Chapter 21 - Ghost of a Chance
Gaige was moving invisibly through the ship, sneaking past the various insects, searching for anything he could use to fight Rassilon.
The metallic creatures were clearly agitated, but also seemed confused, hopping and flitting around uncertainly. The danger they posed at the moment was not because they could perceive him, because they could not, but because they would fly around without warning, sometimes zipping down a hallway or across a corridor very suddenly. Once a big beetle the size of a dinner plate barely missed his nose.
It was frustrating creeping around, without having a clue as to what he could do to help.
He turned a corner and he was in what was left of the bridge of the police cruiser. There was no one on the bridge, except for a few sad little beetles trundling about repairing bits and pieces. There was a soft hum that tickled at his memory and he looked around the quiescent bridge, trying to figure out where it was coming from.
As he moved around the bridge, he realized that the humming was coming from a section of the wall and he moved closer to examine it, which is when the door swung open invitingly. He peered in and his jaw dropped open.
A TARDIS. It was an actual, working TARDIS. It had been so long since he'd seen one and he found he couldn't resist.
He stepped inside and the door shut behind him.
Guinn had been surprised at how Aislynn had been able to hold off Taydin with her abilities, but he was gaining more respect for her skill every moment that he had to struggle to stay upright against the tide of it. Her Song now had considerable momentum, and it was taking Koschei and him both all of their strength to try to manoeuvre. Yet the winds were not as strong in those spots where they stood, forming eddies that allowed them to move. The swirling rocks never seemed to hit them, veering one way or another. She was burning through her life; but she was keeping them, as much as possible, out of harm's way. They were beginning to get close enough to hear her Song again, high and beautiful, cold and deadly.
Koschei had a pocket syringe in his hand and he looked at Guinn, knowing the time had come.
/I should do this,/ Guinn pointed out and Koschei shook his head.
/Together,/ he sent back and Guinn bit back a protest. They were all three of them bonded now, it no longer mattered anymore if Guinn thought he was expendable, because as far as Koschei and Susan were concerned, he wasn't. He regretted the joy of the bond just then, wishing he'd had the willpower to leave them, so that he could have died now without crippling them, but even as he thought that, he found himself spiralling closer to them both, holding Susan and Koschei in his mind, not wanting to let them go.
/Fine,/ Guinn sent back and simply shifted a bit, so that he was taking more of the force against himself, trying to shield Koschei as best he could.
/Wanker,/ Koschei protested.
/You're the one with damn syringe! You have to get through to her!/ he snapped back and Koschei's thoughts became a reluctant agreement.
/Let me help,/ Susan's voice reverberated in them both. A moment later, she reached into him and it was like having her there, physically beside him, her arms around him, her face buried in his shoulder, her hair splayed against his chest. She was slightly transparent, but he could feel her touch, the way she was winding herself around his soul, pulling him deeper into the bond with herself and Koschei. He could wrap his arms around her and he knew that she would feel as real and solid to him as though she really was there. Susan was open to him, holding him to her, mind, body, and soul.
He almost didn't know what to do. No one had ever supported him like this before. No one had ever loved him so much before. She knew that the closer she got to them both, the more danger she was putting herself in, and she did it anyway.
"All right," he breathed to himself, "Here we go."
The Song was gaining momentum at an ever-increasing pace and that was going to be a problem very soon now.
"Four minutes," Koschei murmured and looked at him. The strength of the love and caring that they felt for each other poured through them and gave them a little more energy, as they moved again, getting closer to where Aislynn was breaking the universe apart.
Gaige stood there, staring at a desktop that had obviously been designed by someone terminally depressed, and turned in a slow circle. It was mostly done in black, with little touches of dark shades of gray interspersed about the place, to relieve the absolute gloom of it. He wondered if it was intentionally cheerless, or if happiness was just a matter of supreme indifference to whoever had designed it.
