Martha had never seen the Doctor like this in her life, although she hadn't known him very long – but she had thought she knew him. This Doctor was more authoritative, more powerful. Maybe he was putting it on, she thought, but no.
"Ok," Janeway said. "So start talking."
"Null space is a parallel universe, rather like Subspace or E-Space," the Doctor began. "Now, we can't just stay here and wait for the Daleks to leave – we have to figure out a way to beat them."
"Judging from the Borgs encounters with the Daleks, that would be very difficult," Seven of Nine commented.
"Weeell, you would say that," the Doctor said, giving her a hard stare at the mention of the Borg. "The Borg have no imagination, so you've got nothin' else to say. No, what I'm suggesting is a little humanity – free thinking. You, Ensign – what's your name?" he added, pointing at Harry.
"Harry Kim," the bewildered Ensign replied.
"Right, Harry Kim," the Doctor smiled. "I need you to run through your sensor readings, find out every weakness you can. You, security guy…"
"Tuvok," Tuvok said stiffly.
"Fine, whatever," the Doctor said, coming up to the Vulcans console. "Mind if I just do this?"
He aimed his Sonic Screwdriver into the console, and a light buzzing noise emitted from it – and then the console went off.
"What have you done?" Janeway yelled.
"Don't panic Captain," the Doctor said, holding up a hand. "Don't panic… I'll fix it…"
He changed the setting on his Screwdriver, and suddenly the console lit up – in Gallifreyan symbols.
"Perfect," the Doctor muttered. Then he pressed a few of the new buttons.
"What are you doing?" Chakotay asked, looking at the symbols with great interest. "These seem like some sort of alien language, but the translators…"
"Gallifreyan is more complicated than your language translator can handle," the Doctor told them. "Sometimes I think it's more complicated than my language translator can handle..."
"Well," Martha muttered, "I can't read it."
"Enlighten us, Doctor, what does the panel say?" Tuvok asked.
"Weeeell,basically, it says your ship is knackered," the Doctor said, pressing about five buttons at once. "My fault, sorry, thought I fixed the shields up... sorry, just take a minute..."
"You are insane," Seven pointed out to him.
"You think I haven't told him that?" Martha asked.
"Anyway," the Doctor said, pressing more buttons. "Why don't you lot go do something interesting like figure a way out of this mess, while I try to fix this damn console..."
Janeway crossed her arms, and glared daggers until the Doctor looked at her.
"Nobody," she said, calmly, "dismisses me from my bridge."
--
"Doctor, you still haven't told me what happens," Martha said.
They were both being escorted to engineering by two security officers, including Ensign Callahan.
"You do not want to know, Martha, believe me," he replied. "Rest assured, this is only going to get worse."
"How much worse can it get…?" Martha asked. "I mean, Captain Janeway hates us, the rest of them don't trust us… hard to believe she likes you in the future."
"I don't know if she does," the Doctor said. "She wasn't at the reunion."
"Oh?" Martha asked. "What happened?"
"She died," the Doctor said, tight lipped. He did not elaborate, and Martha kept quiet. But then, the Doctor screamed in delight as the motley little crew walked into engineering. He ran right up to the console and sighed in delight.
"Haven't seen one of these babies since the Great Museum of Arbotia!" he yelled. "Mark Six Warp Cores, rare as heck..."
Martha shrugged at the engineer, a pale woman with forehead ridges, who looked vaguely as if she would murder the Doctor where he stood. The engineer walked up to the Doctor.
"D'you mind if I ask who the hell you are?" she said, angrily.
"The Doctor," the Doctor replied. "I just came round for a gander..."
"We got kicked off of the bridge and sent down here," Martha translated. The Doctor started pressing buttons, haphazardly.
"Hey, stop that!" the engineer said.
"It's too much fun!" the Doctor yelled. "Hang on..."
He pressed a long, complicated sequence into the console, and all of a sudden, the entire room started shaking.
"Hang on, that's not right…" the Doctor said, and he quickly pressed in another sequence of commands. A moment later, then entire ship stopped shaking.
"Engineering, what just happened?" came Janeway's voice, infuriated.
"Some guy came down here," the engineer replied, "and he started…"
"Never mind," Janeway said. "Brown suit, female companion?"
"Yes," the engineer said.
"The Doctor," Janeway told her. "Best not to worry, we're done worrying up here. Doesn't do any good…"
"Quite right," the Doctor said, "but… if you would just check your screens, please, Captain," he quickly punched up a view of the outside, "and tell me what you see."
Janeway fell silent for a moment.
"My God," she said at long last.
"One way of putting it," the Doctor smiled.
"We're…" Janeway said. "We're… we're home…"
The Doctor wasn't smiling anymore.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Captain," he said, pressing a series of buttons in. He slaved the bridge view-screen to the one on his console, and then zoomed in on subsector twelve, zero, twelve.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, "but this is not your home. This will be your home in one hundred and fifty years time..."
And he stepped back from the console, allowing Martha and B'Elanna Torres to see a fleet of five hundred Dalek saucer craft, locked in mortal combat against hundreds of what looked like advanced Federation starships.
"This," the Doctor said sadly, "is the Dalek War."