Chapter 4 - Survival Options
Möbius Loop Seven: USG Cassiopeia
The USG Cassiopeia was the largest ship of her class ever designed. It was a fortress, floating in space, shielded and gunned, designed to invade enemy planets. A long squat shape bristling with weapons, she looked like what she was, a battering ram to be used against enemy fleets.
All of its strengths hadn't saved the crew. The Cklil were highly intelligent and vicious, they weren't above scavenging such a prize from a lesser species. They didn't trust portals, and the first beetles to appear through it were blasted into atoms. After several rounds, beetles stopped coming through.
The portal grew larger, much larger. For a long time nothing came through; and then the beetles came en masse. Invading in uncountable numbers, the weapons of the Cassiopeia knocked gigantic holes in the swarm, but the wall of beetles was so solid that the batteries couldn't punch through.
Behind the small beetles came four massive ones, each half the size of the Cassiopeia itself. Every gun battery swung around, but the large beetles were surprisingly agile for their size, and well behind the smaller beetles.
It was a genuine battle. It didn't take the Cklil long to realize that the larger beetles were commanding the smaller swarms, and they aimed their weaponry appropriately; one of the large beetles took a direct hit, shattering into countless numbers of unintelligent, small beetles. The tide began to turn in the favour of the Cklil.
The three large beetles approached each other, touching their long antennae together. Their forms shifted and merged, and then they were no longer there; in their place was a single, gigantic beetle, dwarfing the Cassiopeia.
Then the wasps came.
The battle lasted fourteen hours and the Cklil fought with all of the viciousness for which their race was famed. In the end, the ruins of the Cassiopeia hung in space, with no further signs of resistance. The beetles munched contentedly on their new prize. The wasps had selected their own chunks of wreckage, and everything was quiet, bright with the sparks of constant divisions, until there wasn't a speck left, and the swarm, now becalmed, moved lazily on.
Time of Takeover: 20 hours
Koschei grinned down at his wife, they had found supplies in a closed case in the back of the drone. It wasn't much, but it was more than they'd had before.
"You've got her running again?" Susan asked softly and he nodded.
They were dressed in Radiation suits from the cargo area he glanced over at Susan, lips twitching in amusement. It was far too big on her. In her bare feet, she was just tall enough to lay her head against his shoulder, but had to stretch a bit to kiss him, so the suit had the arms and legs rolled up to make it fit. Still, she was swimming in it.
He calculated the distance between them and the Doctor, checking fuel, and hoping the Drone's cobbled together engines could survive the trip. It was a serious question. He looked around and tossed a few broken crates out, to lighten the load, and then, with a quick prayer to whatever gods watched over engineers, he launched the battered and bedamned Drone into the sky.
"Doctor and Rose first and then on to Adie," he murmured.
"I think we ought to call her Bessie 3," Susan told him, patting the bulkhead and, despite the desperate straits they were in, he found himself laughing.
"So, is this one of the Loops?" Rose asked, shivering beside him as they walked. "And how exactly did we get here, because Malla doing the maths in my head is not actually helping!"
"Oh, you don't need maths for this, just a bloody ounce of intelligence! Sadly, the Master, who I used to think was quite clever, did the absolutely stupidest thing in the history of stupid things, and dropped a Time Loop and a Möbius Sphere next to each other and he damn near tore a hole in the Space Time Continuum! Only the fact that the two TARDIS were there kept it from becoming a complete disaster, but it was still a near thing! I really thought better of him, honestly! He was crazy, sure, but he was never this stupid!" the Doctor was shouting and ranting as they marched.
"I mean, he, of all people should have bloody well known better!" he continued, slapping his arms against himself and dividing his attention between his rant and Rose's lips, which we a bit more blue than he liked.
"So, yeah! We're bloody well on the wrong bloody side of a bloody Loop! Because that absolute moron buggered up the whole bloody thing!" he concluded and decided that the rant had done well at both the tasks he's set for himself, it had relieved his worry a bit, and it had warmed him up.
"And now I want to know where he is, because I am going to tear the hairs out that bloody goatee one at a time!"
"Oi! Me first!" Rose snarked back.
Scavenging among the dead was horrifying: but it had to be done. Adie looked in lockers and any bit of any ship that might hold supplies. At length, she was rewarded with a couple of old uniforms, with shoes, a first-aid kit, an emergency blanket, and a few other goodies.
