A/N: you guys know i don't like to do author's notes in the beginning of chapters but i just wanted to let you guys know that i changed the last chapter in which i introduced aliya because i was under the allusion that aliya's hair was way longer than it is
but that's been rectified
also shameless self promotion time
i've started a sweeney todd fanfic and if it gets popular i'll probably make it a second main story like pages
so you guys should check that out
The tension in the Senate room was so thick you probably could have cut right through it with a knife.
"Your Highness, with all due respect, if the invading forces were strong enough to snatch three airships from under our noses without even trying, then just imagine what they'd do when infuriated!" One of the Senate members addressed a darker-skinned young woman in a long, black dress, accented with a deep maroon color. She was, honestly, the most striking one in the room.
"Just because we've got hostages held against us, doesn't mean we should be so quick to surrender," the woman insisted, looking to her tall, lanky counterpart for advice.
"She's right. If we cave so quickly, then the whole country is at risk, and soon, the whole planet." The man adjusted his tie, giving a particularly concerned frown. "This isn't a decision to be made in such a small amount of time, we've got to beg for more."
"If we don't surrender, hundreds will die!" Another Senate member remarked, practically addressing the darker-skinned woman directly.
"And if we do surrender, millions will lose their nation!" She snapped back.
All conversation was brought to an abrupt halt when the doors were quickly thrown open, a gangly Doctor standing dead-center in the entryway with his two companions flanking him. The room went silent.
After eying him for a moment, the woman found her voice. "Doctor?"
"Liz!" With a broad grin, the Doctor crossed the room in a few long strides, tugging her into an unexpected hug that had the whole room tensed (and admittedly, a little on edge.)
"It's good to see you again, mate," she replied, somewhat awkwardly, and gave him a tiny pat on the back. The Doctor pulled back, grin ever-present, and beckoned for his companions to join him.
"Clara, Aliya, this is Liz 10," he introduced, gesturing to the woman. "Better known as Queen Elizabeth X."
Clara practically choked. "You're the queen?"
"Right," Liz replied, a somewhat smug grin crossing her features. "Basically, I rule."
"I've heard stories about you," Aliya admitted, the Doctor having mentioned his visit to Starship UK in passing.
"Have you?" The Queen looked genuinely surprised by this. "Not particularly good ones, I expect."
"That's debatable."
"What are you doing all the way in New Australia?" The Doctor interjected, tilting his head a little. "I'd expect you'd be back on Starship UK."
"Australia's always been a British commonwealth. Don't see why it should stop now."
"How long have you known about the Dalek invasion, then?" Aliya asked, curious. She'd sure gotten down here awfully fast.
"Three hours now," Liz replied. "Is that what they're called, then? Daleks? I expect that means you're familiar with them."
The Doctor nodded to Liz before turning to Aliya to reply. "Ever since human settlement on Aldaear, Starship UK has begun a very loose orbit around the planet. It moves upon settlement on New Earth, though."
"Why do we settle a new planet, exactly?" Liz interjected, and the Doctor shook his head.
"Spoilers."
Clara didn't miss the way Aliya's expression seemed to grow just a little more smug, but let it go none the less.
"Your Highness, who exactly are these people?" the Queen's lanky friend asked, eying the gangly tweed-suited man.
"This is the Doctor," Liz began. "He's very old, and wise, and I expect he's come to help us through this disaster. He usually does."
The Doctor gave a fond smile, watching Liz for just a fraction of a moment before turning to the lanky man. "I'm sorry, I never did catch your name."
"Harrison Spade," the man replied. "Prime Minister of New Australia."
"Shouldn't you be in New Canberra, then?"
"They had me flown out here as soon as trouble erupted. Most of the Senate was already here, so that wasn't an issue."
"Yes, you seem to be missing…" the Doctor counted the five Senate members present. "Two members. Where are they?"
"Back in New Canberra, keeping some order around there. We didn't think it a good idea to have everyone in one place at once."
"And yet you gathered the Queen, and the Prime Minister, and well over half the Senate?" Clara raised an eyebrow.
"We didn't necessarily ask for Liz," Harrison replied, glancing over at the woman, and after a moment of consideration, added, "Though it's not as though her presence isn't appreciated."
The Queen seemed to soften considerably at his words, before turning back to the Doctor. "If you couldn't tell by now, the entire room has been at an impasse over our decision for quite some time now."
"Nothing I can't fix," the Doctor reassured, straightening his bowtie. "So, the issue is what to do about the Daleks, I assume?"
"A good majority of the Senate wants to surrender to spare casualties within New Sidney, but a few of us—myself and the Queen included—have been arguing to save the entire country instead, and… well, to be frank, if we can't come to an unanimous decision by noon, then it won't matter much, will it?" Harrison explained, and as he went on through his speech, his expression grew more and more anxious with every word.