"Good Afternoon," an unfamiliar voice addressed him and a slight figure, dressed in the white robes of a Seer Acolyte, walked up to him.
"Uh... is this your TARDIS?" he asked and she smiled at him, leaning forward with a conspiratorial air.
"Let's just say that I'm borrowing it for the time being. Actually, it's Adyra's TARDIS," she replied. "My colleague and I stole it." She gave him an impish grin and her feline green eyes crinkled in amusement.
"Colleague?" he asked and a hologram materialized beside the woman. It was the rather simply executed image of a young woman with short brown hair and glowing yellow-green eyes.
"Unknown Time Lord," she said, "Identification required."
"Uh... Gaigerandettian, of the Arcalian chapter, husband of Adyralessialliannevanova of the Prydonians," he replied.
"Oh! You're Adie's bondmate!" the woman replied with a bright smile. "I'm Susan."
"TARDIS previous ownership: Adyralessialliannevanova. TARDIS current ownership: lockout initiated. Proposed ownership takeover: Gaigerandettian."
"My first TARDIS theft, how very interesting," Gaige replied with a lift of his eyebrow.
"Incorrect," stated Tomoko Construct 2. "Co-ownership of pilot bondmates is standard protocol."
"Now, TC-2, don't ruin his fun," Susan teased and moved to the controls. "You'll have to hit the switches for me, Gaige."
"Why?" he asked, startled by that.
"Hmm? Oh! I'm dead you see, no way to do it myself," she told him and waved a hand through a panel. "Look, no hands!" she joked and he stared at her.
"You're dead," he repeated and then looked at the hologram. "A dead woman and a computer program want me to fly a TARDIS."
Tomoko Construct considered.
"Do you require current strategic and environmental information?"
"No, thank you, Freeya got me up to speed," he replied. "Right, what do I have to do here?" he asked.
"Place your hand on the plate," Susan told him and he immediately obeyed, thinking only of his bondmate and his closest friends, who were heading into terrible danger.
Tomoko Construct tilted her head, her face thoughtful. For all of the simplicity of her execution, she really did have a very expressive face.
"Access… granted. Query: location and status Prisoner One, designation: Freeyalandria."
"She was tucked into a nook, hidden, and she was fine when I left her," he replied. "Now what do we do?"
"Now, we go in there and destroy Rassilon, save everyone, and get you home again," Susan replied with a grin.
"Warning: Active Singers are in the area. A precision landing will not be possible."
"Oh pish tosh, that's my husband in there," Susan replied. "I don't care about precision, I care about maximum damage to Rassilon and getting them out of there alive! How's your temporal physics," she asked Gaige, who chuckled, feeling very much in tune with her objectives.
"I think I can safely call it 'rusty'," he replied, thinking of how very long ago the Academy was for him and about the last hundred years where the highest technology he had access to was a steam engine.
"Well have to trust TC-2 to run the figures for us, then," Susan replied. "If you will?" she asked the hologram.
"Calculating." Tomoko Construct 2 spread her hands, showing the image of a screen. Gallifreyan symbols scrolled across it. "Calculations displayed. Warning: Active Singers in the area. Margin of error is outside of normal tolerances."
"Yes, that is a sticky wicket, isn't it?" Susan mused, Gaige wondered what a wicket was and why it was bad for it to be sticky, but he got the idea. "We'll just have to risk it."
"Right, through the wall then?" Gaige asked with a dangerous smile and Susan grinned back at him, obviously enjoying all this.
"Tally-ho!" she cried. Gaige set the coordinates and sent the ship flying along its pre-set pathway. He really hoped that Adie wouldn't mind what he was doing with her ship.
They crashed through the wall into the Hangar Bay and the impact knocked them about, like tenpins being hit by an invisible ball.
"Omega," Koschei breathed. The winds were so loud that if it hadn't been for the link, Guinn wouldn't have caught the word. As it was, he could hear his other self perfectly.
"What is it?"
