, we too believed that to be the case. We know differently now. I was born and raised on Firaxia; my father, a General in our Grand Army, would take me on hunting trips. I learnt how to fight with sword and with bow and arrow. I learnt the meaning of power when my blade tore the throat of an Ice-Pig and I knew pain when my father was torn from me before I had even come of age. That's when I first saw the Doctor. My father and I had travelled to the farthest region of the Great Glacier in pursuit of the Ice-Pigs but the night was cold and there were no stars to guide our way across.
To my shame, my father warned me not to cross that night but I didn't listen for I was too foolhardy and full of a sense of my own importance. I saw the bright red eyes of an Ice-Pig and I did as my father had always shown me, I raised my bow and took an arrow from my quiver. I aimed the shot but I did not take into account the second Ice-Pig that rammed me from the side and knocked me clean off my feet. I skidded across the ice, my bow flung from my grasp and no way of stopping my descent. When my father discovered my stupidity, he raced across the Glacier to find me. Neither of us heard the engines of the TARDIS as he jumped over the back of an Ice-Pig and reached out his hand to take mine. The strength of my father's grip brought my fall to a a shuddering stop but it was too much for the great General. I gazed on in horror as my father was wrenched from my grasp and plunged into the darkness of the night. Every night when I close my eyes, I can still hear his screams and see the look of terror in his eyes. I think they will stay with me until the day I die. Now I didn't just lie back and accept it and this is where the Doctor came in. If it hadn't been for him…well I wouldn't be recording this message today. Blinded by grief and rage, I tore up the ice with my sword and I would have suffered the same fate as my father if it hadn't been for the Doctor. My feet slid and I felt my whole body plunge backwards over the edge; I closed my eyes knowing there was no escape from the inevitable, when at the last conceivable second, a hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me upwards. He only said one word to me, just one word.
Run.
And then he was gone. I never knew where he had come from and why he had chosen to come here on that particular night. Ten years passed by without incident. I finished my schooling and followed in my father's footsteps as I was born to do. There has been a General in my family for as far back as I can recall and although I have not yet achieved that honour, I know that it is my birth right. My life hasn't all been fighting and hunting, I knew a girl once. The most wonderful girl in the whole of creation. Aurelia. She was brilliant; she fought better than I did, she reasoned better than I did and she knew the Ice-Pigs better than anyone ever could. She even learnt to speak their language, the first member of our race to do so for a 1000 years. She was beauty indeed. On the eve of our Conjoining Ceremony, however, that was when everything changed. That was when the Great Peace finally ended. It started with a thunder crack across the starlit sky and before we could mount a defence, we were overwhelmed by a rain of bronze death. I knew that day there was only one man who could save us, only one man who knew how to fight these abominations.
That night a group of us fled the citadel and headed for the Forest for we knew the creatures would not dare follow us into our sacred ground. Although we did not know it then, we had just made the biggest mistake of our lives. The Daleks care little for the holy rites and rituals of inferior races. Their only concern was our extermination and they would stop at nothing to achieve it. Aurelia and I became separated as we fled through the Forest with Daleks hot on our heels; it was dark and our eyes were unaccustomed to fear. That was when I met the Doctor again and this is where our story truly begins.
I collided with the Doctor and sent us both tumbling to the ground where we lay spreadeagled amongst the leaves and bracken. I could see the Doctor spit out a mouthful of dirt and jump to his feet.
"Who the hell are you?" He asked, wiping mud from the collar of his dark leather jacket. It had been ten years since I'd last laid eyes on him and yet he hadn't aged a single day. I'm not afraid to admit that for a moment I was disappointed he did not recognise me.
"Oliver," I replied. "Have you come to save us?" The Doctor stared at me through those ageless eyes of his, trying to work out where I had come from. After a pause that seemed to go on for ages, he finally answered me.
"That depends," he said.
"On what?"
"What do you need saving from?"
"The Daleks." It was my turn to stare and in an instance I swore I saw his eyes turn cold and rigid with the fear of a hundred men.
"How many are there?" The Doctor asked as he searched the clearing. I shook my head indicating that I did not know the exact number. "Think," the Doctor encouraged. "I need to know, it's important."
"I don't know! Hundreds, thousands of them! They came out of nowhere and started killing everything! The Doctor said nothing, instead he gave me a funny look as though he had only just noticed what I was wearing.
"Are you a soldier?" He looked from the silver medal pinned to my chest to the severe haircut and the scar that ran across my right cheek. "I knew it!" He exclaimed with delight. "You're 2nd Lieutenant Oliver of the Firaxian General Army, which must mean…" His voice trailed off as he sniffed the dirt on his fingertips. "Oh yes! This is Firaxia." I could only nod in amazement. "Fantastic, you are fantastic. What year is this?"