"Surrender," the Doctor said simply, and Aliya let out an indignant cry from behind him.
"Do you think surrendering would do any good? The Daleks would kill everyone anyways!"
"You don't know that, Aliya!" The Doctor snapped, whipping around to face her. "What happens when hundreds of civilian lives are lost just because you told them not to surrender?"
"What happens when another planet is lost because of the Daleks?!"
That one hit home, and the Doctor was visibly quite hurt. Clara decided it was about time to interject.
"Stop it, both of you; I don't know what happened with the Daleks and your planet but this arguing is getting absolutely nowhere."
"…She is right, you know—if they don't fight back and an entire planet is lost to the Daleks, that's on me. Again. And I can't take that." The Doctor swallowed hard.
"No—no, god, that was an awful thing of me to say, it just sort of came out, and—" When she paused, the Doctor looked at her expectantly, and she resigned, deflating visibly. "And I'm sorry."
The Doctor began to brighten unexpectedly, though it lacked his usual exuberance—perhaps a part of it was the smugness that came from hearing Aliya apologize for once, an occurrence that only happened once in a blue moon, or perhaps a part of it was the willpower to focus on the situation at hand as opposed to heartbreak and bickering. "You know what?" He smiled at Aliya, even if it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Let's forget about it."
"Agreed."
Clara brightened considerably. "Good! Now, come on, I want both of you putting out some good ideas, no more bickering."
The Doctor turned his gaze to her, regarding her fondly; she had a unique personality, she really did, and god how he'd missed that woman. Quickly, however, his green eyes darted back to the other Time Lady present. "Aliya? I want your input on this, you know, you've got quite the brilliant mind and I won't have you sitting around quietly during this whole ordeal."
"Who said I was going to sit around quietly?" Aliya remarked; he knew full well that if anything, she'd find a way to make some snarky comment in reply to whatever he said.
"Okay, you know what I mean," the Doctor replied, rolling his eyes. "Come on, ideas! Give me some ideas!"
After a moment of consideration, Aliya turned to Harrison. "Do you have a way to get onto those ships?"
"You could use the transmats," the Prime Minister replied. "But those are all down at the moment."
Immediately, Clara straightened up, expression revealing that with the gears turning in her head, something clicked. "How did the Daleks get onto those ships, do you know?"
"The transmats," one of the Senate members replied.
"They connected their own transmat system to ours," Harrison elaborated. "They work much like a Wi-Fi system so that any ship within orbit of a planet can hook up to their transmat system and beam down. Or two ships particularly close to each other can exchange passengers. It's worked miracles in emergencies."
"They're intended to work only with a mutual connection from both sides, though." Liz frowned. "Meaning either they hacked the system or our transmat operators were working with the invaders. A matter which will certainly be investigated once the impending tragedy at hand is under control."
"So, in theory, we could take the transmats up there—provided we could fix them—" Clara knew the sonic would have that under control in a matter of minutes—"And we could shut down their technology and send them back to their own ships?"
"Yes, but shutting their own systems down would be easier said than done," Harrison replied.
"Actually, we've got this virus stored on a hard drive that we could upload remotely once you gave the signal that could give us brief control of their systems before shutting down their ships entirely," Liz remarked. "And that way, we neither have to bring in military force nor surrender." No one in the room seemed to miss the way the Queen shot a bitter glare to the rest of the Senate.
"We'd still need a way to connect to the Dalek ships. They'll need open systems, which means someone would have get onto their ship an open their systems up."
"No we won't," Clara interjected. "Potentially, at least. Are the transmats hooked up to any other systems?"
"Ours aren't," Harrison explained. "But transmat systems require a large computer network to hook up to, and a ship only has room to hook it up to the main computer system."
"Perfect." Aliya grinned. "Then we could use the transmat connection they created to upload the virus to their systems, right?"
"Exactly." Clara beamed.
The Doctor nodded curtly in understanding. "So then, in that case we'll—"
Aliya cut him off quickly. "No. Doctor, I want you staying here with the TARDIS. I may know how to pilot her, but she's got vast machinery that you're more familiar with than I am, and we may need your help."
Frowning, the Doctor considered turning her offer down altogether, but decided otherwise. "Okay."
"Clara and I will take the transmat systems up to the main ship and reverse all their transmat systems," Aliya continued.
"Wait." Frowning, Clara glanced back at the Time Lady. "Won't we need a way to get them onto the transmat systems…?"
"No, actually!" Harrison grinned. "The systems have a particular fail safe to lock onto a specific species. So as long as it has the species in its database, you can have it transport every member of the species in the region without having them on the transmat pads themselves."
