Doctor Who Tales of the Before
By Jay Schmidt
Hello everyone! Thanks for reading this next chapter of my tale. I'm mostly using this story as a way to keep me writing to work on other projects in my personal time and if this gets more love in the future it will definitely rise in the ranks of priority for me. So I appreciate any comments and reviews and I hope you all enjoy reading!
Chapter Four
Time. It is a strange duck indeed. Less than a dozen species in the history of the universe will ever of had created for themselves the ability to travel through this anomalous substance that marches ceaselessly forward and around back on itself. Much like those little fourth dimensional chronomytes that live off of eating their own time line, the history of the universe is in the throes of constant chaos and change.
In human mythology, back on their home world of earth on a little peninsula, people once believed in a god of time. Kronos was one of this deities' many names throughout humanity's history. Ever since the humans discovered the power of killing behind a sharpened rock the universe was far more complex and brimming with life than they could possible realize.
Gallifrey, while being the home world of the Time Lords, was not originally ruled by Time Lords in the beginning. They are simply the latest rulers in a long line of conquers. Before the long war with the Vampires, and before the Death Zone served as the tomb for one of the most revered men in Time Lord History, and long before his birth as well, the planet Gallifrey was under the control of the generations of the Pythia.
A name and a matrimonially title ascribed to the ruler of the Gallifrey prior to the rebellion led by history's most well-known Time Lord. Each Pythia was capable to perceive the future and see what was to come. Masterful tacticians and brilliant rulers that used to use Gallifreyans as slaves of tool and war. But, eventually in the long history of this world there was a Pythia that did not possess the same power as her predecessors. She couldn't not peer into the future and proclaim what lay before all and soon rebellion ensued. After the fall of the 389th ruler called Pythia was assured by bloody war, the Time Lords rose, but at a cost.
Mass sterility in the form of a species wide curse left the Gallifreyans in dire straits. If it were not for the creations of the Looms, machines that provide the Time Lords a means of reproducing despite the curse left behind by Pythia, the species would have evaporated from the anoles of time.
Not all Gallifreyans chose to ascend to becoming Time Lords, and the planet was divided unevenly in favor of those that created the prized possession of the universe, the TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space.
It was in the House of Blyledge that the Mentor was born in the age long after Rassilon and Omega. The Mentor spent his younger years eagerly awaiting for the day his life would mean something to those that he loved. He would grow of for hundreds of years, working and eating and sleeping, day in and day out, working on TARDISes as an employee of the Gallifreyan government.
During these many years of work and learning, the Mentor was able to learn almost everything there was to know about what made a TARDIS work. How they grew and what they felt like inside and their dreams. No one ever really thinks about what a TARDIS dreams about. It was one of the things that made the Mentor a natural mechanic on Gallifrey. He dared to imagine the things that those wonderful machines dreamt about.
You must remember that a TARDIS is not a mear contraption or simple machine put together on the fly by some moron with a kit. They are grown. Majestic forms of neural circuitry and psychic computations made up these wonderful creatures that the Time Lords have grown to rely heavily upon.
For as many years of experience that the Mentor had stored away in the grey matter of his brain, he regretted his time on Earth after he reluctantly stole away a type 607 TARDIS and met a young French maiden by the name of Roux. Little did he know that this path he was now irreversibly on was going to lead him to a much larger fate.
"I don't think this is a good idea." The Mentor stroked his chin as he sat at the table in the dormitory kitchen. Roux and Laura sat on the opposite side of him. For as much as Roux begged the Mentor, Laura didn't fully understand why or what was happening entirely but she listened for as much as she could. What she grasped wasn't complex.
Roux feared being here at this university now. Something petrified the poor girl so greatly that fear was driving her to flee for all she was worth. She desperately begged the Mentor to take her with him and she promised that she wouldn't be a burden.
The Mentor could clearly tell that something was dark inside of Roux. That something was burned into her, not of her flesh but her soul. Something had broken her spirit to something malformed and broken and she wanted to suppress it as much as she could.
"Please." A torrent of tears hid behind her pale eyes pushing against the flood gates but still kept at bay.
"It wouldn't be safe travelling with me." The Mentor spoke up as he tried to explain without reveling too much about himself. "There wouldn't be a lot of security around me. It would be a constant gamble."
"It would be better than here." Roux's head hung low struggling against the agony inside. "Anywhere were he can't find me is better."
"Your father?" the Mentor hadn't fully understood the problem at this point and to some extent neither had Laura. "What's so bad about your father?" Shaking with her eyes shut tight, Roux couldn't stomach it anymore.
