Author's Note: Posting this a little early, because tonight is the start of Yom Kippur.
One more chapter in this story, then we'll be on to the next!
On a totally different note, I've come up with a really cool story idea that takes Seo, Alison, and all the other original characters from this series out of fanfiction and into my own, completely independent thing. The focus would be on Seo and little Chiara, and a lot of the stuff about Glory, Cybermen, Daleks, etc would go away. But it would still have the same flavor as the stuff I'm writing here - a little funny, a little serious, cool space-magic stuff but with real emotional stuff behind it. Oh, and time travel. It'll also have time travel (I've got some cool ideas about that, actually).
I'm still very much in the planning stages, but... what do you guys think? Would you still read my stories if they didn't have copyrighted characters and copyrighted universes as part of them?
Anyways.
G'mar Chatima Tova, everyone.
Seo sat down on the pavement, her back against her ship, staring straight ahead. Through the snowfall. Stubbornly trying not to shiver, show she felt anything, or let the last few minutes get to her.
"I have hand grenades," Strax said, taking out a container and showing her samples. "Rocket grenades. Plasma cannons. And high intensity fusion propellant. That should lift your spirits."
For the first time, though, Seo didn't seem to care about the explosives.
Not at all.
"Do you think I'm a failure?" Seo asked, very quietly.
Strax lowered the grenade back into the crate. "You are a very young female," he observed. "With weak skin. But you are brave and strong. And you do not fear death. That is good."
Seo wasn't sure most of that was true.
But she still appreciated that Strax had said it.
"I just… still can't believe Father said that," Seo told him. Hanging her head. "He meant it, too. I could tell! Usually, everything he says is rubbish and he's trying to get you to do something. But… he meant every single word he said. He really believes I'm a failure. He really believes I can't ever be… like… Mom."
Strax thought about it.
Then gave an officious nod. "Yes, I believe he does."
"First Aunt Dawn, and now Father! I mean, I've done good things in the past! I can do good things in the future, too! It's just…" She swallowed, hard. "I… made… one really huge mistake."
She couldn't forgive herself for that.
Never would.
Strax gave an officious nod. "I see," he said. "On the backs of many victories, you suffered a single defeat. And have lost the respect of your superiors."
Seo's head shot up, her eyes glaring. "He is not my superior!"
Strax didn't answer.
And Seo sighed. And gave in. "Look, I know he's my father," she admitted. "And he's older, wiser, and has far more experience than I do. But… I'm not that bad! I just…" She paused. Then, in a smaller voice, "Mom's death was my fault. I have to make it up to her. I have to… be as good as her. Be the hero she always was."
"You don't need the Doctor in order to do that."
"Maybe I need him to believe I can."
But he'd never have faith in her. Or her abilities. That's what she'd learned, today.
Strax took a step towards her. "There is a time, in every cloneling's life," he offered, "when he must step out of the shadow of his chief commanding officer, and accomplish a daring mission in which he slaughters the Rutan scum, and watches their corpses float off into the deadly vacuum of space!" He offered her a supportive smile. "Perhaps… you need something like that."
"But I've done that!" Seo said. Pointed back towards where she'd left her father. "He never listens! He never cares! No matter how much I try, he'll never see me as more than… a failure."
She buried her face in her hands.
"And maybe he's right," she muttered. "He'd have saved Mom, if he'd been there. I couldn't even do that. I'm… worthless." She lifted up her face. "What do they do, on Sontar, when clonelings massively fail and ultimately prove themselves worthless?"
"We boil them down into their constituent atoms," Strax explained, proudly, "and then recreate a newer, better Sontaran in their place — free from weakness!"
Seo slumped in place.
And Strax faltered.
"But you are not weak and puny enough for the vats!" Strax put in, hastily. "Any Sontaran demonstrating strength and potential like yours… would have a single chance to redeem himself. For the glory of Sontar!"
Seo looked up. Interested. "How?"
