A/N: Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I wasn't really happy with either the last chapter or this one, but no amount of tweaking seemd to make it any better. The 'political intrigue' thing can be interesting but I'm starting to realize it's not my strong point. Ah well. Que sera sera. Hang on until the next chapter, I suppose, which gets back to the action and science and stuff... which I CAN do :).
Afternoon of the Third Day
Melissa Allender crept through the ship, with the weapon still in her hand. So far she'd avoided all the patrols, and she was feeling pretty proud of herself. Siboreans were stupid, easily maniupulated, and though they were brutish their brawn was much more prevalent than their brains. Of course, all that played right into her hands. She was nearing the escape pods, and all she had to do was get aboard one and set coordinates for the outskirts of the system. The getaway ship would pick her up and off they'd go. Then it would just be a couple years of waiting and they'd be in position to take this sector for all it was worth. She considered just using the backup plan, but if she could avoid being tracked by anyone on the planet, that would be better for everyone she was associated with.
She was taking a circuitous route to get through the ship without crossing any patrols, but she congratulated herself on her cunning. She was being so quiet that they'd barely seen her at all; she hadn't had even a close run in. No sooner would a patrol appear in the corridor up ahead but she'd slip through the doors, unseen, like a wraith, with no suspicion she'd ever been there. She opened a door and let it slip shut behind her before moving to the next one at the other side of the room. Only the second door wouldn't open. She tried it again, still to no avail.
Alright, dead end. She'd just retrace her steps back through the last corridor, back to the junction, hang a left, go down one deck and through that way, then back up to the lifepods on this deck and out. Only the first door was locked, too. There were two exits to this room and both were locked. But how did they know she was there? Were they tracking her somehow? She supposed it could have been that they were trying to trap her here, but this didn't seem like their style. This was too quiet and meticulous. If the Siboreans wanted her dead (which they did) and they knew where she was, then she wouldn't have had time to think it through like this. She'd just be dead. They'd swarm the room and take her, one way or the other.
"It took a long time to get you here," a voice said, compressed and tinny over a speaker.
"Who's there?"
"Just me," the Doctor said, turning on the lights in his side of the chamber. "Routing the rest of the patrols around to funnel you in this direction wasn't easy, but I wanted us to be able to talk uninterrupted." She raised the gun and fired at his head, but the blast wave dissipated across the glass partition between them. "Oh, come on, Melissa. A scientist like you? You ought to know there'd be exoglass between the observation chamber and containment."
She shrugged. "It seemed likely but experimentation is the best way to test a hypothesis. How did you find me? I'm biodamped."
"When I got back to the lab the Siboreans were already patrolling. I heard them say someone had assassinated the ambassador, and I knew it had to be one of the science team from the planet. So I made my way back down here, accessed the security system, and forced you this way."
"But how did you find me on the sensors? I should be masked."
"You are. Heartbeat, body heat, brainwaves... all hidden from view. But that," he said, glancing down at her weapon, "primitive laser accelerator rifle... well, it gives off radiation like nobody's business. It's like a beacon. In fact if you like that arm you might consider putting that down."
"Do you know, I think I'll risk it?"
"Suit yourself. The Siboreans aren't that clever to think to reconfigure their sensors to look for it. Luckily I am."
"So what's the plan? Hand me over to the Siboreans?"
"I'd considered it."
"And?"
"They'd kill you. Execute you on the spot for what you did."
"And the rest of the science team, don't forget," she said. "Tony, Steven, Pam, still locked away in the lab... I wonder what will happen to them?"
"They're already dead," he said simply, looking at her sadly with contempt in his eyes... or was it pity? She couldn't tell.
If it bothered Melissa in the slightest that three people who had trusted her implicitly were dead, she didn't show it. "It's better that way, then. No witnesses."
"Three people are dead. Three innocent people are never going home to their families because of what you did. And there are always witnesses, Melissa. Someone's always watching."
"That may well be, but I won't change my mind either way."
"But if I hand you over, then you won't learn a thing. Execution, revenge, that's not the way. And I know you think this was worth it. You're wrong. It's not."
"Heh," she chuckled, making a face somewhere between a grin and a grimace. "You really have no idea, do you?"
"Why you betrayed your planet? Why you'd condemn them to extinction just to stop the mining operation? No, I haven't a clue."
"I did this to save my planet!"
"Well it won't work!" the Doctor shouted at her. "Because in the early afternoon tomorrow, the Siborean battle fleet will arrive. They'll blockade the planet, making sure no shuttles escape, and then they'll drop an explosive charge from orbit that will destroy every living thing on this world. The entire race will be wiped out in the blink of an eye. That's what you've accomplished today!"
"Oh, who cares about this pathetic little colony? 2000 people? Who's even going to miss them?"
"You don't even care, do you? You're more lost than I thought."
"Oh, wake up and smell the coffee. This isn't my planet."
"What?"
"My planet gets destroyed, thirty years from now, by the Siborean War Council when a border skirmish between their patrols and our cargo ships gets out of hand, spawning an interplanetary incident that becomes a full on war."
