The Legend of Gallifrey Part Eight: Reign of the Voord
Everything was normal until the iPad bleeped.
The Doctor wasn't entirely sure what it was, exactly. It looked like an iPad, but it had either had some serious reprogramming and repainting done, or it was from some alternate future or something along those lines.
It had been given to him at the end of the universe by the mysterious M, who had promptly vanished and reappeared several times since, but seemingly never in the right order. The last time she had met the Doctor had been when his seventh form entered the paradox. The Doctor's memory ended there.
But the iPad supposedly contained an important message from M, and it had waited until now to open, even though the Doctor had had this body for quite a while. The bleep seemed to signify that it was unlocking, and the Doctor's hypothesis quickly proved to be correct.
After the bleep, a small TARDIS appeared on the screen. It was the normal color, but the rest of the screen was white. The screen stayed that way for a few seconds, then the TARDIS disappeared and a list of files appeared.
The very top one was titled 'READ FIRST- list of files and instructions for using device' so the Doctor opened it up and began to read.
I can already tell that you will be tempted to read these out of order, but it is vital to time that you follow these instructions. The second file is a set of coordinates. Go to them. After a file is used, it will be deleted. When the tablet beeps, open the next file
-M
Simple and to the point. The Doctor opened the second file and typed in the coordinates, and the TARDIS materialized.
The Doctor put the tablet in his pocket and stepped out the door into a large clearing of red grass and trees filled with red leaves. The Doctor recognized it instantly: Gallifrey.
The TARDIS had materialized in the center of the clearing. Behind it stood a tall metal structure with flames flailing off the top like hair in the wind. A man was running from the structure towards the Doctor with his arms flailing and his mouth moving, but the Doctor couldn't hear him over the wind and the crackling of the fire.
The man, while continuing to run, pointed behind the Doctor. He turned around to see someone wearing all black disappear into the woods, seemingly carrying something. He thought he recognized it, but whatever it was he didn't have enough time to identify it.
The man slowed to a stop next to the Doctor, panting profusely.
"Why did you let that monstrosity go?" the man demanded. "It stole my research! That was vital to the future of my people!"
"Sorry, I'm kind of new here," said the Doctor. "You may have seen my craft just materialize? Yeah, I don't know anything about what's going on. I'm the Doctor, by the way."
The man gave him a look. "Yes, I saw your craft appear. That is why it is all the more important that my research is retrieved. I recognized that sound, it was the sound of my experimental time machine. You're from our future, right? The future of Gallifrey? That future won't exist anymore if we can't catch that creature!"
As one would expect, this definitely caught the Doctor's attention. "What was it?" he asked.
"It called itself Voord," the man said. "It demanded all my research on time travel and cellular regeneration, then burnt down my Foundry. It must be stopped!"
Foundry… time travel… cellular regeneration… those three words had one thing in common: a name. And the Doctor did not want to run in to the owner of that name again.
The name was Rassilon.
This man in front of the Doctor was Rassilon, the alleged creator of time travel and the man who gifted himself and all other Time Lords with the gift of regeneration. He was also a psychopath who, when the Doctor had last seen him, had been left in an alternate universe with a blobby weasel creature called the Kro'ka.
Rassilon stood there staring at the Doctor, clearly expecting the Doctor to use his superior technology to catch the Voord, and that was definitely on the Doctor's to-do list, but it wasn't at the top. At the top was 'figure out how the Voord are in the past of Gallifrey when they didn't evolve until after the Time Lords had invented time travel,' and was followed closely by 'avoid telling Rassilon about the alternate universe and the whole anti-time incident, as that had not ended well for anyone.'
The tablet beeped. The Doctor pulled it out and opened the next file and a tracker opened up, apparently scanning the area for Voord DNA. The Doctor began to follow where it led him, through the woods the Voord had gone into, around a lake, and over a tall hill. Rassilon followed the Doctor the whole way.
On the other side was a large valley, then another hill, and in the distance Gallifrey's capital city of Arcadia. The valley was empty at first glance, but looking closer the Doctor saw a faint shimmer in the air. Camouflage screen, from a relatively long time in the Voord's future. It was only 100% effective from the air.
Rassilon seemed so young. He was curious instead of self-absorbed, innovative instead of deceitful, and worried about his own people rather than his reputation. This version of Rassilon was younger and more average-looking that the versions the Doctor had met, his hair was short and brown and he had the face of a 19-year-old human, and as the two walked down towards the Voord ship, Rassilon ran ahead, excited about meeting a new race.
The ship was easy enough to break into using a sonic screwdriver. The inside was very dark, which would make it more difficult to see a Voord if one tried to sneak up on them.
The Doctor knew the layout of Voord ships, he'd seen the inside of a fair few in his day. The research would likely be brought to the lab, so the Doctor led Rassilon down the right corridor. The lab was supposed to be the seventh door on the right.
It wasn't.
Apparently, the old design of Voord ships was outdated. In this model, the seventh door on the right was the bridge. The Doctor opened the door, and about twenty Voord all turned to look at him and Rassilon.