"I don't have le père!" a shriek of horror erupted and she was met by the stupefied faces of her roommate and the Mentor. A warm realization washed over the others when Laura and the Mentor made their internal translations.
"Then…" Laura peered back to the door to the dorm where Roux had spoken with Mr. Merch. "Was he mistaken then, or?"
"Please!" Roux placed her palms flush to the table and pressed her forehead against it. "I'm t'en supplie! If I stay here I am mort! Please… please… please." She began clutching her stomach and whispering over and over again through gritted teeth. "Il n'y à plus. Il n'y à plus. Il n'y à plus. Il n'y à plus." She was saying "No more."
The fear in the woman was immense, deep, and clutched at her very heart. Something was broken in her and it was more than skin deep. Even on the surface of her light skin she kept something underneath her clothes that would turn the others pale.
"What if…" the Mentor trailed off trying to compose a sentence that would both decline her but not appear heartless.
"I think we should call it a night." Laura finally interceded. Roux gently raised her head to one side and saw how distraught her roommate was. "If we get a good night's rest we can make a decision in the morning. You were staying the night anyway weren't you?" she turned to the Mentor trying her best to smile.
"Uh, yeah." The Mentor nodded. "I was. Thanks for that." Laura nodded in return and placed a gentle hand on Roux's shoulder. The comfort exude from her roommate helped dry her tears for the moment. They all agreed that it was time to call it a night.
Laura provided the Mentor the use of her air mattress in the living area of the dorm and the two girls would sleep in their rooms, naturally. Roux, who was too emotionally drained at this point to be cogent, retired to her room. The Mentor and Laura waited for the light from underneath her door went dark.
Using a hand pump to fill the mattress, Laura spoke softly and asked the Mentor a few questions.
"I'm not sure what is happening with Roux, but…"
"I don't think I can help her." The Mentor shook his head watching the air mattress slowly get fatter. He noticed the look Laura was giving him. "Look, it's complicated with me. I'm not in a safe place to help anyone."
"She scared." Laura pointed out. "I don't think Mr. Merch knows what he said did to her tonight but it has her terrified. You can't help her at all?"
"What about you?" The Mentor raised an eyebrow. "You're her roommate. You know her a lot more than I do and she seems to trust you."
"That's not really the case." Laura coly smiled and shook away the feelings of separation from this situation. "We don't talk that much. When we do talk, it's nothing like this. She seems to trust you a lot more than me."
The Mentor didn't know how to take this. It felt like an insult at first to him but he thought it out. Roux reached out to him first. He was alone and he must have looked like the world had just shat on him, but that didn't stop her from holding out her hand to pick him up. No matter how many times that he tried to push her away she wanted to help this stranger. That's right. They were just strangers that met today, and she didn't even know the truth about the Mentor or where he was from.
To Roux, she must be thinking that she would be on the run like something out of an action movie. Going from country to country staying one step ahead of the adversary hunting them down. It wouldn't have to be that complicated though. By this time tomorrow, the Mentor could be anywhere in time and space. He would just have to take her somewhere she wouldn't have to keep running from. A safe place for life.
Another world.
That might work. How do I explain it though?
"Mentor?" Laura noticed that he wasn't paying attention or that she had finished pumping up the mattress. He hadn't snapped back to the conversation yet. "Mentor..?" she looked at his face deep in thought and she set aside the hand pump onto the floor. He hadn't responded.
Kiss!
Laura had leaned in over the mattress and gave the handsome (in her eyes) gentlemen a peck on the lips. Instantly the Mentor's thoughts were immediately brought back to reality where he was getting kissed by a human girl.
Peeling her lips away from his she giggled and looked at his clear eyes. The Mentor was stricken speechless and couldn't recover from the surprise.
"Are you back?" she laughed.
"What?" the Mentor finally sputtered.
"You were staring into space there." Laura said to him. "I wanted to make sure you were still here on earth."
"Heh," the Mentor chuckled to himself, the irony running deeper than Laura was capable of realizing.
"Will you help her?" Laura asked kindly for Roux to be safe. The Mentor paused for a moment, still reeling from the shared moment of intimacy that came from left field, before finally nodded.
"Yeah." He said. "I'll take her with me. I'll make sure she gets somewhere safe." Laura beamed to him and reflexively hugged him tightly and thanked him with another kiss. This time on the cheek.