/Koschei,/ she sent to him, /Do you think you can pick up the Doctor and Rose? You should be pretty close to them./
/We were already on our way there,/ he told her and Susan reached out and squeezed his hand before releasing it.
He was angling towards the Doctor, following the jagged angry red of his mind, fingers curled around the joystick, hands steady, though his hearts were stuttering in his chest. He wasn't so much piloting, he mused, as doing a series of controlled crashes.
/Grandfather, we're going to try to land near you. Do try not to get crushed./ Susan sent out.
"Remind me not to order the Brontosaurus next time," Cassidy-9 shouted and Diana-37 nodded her agreement.
"Why is it always lizards!" London-11 complained. "Who was the nutter with the giant lizard fetish?"
"One of the Temporal Engineers was probably a Godzilla fan," Jake-77 said as he drew back the bowstring and sighted along the shaft of the arrow. "Me? I liked Hawk-eye." He fired and the arrow sped out and buried itself in the Brontosaurus' eye.
It fell over slowly, it's vast bulk collapsing, like a building coming down.
"Mind you Brontosaurus is pretty tasty," Cassidy-9 told them. "Tastes just like chicken!" She grinned at Diana-37, her hair wild and messy, all the little braids in wild disarray, her clothes ragged and filthy and Diana-37 grinned back.
"Have you actually ever seen a chicken?"
"Well… no, not really." she said with a grin. "Why?"
"Just checking," Diana chuckled.
If nothing else came out of the Revolution, just getting to meet and become friends with all her sisters was still worth everything they were slogging through.
She looked around at the twelve they'd gotten together so far and felt a warm glow in her hearts.
She had family.
"Bloody hell! Get down!" the Doctor commanded and leaped on top of Rose bearing her to the ground, ending up face first in the snow, as something black and with smoke trailing from it, skidded over their heads and into the snow. It bounced once and then stopped, listing to one side, before a hatch popped out and Susan, ginger hair matted and filthy, dirty face beaming atop a neon yellow plastic suit, waved to them.
"Come on! Get in!" she called and the Doctor bodily lifted Rose from the snow and ran for the Drone.
The inside of the drone was, marginally, warmer than the outside.
Adie turned off the disk.
/Uncle… I believe I have found out why the Master cut off this series of loops./
/ Because he wanted to set up a ski resort and make lots of money? Ski the fields of corpses! See the lovely dead world of wherever-we-bloody-well-are!/ he snarked back, obviously in a foul temper.
/I believe this was… hmmm. I believe this is the location of one of the Rani's, shall we say, overly successful experiments./
/ Because crash landing the TARDIS and getting lost in a bloody blizzard really wasn't exciting enough,/ he grumbled. /I can't believe I ever dated that stroppy cow!/
/You dated the Rani?/
/Absolute nadir of my existence, she dumped me for Koschei, and then dumped him for science./
/Did she try out the drugged lipstick on you?/
/ Naw, this was back at the Academy, when we were really young and really stupid./ he sent back, sounding disgusted. /Really, really, stupid./
Adie paused. She was really very curious to know just how stupid the Doctor had been with the Rani, but it would be impolite to ask.
/Well she and the Master worked a while on a war weapon called the Manifold. When it… proved to be just a bit too effective, it was put away somewhere. I never thought it might have been added to the Möbius Loops, although it makes sense now that I think about it./
/Where else would you keep something stupidly dangerous except for a sealed bundle of Time,/ he agreed.
/No, I wouldn't have put the Manifold in a bundle of anything. I would have locked it up by itself. Cheapskates./ She grumbled.
/So, what are we up against here?/ he asked, his mind sharp and hard.
/Well the goal was to create a life form that could never be defeated. Something that survived no matter what. Something to overrun Dalek worlds. And the Rani… I have to give her credit, I heard she came pretty close./
/Oh well, the Rani, she always did love a survivor,/ he sighed.
