The return to Gallifrey

"All right, where to next? Ah, yes. I've been meaning to go there for a while now."
The 8th Doctor entered the coordinates, and flipped the switch. He was on his way to the red rock pass in Idaho to watch the Lake Bonneville Flood, one of the most spectacular natural events in the history of the Earth. He hoped it would take his mind off that peculiar sense of dread he had been feeling for a while. Ever since losing Molly, the Doctor had been feeling quite sad, and his travels had so far failed to distract him. However, the worst was yet to come.

Suddenly, the TARDIS shook violently, and the Doctor had to hold on to the console to stop himself from being flown across the room, down the hallway, and onto his prized collection of razor sharp redstone crystals. When the tremors subsided, the Doctor saw that the coordinates had been changed. He was now headed for Gallifrey. The feeling of dread intensified. He tried to set the coordinates back, but found that the course had been locked, and he was unable to change it. He cursed under his breath. "This had better be REALLY important!", he said, while underneath he felt that something terrible was about to happen.

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and into the Time Lord council room. It had a large wooden table, several potted plants, white floors and walls, a harp, and a painting of someone playing the harp. It was an important meeting. Dozens of high-ranking Time Lords were there, including Romana, president of Gallifrey and the Doctor's former traveling companion.

"Hello, Doctor," she said. "Glad you could make it."

"I didn't really have much of a choice," the Doctor replied. "We tried contacting you before, but you ignored our messages, we had no choice," Romana said.

"I was busy," the Doctor snapped. "I don't mean to offend you Romana, but I thought I made it clear that I wanted to be left alone for a while. What is it this time? Do you need me to reverse the polarity? Did a bird hit the glass around the Citadel? Did someone spill a cup of tea on Rassilon's carpet? Did you get a spot of rust on those ridiculous headdresses of yours?"
The other Time Lords were not amused. They continued to sit there with serious expressions. A couple sighed in annoyance. Finally, Romana spoke.

"Doctor, Gallifrey is on the brink of war. The Daleks are massing to attack as we speak."

"But what about the Act of Master Restitution," the Doctor asked. "The Daleks should know better than to break the peace treaty. Every attempt they have made to attack Gallifrey has been thwarted."

"This is different. They are massing an enormous fleet, of least two hundred thousand ships. They do not plan to attack us, but to eradicate us."

She pressed a glyph of the table, which lit up and displayed a hologram. It resembled a blizzard frozen in time, but each of the hundreds or thousands of snowflakes was actually an individual galaxy. It was a three dimensional map of a vast area of space. Romana pressed another symbol and the map duplicated several times, each one representing a different period of history. A small red dot appeared in one of the maps and started to grow. Other such points appeared in the other maps and also expanded. The growth was not uniform, sometimes the red areas contracted or almost disappeared, but always grew back and got larger than before. Suddenly, the red areas expanded rapidly with few fluctuations, until they filled huge areas of the maps, which then froze.

"This represents the growth of the Dalek Empire throughout space and time," Romana said grimly. "This is where we are now. They are encountering very few obstacles. Before long all of space and time will be overrun. With their recently created Eye of Harmony, which we call the Eye of Discord, they are attempting to create a rival web of time. We are the only ones who can stop them, and they have reached the same conclusion.
"This is why we brought you here, Doctor. You know the Daleks better than anyone else. We need your help now more than ever."

"So you want me to try to stop them?"

"No. Any more aggressive action from us and they will declare war. Even if you succeed, they will just rise from their own ashes, angrier and more bent on revenge than ever. We are planning a peace conference with them, at Junction of Tartarus. We will negotiate the final peace treaty with the Daleks and put an end to their belligerence towards us, and to the rest of the universe as well. You can help us find a way to placate them. If things do not go well, we need you to help us defeat them for good.

"Don't you see that this is a trap? If we try to negotiate a final peace with them, they will attack at the conference!"

"That's why we have chosen the Junction of Tartarus. The area was created for diplomatic relations. Spacetime itself is sensitive to the actions of those present. If there is any aggressive action, the offending party will be ejected into a black hole. However, the Daleks could still declare war on us without attacking us at the conference. You will attend the conference in disguise. The Daleks will probably be more likely to negotiate if they believe you are not present. This is our only hope for averting a war. We cannot enrage them any further."