She thanked him and rose to her feet. The Mentor finally realizing that the air mattress had been filled to the brim with hand pumped air he tested the firmness and Laura bid him a good night. Sinking into the soft cloud of a mattress the Mentor rolled until finally he could sleep. It was difficult for him to stay asleep as he was eager to leave this world as soon as possible.
The lush forest planet of Ralmoora is a world part of the Cadeen providences. Nearly fifty thousand years ago (from the Common Era) the entity known as The Lovely Cadeen, a massive computer network of a million different artificial intelligences combined into a singular unit, took control of Ralmoora and its parent star Cassidus.
The TARDIS Endeavor had landed undetected by any of Ralmoora's sensors that orbited the planet as they were unequipped to sweep for vessels that could dematerialize. With the Endeavor disguised as a large old vehicle that mimicked the equipment that was left behind when the colonists of Ralmoora fled as Cadeen took over it wouldn't be looked at twice if discovered. If anything came by they would simply accept that it was another derelict piece of machinery that was abandoned tens of thousands of years prior.
A small reconnoitering team, led by S'nara, exited their shape changed ship. Using their navigation equipment that each soldier was harness with they proceeded to the outlaying region of the largest encampment of Ralmoora called the Nest. In the center of the nest lay Cadeen and its massive structure that housed the circuits and cooling units for the complex technology.
The team was moving deftly through the forest, taking careful precautions to avoid waking the plants up. The team had chosen the time of Ralmoora's thirty three hour day to traverse through. At this hour of twilight, the plants would be still asleep and incapable of rendering the Time Lords presence.
This was the most well known thing about Ralmoora. The singing forests of the world were known throughout the universe and many sought after them to search for the secrets of their musical talent. These plants, all of which performed at different octaves depending on the type of plant, had gaseous pouches that sucked in air and exhaled (for a lack of a better word) out musical notes.
Plants aren't the same on every world and these Time Lords knew that. This is why they planned out ahead of time to properly determine the best time to move into position. It was nearly two hours later that the team was finally in position on a ridge over looking the Nest. A large security network buzzed noisily around the electrified fence and automated drones patrolled preprogrammed areas of search.
S'nara and her team prepared themselves and spread out so each member of would have a different angle of approach. Now, they simply had to play the waiting game. Nearly forty minutes had passed before Talturner had appeared at the front and main gate of the Nest.
"Halt!" a voice, metallic and straightforward demanded from behind the wall through a speaker on the outside of the wall. "This world is private property. State your name and intent!"
"My name is Talturner." The Ardha commander spoke confidently with fear absent in his voice. "I bring a personal message from the Lord President of Gallifrey… along with a seal of the council to show my authority."
"Step forward!" the robotic voice commanded. Talturner approached closer to the wall. "Halt! Commencing scanning sequences… Verifying biometric data… Seal recognized. Planet: Gallifrey. Species: Time Lord. Intent:…" the voice was left hanging for a moment before Talturner made the connection that it was waiting for him to speak.
"Diplomacy." He spoke out.
"Intent: Diplomacy." The voice continued. "Authorization: Granted." With a loud shuddering clank of gears and steel rubbing steel, the gate to the Nest slowly rose from its place planted in the soft ground. Talturner was greeted by armed sentries beyond the gate and he confidently strode into the Nest.
Large guns trained on the Time Lord following his every muddy footstep further into the compound. Automatic camera lenses for eyes monitored the suspicious visitor to their home. Talturner maintained his confidence and if he wasn't he was acting very well to keep that from the machines.
Large lighted arrows directed the Time Lord to the location he was to go as told by his hosts and he followed them up to the center of the Nest. Smack dab in the heart of the Nest rested a massive block of metal, nearly seamless and without features save for a lowing green symbol on its front, it was the main point of interaction between the Lovely Cadeen and anything or anyone not connected to her network.
"I'm Commander Talturner, and I'm here with an urgent request of information." The commander spoke without skipping a beat.
"What is your question?" a soft voice with an electronic twinge subtle in its cadence flowed from the green symbol, gently flashing with each syllable it spoke.
"Our ship detected a signal on this world." Talturner spoke. "A very strong Artron energy signature from the surface of Ralmoora. We have reason to believe a dangerous threat to the Time Lords is here as well."
"By what means have you come to this conclusion?" Cadeen questioned the commander. "Ralmoora is protected by many sensors in orbit. If something did sneak in, it would not have gotten far before our internal detection would have located the breach. That raises the concern of your presence here, Time Lord. By what means are you here?"