"A Time Lord!" one said in the typical muffled voice of the Voord. "And a Gallifreyan! They must have come for the research! Kill them!"
The Doctor grabbed the sleeve of Rassilon's tunic and pulled him further down the corridor, with the Voord only three yards back.
The tablet beeped. The Doctor pulled it out of his pocket and opened the next file. It flashed a message to stand still, and the Doctor and Rassilon stopped in the middle of the corridor with a crew of Voord running them down.
They tablet's screen turned yellow and a white light flashed off the casing. The Voord smashed against an invisible wall.
"A force field!" said Rassilon, gawking. "Not even I've been able to generate one! That amazing!"
The hoard of Voord all fell to the ground. The screen continued to glow yellow, but the intensity was fading. The force field would be gone in a moment, but the Voord would likely be knocked out for longer than that, giving the Doctor and Rassilon time to find the lab.
The yellow faded and the tablet beeped again. The Doctor opened the next file to find a map of the ship. He began to wonder how M could have known how all this could have happened.
Following the map, the lab was after the next right and two lefts. Thankfully, they didn't run into any more Voord on the way, and the lab was eerily quiet and dark.
Rassilon ran over to a bench excitedly and grabbed a large book. "This is it," he said.
Then he got distracted by all the items on the lab benches. He studied a dissected Cybermat, a canister of Vashta Nerada, and a black pen with a blue light on the end.
"Don't touch anything!" the Doctor kept saying, but Rassilon continued looking around, amazed. The Doctor tried to pry him away, but he insisted on studying a Raxacoricofallapatorian egg. His stubbornness and youthful curiosity led the Doctor to allow him five minutes, as long as he left everything where he found it.
The Doctor was studying the map of the Voord ship, looking for quick way out, when something behind him made a sound like the sonic screwdriver and something sparked loudly. Then the lights turned red and an alarm went off.
The Doctor turned around to see Rassilon with a 'whoops' expression on his face, and the pen with the blue tip in his hand.
"I said not to touch anything!" said the Doctor, with a very annoyed expression on his face. "Are you a child?"
Rassilon stuffed the pen into his tunic pocket, and the two of them rushed out of the lab, with Rassilon lugging his research behind him. There weren't any Voord in the vicinity yet, but there would be in a moment.
The Doctor grabbed Rassilon's arm and pulled him down the corridor, opposite of the way they'd come. The alarms blared, and they could hear feet from the upper decks running back and forth, and the Doctor knew it was only a matter of time before the Voord caught them. He decided to use a different method.
He pulled Rassilon to a stop in the middle of the corridor, and he grabbed the sonic pen from Rassilon's tunic pocket and pulled his own sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket.
"Watch that corridor," he told Rassilon. The two of them each watched their own corridor for the Voord.
Five Voord, armed with knives, ran around the corner down the hallway and charged at the Doctor.
"Doctor!" said Rassilon. "The Voord are coming towards us!"
"Cover your ears," the Doctor said. As the two sets of Voord entered a ten-yard radius of the Doctor and Rassilon, the Doctor held the two sonic devices against each other and activated them.
A deafening shriek echoed all throughout the ship. The camouflage screen on the outside of the ship shut off. Every Voord on the ship clutched the sides of their heads and fell to the ground. All the windows shattered, and the whole ship rocked.
Rassilon grabbed the Doctor's arm, and the Doctor shut off the noise, putting the pen into his pants pocket and the screwdriver into his jacket pocket.
"What did you do to them?" asked Rassilon.
"The Voord are partially amphibious," said the Doctor. "That means their hearing canals are partially filled with water, which increases their hearing ability. While that sonic blast would definitely incapacitate a humanoid for about thirty seconds or so, it completely knocked out all the Voord. Now we can take a leisurely stroll out of the ship."
The blast had been heard all the way over the hill, where a Gallifreyan farmer had been tilling his latest crop of parillian fruit. He'd immediately gotten on the link and summoned the royal guard, but when they arrived they just found a rather bewildered Rassilon.
The Doctor knew that a Voord spaceship couldn't remain in Gallifreyan past, so he'd used the TARDIS to tow it to Marinus, the Voord's home planet, through the Time Vortex. He also knew that Rassilon couldn't live with these memories of him, so he'd knocked him out with a punch to the back of the head and erased his memories, which was an easy thing for a Time Lord to do. Rassilon had also gone back to his Foundry to find it completely repaired, as the Doctor had gone back in time and fixed it up using spare parts he dug out of the TARDIS's storage bin.
The Doctor has also decided to leave Rassilon a gift. He took the sonic pen and pulled out certain parts that the Time Lords shouldn't have figured out for another century or so, then he wrapped it up in a cloth and left it on the front step.
There was only one last thing to do, and that was to find out why the Voord were here and what they'd wanted with Rassilon's research, so he took a quick trip to Marinus and waited for the ship to arrive.
The Voord stumbled out groggily, stumbling around and grabbing at the sides of their heads. The Doctor put the sonic screwdriver on low, searching for the specific Voord who'd robbed Rassilon.