"We may not have four minutes," he said, his voice strained and unhappy, and Guinn followed his gaze. They were standing in an eddy for a brief moment, gathering strength for the struggle to the next eddy in line. They had gotten close enough to catch a clear glimpse of Aislynn.
Her skin was cracking. Beneath the lines of stress, they could see her flesh charring, her fingertips were blackening, like she was standing too close to a fire. She was burning up from the inside out.
"She's fighting his control!" Koschei shouted.
"She can't! She won't survive! She'll …" his voice died out as he caught a glimpse of her face. Her expression was still and placid, but tears ran down in streams, cutting into her skin like trails of acid burning their way down.
He closed his eyes against the sight, his whole being contracting in pain.
"This is going to leave her…"
"Don't!" snapped Guinn. "We still have time, you can make it, if we run. Let's move." He pulled at Koschei with desperate strength, fighting the currents with all his might to get his other self close enough to Aislynn, before their time ran out.
Rassilon looked up, as a TARDIS crashed through the wall, knocking him straight into the path where the two Songs met.
"Well," he muttered, as he tried to stand against the gale force winds. "I really wasn't expecting that."
The Doctor and Rose dove to one side as there was an explosion of rock, metal, and other debris. A TARDIS, presumably Adie's, the Doctor surmised, smashed through the wall, sending them all sprawling.
Rassilon was flung away and into the area controlled by Aislynn's Song, on the opposite side from where Guinn and Koschei were labouring towards her.
The TARDIS spun out towards Tomoko and Diana, careening recklessly, barely under control and he rather hoped that it didn't hit anyone else.
"Bloody hell! What idiot is piloting that thing?" Rose sputtered, from her prone position on the ground. She had cuts on her face and hands from flying shrapnel.
"No idea, but I think that idiot just saved our lives," he pointed out with a wild grin on his face. "See! What did I tell you? Something always turns up!" he shouted gleefully and then turned to where Rassilon was struggling to his feet, being battered by the energies swirling around him.
As he watched, bits of Justinian's body were being ripped away, like ash flying away from him as he smouldered, and the Doctor felt a sudden surge of horror. Looking over at Guinn and Koschei, he could see the same faint effect, as reality was shattering around them, dissolving pieces off of them, but it was far more pronounced with the child, his smaller body not strong enough to handle the energies as well.
"Justinian!" he cried and began running forwards. If there was anything left of the boy to save, he had to try.
"Bloody hell!" Rose exclaimed, still holding onto his hand as he ran. "How are we going to get him away from Rassilon?"
"No idea, but something will turn up!" he replied and she laughed. Together, they did what they did best, they ran into danger to save lives and worlds.
Rose Tyler and the Doctor, the way it was supposed to be.
Aislynn watched as Rassilon's ten-year-old body was swept all the way around the globe, fighting against the tides of the two Songs. He swept past Guinn and Koschei's startled gazes and then onward again.
While she could not act directly against him, Rassilon had neglected to order her to assist him at all times, so she need not to prevent his sudden flight around the perimeter of the battle field.
Inside, Aislynn was rejoicing that she was able to see him being torn apart by the power that he himself had unleashed. She bled inside for the child, for Justinian, but she couldn't save him. She couldn't act directly against Rassilon, even the slight rebellion of not helping him was costing her. The pain was excruciating, she was burning up, frying herself, neural pathways screaming as she fought her own mind for control.
He was shouting, but there was no way that his voice could be heard above the din, so his orders couldn't even be heard, let alone obeyed. He was pulled along with the path of the current, until it hit the intersection where the two hurricanes met. Then the eddies kept him in place. He was pinned between the two waves, like a bug pinned to velvet.
He was suspended in an area where probability was going mad, reality itself was bending and folding. Things were forming and un-forming around him and he grinned at Aislynn, using his formidable mental skills to flick strings of un-reality out at her and Taydin.
The pain of it was terrible, but Aislynn didn't expect to survive.
