Martha swallowed as she and the Doctor peered round a large hedge at the assembled troops.
"What do we do?" she whispered.
"The basics," the Doctor replied. "We just go over and see what the problem is and sort it out. Nothing could be more simple."
"Unless they shoot us down in the street," she said.
"They won't. Probably." He took a deep breath and abruptly spun out from their hiding place and into the road. "Hello!" Sighing, Martha followed him. She saw three figures, a little taller than your average human, their faces concealed by heavy helmets. The rest of the soldiers seemed to be lurking in their vehicles, ready to pounce.
The three figures started at the Doctor's voice. One turned, and even without looking at his expression Martha could tell he was angry.
"Why are you breaking the curfew?" he snarled, with a voice that hissed like the wind through the fine branches of a tree. "Kill them!" The other two aliens the Doctor had identified as Mathiella tensed their weapons.
"Wait!" cried Martha. "We can help you!"
"Yes! We're good at helping people me and her are!" the Doctor added.
"Hold your fire!" The alien who Martha presumed to be some kind of leader walked slowly towards them, toying with the hem of its rich green robe. "What are you?"
"General Pontouf!" cried one of the soldiers, but the alien held up a scaly hand.
"Pontouf is able to handle this one Private Linfioe," spat the leader, stressing his title. He then turned back to the Doctor and Martha. "What are you?" he repeated.
"Err… well I'm the Doctor and this is Martha and…"
"Pontouf does not care for your designations!" the Mathiella stated. "Are you some kind of police? Relief force?"
"Why would we be that?" the Doctor asked carefully. Martha looked at them both quizzically.
"Pontouf?" she asked.
"I think it's his name," the Doctor murmured. "They don't seem to be able to talk in the first person."
"If you are telling the truth… it is hard to know who to trust… Pontouf wonders what the best cause of action is…"
"Why have you been shooting at us," asked Martha. "We haven't done anything."
"You are one of the people of this island are you not?" Pontouf barked, but there was a crack in his voice. The Doctor wagged his finger in the General's helmeted face.
"Ah Pontouf. It's not an island is it?"
"It is general Pontouf to you stranger!" General Pontouf slapped his hand away.
"Ouch!" Nursing his hand, the Doctor turned back to Pontouf. "Why are you here General?"
"I am doing my duty! Alongside my soldiers, I am doing my duty!" Martha's gaze drifted across to the aliens hiding in the shadows of the vehicles. Something wasn't right. She narrowed her eyes and peered through the tinted windscreen of one lorry. Inside, a Mathiella seemed to be lying across the lap of two others. His hat was off, revealing a pale face with large sorrowful eyes and salmon pink skin. A trickle of shocking pink blood trickled from his almost invisible lips. As Martha watched the eyes slid shut.
"You're hurt," she breathed, looking back up at Pontouf. "Your soldiers are hurt."
"You're fresh out of battle," the Doctor realised. "But why have you turned up here? What, is this island a place to work of the anger or something?" Behind his sarcastic tones, Martha noticed something. Fury. The Doctor was furious. She shivered slightly.
Pontouf took of his helmet to reveal a similar face to the dying warrior Martha had just spotted in the truck." We were searching the galaxies, doing our duty and then…" he turned away from the Doctor and when he looked up, Martha was startled to see tears in his eyes. "And then our ship was hit by a great shower of meteorites. They didn't show up on the scanner, they seemed to have just begun to exist the moment we drove into them. And we crash landed here."
"You crashed from another era!" said the Doctor. "You slipped through a gap in the fabric of time! That explains why I dated the graffiti to 1909! Martha it all makes sense!"
"Not to me," she replied. "Why are they killing everyone."
"Because of what they were doing before they crashed," explained the Doctor.
"What were they doing?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "Care to share General?"
"We were tracking a murderer," he mumbled. "A shape shifter. He killed seventeen members of our royal family and seven of our ally's rulers as well. He also seems to be responsible for two human deaths… though the details are unclear. We have to stop him before it is too late."
"And we can help," said the Doctor. "We have a ship back there and it can follow anyone, anywhere. It can even identify the killer's species. Just stop attacking the town."
"Doctor," Martha said quietly. "Actually we don't have a ship. It's gone."
"What!" The doctor ran to the side of the road and peered down the slopes of grass they had just run up. There was nothing there, but the isolated playground and the sea crashing on the rocks in the beach below. "Oh I see. Recently unsettled time plus a state of the art time machine equals… crunch. It could be anywhere."
"You said you could help us… Doctor. Our scanners traced the killer onto this island," said Pontouf.
"It's not an island! How many times…"
"It is an island now!" yelled the Mathiella. The first thing we did when we got here was to commandeer as many helicopters as we could and using a recovered weapon from the ship we sliced the main road in two to isolate Portland forever. We set up troops to shoot down any authorities making their way into the island. Portland is no longer connected."
"Oh my God," breathed Martha. All those people…"
"Cars plummeted into the icy depths," husked one of the other soldiers, who Pontouf had called Linfioe. "The humans perished in their transport."