The full dawning of realization showed on his face; he didn't bother to hide it. "You're a time traveler too."
"Give the man a prize."
"So you're, what, out to make someone else feel your pain?"
"Nothing so impractical as that. I knew there wasn't a history of a civilization here. Nobody knew why. This place is just a blip on the timespace continuum. But I could use it to my advantage. Our calculations show that when word gets out about the Siboreans massacring this poor, innocent little colony, it'll spark an inquiry back in the core worlds. The masses will demand justice, which for a throng of angry people basically equates to bucketfuls of blood, and the united Earth council will, eventually, all but wipe the race from existence."
"You're going to ignite a war to change your future. Do you have any idea how hard it is to calculate a potential future based on a single vector? You're not allowing for all the variables! There's no way to know if this is going to work! Which it isn't, by the way. I've seen the future, and nobody knows a thing about this place. Oh, sure, the star chart says there used to be a spaceport here, but that's all. Nobody knew who these people were, nobody knew anything had happened to them, and nobody, not one single soul, knows why."
"But at least we will have tried!"
"And at what cost? What expense? How many colonists? How many Earth Alliance soldiers? How many Siboreans? Do you have any idea what you've done on nothing more than a whim?"
"We'll know soon enough. Now I really should be going before this ship heads back to assemble the fleet. I was planning an escape pod so I couldn't be tracked back to my colleagues so easily but since you've made that impossible..." she held up a transmat beacon, "I suppose I'll just have to take a shortcut."
"No no no!" he said, putting both has hands out. "No, don't do that! I'm warning you!"
"Or what? You'll kill me? You'll never catch me. In a second I'll be in the lounge of the getaway vessel, and you'll be left here holding the bag. I wouldn't be surprised if they pin the whole thing you anyway."
"Melissa, listen to me. That's a simple emergency transmat, and it only goes to one set of prearranged coordinates. It's not safe. I'm telling you, don't!" he said, but she pressed the button anyway.
She had a moment, just a quick moment as the air was pulled from her lungs to register how cold it was, and as she lost consciousness, which mercifully enough happened quickly, the last thing she saw around her was the vastness of cold, open space.
The Doctor didn't have much time to feel badly about her untimely demise, however, because a few seconds later there was a flash, and he was no longer aboard the Siborean ship.
The Doctor fell to the floor, his knees sinking into red plush carpet. "I see my message got through," he said. "President Wyler, I presume?"
The man behind the desk stood looking out the window, and he didn't turn to face the Doctor when he spoke. "We apprehended the ship behind one of the moons, hiding in low power mode. Their sensors were off. They never saw us coming. It was just where you said it'd be. Ms. Allender?"
"She transmatted to the ship."
"She transmatted to the coordinates where the ship was," the president corrected. "We impounded it."
"I suspected as much."
"You tried to warn her."
"Yeah." She'd been a pretty terrible war criminal, but there was still sadness in his voice at her terrible end. "So you were listening in?"
"The transmat beacons in the ID badges transmit audio on a carrier wave along with the location data. You can't be too careful of the people you keep close to you, after all."
The Doctor stood up. "You've listened to everything that happened up there. You could have stopped this. You could have stopped her. You could have brought back the rest of the science team before they were killed."
"And risk bringing the traitor right into the presidential office? I think not. A president of a border world doesn't survive this long by being overly trusting."
"No, I suppose not." His voice was hard, and it didn't sound like he had any sympathy for the man whatsoever.
"So. Ms Allender was plotting from the beginning to have our colony destroyed as a feint. I suppose under better circumstances I might be happy to learn that we are so important in the grand scheme of things. But as it would mean the death of everyone on the colony, I am in fact less than giddy," he said with a sneer. He finally turned to face the Doctor. "So if you really have seen the future, how can you help?"
"I haven't, I..."
"I heard you and her speak, Doctor, candidly and unaware you were being observed. I heard what you said as clearly as if I were in the room with you. So don't insult my intelligence. I know the truth and now I am asking. How can you help?"
There was resigned sadness in the Doctor's eyes. "I can't," he said simply.
"Can't or won't?"
"Either. The destruction of your colony isn't a fixed point in time, but to change the documented history of countless worlds... the ripple effect would be unfathomable."
"But you said history doesn't record any of us being here," he replied. "What records would change?"
"The lack of an event is still history. Surveyors have charted this system time and again, each time recording nothing at this site."
The president's icy veneer melted slightly, and the Doctor could see him for who he really was; a leader frightened for the welfare of his people. "Please, Doctor. Think. There must be something."
The Doctor looked at the floor. He didn't have to think about it, because there was one other option. Something he'd done once before and never ever wanted to do again. The final option, almost unthinkable, trading one hell for another. "There's one way," he said quietly. "I'd never consider it if the timeline wasn't already being tampered with. I swore I'd never... never again..." he shook his head to clear it. "There's a way, but there's a cost. And you have to be sure it's worth it."
"It is. Whatever we must do to save my people."
"No. You can't decide for them. Each person will decide for themselves, or no deal."
President Wyler swallowed hard. "What is this plan?"