"6462CE," I said and raised an eyebrow at him.
"CE…CE…" the Doctor muttered under his breath. "Of course! CE, Chimera Era." I had absolutely no idea what the man was talking about and there was precious little time to waste.
"Doctor, I have to find Aurelia."
"Who's that?"
"My partner."
"Where is she?"
"We got separated. A group of us fled the citadel and came in here. We're on Holy ground right now but the Daleks followed us anyway."
"Yeah, they have a habit of doing that." I started to walk down the long and winding path that led away from the TARDIS but the Doctor drew back and would not move. "There is something very wrong here." I turned back, my expression nonplussed.
"What?" The Doctor stared at me, I felt his look burning into my very soul.
"This is 6462."
"Yes, and?"
"Don't you understand?" The Doctor could tell from the look on my face that I was completely lost. "Apes. You're all the same."
"And what is that?" I asked and it was hard to hide the annoyance in my voice. The Doctor did not blink.
"Stupid," he answered. "Well, not all of you but it's close enough."
"I'm not an Earth Ape," I replied indignantly.
"No but you're not much cleverer than them." I think it was at this point the Doctor first noticed the terror in my eyes and in the blink of an eye he changed tact completely. "Sorry," he said and I could tell he meant it. "But don't you see?"
"See what?"
"There was no Dalek invasion of Firaxia in 6462, it just didn't happen."
"Maybe you got your dates wrong?"
"I never get my dates wrong." The Doctor had his hand on the TARDIS and was stroking the blue paint gently. "This is wrong." A sudden crack like the snap of a branch brought us squarely back to our senses.
"Find the Firaxian soldiers! There must be no survivors! Find and exterminate!" A Dalek burst from the undergrowth and aimed a shot from the whisker on its body. The death ray missed us by inches.
"We've lingered here too long!" I shouted.
"Run!" The Doctor answered. I didn't need telling twice. We sprinted through the Forest floor, leaping over anything that got in our way. I didn't know where we were going, I didn't know what the Doctor was going to do but we had to find some way of reaching Aurelia if she was even still alive. I knew in my heart that she must be, I mean if the Daleks had got her, I would have felt it, right?
"Exterminate!" Another Dalek appeared in front of us, hovering an inch above the ground. It raised its gun arm at me and then stopped. The head swivelled to the left and the eyestalk eyed the Doctor with a careful menace. "Halt!" The Doctor stopped and stared up at the Dalek gazing down on him. "You will identify yourself!"
"I'm the Doctor," The Doctor replied and he sounded satisfied. The Dalek, however, did not respond as expected.
"Stated identity does not compute with known records, you will identify!"
"Doctor?" The Doctor waved his hand to silence me.
"You will identify," the Dalek barked again.
"I'm the Doctor, the oncoming storm. You can't have forgotten me?" The Dalek seemed to twitch ever so slightly.
"Identity does not comply with known image of the Doctor."
"What are you talking about? It's me!" The Doctor was becoming desperate now and I could see the fear eating away at him.
"You are an impostor and you will be exterminated!"
"That's our cue!" The Doctor grabbed my hand and we were off again, running as fast as we could with the Daleks closing in on us.
"Exterminate!" Death rays rained on us from every angle and I knew that it was only by sticking close to the Doctor that I survived. We dived under a hedge and hid as a squadron of four Daleks glided past, screeching their battle cry to the night.
"This isn't meant to happen," the Doctor muttered as we held our breaths, waiting for the Daleks to be out of earshot.
"What do you mean?" I whispered back. The Doctor paused. He did that a lot.
"The Daleks are dead." I began to argue but the Doctor held up a hand and I fell silent again. "They all burned."
"How do you know?"
"I made it happen," he replied with grim satisfaction.
"So why are they here now?"
"I don't know." The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket and then exclaimed angrily.
"What's wrong?"
"My sonic screwdriver, I must have left it in the TARDIS."
"Your what?"
"Sonic…oh it's a screwdriver that happens to be sonic, okay?" I nodded although I didn't quite understand. He took another quick look at our surroundings. "You were wrong," he announced out of the blue.
"About what?" I asked in surprise.
"There aren't hundreds of Daleks. There's just four."
"But I saw them attack the citadel! They blocked out the suns and everything!" The Doctor shot me an understanding look.
"They made you believe that. And once you believed it, all they needed was just four Daleks to subdue an entire Empire." I felt like everything I had believed in that day had just been shattered. "It's not ideal but it's a lot better than having to fight a whole fleet of them," The Doctor shrugged.
"Doctor?" I asked after a long break in the conversation.
"What?"
