7.
The mind control was broken, but that was only the first step in ending the attempted coup. The drones had fallen, but there were still armed troops, now split into two sides and there was literal fighting in the streets as the Zinariyan people teetered on the precipice of civil war all over again.
The Doctor and Serene made their way outside, Serene grabbing a hooded long coat in the hope that it might prevent anyone from recognising her. People were everywhere, and no-one seemed to know what was going on, or what to do.
"Maybe… should I speak up?" Serene asked, uncertain. She was calmer now, but still a long way from her old self. "Like I did back there, but to everyone? Make sure they all know I didn't want to be a part of it. People might stand down, if they know there isn't a bloodline to fight for?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure that'll be enough."
"What else can we do?
The Doctor went momentarily quiet, remembering an earlier thought.
'Can I ask that of her? It seems like the only way to be sure, but…'
She wanted to dismiss it again, but this time it persisted.
"I've got an idea," she said aloud. "But I don't think you'll like it."
/
\
Unsure of what reception Serene would get anywhere if she was recognised, or what reaction there would be to the Doctor, as one of the few off-worlders running around the city, they both kept the hoods of their coats up and stuck to the side streets. Avoiding the ongoing battles as best they could, they returned to the building where Serene had been held, hoping that the architects were storing what they'd extracted from her close by to where the surgery had taken place.
The utter confusion of the general populace as the mind control broke down was acted out across the whole city, presumably the whole planet, but this also meant that they went unchallenged as they made their way through the building. On finding the gene lab, there was a lock on the entrance, but the Doctor made short work of that. Most of the staff had gone, far greater worries than looking after genetic samples, regardless of which side they'd chosen.
However, one remained, taking flasks out of the storage freezers on the far side of the room and packing them into an insulated case. On the table in the middle of the room sat a box filled with blood samples and various labelled test tubes. The young man in question wasn't wearing a lab coat or scrubs, but the blue uniform of the architects. Neither the Doctor nor Serene had seen him before, but as Serene took down her hood, he recognised her, glancing guiltily down at the flask in his gloved hands, then back up at her.
Serene folded her arms, holding his gaze, her blue eyes cold.
"I think that belongs to me."
"But... Dr Theri instructed me to-"
"Oh, I'm sure she did." This was the Doctor, intervening. "Now, you heard the lady. That belongs to her."
He looked between their two stony expressions, panic written across his own face, then carefully put the flask into the case, handing it over to Serene. She took it, pointing at the box on the table with her other hand.
"And those? Are those from the Regnant family?"
"I - yes."
"Is that all of it?"
"Yes. Most samples were destroyed when they were-" he bit back the rest of that sentence as he remembered who he was talking to "-uh, after the civil war."
"And what about computer files? Stored DNA analysis and that?" the Doctor asked, going over to the terminal on the desk beside the table and scrolling through the open files.
"I was running a search, but nothing came up," he replied, even more jittery. "Can I go?"
"That depends," Serene replied, putting the strap of the case over her shoulder and closing the lid on the box.
"Where are you going, and what are you meant to be doing with these?"
The young architect clearly had no idea how to react to the last Regnant before him, wanting to obey her but also aware there were probably going to be negative repercussions to him allowing her to just take the genetic materials.
"Let me guess," The Doctor cut in, not looking up from the computer.
"You lot have a bolthole somewhere, not within the Alliance but not far away. Any of you who don't get caught are planning to regroup there and start this whole thing up again once the dust settles on this attempt. Am I close?"
He swallowed nervously.
"It looks like you're right, Doctor," Serene said. "What should we do with him?"
"Oh, I think we can let him go. He can deliver a message for us to any of the other architects who get away."
"And what message is that?"
"He's a bright lad. I'm sure he can figure it out."
He stared at the two women.
"Uh… that the Regnant took back her, um, genetic samples and the DNA records for her family?" he tried.
"That's a good start," Serene replied. "I have something to add, though."
She moved to stand right in front of him, grabbing hold of the collar of his uniform with her free hand, eyes boring into his.
"I do not belong to you. Any of you. I belong to myself, and you do not get to use any part of me, no matter who my family might have been. Do you understand?"
He nodded, wordless.
"All right then."
She released him, turning away and picking the box up from the table.
"Off you go."
He fled.
Serene looked over at the Doctor, who was still working on the computer.
"Anything on there?"
"Not that I can see. It could be hidden, though, so…"
The Doctor entered a series of commands, and the computer began to delete the stored data.
"Hope none of that was anything important. There's probably more records elsewhere, though."
"I know."
They hurried back to the TARDIS to lock everything they'd retrieved safely away, then they went to see what all the clamour was in the main city square.
Ships were landing from the rest of the Alliance. Following the executions of all the leaders on Taer Prime, there were emergency broadcasts declaring that representatives from the leaders of the other planets, Sito and Kenna, along with those from the moon colonies, had come together to create a temporary government, until order could be restored and new elections held. The speed with which this was organised suggested that an anti-Alliance uprising may have been expected for some time, plans already made for such an eventuality.
The Architects were being identified and rounded up, held in the City Hall on the square. Knowing how dangerous it could be to try and walk Serene through the crowds, the Doctor took them straight there in the TARDIS, materialising in the corner of the conference room where the Alliance leaders were confronting the captured Architects.