When all the other Voord had regained their senses and began their long trek towards the Voord city in the distance, the last one stumbled out, gripping the side of the doorframe and stumbling out into the light. Based on its physique, it was a female.
The sonic made a faint noise, implying that this was the one who'd stolen the research. The Doctor lept from his hiding place and ran over to it, grabbing the front of its black suit. It was still groggy and couldn't react fast enough.
"Wh… it's you," it said. "The one with the time machine. Did you take us back here?"
"Yes I did, and I'd like something in return. Two last questions answered," the Doctor responded.
The Voord nodded. "Sure, if I can,"
That went a little easier than the Doctor had anticipated, but that was okay.
"What did the Voord want with the research of Rassilon?" he asked.
"To survive," the Voord said. "We were stranded in the past by the paradox, and regeneration is the Time Lord's secret to near-eternal life. It was within our grasp, and it was only logical to attempt to steal and use it."
That had answered the Doctor's second question as well, which was going to be 'how did you end up in Gallifrey's past' but a new question had arose.
"What is this paradox?" he asked. "I've been hearing more and more about it almost since I left Gallifrey, yet I can't remember anything about it."
"Not even we are certain of that," said the Voord. "The Voord commander knew what it was, but he died while we were spiraling through time. Many died, in fact, and we buried them on Gallifrey. If I am not mistaken, that is where your people got their psychic abilities. As for the paradox, I cannot say anything for certain. I only know that it involves the death of a significant individual."
Someone dies and causes a paradox, or someone dies to stop the paradox from consuming the galaxy. The Doctor wondered who it could be.
He nodded at the Voord, who turned around and ran off to catch up with her people. Then the Doctor turned and walked off towards his TARDIS.
The Eye of Harmony hummed in the background as the TARDIS spun through the Vortex, with the Doctor sitting in his chair thinking. Someone was going to die by the end of this. Was it the Doctor? M? Or maybe someone he hadn't met yet?
He heard footsteps behind him. He'd been expecting this visit. He stood up.
"Hello M. I've been expecting you," he said.
"I'm not M," said a gruff voice behind him.
The Doctor spun around, startled. A tall man was standing in the shadows near the TARDIS door, with brown-and-gray hair and a familiar face with wrinkles forming around the eyes and mouth. He wore a black suit top over a red t-shirt, on which he'd had printed various words in circular gallifreyan. He also had on light blue jeans and black suit shoes. It wasn't his standard type of clothes, but the Doctor recognized him instantly.
"Rassilon," he said.
Rassilon nodded. This version of him was obviously much older that the one the Doctor had just met, at a guess about 400 years older.
"You'll be seeing more of me about, Doctor. I restored the memories that you tried to remove. Apparently you aren't as thorough as you thought you were."
He walked over to the Doctor and picked something off his jacket; a small silver device with a light on it that was deactivated.
"A little gift from M," said Rassilon. He placed the device into the Doctor's hand. "This is her recording device, and how she knew just how to program that tablet of yours. She recorded everything. I'd say she planted it on your previous form sometime in the paradox, and it latched on to your DNA so it stayed with you this whole time," said Rassilon.
"She's been spying on me?" The Doctor sounded sounded surprised. M didn't seem the spying type to him. He'd always been good at figuring out how people think, even without the psychic abilities of his species.
Rassilon nodded. "There is a lot about her that you are unaware of. She refuses to tell you her identity for a very good reason, for if you knew who she was you wouldn't trust her as far as you could spit."
"I have good reason not to trust you either," the Doctor replied.
Rassilon laughed. "Yes, I know all about anti-time and the alternate universe and the Kro'ka, I've been to the future and read my history. But in the end, you must weigh me against her. The leader of your people, or a mysterious woman who won't tell you her name?"
The Doctor pointed to the door. "Leave," he said. "This is my TARDIS, not yours. Get out right now, the way you came in."
Rassilon grinned. Then he stepped back into the shadows, and a moment later the sound of a TARDIS dematerializing could be heard all through the control room.
The Doctor stood there for a moment, staring at the device in his hand, then crushed it in his hand. He pulled out the tablet and opened the last file. What did M have to say about Rassilon?
And that's it. My feed cuts out there. You must have destroyed the device, and I apologize for doing this against your will, but it was necessary to save your life on Gallifrey. My studies of alternate timelines show that if I hadn't done what I did, you'd be dead, and this whole situation would not only be moot, but also in danger. And that can't happen, under any circumstances. You and I both know Rassilon can't be trusted with anything short of gaining power, and we both know that I haven't given any reasons otherwise. I apologize for that as well, and I will reveal my identity in time. But for now, the choice is up to you. Either way, you will enter the paradox, that is certain, but with whom will you side? I don't know enough about that face you're wearing to say, I've only ever come close to meeting you once, but I know the Doctor, and I know that in the end you'll do the right thing.
-M
The Doctor stood there for a moment. Then he put the tablet in the bin and pulled a lever on the TARDIS console, spiraling off into the paradox.