It was ironic, she thought. She had survived for so long after the War. Now she would be its final casualty.
Her eyes fell on Taydin and the terrible look on his face. His eyes, like a summer sky shot through with golden lightning. His face, weathered by all that he had suffered, yet still he had made her hearts lighter just being near to him. Now, though, her hearts broke for him, crushed under the weight of all the pain she knew that she was causing him.
Foolish, idiotic woman, she scolded herself. She wondered if it would it have been so terrible to have told him how she felt? What would have happened if she'd told him how lonely she had been before she met him, and how very much she now loved him? She wished more than anything in the world that she could have held him just once, and damn propriety; how she yearned to feel the warmth of his touch, just once, before the final coldness came. He was so honourable, he might not have consented; but damn, she could at least have tried.
Rassilon's efforts to reach her were accelerating the disintegration around them. Reality was now beginning to fold in on itself. The air around her was blackening. The walls were pulling in towards her, as space was warping. Still, she did not help him, even though she knew it was killing her to fight him. He was trying to get into her mind, to compel her, but the Song shielded her from that.
It was a joy and a delight to see the rage that filled his features. For too long, she had been a marionette, forced to dance to anyone's tune. Now, for these brief moments, she could stare into Rassilon's eyes and defy him to his very face.
He might take her with him, but she was going to see to it that Rassilon died here and now.
/Tomoko!/ Rassilon shouted in her mind and she turned and saw his peril.
Her hearts were torn by the situation, she had to protect Rassilon, but those second thoughts of hers were fighting back, telling her to stay away.
/Tomoko! Come!/ he snapped and she felt her resistance melting under the sheer power of his mind. She gave Diana a kick in the stomach, sending her rolling, and then she charged the twin hurricanes, diving in.
Her momentum was sufficient to knock Justin out of place, but not so great as to knock him out of the spirals. He went swooping around again, and now Tomoko was caught in Aislynn's terrible Song, pinned in the place where Rassilon had been a moment before.
He was close to the edge of the hurricane now and crawling against the might of the wind, determined to survive.
Taydin knew what he was doing. He probably knew it better than Aislynn did. He'd fought another Singer before, after all. He'd fought his wife, Dian, when she'd been controlled by the Dalek's Nanites. He'd fought her, overwhelmed her, and murdered her. Now, he was doing it again. He knew that he had no choice, but it changed nothing. History was repeating itself.
He Sang, forcing reality to reshape itself according to his will, balancing it against whatever he could find around him, throwing some extra weight into a nearby mountain, adding a vein of gold in it to counter the way he was disassembling the ship itself. He was calculating on the fly, everything he did reckless and horribly dangerous, but he had no choice.
It seemed like that was always the way it was for him. He never had a choice. He looked at Aislynn, at the way her beauty was charring into ash right in front of him and he wished he had made different choices when he'd had them.
Back on Logopolis, he should have told her how he felt about her. He should have taken her in his arms and kissed her, made love to her, demonstrated his admiration and devotion in a way that would have convinced her to wed him, propriety or no.
Now, it was too late.
He was out of choices.
Again.
Caught in the space between the Songs, Tomoko opened her eyes.
Rassilon, busy with his own attempt to survive, had no energy left to spare and had finally released Tomoko's mind. For a single, terrible moment, she was herself again.
She was facing Aislynn, completely disoriented, unable to distinguish the touch of minds amid the howling of winds and swooping of stones.
There were figures there, nearby, strange and shapeless, ghostly and distorted. Her eyes locked with them. They grew more solid and real just before she passed out.
In every hallway, room, and even out in the desert, it was felt. Tomoko's pain and her imminent demise was telegraphed to the Manifold. They felt it, as her mind and body began to shred under the onslaught of the two Songs and they turned as one to stare at the Hangar Bay.