"And if it doesn't have the species…?" Clara frowned, looking considerably worried.
"You can use almost any device to scan the species and upload it to the transmat system."
Aliya shot a knowing look at Clara—the sonic. "Sounds like a plan, then."
"Are you sure you won't need any backup? We can have an entire military's worth of resource at your side at any moment," Liz offered, but Aliya shook her head.
"The Doctor will be backup enough. Here." Her hand diving into her pocket, Aliya fished out a com unit she'd been holding onto, and looked to the Doctor, who pulled out one of his own. Wordlessly, they synced the com units up, an action that took hardly half a minute. "Use this to keep in touch. We're going to want you to help us get that virus running, and we're potentially going to need you to close down outgoing transmats to the city just in case they try to escape."
The Doctor nodded, fiddling with his com unit. "Got it. Are you sure you won't need anything else?"
"We'll be fine, don't worry."
"Alright. Good luck then, both of you." He looked to Aliya, then to Clara, and was just about to let them go, but realization suddenly crossed his face. "Oh! Clara!"
"Yes?"
"Check your pockets!"
Frowning in confusion, the human went through the two front pockets of her hoodie, finding nothing, and then through the inside pockets—as soon as her hand went into the inner right pocket, it connected with something light and metal that had previously gone undetected, and Clara pulled it out, producing the Doctor's—her Doctor, the one previous to the incarnation with the silly bowtie—sonic screwdriver. Both she and Aliya shared equally baffled looks.
"How did she get a sonic screwdriver…?" Aliya asked. Sure, she had one of her own, but the TARDIS had given it to her—she was a Time Lady, after all, and while at times she'd much prefer a laser screwdriver instead, the sonic was a both equally powerful and dangerous tool that couldn't be trusted in the hands of many others.
"It was mine," the Doctor replied. "I didn't give it to her—the TARDIS did. Even if I'd have known it would come in handy, I probably still wouldn't have given it to her. Too dangerous to give to a human." After a moment of consideration, he added, "No offense."
Clara raised an eyebrow, giving him a look that wasn't entirely too happy. "None taken," she replied dryly, but they both knew it wasn't true.
"None the less, it's yours to keep! Until you get back to your own Doctor, that is. I mean, I have no use for two sonic screwdrivers, but believe me, I was not pleased to find I didn't have any."
"I'll be sure to return it as soon as possible, then," Clara replied before looking to Aliya, giving her a curious look. "Are you ready?"
"Absolutely." Aliya grinned.
The transmat systems were completely foreign to Clara. That was to be expected, of course, but it didn't help that they seemed rather foreign to Aliya as well.
"I haven't used one of these in ages…" Scratching the back of her neck, the Time Lady frowned.
"That's not exactly reassuring, you know."
"I know, but—I mean, you can't really blame me!" She had been locked up in a mountain for what was probably hundreds of years, after all. Not that Clara needed to know that.
"How come?" Clara frowned.
"Never mind," Aliya replied absently, fiddling with the controls. "Oh—here we are, now I remember! Alright, we've got to get these all fixed now before we can actually use them." Ushering Clara out of the way, Aliya aimed her sonic at the controls, and then at the transmat pad itself, using it relentlessly before finally giving up and frowning at her sonic. "It's not powerful enough."
"Here." Clara pulled the sonic the TARDIS had lent her out of her pocket, and made a move to hand it to Aliya, but the Time Lady shook her head.
"You use it."
Nodding curtly, Clara aimed her own blue-lighted sonic at the machine, and in unison they worked the sonics, finally hearing the satisfying 'ping' of the machine as the touch-screen controls next to the transmat became fully functional.
"Fantastic!" Aliya grinned, pocketing her own sonic, and Clara did the same as the Time Lady stepped forwards to the controls, punching a few buttons. "Okay… I've properly connected to the ship."
"So the transmat is fully functional now?"
"Exactly." When Aliya pressed one last button, the entire transmat pad lit up a bright blue, save for the metal ring around the pad itself. "I'll go first, to make sure there isn't any danger. You know. With a Time Lady body and all, I am a little more resilient to danger."
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Clara frowned, almost wishing she wasn't stuck with a simple human vessel, but quickly reconsidered her own thoughts.
Wordlessly, Aliya moved towards the pad, stepping onto it, and after shooting one last reassuring smile at Clara, she vanished.
A/N: so
sorry this chapter was shorter than i'd wanted it to be
but
i hope you guys like it
i really like this plot and i'm really glad to have liz 10 make an appearance
also for you readers of 'deafening silence', aliya is set right before new new york and after the bronxites
yeah
please review because i love reviews a lot and i want to know what you guys think of it like wow i love you guys heaps but stop being so quiet
and yeah
ilu all