AN: I will be making minor plot changes from canon, after all it is fanfiction. But all major plotlines will remain unchanged.
Warning: There will be graphic violence and death. War is not pretty. This is not a light warning.
The Game Station
It was 200100 AD.
More than a century had passed since the Soldier had discovered that Daleks had been responsible for the inconsistencies in the timeline.
When the Soldier had first discovered the Dalek building, she had destroyed the creatures after disconnecting them from the Dalek hive mind. She had vented her rage by pulling out the Dalek flesh from their shells and electrocuting them to death. The rush and pleasure she'd obtained had vanished when she had hacked into the Dalek database and discovered the true reaches of their empire.
She'd been crushed at the time. She was just one Time Lord. Her entire species was struggling to fight the Dalek race and she was just one Time Lord with primitive technology. What could she do? There was no such thing as non-interference now. This was Time Lord Business, especially if the Daleks intended to return to the Time War.
She needed a plan. She couldn't afford any more distractions from the humans. She needed to save Gallifrey. She needed to obliterate the Daleks.
She had plundered all the Dalek technology she could find and isolated herself in her home, building what she would need to fight the Daleks. Destroying them using their own technology. There was poetic justice in that.
It was when Satellite Five had suddenly shut down, and all hypnotic transmissions stopped, that she had halted to celebrate with the humans. She had not been able to avoid helping, so she removed the chips from the humans.
It was the humans that had inspired the idea of creating a Delta Wave transmitter. It had occurred when the Leader of the Resistance had come looking for her, inquiring after her long absence. It seemed Satellite Five had been converted into a Game Station, and they were transmatting innocent people into vindictive games. The main purpose of it was to slaughter anyone teleporting into the base station. The Leader had begged her assistance but the Soldier had refused. It was only a decade later when the Leader himself had been transmatted in that she had realized that she should have helped. The Daleks might have been creating an army to attack Gallifrey, but they were slaughtering humans for sport. The Delta Wave had been the only recourse left.
The Resistance had fallen. Despite the Soldier's best efforts in protecting its members, nearly all of them had been slaughtered in the Game Station. Left with no other option, she'd housed the remaining three members in her own home, where she'd manipulated a field around her house to protect them from the transmat.
It had taken her twenty years to create a containment device that would isolate the Dalek DNA from the human DNA. The samples of Dalek tissue she acquired were so completely immersed with human DNA; she feared that the Delta Wave would kill both humans and Daleks if used. It had been the obligation she still felt to Leila that compelled her to try so hard to protect the humans and separate their DNA from the Dalek tissue.
One among the humans, Beatrice, had managed to hack into the database and was appalled to find that the Controller was human. The horror of this atrocity spurred Beatrice and the two others to launch an impromptu rescue mission that failed so miserably, that all teleports out of the Game Station were negated. The three humans had been brutally beheaded as an example.
The Soldier swore retribution. The Daleks would die. All of them. And she was going to get pleasure from each one she killed.
o0o
The Soldier was in her lab, trying to adjust one of her weapons. It was a volt gun that could disable multiple Daleks at once by passing high voltage through the eye-stalk and disable their hive mind system. She completed the adjustment, making it so that it could leech power from any surrounding sources for emergency recharge. As she stood to place it in her armory, she felt the entire ground quake ferociously. Bewildered, the Soldier hacked into the surveillance systems and watched as Daleks launched a full frontal invasion on the planet, massacring the humans and razing countless buildings into the ground.
The Soldier felt a strong empathy for the humans. It was like watching a rerun of the first attack on Gallifrey, but unlike then, when the Time Lords had swiftly retaliated, the humans were panicking and dropping dead like flies.
If she couldn't fight for Gallifrey directly then fighting the Daleks on Earth would have to suffice. In the end, it was all for Gallifrey.
Decided, she loaded all her weapons, and hid them in her pockets. Entering Game Station wasn't a problem, it had never been one. But there was no safe exit. She picked up the teleporter she'd made after Beatrice had been killed.
This would have to do, but she didn't know what coordinates to put into the teleporter. Nowhere was safe. She shook her head. This was a problem she could face when she needed to escape. She could always return here.
The Soldier exited and ran through the crowd of humans towards a teleport center. It was filled with people hoping to escape the destruction. Frustrated at the humans, she maneuvered to the front. Suddenly a group of Daleks flew towards the building.
