Unauthorized capsule entry prohibited
The Doctor palms his ears and winces. "Timelords and their bloody alarms."
Unauthorized capsule entry prohibited.
A red glow seeps through the TARDIS door, flickering to the beat of the obnoxious warnings. The Doctor lets his shoulders drop with an ounce of relief. It wasn't the red embers of fire and destruction that he became accustomed to his last few visits on his planet. Arrest he could deal with. Annoying bureaucratic types shuffling around Arcadia? He'd survive.
The Master places a hand on her chin and lets out an exasperated sigh. "Yeah," her voice trails off for a moment, and the Doctor watches as her eyes dance to the glow. "That and they knew we were coming. What's with the light show?"
The Doctor pulls himself up toward the console and focuses in on the monitor. He taps on the cracked glass. "You warned them? I don't see when –"
"No," Missy interjects as she hears footsteps in the intervals between the alarm warnings. "I tried to offer you a way out of this, remember that."
The Doctor stands up straight and adjusts his jacket, knowing the TARDIS would be receiving guests any second. "How's that then?"
"Should have took the Cybermen and left," she ignores the question in a sing-song voice. The Doctor swears he hears a twinge of nervousness in her intonation. She was never the one to break a sweat, especially over anyone of authority.
The TARDIS door splinters under the stress of someone trying to press through. The Doctor rolls his eyes and snaps his fingers, letting the onslaught of soldiers crash into the console room.
The Doctor raises his hands in surrender, towards the gun-totting Timelords now encircling the two. "Sorry for double parking my TARDIS. You know who I am, you probably know who she is, can we move this along?"
The Doctor winces at the sight of a half dozen guns trained on him, though the soldier's eyes focus on Missy. He admires the pristine condition of their regalia – a simple combat uniform created to defend themselves from Dalek attack. The lining dappled with Gallifreyan symbols of empty axioms of hope and integrity. Was the time war still raging on after all?
A burly Timelord squeezing an equally hefty weapon sidestepped to Missy.
"Well? We had a deal." Missy huffed, tapping her foot on the console floor. "I did what the High Council asked of me. I brought you your savior."
The colonel sucked in some air, as if breathing a sigh of relief. "I've been waiting to do this for a long time." He snaps the stock of his gun against her temple, sending her crashing to the floor.
Something cold forces itself upon his neck before the Doctor has a time to react.
"Whatever this is, that wasn't necessary." The Doctor growled. He turned around, the gun now trained to his chest. An older guard stood before the Timelord, the second-in-command, he presumed. He could tell the round of guards were the scraps of what militia was left from the Time War. What the citadel could cobble together from the survivors.
"You're not the one who necessitates our actions, no matter what you believe, Doctor."
The guard moved his index finger toward the trigger, but the husky one pushes his colleague's weapon away. He eyes the Doctor's contusions he picked up from Missy.
"We need him to survive the trip. He needs to see Gallifrey as he left it."