"You will pay for that one day," said the Doctor. "Try some compassion."
"The separation of Portland was wrong," said Pontouf. "The lives of the humans could be spared."
"As could those you shot down today," said Martha. "What's the point."
"Any one of them could have been the murderer," he replied miserably. "I had no choice."
"We must continue our work General," said Linfioe. "All life must be eradicated immediately. We can take no chances."
"That's nearly thirteen thousand people!" cried the Doctor. "You can't do that!"
"Try and stop us."
"Peace!" Pontouf cried. "Doctor I hate to admit it but he's right. We have no option but to continue. It's all we have."
"Pontouf, listen! It seems to me that you are a compassionate person and you don't agree with all this killing! You are trying to capture a murderer and slaughtering thousand of lives while doing so makes you like him. I'm begging you, stop. Martha and me; we do stuff like this all the time. We can get your murderer for you, if you promise to cease the killing now! What's more we can return both you and the killer back to your planet… once I find the TARDIS anyway…"
"Don't listen to the human Pontouf! He is weak… breakable…" Linfioe's finger twitched on the trigger and Martha jumped.
"I am willing to compromise," Pontouf said slowly. This caused uproar from Linfioe and his so far unnamed college.
"Mathiella do not compromise!" shouted the anonymous Mathiella. "We force!"
"Call yourself a General Pontouf…"
"I am a general and my decision is final! Doctor… Martha… I will give you until sunset to find the killer or else we will resume our killing."
"No! Four days! We need at least four days!"
"Until midnight tonight."
"Three days then! Three days and that is pushing it!"
"Two."
"Doctor," Martha was tugging at his sleeve. "We can't do this it's stupid we need to guarantee it… this isn't a game."
"Two days," the Doctor agreed. "Not counting the rest of today."
"Done." Pontouf firmly shook his hand, and the Doctor grinned.
"Now, tell us more of this killer."
Pontouf nodded sadly and began to tell them his story.
Pontouf sprinted along the passageways of the Mathiella palace, panting. He had never been very fit, or very strong, but fear had given him wings. Gasping and wheezing, he reached an elaborately decorated door that about a dozen soldiers were gathered around.
"What's… going on?" he managed. The soldiers mostly ignored him, as one did to the fifth son of the King who had no hope in hell of making it to the throne. To them he was just another young Mathiella adult, still childish enough to intimidate. However, one soldier did turn to him and spoke grimly.
"There's been another murder… the shape-shifter has struck again…" Pontouf looked at the door they were gathered around, his stomach leaping in terror. He backed away slowly.
"Oh God no… please no…"
"I'm sorry," said the soldier. "She's not… she's almost gone."
"She's still alive?" Pontouf felt a glimmer of hope.
"Yes but… she's got minutes left." Pontouf barged through the strong young men and pushed open the door. Nobody looked up. His oldest brother was there, crouched by the bed with another two of Pontouf's brothers. The fourth had been killed by the ripper. Also there was his brother in law clutching his wife's hand. His wife was lying on the bed, blood crusting her lips, her eyes flickering. She was also Pontouf's youngest and closest sibling.
He staggered into the room blindly and collapsed by the crib. Litheil- his sister- smiled weakly and touched his face.
"Ponn," she rasped. "I'm scared." Pontouf felt tears prickle in his eyes and nodded.
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."
"Shut up Ponn," snapped his brother in law. "Lil, darling, who did this to you…" Litheil opened her mouth, trying to croak out her final words.
"A female Mathiella," she hissed. Then her eyes shut.
0
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0
Pontouf was sitting with his oldest brother Notretha- King of the Mathiella, in a daze of misery.
"Pontouf pull yourself together," Notretha snapped. "She is not the first and the way this is looking… she may not be the last. We need to stop the killer."
"He could be anyone… he can change shapes… Aunt Quetlia said she was killed by an albatross… Rouet a human… it is hopeless."
"No it's not! Not if a family member was to go after him."
"All our brothers are fighting the war Notre. And you can't leave your planet, you're bound by law."
"No," Notretha said seriously. "But you can."
"Me!" Pontouf chuckled mirthlessly. "I can't control a pet, let alone an army."
"You will have to. Or else he will never be stopped. We have a lead."
"But I'm not military!" protested Pontouf.
"I can make you military! I am the King! I can do anything! I…"
But Pontouf wasn't listening. He knew he was stuck.
Martha spoke first.
"I'm really sorry," she said, her voice thick. "I never imagined it had affected your family so much." The Doctor crossed over to her and quietly took her hand. When he spoke, it was with honest, sad seriousness.
"Pontouf, I swear, we will do all we can to capture this criminal for you. But I need you to promise me not to hurt these people again."
"Two days Doctor," intercepted Linfioe. "You sealed the deal. No going back now."
The Doctor's lips pursed and he nodded deliberately. He turned back to Martha and squeezed her hand.
"Inspector Jones," he murmured. "We better catch this killer." Martha peered over his shoulder at the uncomfortable Pontouf and the sneering Linfioe.
"Or more people are going to die."