Then, in unison, the swarm rose, every last one of them. They flew, crawled, and hopped, heading towards Tomoko with a unified purpose, a deadly speed, and a deep, furious anger rising in their collective hive mind.
Dar ran around a corner and found himself staring at Captain Rammall.
"You're alive! Thank the stars," he breathed out.
"Whose side are you on?" Rammall asked and Dar grinned.
"My own usually, but today, I'm on yours," he retorted and Rammall chuckled.
"Very well, come along then, we are off to do something glorious and probably suicidal," the Captain told him.
"Sounds like my kind of party," Dar agreed and fell in with the soldiers.
"Dar!" Adie called from the back and he paused and waited for her to catch up.
"How are you?" he asked.
"Feeling pretty useless," she admitted. "I feel like I ought to know what to do, but I don't. How can I help?"
"How can you help? Grab a first aid kit off of the wall there and be a medic, because these geniuses left Susan on Earth!" he told her with an exasperated tone.
Adie nodded, and scrambled for the nearest first-aid kit.
There was a shouting noise down the hallway and the Doctor looked up, as the soldiers, with Dar amongst them, charged into the room.
"Dar!" the Doctor shouted and waved at where Tomoko was pinned in the wave. His mouth closed abruptly, as he saw something else as well. A faint golden cord led off from Dar to Tomoko and he winced as he realized what that meant.
"Blimey!" Rose exclaimed. "This is just getting silly!"
"Cloned off of Adyra," the Doctor reminded her and Rose grimaced as they continued edging around the radius of the hurricane, trying to reach Rassilon, where he was trying to crawl out of the Song's radius.
Dar saw what Guinn and Koschei were doing. He also saw the crumpled form of Tomoko, caught in the tornado, being shredded by the winds.
"Stay here Adie, tell the soldiers which are our folks, will you?" he suggested and then threw himself after Tomoko. It hurt, of course, but nowhere near as much as losing Tomoko would.
The Manifold burst into the room, buzzing angrily, all of them with but one objective, to get to Tomoko. They were being battered and shredded, knocked back against the walls, where they were shattering in trails of sparks and fluids, being dissolved by the reality warping power of the Song, but still they fought, trying to reach her.
They were dying by the scores, but would not stop, they would not turn back.
They were determined to save their mother.
Jake dropped down beside Diana as she rocked to her knees, eyes blazing.
"I taught her that kick!" she growled.
"You okay?" he asked and she nodded.
"Of course, but we have to move, we have to stop Rassilon, it's the only way to get her back," Diana replied and then something odd happened.
Taydin could feel the fracturing of reality around them, knew what was happening. The maths were cascading through his mind and he cast about for something, anything, to save them all.
He glanced around and his eyes fell on Diana and Jake. An idea began to form in his head and he looked over at Aislynn. Her body wasn't in her control, the veins at her hairline and temples were blackening ominously, but her mind was still her own and he doubted that doing this would be stopped by her orders. He suspected that protecting Rassilon was part of the commands laid on her, since he'd survived being in the intersection of their power, and doing this would save all of them, including Rassilon.
He looked at her and then glanced sideways at Jake and Diana.
Aislynn's eyes widened as she grasped his meaning and together, they worked to direct the fracturing probability to do their will, striving to keep the universe from dissolving around them all.
Despite everything, Taydin felt a fierce burgeoning of hope. Koschei and Guinn were nearly to Aislynn and he hoped that the others could all come out of this alive and whole, even if he didn't make it.
He twisted reality, sent it skittering over to Jake and Diana, felt, rather than saw, as they were engulfed in the raw tides of energy, and used up more of his life force to control it, trying to balance the Song, entropy against energy gain, cold against heat, forcing them to equalize, and then, with a surge of agony, pushing the energy just that one step higher, forcing entropy back and down. Through it all Aislynn Sang with him, in an insane and tortured duet, the tears in her eyes burning her as she glowed with her inner agony, fire consuming her.
They were dying, but as they did, they created life.