The Last Battle
Featuring the Alternate 2nd Doctor
The Salvation, 2000 years after the destruction of Gallifrey...
Captain Ely Morow was currently marching straight towards the main control centre, with alarms blaring and red lights flashing all around him.
"Sir, we've detected seventeen Dalek ships surrounding this ship," Advisor Vess Terry informed him, now on his right hand side.
"Open up a communications link. Let's see what these poor beggers have to say."
In the control centre, Technician Romin Jalavok approached the Captain as he entered.
"Captain, what are we going to do? We don't have enough fuel for a temporal jump, and the nearest planet we can get to, if we survive, is-"
"If we survive?"
Romin paused, wondering why the Captain had asked him that.
"Captain, sir, you do know that there are seventeen Dalek ships, all of which could fire at us at any moment? We don't have a chance of surviving, and even if we did survive, we would be hunted down by Daleks for the rest of our lives. These are the beings that have almost conquered the rest of the universe."
"And that, Technician, is exactly why someone needs to try and fight them."
Vess then entered the room, and walked straight over to the Captain and Romin.
"Captain," she said, "we've established a communications link."
"Good."
Merely a few seconds later, everyone was silent, preparing to hear what the Daleks were about to say.
"ATTENTION HUMAN CRAFT! YOU HAVE NO DALEK REPRESENTATIVES ONBOARD YOUR CRAFT! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
"This is Captain Ely Morow. This ship is in my control, and I don't plan on getting exterminated today!"
"EXTERMINATION WILL COMMENCE IN 30 RELS. THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE TO PREVENT IT!"
"I doubt that very much."
Everybody in the control centre looked at each other in confusion, before staring in complete astonishment, as a small blue police box whirled through the air, smashing through each Dalek ship in turn.
"WHO IS THIS? HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING? IDENTIFY YOURSELVES, IDENTIFY, IDENTIFY!"
"And why would I want to do that? By the time you'll know who I am, you'll all be dead."
The Dalek ships had now been destroyed, with a clearly visable hole in each of the seventeen bronze saucers, which were falling through space, plummeting towards nothingness.
The little blue box, on the other hand, had vanished completely, leaving the Captain and his crew astonished by what the stranger had done for them.
"Sir, what do we do now?" Romin asked Ely.
"We hope that we don't run into any Daleks again, and move on."
"And what about the stranger in the blue box?"
"We owe our lives to that stranger, Romin. What we do, we do in honour of him."
The Captain had assumed that the stranger was dead, especially after tearing a hole in seventeen Dalek ships: he was completely wrong.
In fact, the Doctor was now piloting his damaged TARDIS towards the planet of Wesruthkia, where he had set up a workshop and a headquarters for his anti-Dalek operations. Ever since the destruction of Gallifrey, he'd been working with the Master, the other surviving Time Lord, to wipe out as many of the Daleks as possible.
He had regenerated just as Gallifrey had been destroyed, and he had regenerated into a middle-aged man with long brown hair and a short brown beard. He was dressed in a grey jacket, blue shirt and red bowtie, with some grey trousers to accompany the smart clothes.
His little secret to the TARDIS having survived tearing a hole in seventeen Dalek ships was that he had fitted an additional temporal crystal to power the TARDIS's shields, so that most of the damage would be fixed instantly.
However, there was some damage that a temporal crystal could not fix and so, just about keeping the craft stable, the Doctor was going back to Wesruthkia to repair his ship.
"Doctor," came the crackly voice of the Master, "did you survive? Did your old girl, as you choose to call it, manage to escape in one piece?"
"Yes, she did. I told you that the temporal crystal powering the defences was a good idea, and this is the proof that it worked."
"Yes, yes, you don't need to say that again. Now, what's our next move?"
"I don't know. I'll probably have thought of something by the time I arrive there."
"Okay then. Good luck, Doctor."
"Thanks."
During that conversation, there was one statement that was not true at all: "I don't know."
Because the Doctor had known what his next move would be for a very long time: travel to the Dalek mothership, and confront the Emperor once and for all.
On board the Dalek mothership, a vast golden saucer that was currently where Gallifrey used to be, the Dalek Emperor watched the footage of the Doctor's TARDIS slicing into the seventeen Dalek ships. Just after the footage had ended, a black Dalek entered: it had a black casing with a blue eyestalk and a green dome, instead of the usual gold or black.
"EMPEROR!" it barked with a deep electronic cry, "PLEASE INFORM ME OF YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE FOOTAGE THAT YOU HAVE SEEN! WHAT IS OUR PLAN?"
"WE MUST FIND THE DOCTOR. HE IS THE LAST TIME LORD AND HE HAS CONTINOUSLY ESCAPED OUR GRASP! WE MUST SEEK HIM AND EXTERMINATE HIM!"
"UNDERSTOOD. SEEK, LOCATE, DESTROY! SEEK, LOCATE, DESTROY!"
Elsewhere on the Dalek ship, the Doctor's TARDIS began to materialise near to an airlock, wheezing and groaning as the old space-time ship faded into existence. Then, once the tall blue police box had fully formed, the Doctor emerged, wielding his sonic screwdriver.
