House of Silence
Chapter 9: Impossible Planet
The sound of gun fire roared through the chamber of the Dalek King. Lights and sparks erupted between the Ukujaru as they made their treason against it. The Dalek didn't waste time firing back, killing each ape one be one.
The Son pushed Melody behind him, making himself a shield for the on coming bullets. Stray or intentional, the Sontaran gunfire bounced off his fastened dalek armor with ease. However, he quickly found it hard to secure the safety of Melody and deflecting the ricochets away from his team with every hard blow.
"Aim for the casing!" The Son instructed, seeing that River and Sarah firing at the various plants and poisonous flora. River responded immediately, dodging an on coming thorn vine that whipped at her feet. Redirecting her focus, she shot out two Sontaran gun turrets on the tank's base and rendered them useless. The vine retracted back towards the Dalek King and picked a new Ukujaru victim that wasn't as quick to dodge its thorny grasp.
"Sarah, watch yourself and stay close!" The Doctor called out, pulling copper spherical objects from his belt, and tossing them in front of a giant aggressive angiosperm flower that reared up showing its deadly teeth. The balls detonated at its stem causing substantial damage. White liquid spewed from the plant's pedestal and mouth as it let out a ear piercing screech, before falling to the ground.
The sight was too much for Sarah to bare and she continued to shoot frantically at the trailing plants around her. The thorny vines violently wriggled like worms, dodging nearly every shot and reaching her very quickly.
The Son grabbed Sarah out of their path, practically throwing her towards the Doctor and the others. "Dammit, Sarah. Pay attention!" he yelled, shooting the main control plant and making the vines retract away. The team moved back from the battle as poisonous barbs started to rain around the room like arrows, hitting unsuspecting Ukujaru in their wake. "John, get us out of here!" he ordered, seeing that the Dalek's support tank was starting to crack under the pressure of gunfire and the plant life smothering it, desperately trying to protect its master.
The Dalek King screamed as the casing fractured further. No long able to take the compression, it busted through and with its long tentacles made a risky attempt to reach for Melody. The Son reacted quickly, jumping in the way of the appendage and allowing it to grab him.
"Sonny!" Melody screamed as she watched the Dalek completely wrap its tentacle around his entire upper body, pulling him back to the center of the room. She found the discarded dalek weapon that he had dropped, and without hesitation started shooting blindly at the colossal Dalek. "Let him go!" she shouted, planting every shot into its rotting flesh.
"Melody, look out!" The Doctor yelled, seeing the Dalek taking a swipe at her legs, tripping her to the ground. The tentacle flexed up in the air and began to slam down around her, unable to pinpoint her location.
Commander Thade grabbed the girl and slid her out of the way making the deadly limb miss her, pulverizing the stone flooring into rubble instead.
"No! We have to save Sonny!" She protested as the old ape carried her under his arm to the Doctor. "Put me down!"
The Doctor pulled River, Sarah, and Cmdr. Thade, who still held Melody, close to him and quickly activated the vortex manipulator around his wrist. In the blink of an eye, they were all transported miles away from the kingdom.
As the battle raged on, the Dalek continued to smother the Son tightly. "If I am to die, I will honor my race and kill one more Time Lord, Son of the Doctor." It roared and squeezed the young Time Lord in its fatal embrace.
The Son wiggled his hand free, holding a mechanical trigger device. He then pulled his other hand free and dug his fingers into the rotting flesh of the abomination, ripping the arm away from his face and taking a gasp of air.
"Fat chance." The Son muttered, flipping the detonation switch. Instantly, the dalek orbs flew to his aid, orbiting around the base of the support tank.
"Self destruct! Self destruct!" they echoed in unison, releasing their own sets of tiny spheroids that dropped to the ground like cannons, detonating on impact.
The explosion could be seen by everyone that had escaped. They stared in horror as the center of the kingdom was blown apart, leaving nothing but dust and ash.
"Sonny!" Melody screamed as tears ran down her face, knowing her mentor was dead. Red hot smoke lifted from the destruction, coating the sky with an orange hue. She angrily turned and pointing the Son's Dalek gun at the Doctor. "This is all your fault. You are going to take me back! Now!" she demanded.
The Doctor calmly held up his hands. "Melody, wait. It's not what you think." he started to explain.
"No! Sonny is dead because of you!" Melody cried in fury. The heavy gun clattered in her tiny hands as her tears and grief blurred her vision.
"Who said I was dead?" A voice asked from behind her. Melody numbly turned around seeing the Son hovering on his impossible hoverboard. His body was bruised and bloody, and the board was heavily damaged, struggling to support his weight. "Because that was a lie." He added. His board broke away under his feet and splintered out of existence, making him fall only a few feet to the ground. He collapsed to his knees as pain rang though his body.
"Sonny!" she yelled, dropping the gun and running to him. Melody hugged the Son tightly not wanting to let him go in fear that he may disappear. "I thought you left me. Why did you do that?" She cried, feeling his warmth and hearing his two hearts beat rhythmically, proving that he was indeed real.