/They were based off of insects, bio-metallic insects. I never saw the specifications but from what I recall, there were a number of varieties that performed different functions. If I remember correctly, they were able to merge themselves into larger bugs if they needed additional processing power, they were able to listen into telepathic conversations, they could split apart and become quite tiny if needed… the main thing that I remember is that they were supposed to be able to eat through anything. Anything, up to and including the real-world interface of a TARDIS, to be able to chew their way from the outside to the interior./
/Adie, you just said they could hear telepathy, right?/
/Yes, but I thought there was a proximity factor. Keep an eye out for any silver metallic insects. And Doctor… I found a disk. A disk that you should see./
/Which I can totally watch in the middle of a howling blizzard!/ he snarked back.
/You're the Doctor! Of course you can!/
/ My sonic is frozen, Adie!/ her replied, sounding disgusted. /I'll be along shortly and we can chat, eh?/
/Sounds good. I have fires burning, I'll keep an eye out for some tea./
/Don't tease,/ he chuckled and then withdrew from the conversation.
"This is one jury-rigged monstrosity, Shay," the Doctor told him with an admiring glance.
"Did it without my screwdriver, too," he preened briefly and they laughed together, as they worked to get the wallowing cow back into the air.
"Drives like dead whale," the Doctor complained.
"Smells like one too," Rose murmured from behind them.
Koschei wasn't at all sure that he could eke out enough power to land in a controlled manner this time, but the other three were all strapped in behind him and the Drone was built to last, so it probably didn't matter too much. He brought it down on its belly and let the ship ski across the snow, allowing friction to slow it to a stop.
He hadn't counted on the submerged bits of bodies and wreckage though and it was less of a slalom and more of roller-coaster before they finally skidded to a stop.
"Now I know how dice feel," the Doctor quipped and Koschei nodded.
They'd made it.
Susan patted the Drone gently as they stepped out of the doorway.
"Thank you," she murmured to it and Koschei took her hand in his.
They stepped out into a field of wreckage. It was mostly in darkness, because night was falling, but with occasional points of light from blazing old barrels. The fire danced and the light cast long misshapen shadows across the snow.
Adie appeared at one end of the downed shuttle, wearing some sort of old greyish uniform, that was ridiculously large on her, as she wasn't much bigger than Susan.
"I've got some temporary shelter set up!" she shouted, or tried to, over the wind, which was picking up like it meant business. "This way!"
The "shelter" was tiny, part of an old shuttle that had been all but cut in half. Adie had tied down a couple of tarpolines over the hole to form a sort of shielded tent, and pulled every barrel she could find nearby, and set it alight. Inside she had found a variety of old things that she had set out; some ancient uniforms of various sorts, including shoes, a few rations, not much else. The barrels made it warm enough to allow everyone to get out of danger of hypothermia or frostbite, but it wasn't anything resembling warm.
Rose raced into the shelter, stomping her feet and warming her hands over the flaming barrel.
"Doctor," Adie said over the wind, "We'll need something more solid shelter-wise!"
She had a point. For now, this little oasis would serve to allow them all a breather, but those tarps were never going to stand up to a real storm, and it was only a matter of time before the fuel in the barrels was exhausted. Adie had tried to put as much of a brave face on things as she could; but the plain fact was that they weren't going to be able to spend the night here, and by the time they all got dressed and warmed up, it was going to be straight-up night time.
"I suspect that underground will be our best bet, Adie, the surface has been scoured clean," the Doctor agreed, staring out at the landscape thoughtfully.
Koschei and Susan both looked up and watched them, alerted by something in his demeanour.
"Worst mistake of my life, dating the Rani, we were at the academy, both rather young. She was utterly brilliant, it's always been a weakness of mine, smart people," he said it with a rueful air, but there was still a tension in him. "She had this crazy notion about breeding a race that could survive anything. She was experimenting all the time, pushing things, taking mad risks. Finally, she was expelled and sent away. Even after they dragged her back, during the War, she kept at it. Half the time she was more hindrance than help to us, but she did make some breakthroughs," he admitted.
"If I could have found a way to kill her, I would have," Susan ground out, face and eyes bleak and angry. "The things they let her do!" she cried and her anguish was jagged and cutting against Adie's mind. Susan tucked it away again, behind her shields, but not before Adie had a brief glimpse of a room, elegant and beautiful, but littered with people, lying on the floor, screaming, as their bodies were being eaten out slowly from the inside by Artron energy, while the Rani stood there, face mildly interested, taking notes. Somehow, Adie knew it had taken days for them to die.