"HUMANS DETECTED! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
The humans screamed and a stampede started. Envisioning the impending disaster, the Soldier took out her volt gun, and electrocuted the Daleks.
The screaming of the Daleks gave the Soldier great gratification. Getting bored quickly, she opened the encasing sealing the Dalek flesh inside by magnetizing it. She opened all of them at once and watched as the single eye of all those Daleks turned to her. Pulling out a knife from her pocket, she cut off their eyes, and then hacked them to pieces. She knew the hive mind probably realized that someone was attacking, but she couldn't bring herself to care.
The release she felt was freeing. She had served justice to all those humans she'd failed, more importantly all the Time Lords who had died in battle against them. She felt a hole inside her growing. No. It wasn't a hole. A gnawing emptiness was spreading, and she liked it. It gave her the best outlook on killing these worthless beings. It made it rather enjoyable.
The Soldier drew away from the dead Daleks and turned around to face a crowd of humans staring in awe at her. Using the attention, she shouted, "I am the Soldier! I am a part of the Resistance fighting against these abominable creatures. If you want to stay safe, stay away from the teleports! These creatures, Daleks, are fully capable of manipulating teleports and you could end up in their mothership. If you want to be safe, retreat into your homes and lock yourself in, or better, if you know any underground bunkers, hide there. Help each other and hide out!" The crowd remained unmoved, still staring. "MOVE!" the Soldier commanded.
That spurred them on, and the Soldier jumped onto a window sill to watch them leave before entering the teleport center.
The Soldier teleported into the ground floor and hid behind a pillar, donning her perception filter. She heard a man screaming in fear before his voice was cut off abruptly.
"GROUND FLOOR CLEAR. ALL HUMANS EXTERMINATED."
"COMMENCE FLOOR BY FLOOR SEARCH FOR ANY SPARE HUMANS. SEND A SQUADRON TO FLOOR 500 TO DEAL WITH THE ONCOMING STORM."
"AFFIRMATIVE."
The Soldier glanced out and surveyed her surroundings. Countless human bodies littered the floor; the employees of Game Station. She felt momentary sympathy for the humans but then remembered that they had slaughtered their own kind with little remorse. No compassion needed to be spared for these traitors.
There were 500 floors on this station with the broadcast center at top. But why were the Daleks sending a squadron to deal with a weather problem? Regardless, she needed to get up undetected and buy time to build the Delta Transmitter.
Jumping up, the Soldier suctioned onto the ceiling and scaled quickly, heading towards the lifts. She needed to stall them but how? Maybe a Volt field? It would zap any metallic form and was easy to set up. Unfortunately it wouldn't take the Daleks more than five minutes to disable them. Maybe set up multiple fields along the way like an obstacle course?
Decided, the Soldier set up the field next to the ground floor stairs, and outside the lift. She turned to the lift, and realized that it was disabled. Repairing it quickly, she tried to hit the top floor, but it seemed as if someone had disabled access to the top six floors. Groaning in frustration, the Soldier headed to Floor 494 before turning to run up the staircase.
She froze in shock, seeing three humans blocking the path to the staircase. She dodged the accidental fire by man dressed in a formal suit and cried out,"Stop! Do not fire!"
Another man, wearing a white shirt and suspenders stepped forward, arming his gun.
"Who are you? How did you get in here?" The man asked threateningly.
"I am Red- the Soldier from the Resistance. Earth is under attack by Dalek ships, and we devised a way to stop them. I need to reach floor 500." She quickly explained.
"The Red Soldier? What is your name? And where is everyone else?" The man demanded and she noted that he had still not lowered his gun.
"We do not give out our names easily. It is dangerous." The Soldier did not bother correcting the man. "Who are you? Have you created a strategy to destroy these Daleks?"
"Captain Jack Harkness at your service. But you can call me Jack." Jack flirted, giving the Soldier a cheesy smile. His gun lowered.
"Enough." The Soldier snapped, her hood falling back. "Tell me your plans. And if you have none, let me implement mine. I do not have much time before the Daleks come up. The most I have is ten minutes."
"The Doctor is upstairs, building a Delta Wave transmitter to kill the Daleks. We're here trying to buy time for him to finish." Jack quickly informed her as he scanned the perimeter for any Daleks.
A doctor? A medicinal man building the Delta Wave? But then, humans called accomplished academics Doctor or Professor, and maybe referring to him so singularly meant she should have heard of him.