"Leave you? I can't seem to get rid of you." He replied, poking fun at the thought of ever leaving her alone.
"That's not funny. Don't ever do that again." She sobbed in his arms.
"Never. I promise." he told her wiping her tears away with his thumb.
A wave of red smoke fell around them like a wild fire. Making the lush green environment wither away, then regrowing into a course desert with red plant life.
"What's happening?" Cmdr. Thade asked in amazement, seeing the alien setting transforming around him.
The Son stood watching the glistening red mist flow outward through the forests and brush. "My Terrabomb went off. It's terraforming the planet."
"Into Skaro?" The Commander asked in horror.
"No, I don't know the structure of that planet. I put the bomb back on its default program."
"What was the default?" Sarah asked.
Suddenly, a tree burst into a shimming silver form with reflective brilliance glittering within its leaves. "Well, me." The Son answered.
"Gallifrey." Melody whispered in delight gazing up at the newly formed tree.
"We don't have much time left." The Son said becoming serious, quickly looking at his golden wrist watch. "Commander, this is your last chance. You must sign the conversion contract to save your people." He said, rushing over to the old ape and holding up a hand comp with the contract on its display.
"I don't understand." Cmdr. Thade said with apprehension.
"When I made the Terrabomb, I needed a place of origin for its basic programming. There was no one else around so I scanned myself and equated my own origin into its data. The Planet is terraforming into Gallifrey. A planet where my ancestors were born under. The Ukujaru will evolve into Gallifreyans, but they will be long dead before that happens if you don't act now, Your Majesty." The Son explained in desperation, but the Commander stared at him in surprise. "Yeah, I know that it's you. The original King."
"How did you know? Even my own people no longer recognize me." he asked, barely remembering that far back in his past.
"Your older and tougher than any of your men. However, your eyes show sorrow and reflect a broken heart when you look at what they have become. The Dalek slowed your body clock to control you and your people. For hundreds of years, you have watched them die and unnaturally evolve under the influence of a false king. Stripping away their culture, their customs, their understanding of how they see the stars. I know how that feels, when you're nothing more then a captive animal waiting for your next performance. Hoping that small taste of freedom will be enough to get you through the next time they cage you. This contract is your window of freedom, Your Highness. Your people have suffered enough." The Son finished, showing his own suffering to the old King.
Cmdr. Thade Looked down at the hand comp. "Will my people be safe where they are going?"
"I personally will guarantee it." The Son promised.
Cmdr. Thade made a reluctant growl and pressed his rough palm onto the hand comp, signing the contract. The comp beeped, accepting the signature and immediately began the transporting process. The old King gave the young Time Lord a threatening snarl, warning him to keep his word. The Son replied with a nod and the trasmat activated.
Soon after, blue trasmats beamed all across the planet, transporting every surviving Ukujaru off the surface within seconds. Leaving the planet Loppe, with a population of 9 billion, to 0.
The Son sighed in relief. "Through the bombs and blast we will take it back." He said to himself.
"Sonny, it's just like your book." Melody said as the rest of the forest turned into magical wonders of silvers and crimson, mirroring the very words and poems at she so dearly loved.
"Not for long." he replied, "Time to get out of here." The Son quickly walked up to the Doctor, returning the vortex manipulator onto his wrist and started to enter well known coordinates.
"Can't we stay?" Melody asked, not wanting to leave.
"You know why we can't, Melody. The placement of the planet is unstable for what is about to come."
"But maybe it's not." she argued.
"Melody, we don't have time to discuss this!" he snapped at her.
"What are you guys talking about? What is to come?" Sarah asked, not understanding what was so threatening.
"The Untempered Schism." The Doctor answered in shock, feeling the weight of the time vortex pushing through a weak spot on the planet's surface.
Suddenly, the sky went completely dark and lightning struck the ground with immense force, a few yards away from the group. Uncontrolled and inexorable, a gap of unseen reality ruptured open, like a tear in existence.
The Son stared at the gap in astonishment, fighting his urges not to peer into the spiraling vortex, only to fail and began to step forward towards the impossible structure.
"Son, don't look. Turn away!" The Doctor yelled, not wanting his son to see the horrors of what the schism had to offer. However, the young Time Lord wasn't listening to the voices of the present and was transfixed at the whispers of time coming from it, driving him closer.
Wind and energy started to pull inwards into the gap like a black hole. Sucking in plant matter and debris, deleting it out of existence.
River grabbed the Son's arm, forcing him to stop, but his gaze continued, as the vortex swirled into his mind and body. "Is that my name? The name they gave me?" he weakly asked the whispering images that captivated him.
"Let it go, Sweetheart. Turn away." River calmly said, gently pulling him back towards the group. The Son unlocked his gaze and looked down at River with tears and fear in his eyes as the vortex froze in his thoughts. "Stay with me." she pleaded, pulling her tenacious child back into reality.
Snapping back, the Son shook off his vulnerable stance and ordered, "Everyone close to me!" His team gathered and he activated his vortex manipulator, transporting them all off the impossible planet.