"My own." Taltuner said. "How I'm here isn't as important as why. There might be a dangerous fugitive on your world and that is what I'm after."
"…" the processor ate his words and tasted them in a nonexistent tongue. "We have had no knowledge of this Artron signature. How can we believe that you may be lying?"
"You don't." Talturner snapped back. "This is something that has to do with honor. A machine has no concept of this I take it, so I have brought it upon myself to take responsibility for this stranger on your lands."
The machine whirred around the Time Lord monitoring his movements and reading his appearance. His clothes bore no symbol of his unit or even any military background. He was wearing common clothes (common for aliens) and was unarmed from what they could tell. In reality he was unarmed, but that did not mean he wasn't dangerous.
"State your request." Cadeen said.
"I want to search for this fugitive." Talturner said. "Regardless whether you allow. I am simply here to inform you as it is your world. I would have thought that you would have wanted this dangerous person off your world."
"We have no reason to believe you." Cadeen said and the machine servants drew closer to the Time Lord. "You will remain our prisoner until further notice. Compliance is not required."
"Damn." Talturner casually said and raised a fist to the air and loud piercing thundering rings of plasmatic rounds clashing against the towering metal creatures descending onto him. The metal sentinels collapsed and sparked from their internal components being torn apart and shredded into.
"You will not stop me, Cadeen." Talturner said as he turned and returned to the entrance of the Nest, plasma rounds keeping away anything that still dared to come near him. Talturner left the machine matriarch in its encampment and held a finger up to his ear. "Looks like we're on our own. S'nara, have you located the signature."
"I have the location down within fifty meters." S'nara's voice crackled through his ear piece.
"Let's go get us a fugitive."
The sun had barely risen by the time the Mentor had woken up and gathered his things. The dorm seemed desolate of any others awake and he took the time to deflate the air mattress as quietly as he could and left the dorm. The Mentor crept along the hallway of the dormitory building and rode the elevator to the first floor.
Leaving the building he began walking the path that Roux led him on the night previous to retrace his steps back to the TARDIS he had stolen. The ugly looking shed was still present and the device he had made still dangled from the lock and flashed a green light indicating completion. Before the Mentor had the chance to see his device's success he saw a girl slumped against the door of the hidden machine.
Roux was curled up and asleep at the door to something far more powerful than she realized and the Mentor sighed in frustration as if he was a naughty child getting discovered by his parent before he could sneak out of the house. Roux had with her a backpack stuff to the seams with clothes and personal effects, the little she had with her when she first arrived, and she was clothed with a heavy sweater and warm pants and she had fallen asleep waiting for the Mentor to try to leave without her.
The Mentor kneeled down to her and looked over her while she still slept. He had no idea how he was going to tell her anything about him or what she leaned against and a part of him was frightened to show her the truth.
"Oh, Roux." He sighed and he placed a gentle petting hand on her head and she gently stirred awake, sleepily pawing away the drowsiness from her eyes. "Are you awake?"
"Mentor?" she shivered from the dawn cold and saw his soft eyes looking at her. Straightening up her back she tried to get to her feet and through a short stumble she patted off the blades of grass stuck to her and she stood facing the Mentor.
"What are you doing out here?" the Mentor asked, already knowing where the answer would lead to.
"You wanted to get inside this shed yesterday." Roux said slightly holding the device in her hand. "I'm not sure what's in here, but I knew that once you had whatever was in there that you would leave. I didn't want you to leave without me."
"You really don't want to stay here, do you?"
"Non." Roux shook her head, the memories of Mr. Merch's visit the previous night rushing into her.
"There are things you don't know about me." The Mentor said resting a hand on the shed.
"We only met hier." Roux smiled grimly, trying her best to remain positive and encourage the Mentor to take her with him wherever he was going.
"That's true." The Mentor chuckled. "We did only meet yesterday, but… It's complicated what is going to happen. It might not be the sanest thing you've seen."
"It does not matter." Roux said.
"Alright." The Mentor exhaled preparing to explain the nature of a far grander universe than the young girl had or could imagine. "I'm not a member of the human race. I'm from a large planet called Gallifrey 250 million light years away. This shed here isn't a garden shed that someone forgot and abandoned but rather a machine called a TARDIS. A type 607 to be precise. It is a space ship that can travel anywhere in time and space. I am an alien."
Roux starred at the Mentor with a dazed look and glossy eyes that couldn't register the information that the Time Lord fed her and her mouth went dry from hanging open. Rubbing her eyes she felt that something like smoke had invaded her eyes and she suddenly felt at a complete loss. A delusion, or someone that was clearly insane with a large fictional world crammed inside his head.