"Good. That is very good." The Soldier felt relief flood her. "I have tools that can help. Let me go up."
Jack nodded and moved aside. "I'll tell him you are coming."
The Soldier sprinted upstairs, feeling hope that she would succeed. As she reached the top, she heard a Dalek voice booming throughout the floor.
"I AM THE EMPEROR OF DALEKS! I AM A GOD! YOU CANNOT KILL ME!"
The Emperor of Daleks? The Emperor was here? The Soldier felt terror crawl her spine, and she shook, unable to control the visceral fear at the situation.
No, she could do it. The Delta Wave could do it. She just had to gather herself together.
Snapping out of her stupor, she heard the Emperor speak again. She rushed forwards to the origin of the sound.
"TELL ME DOCTOR! WHAT ARE YOU, COWARD OR KILLER?"
"HAHAHA! DOCTOR, YOUR COWARDICE WILL BE THE REASON THAT HUMANS GET SLAUGHTERED!"
The Soldier entered the room, and saw a man with close cropped hair in a black leather jacket. He stared in desolation at the screen.
"You! Are you the doctor?" The Soldier demanded. The man turned slowly towards her and nodded. The Solider caught sight of worn blue eyes.
"Why have you not enabled the Delta-" The Soldier cut off, noticing the Doctor had built a raw Delta Wave transmitter. A transmitter that did not even distinguish between human and Dalek DNA.
"You fool! Were you intending to kill everyone facing this side of the station?" Her voice shook with cold rage.
The Doctor snapped back at her in equal fury. "And what will you be able to do? Go on. Tell me. We only have a few precious minutes. Have you got anything better? A miracle? If not, then shut up! I already said I wasn't going to use it! Who are you anyways?"
Without waiting for a reply, he took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned her. He frowned at the results.
"Human, but not absolutely. Are you wearing a Shimmer?" The Doctor demanded, frowning in suspicion.
The Soldier could hear blatant curiosity laced beneath his words. How dare he? Of all times to be distracted, of all the trivialities to be preoccupied with, he had picked up on a human shimmer? The fool.
"Scan me again, and I will break your sonic probe. Clear?" The Soldier glared with contempt. "I can adjust the Delta Wave transmitter to target only Dalek DNA. But I need help. We have barely five minutes before the Daleks reach up here, and even together the work will take at least take ten minutes."
"Hey! It's a sonic screwdriver!" The Doctor snapped. Then his face broke out into a huge smile stretching from ear to ear. "Haha! We did it! You did it! We can do this! So long Emperor!" The Doctor yelled in joy and relief, before rushing to the Soldier and hugging her.
"Get off!" The Soldier pushed him away harshly. Something about this man was nagging at her Time Senses and with the stress of the situation added, she found his mercurial moods vexing.
"Come on." She demanded. The both of them went to the raw transmitter. "Disconnect the inbuilt capacitors, I already have it on my DNA Isolator. I will interface my Isolator to the transmitter. Work quickly, and when you are done I need you to strip wires." The Doctor looked affronted about something, before quickly nodding.
She scanned the transmitter with her EMS to ascertain limitations when she noticed the Doctor eyeing her device. "And what is that? I haven't come across anything like it."
"It is a scanner." The Soldier said shortly. "Do you have something that can magnify the speed of processing?" The Doctor nodded, fiddling with the switches on the sonic. He pointed the screwdriver forward, and the Soldier abruptly grabbed it. The Doctor frowned, irritated that someone other than him was using it, but dismissed it.
"So." The Doctor drawled, "Jack mentioned something about the Resistance. Who are you lot?"
"The name explains everything."
"And how did you obtain the technology to separate the DNA?" The Doctor questioned, growing irritated at her recalcitrance. "You never answered who you were either. Come on, tell me. If this fails, we'll be dying together. I should at least know the name of the person I'll die with."
The Soldier considered him for a moment before recommencing her work. "Call me the Soldier. It is what I am." She noticed him pause before resuming his work. She continued, "The DNA separation took nearly twenty years. And despite your accusations, you are yet to tell me your own name."
The Doctor looked at her confused. "What? I am the Doctor."
"Just the Doctor?" He nodded. "And how are you so familiar with Daleks?" She inquired and scanned his face as it suddenly seemed to close off.