"I think they've gone." The Doctor looked out through the undergrowth; there were no Daleks in sight. We climbed out and began to walk across the path. This was when my whole life fell apart. It all started with a scream.
"Did you hear that?" The Doctor asked. I listened closely and the scream came again; my heart dropped like a stone.
"It's Aurelia," I mumbled.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor told me and he placed a hand on my shoulder. I shook it off; she wasn't dead. She couldn't be dead.
"It came from over there," I said pointing to my right.
"If the Daleks have got her they will show no mercy," The Doctor warned me. "They will kill her on sight."
"I have to find her," I replied. I knew the Doctor understood but I wish I had listened to him more.
"If you go, you may not like what you find," The Doctor told me. I remember wondering what on Firaxia he meant but I did not think to ask. I started to walk, following the scream. The Doctor did not follow.
"Aren't you coming?" I asked. He shook his head and I could have sworn for a moment there were tears in his eyes. When I looked again, however, they were gone. "Why not?"
"I can't. This is not my future."
"What do you mean?"
"I knew from the moment I first met you. That night on the Glacier." I could feel fresh fear building up inside of me.
"Knew what?"
"I knew you would save the world." Without another word the Doctor vanished and I was left alone in the Forest. I could hear the Daleks closing in on me again and Aurelia was still screaming. I did the only thing I knew to do. I ran. So fast. Crashing through the trees and never stopping to catch my breath. I couldn't stop because Aurelia needed me and I needed her. The Doctor had left me behind but he had left me with something else too. He gave me his courage.
I saw her body first. It was spread-eagled across the Forest floor, her eyes wide and staring. My heart began to thump but there was no rage. I learnt on the night my father died, that rage never got anybody anywhere and if I succumbed to it now, Aurelia would have died in vain. Even despite that, it tore my heart apart to see her just lying there. I would have given anything to see the twinkle return to her eyes. Taking the only moment I had, I bent down and closed her eyes. She looked peaceful now. Well, as peaceful as she could look. And know this, Doctor. You were right, you were always right. You told me I would save the world, and I fully intend to live up to your expectations. All Firaxian soldiers are gifted with a device, a device we keep pinned to our belts at all times. When two devices are combined, they set off a chain reaction of pure Firaxian energy. Enough to wipe out the Daleks forever. And me. But that didn't matter. The Citadel would be safe and my people saved. It was a small price to pay and the Doctor knew that. I took the device from my belt and then reached down to take Aurelia's. My heart was pounding now as I fitted the devices together and heard the ticking of the clock start as it began the countdown. So I guess this is where the recording ends and if you ever find it, I hope you remember me and the choices I had to make this day. The countdown was reaching its final stage and I stood ready to accept my fate for the sake of the world.
"Oliver!" I could scarcely believe my eyes as I looked up into the sky and saw the TARDIS hovering there.
"You will be exterminated!" The Daleks had found me at last.
"Take my hand!" The Doctor shouted. I leapt up as high as I could and felt a sudden sense of relief as my hand closed around his and I was pulled into the TARDIS.
"Alert TARDIS detected!" The Doctor closed the doors and before I knew it had happened, the central column was moving and the TARDIS had dematerialised.
"You didn't think I'd leave you there to die, did you?" The Doctor said. We watched on the scanner as the device, I had created, activated and a wave of Firaxian energy expelled outwards reducing the approaching Daleks to nothing but burnt cinders.
"You knew," I said after the shock had worn off. "You knew I was the only one who could stop them." The Doctor was busy with the TARDIS controls. "That's why you saved me on the Glacier."
"It always had to be you," the Doctor said quietly. I didn't need to ask why, a simple look from him told me everything I needed to know. "And you were fantastic," the Doctor' face broke out into a beaming smile but I couldn't help feeling a pang, an emptiness in my heart where Aurelia ought to be. I didn't have the heart to spoil his good mood. It had never struck me until now how lonely this man was; young and yet so old.
"So what are you going to do now?" I asked as I opened the TARDIS doors and the light of the three suns flooded into the ship. The Doctor looked up from the console.
"What I always do." He smiled. "Explore the universe."
"Goodbye Doctor." I watched and waited until the TARDIS, the greatest ship in the entire universe, faded away and the Doctor was gone. I hoped I would see him again but deep down, I knew I never would.
Five years on from the Dalek attack and I've finally achieved what my father knew I always would. I am the General of the Grand Army now and the Firaxian Empire has never seemed so bright. It transpired that the Daleks had hid from the Time War on the furthest planet of our solar system. They hid and watched us, waiting for the right moment to attack and regain their courage. If it hadn't been for the Doctor, none of us would be standing here today. I hope wherever he is now, he's filling the hearts of the people he meets with the same courage he gave to me. The Doctor, the last of the Time Lords.
THE END
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