"You're saying…" she said shaking her shoulders, wanting the world for once to be kind to her. "Inside this shed is a ship."
"Well sort of." The Mentor said examining the unlocking device he had attached to the TARDIS. "The shed is the ship. This exterior is a cloak of sorts. A TARDIS with a working chameleon circuit can shape the outside of itself to anything I needs to remain hidden."
Roux wanted to question him further but the Mentor was already pressing buttons on the device and removed the pad lock from its closed position. He stepped inside and left the door slightly ajar, a warm air pouring from inside and the melodious sound of whirring followed closely behind.
"Mentor?" Roux grabbed her pack, slung it over her shoulder and pushed her way passed the door and inside lay a whole world of new knowledge was before her. The interior of the TARDIS was the same as when the Mentor first broke in. Large wooden pillars that wrapped around metal components and extended beyond the floor and the ceiling. Large emerald lights lit up the center console.
Roux saw the Mentor struggling to erect a piece of a console from the glass floor. Once he had it properly up he checked the wires of the disconnected system.
"Close the door." The Mentor said, throwing a tilting nod to Roux. Quickly closing the door behind her, Roux was freaking out internally.
"What is this thing?" Roux was rubbing her eyes trying to bring back her reality but to no avail. "Comment est l'intérieur si grand? It is impossible!"
"Transdimensional engineering." The Mentor tried to explain. "My species are masters of it. In fact that was what I did for a living before where I am now. I would work on TARDISes for the city."
"How is this happening?" Roux was breaking down and her backpack had fallen to the glass floor which quickly snatched the Mentor's attention. He saw her fall to her knees and tears streaming down her cheeks and her face buried into her hands.
"Roux, what's wrong?" he rushed to her side.
"Suis-je fou?" her accent driveled out in panic and a crushing depression that was overcoming her.
"You're not crazy!" the Mentor grabbed her shoulders and stare intently at her. Their eyes met through Roux's tears and she saw the seriousness in his face. "Roux, you're okay. The last thing you are 3is crazy. Now you need help. You want to leave this place more than anything right?" she nodded sheepishly. "Alright then. Welcome aboard Mademoiselle Roux."
"Where will we go?" the confused young girl squeaked out.
"We have the rest of the universe at our fingertips." The Mentor explained jovially. "Wherever we go, no one will find you if you don't want them to."
The Mentor rose and planted himself in front of the controls. He could hear the way the TARDIS (remember that it was stolen and this particular TARDIS protests the Mentor and Roux being there) moaned in rebellion against him but it obeyed the will of the controls nonetheless. With its own fate in the hands of the Time Lord that stole it away, it had no choice in the matter.
The center column that was the Time Rotor was a shard of green crystalline fragments that protruded wildly upward within its case from the center console. After the Mentor went through the preflight check he held onto the magnetic landing clamps and gave Roux a meaningful look.
"Are you read, Roux?"
"Oui, Mentor." A bittersweet smile fleetingly rested on her lips and the Mentor threw the lever that held the TARDIS in place and the gardening shed that served as its exterior faded, flashing and soon disappeared as if it was never there in the first place.
That night at the university something awful had happened in the shadows. Police cars lined the perimeter of the dormitory building and the flashing red and blue lights bounced its way through the windows into all of the rooms of the students.
A police detective was being led through the scene and told all the relevant facts as he stood in the office of the victim.
"Vic's name is Jonathan Merch." A uniformed police officer informed the plains clothes detective and handed him a plastic bag of evidence. "Age thirty three. He was with the housing department for the university working late. Someone did a number on him." The body had just been covered by the medical examiner but the detective already saw the mess of body parts and viscera that painted the room and soaked into the carpeting,
"Sir, we have a situation." Another officer approached the detective and whispered delicate news into his ear. The two quickly left the room and rode the elevator to one of the upper floors. Walking down the hallway the detective saw another officer standing outside of one of the dorms and yellow tape was already tapestried across the doorway.
The detective ducked underneath the yellow border and saw the mess inside the dorm room. It was similar to the horrific scene in the office on the first floor the only difference being this was the body of a young college student. A girl by the looks of it.
"Get the medical examiner up here." The detective said. "We've got more work here."
"Sir!" the officer that accompanied the detective discovered a wallet in the victim's bedroom. "The victims."
The detective looked at the ID inside. "Her name was Laura. What happened with these two?"