"I've dealt with them many times." The Doctor mimicked her vagueness. "You know, a human developing this technology, it is brilliant! You're fantastic!" The Doctor grinned, abruptly changing the subject.
The Soldier measured him carefully and then dismissed him. His opinion meant nothing. "Stop your chattering and focus." She ordered. His curiosity and energy was tiring.
The Emperor returned to the screen. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU CAN DO? YOU HAVE ALREADY DEMONSTRATED THAT YOU CANNOT DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE, DOCTOR. YOU HAVE ONLY MINUTES BEFORE MY DALEKS EXTERMINATE YOU."
"Aha! That's what you think!" The Doctor replied provokingly, "We have found a way to isolate to attack only Dalek DNA with the Delta Wave! I win! My race wins, Emperor! And you thought you could win against me?"
The Soldier worked quickly, trying to ignore the bantering occurring in the background.
"EVEN IF YOU GET THE MACHINE TO WORK, YOU THINK THAT DEVICE WILL WORK AGAINST ME? THE DALEK EMPEROR? THE GOD THAT ESCAPED THE FIRES OF THE TIME WAR? WHEN THAT COULD NOT KILL ME, YOU THINK A DELTA WAVE WILL KILL ME? FOOLISH DOCTOR!"
Something in the Soldier snapped at those words. "God?!" The Soldier scoffed. "You are nothing but an abomination that was lucky to survive the Time War. You are nothing but a coward for running away!" The Soldier lashed out bitterly. "For the horrors that you have committed on my people, Emperor, you better hope that you die when we release the Delta Wave. Because if you survive, I will personally find your ship, and- what is that word you Daleks love?-exterminate you. No." She paused and then continued menacingly, "I will prolong your misery. Burn you until you scream for mercy, and then chop you to little pieces. I dare you Emperor, deign me with your presence. "
The Doctor turned to her in shock but before he could say anything, the Emperor turned his sickening eye to her and finally addressed her.
"USELESS HUMAN. DO YOU THINK YOUR RACE POSES ANY THREAT TO EVEN THE WEAKEST DALEK? I SURVIVED THE TIME WAR. GALLIFREY EXPLODED, AND I STILL SURVIVED! YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL ME? ALL TIME LORDS ARE DEAD BUT ONE! BUT AN ENTIRE FLEET OF DALEKS AWAITS YOU. TELL ME, DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING TO WIN? NOW FACE MY PROGENY!"
The Soldier was immobile. Gallifrey exploded? The Time War was over? And how did they know she had survived? All Time Lords were dead. They were dead. She was truly alone. The last of her kind.
The Soldier couldn't function. She couldn't breathe. There was a suffocating pressure inside her that was killing her. Killing her. The gnawing agony robbed her voice and paralyzed her. She didn't want to live. What was the point? She had failed in protecting Gallifrey. Failed.
The Doctor approached her, sonicing the transmission off. "Hello? Are you alright? Hello?" He waved his hand in front of her face worriedly. "Snap out of it please! Have you finished integrating it? Have you?" He shook her roughly, hoping for a response but failed.
"EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR AND HIS COMPANION! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" The Daleks had reached the top floor.
The sound of the Daleks echoed vaguely throughout the Soldier's mind. A growing bloodthirstiness responded. Black rage filled her and froze her insides. It was numbing to her desolate despairing soul.
The Soldier stood. Something in her gaze made the Doctor retreat. She advanced towards the Daleks and fired her volt gun. It wouldn't be enough. Nothing would ever be enough.
She withdrew numerous other weapons, and fired them mercilessly at Daleks. She dodged Dalek fire quickly, but a stray shot hit the wall she was next to, and the large panel broke free, crushing her.
"No!" The Doctor cried, rushing towards her. The Soldier turned to him with dimming consciousness, "The Delta Wave is unfinished. You must complete it. Just attach the green wire to the Isolator. That is enough. Do it. Destroy them."
The Soldier felt darkness envelop her. As she faded away, she heard the sound of wheezing brakes.
AN: So the Soldier finally knows about Gallifrey! The Doctor and her haven't realized that they are Time Lords yet. The Soldier has a fractured mind and has been wiped from the Time Lord telepathic 'hive' if you will. He can't detect her and neither her him.
Also please remember, the Doctor will not become central to the plot until much later. He will be making appearances, especially since he's where trouble is.
So Rose has arrived. Stay tuned for more!
Review please!