"To redeem one's honor, as a Sontaran," Strax replied, "one must bathe in the blood of his enemies. The disgraced Sontaran must find the bloodiest, most brutal and most one-sided battle, with all odds stacked against him, and plunge himself directly into the middle of it. His obliteration of the Rutan scum will redeem him in the eyes of his commanders."
Seo thought about this.
Long and hard.
Then a smile crept up onto her face.
"You're right," she said. Leapt to her feet, throwing her arms around Strax. "Oh, you're right! That's it! That's what I have to do!"
Strax squirmed a little. Seeming very uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the idea of… a 'hug'.
"I've got all sorts of history books, in my ship!" Seo said, pulling away. Her face alight. "I just have to look through them. Find the most dismal, most hopeless case of oppression the universe has to offer, and set it right! All by myself!" She beamed. "Then, back here, you'll get my father to open up the book, and see what I've done. Then he'll have to admit I'm worthy of carrying on in Mom's place!"
Strax looked on at her. Impressed. "You would place yourself in a battle with no hope of victory, confident of your success?"
"Of course!" said Seo, throwing her arms open. "Just look at me! I'm brilliant!"
She spun around, raced into her ship. A delighted beam on her face.
Strax looked after her. Then followed her inside, with a firm and content nod.
"If the Sontaran army were cloned from you, little cloneling," Strax decided, "the Rutan scum would have been annihilated long ago. No doubt about it."
Seo found it.
It took a lot of time and effort to figure out exactly where she needed to go and what she could do that would make a difference big enough to impact the history books, but… she found one.
"It's a bit beyond the range of my ship," Seo said, racing around the central console. "But… thing is… Father's established a link between his ship and mine. Probably trying to make sure he could always control where I went." She yanked open the top of the console, and switched some things around. "But this ship still uses me as an energy convertor." She clanged the top of the console shut. "Which means I can drain power from his ship to give mine a little boost. That'll get me back there. Then, when I'm safely in the past, you can show him that book."
She threw it at Strax, who caught it.
Began to open it.
"No peeking!" Seo insisted, running over and snapping it shut. "I haven't done anything, yet! You can't read the end of what I'm going to do until I've actually done it."
Strax didn't understand this.
But nodded his acceptance.
"I'm going to give this my all, Strax," Seo told him. "It's the most horrible, evil, and gigantic enemy I've ever faced. The worst I could find. And I'm going to be the one to take it down. I'll do all the research. All the clever bits. I'll help the good guys, give a second chance to the bad guys, and… and…" Her face broke into a wide smile. "And I'll make my parents proud!"
"But how will you evade the Doctor's attempts to control your flight using the sonic screwdriver?" said Strax.
Seo's eyes twinkled. "Now that's the really clever bit." She looked around herself. Then leaned down. Whispered, "Have you noticed something… odd, recently?"
Strax had not.
"Earlier, I wished really, really hard for something," said Seo, "and it happened! I'm betting there's some sort of… vengeance demon around. Or something telepathic, at any rate. I use that — and I can scramble the readings."
Strax was suddenly alarmed. "But if there is a 'vengeance demon' or 'something telepathic' around," he argued, "surely we should obliterate it!"
"Oh, I'll deal with it when I get back," Seo said, waving it off. "I'm only a hundred and five years old, Strax! I've got twelve more regenerations of life left in me! I can defeat everyone's evil monsters, and still have time to stop for tea in the middle!"
Strax nodded.
"Now, shoo!" said Seo waving him out of the ship. "Go find my father. And get ready to see the pride swell across his face. Because I'm going to make a difference!"
Strax saluted her, then ran outside of the ship.
Watched, as the doors shut, and her ship began to slowly fade from sight. A golden haze shimmering around it, as Seo siphoned off the extra energy she needed to jump back to the point in history she'd chosen. The place she knew she could prove herself.
"Godspeed, little cloneling," said Strax. Giving her a final salute. "Godspeed."