"Susan!" her grandfather scolded, shocked.
"Don't!" Koschei snapped back. "You don't know! I had to stop her time and again from 'experimenting' on our allies! She was dissecting them alive! Trying to see how long they could survive without vital organs!" He shook his head. "I was crazy, narcissistic, and homicidal, but even I was sickened by the things she was doing!" The man who'd once been the Master, shivered, eyes filled up with remembered horror.
"All right, then," the Doctor murmured, his words as much an apology as an acknowledgement. "I missed that and I'm quite glad of that. But, I do remember what she was like and how much she loved a survivor." He looked around at the landscape. "So, let's find some better shelter, shall we?"
Adie looked at the ground.
"She was ultimately successful. When he realized what she had done… I've never seen the Master so angry. He went out to stop her. He hated it; he complained that he felt like the Doctor."
She was silent for a while.
"We couldn't beat them," she said. "We had to lock them up. Here, I think." She shook her head, forcing herself out of her reverie. "If the Manifold are here, and if this Loop is leaking... Omega knows how many people are going to die."
Susan felt the incandescent rage in her gut that the Rani's workings always inspired in her. Koschei twined his fingers through hers, sharing that rage.
"We still need to find shelter than this before the blizzard hits," the Doctor pointed out.
"Where's the Master now, I wonder?" the Doctor muttered again. "Where did he crash down?"
"Maybe he died?" Rose murmured, sounding worried.
"No, he's alive," Susan sighed, looking down at the slender golden cord. "He probably knows more about this place than anyone else. We could use his assistance."
"I'll go scout out the area," the Doctor told them, twirling his sonic in his hand. "It's thawed out now, so should work fine." Rose hugged him before he stepped out into the snow and then she began scouring the interior for warmer clothes and food. The others joined her quickly, but they all worked in silence, without their usual banter.
"Sixteen," Jake muttered and looked over at the group of Mashas sitting around the campfire. Diana nodded beside him and he could feel her frustration as well.
"Eight months of jogging between Loops," she sighed. "Eight months and we've only got sixteen!"
"I know, Angel, but we can only cross when a bridge is scheduled." He shrugged. Still, it was getting hard to feed the sixteen they'd found. The Brontosaurus in Marissa's Loop had lasted them a couple of weeks, especially when they'd been able to freeze-dry chunks of it in Shevia's frozen Loop.
"When is the Doctor coming?" she sighed.
"Well, according to the count Adie gave me, only two days have passed in the outer Universe," he pointed out and she nodded.
"I know, he's probably running around being brilliant and all, but how long is it going to take us to get the others? How are we going to all stay together, find food, and to survive, all in one Loop?" she asked the questions that he'd been asking himself as well and he shrugged.
"We do what we can, Angel, that's all," he told her and she snuggled against him, head on his chest.
"I know what I want to do," she teased and he grinned into the darkness.
"Let's get further away this time, I don't need to hear their suggestions," he chuckled and Diana grinned and dragged him further into the forest.
Family was nice, but sometimes privacy was needed.
The Doctor headed into the teeth of the storm. He was looking for shelter, but primarily he was looking to climb a particularly tall metal strut that he had spotted. It might have been an antenna tower at some point in the past. He wanted to get a good look at the area and needed to be as high as possible to do it.
"Koschei, can you reach K-9 from here?" Susan asked and he shook his head.
"I sent out the recall, but I think he was too far away to hear it," he confessed and she sighed.
"Or, he was too busy to come," she suggested.
"Busy with what? We're freezing out here!" Rose objected.
"The babies," she murmured, a stab of worry going through her. Koschei, Rose, and Adie all froze for a moment and then Koschei touched her shoulder lightly.
"K-9 will take care of them and the systems back-ups I installed were engineered to survive worse than that crash. Even if they went down, K-9 will get them going again," he assured her. "They'll be fine." She nodded, but was still worried. She hated feeling so helpless and ineffectual. She was a doctor, she should be more useful than this.
"Lucky we're all Time Lords," Rose murmured. "I'm glad that Martha wasn't on board, or Donna." She shivered and they all nodded.
"True, Rose. We're all going to get warm and then go sledding, eh?" Koschei teased, but his eyes lacked any humour. None of them was feeling very sanguine about their survival chances just then.