"I'll miss you, old girl." he remarked sadly, tapping at the wooden exterior before closing the door and walking off, towards the central command centre.
Naturally, he soon encountered a Dalek patrol that were scanning the corridors for any resistance. However, instead of hiding away from the patrol and launching an attack just as they came past his hiding place, he decided that, in order to have the highest possible chance of seeing the Emperor, he would surrender himself to the Daleks.
"Hello Daleks!" he yelled at them, making the machines turn round to face him.
"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR! YOU MUST BE EXTERMINATED!" one of the Daleks exclaimed, readying its gunstick.
"I'm here to see the Emperor and I think he might want to see me, so if you don't want to get destroyed by your own Emperor then I suggest that you take me to see him right here and right now."
The patrol thought about this for a moment, understanding the Doctor's point.
"UNDERSTOOD."
On Wesruthkia, the Master was still alone in his headquarters, which was not pleasing him. He had been expecting the Doctor for over an hour and yet there was no sign of his TARDIS.
"Where could you be, Doctor?" he wondered, "What could be keeping you for so long that you haven't arrived yet?"
The Dalek Emperor watched as the Doctor, sworn enemy of the Daleks and one of the last Time Lords in existence, entered the room, gazing at the large black and white conical robot. It had a dome similar to that of a Dalek, albeit much more fatter and rounder than a Dalek's dome.
"So then, here we are at last." the Doctor said, looking up at the Emperor's eyestalk.
"DOCTOR, WHY DID YOU WISH TO SPEAK TO ME? WE ARE SWORN ENEMIES, YOU ARE OUR PREY AND YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
"Dalek Emperor, I know that. I don't intend to emerge from this alive. That's exactly why I've parked my TARDIS right near the airlock and that's why I'm going to do this."
He hurled his sonic screwdriver away. Once it had landed, a Dalek guard blasted it, making the metal tube spark and crackle.
"YOU ARE VULNERABLE, DOCTOR! YOU HAVE NO TARDIS, NO ASSISTANCE, NO HOPE."
"Exactly. So why aren't you scared yet?"
Thankfully, the Master had fitted a device to his TARDIS that could track the Doctor's TARDIS to its last destination and now he was going to use it, as he didn't think that the Doctor would ever show up.
"Now then, where are you Doctor? Why haven't you returned to your Master yet?" he asked, as the device tracked the Doctor's TARDIS.
"DOCTOR, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS NO CHANCE THAT DALEKS AND TIME LORDS WILL WORK TOGETHER. IF YOU HAVE COME HERE TO NEGOTIATE, THEN YOU HAVE MADE A GRAVE MISTAKE." the Emperor announced, staring down at the Doctor, who was stood in front of him.
"Oh, I haven't come here to negotiate."
"THEN WHY HAVE YOU COME?"
"To end this. This conquest of yours: it's gone on for too long, and I will have no more of it."
He pulled out a glass cube from his pocket and placed it on the floor. He then placed his hand on it for a few moments, before a ghost emerged before him: a woman dressed in green rags.
"Doctor, what do you require of me?" the ghost asked him.
"I want you to destroy every single Dalek in existence. Burn them all and make sure that none of them survive. Take out this entire ship if you need to, just do what you can to make sure that the Daleks are wiped from existence."
"I understand. You feel pain. You feel anger. You want revenge and you want the Daleks to be destroyed."
"HALT! YOU MUST CEASE THIS!"
"Yes, I want them to burn. This universe will be better off without them, you can trust me."
"Doctor, do you give your consent for me to do this?"
"I do."
As soon as he had said that, the ghost flew back into the cube, shortly before a blue ball of energy began to engulf the Emperor and the other Daleks in the room, turning them into dust.
The Master was exploring the Dalek mothership when he also noticed that the Daleks were beginning to become dust. This made him smile with joy.
"Oh, Doctor. You clever man." he said, running back to his TARDIS and dematerialising away.
All across the universe, freedom was restored as every single Dalek became dust. Families were saved from extermination, slaves became free men and invaded worlds were now also free from the rule of the Daleks, all because of the Doctor's actions on board the Dalek mothership.
The Doctor had arrived back at the airlock where, thankfully, his TARDIS was still parked. He took out his key and slid it into the wooden door, which swung open before him. He entered his ship and soon, the TARDIS howled and wheezed away into the Time Vortex, leaving the Dalek mothership drifting through space.
Inside his TARDIS, the Doctor was setting the co-ordinates for Wesruthkia when a large orange spike of energy lashed out and hit him on his chest, throwing him back across the console room. Having injured the pilot, the spike of energy then zapped the console, resetting the co-ordinates for 21st Century Earth instead of Wesruthkia and flew into the Doctor, making him sit up in pain.
"It seems that there's been some damage to the temporal crystals," he groaned, noticing that his hands were glowing with regeneration energy, "and so the change begins. I think I've perfectly timed this one: a new Doctor for a new universe."
He regenerated: his long brown hair became short and black; his beard was gone, as if somebody had erased it with an eraser and his middle-aged face became younger. Once the process had finished, the new Doctor sat up and looked around the console room.
"No more Daleks." he said, getting up and looking at the scanner screen, "No more conflict. I'm free, and now I've got an entire universe to explore!"
THE END