All of the ones they'd encountered had been brought there - Arran, who made the public speeches, Furej the record keeper who had written them, seemingly the only one who thought that Serene was genuinely important to them, not just a tool to be used. Harvellon the military leader, Theri, the doctor who had performed the surgery on Serene, and Rydan, who had made it so very clear that Serene 'belonged' to the Architects, and who thought the young woman was nothing and no-one without them. More were being brought in, still in their blue uniforms.
The Doctor stepped through the TARDIS doors, waving in a friendly manner at the startled Zinariyan people.
"Hello!"
There were armed guards behind the architects, but their attention was fortunately more on their charges than an alien appearing out of thin air.
"Who are you?" demanded one of the leaders from Sito, a young man in a smart suit, his dark hair cropped short.
"I'm the Doctor. For once, I didn't actually mean to get caught up in a revolution, and I didn't start it either. This time, though, getting involved wasn't a choice. These people here-" she indicated the Architects "-brought it all on themselves when they abducted my friend and tried to force her to help them seize power. I think some of you might know her?"
She turned as Serene came out of the TARDIS. She'd changed her clothes again, and was now wearing the pink lay sister tunic from her days with the Cerebral Order, her hair in a long braid, her face cleaned of any residing gaudy cosmetics.
Two of the Alliance forces moved forward to arrest her, but the Doctor stepped between them, hands raised.
"Not so fast. You know the Architects were using mind control, and my friend did not cooperate willingly. Not only that, she's not who you think she is."
"But she is!" cried out Furej, seated under armed guard on the other side of the room. "She is the very last of the bloodline of the Zinariyan Regnants."
"And can you prove that?" The Doctor demanded. "All the Regnants were killed in the civil war, before the Alliance formed. Where did you miraculously find this long-lost survivor no-one'd ever heard of?"
"She was never lost. We knew she was at the Cerebral Order." Arran replied.
"So how exactly did you find her after she left?" the Doctor asked, the one thing she hadn't been able to figure out. The Millefiori Galleria was a long way from Taer Prime, and before that, they hadn't even been in the correct time period.
"We had alerts set up across the galaxy," he replied, arrogance still dripping from his tone, his manner.
"Enough of her parents' DNA remained on record that any time a match was discovered by a security system, we were notified, and we had a wide network of assistance, paid to retrieve the heir wherever she appeared."
Even the Doctor was taken aback. The Galleria had taken their handprints on admission, true, that was part of how it could uphold a truce - any troublemakers would easily be identified - but she hadn't realised DNA had been taken too. And the architects had not only hacked this database, they'd been ready and waiting to swoop in and snatch Serene on a day's notice.
"Wow. That is some serious dedication there. Shame it involved abducting people across the galaxy. And from the Millefiori Galleria? Famous for maintaining a truce over several centuries?"
"We were prepared to do whatever it took."
"I can see that. Pity you got the wrong person."
A ripple of surprise ran through the room, although Arran was unchanged.
"We did not. She has been tested, and she is the last true heir."
"Then prove it." Serene finally spoke up. She turned to face the Alliance. "If I am who they say, it should be easy to do."
The leader from Kenna, an older woman with dark gold skin, her long black hair turning to silver, considered this.
"We do have records of the Regnants. And they are our own records, so they will not have been corrupted by any of these -" she gestured to the Architects "- foolish, misguided upstarts. We will compare our records with theirs, and then with you."
"I'm willing to cooperate, in whatever way you need."
It didn't take long. The Alliance records matched with those of the Architects, but the sample Serene provided came up negative.
"You were correct," the Kenna leader said, sounding a little surprised. "This woman is not a descendant of the bloodline."
The Architects were outraged, but they were allowed to examine the results and there it was, clear to see. Serene's sample did not match.
Theri stared at the information on the screen, disbelief stamped across her face.
"How is this possible? The records haven't been altered, but your DNA has changed! How?"
/
\
"I've got an idea," the Doctor said. "But I don't think you'll like it."
They went back to the TARDIS, where she sought out a piece of technology she'd hoped would never be used again. Serene regarded the unpleasant-looking head piece with trepidation.
"What's that?"
"It's called a Chameleon Arch. Simply put, it alters the user at a genetic level."
Serene stared at her.
"What does that mean?"
"Well, when I used it, I turned myself human. One heart, human DNA, nothing that would make me detectable as a Time Lord until I turned myself back. If you-"
The Doctor hesitated, uncomfortable to even suggest this as an option.
"It can modify you so you'd no longer carry your ancestors' genes. Any test'd show you to be an ordinary Zinariyan, and no-one could ever try and use you like this again."
Serene gazed at the contraption, her blue eyes unreadable.
"What would that mean for me, though? What else would change?"
"I can control that. You'd still look the same, be the same person-"
"Can you guarantee that?" Serene interrupted. "It wouldn't be like when you regenerate?"
"Nothing like that, no. It could do, but all I'd set it to do is change you enough that you wouldn't show up as a descendant any more."
"And if I ever have children? They'd be different - safe - too?"
"Yes."
"What aren't you telling me?"
Their eyes met, and there was another pause.
"It'll hurt. A lot. Not as much as changing to a different species, but it will be pretty bad and I can't stop that."
"Is that all?" Serene's expression altered, a determined set to her jaw which made the Doctor doubt even more whether this was the right course of action.
"So if I do this, and we get back what they took from me, there really won't be a bloodline anymore?"
"That's the idea. But you don't have to-"
"Let's get on with it, then."
Serene took the arch and set it on her head.
"I want you to think about this, Serene. Don't do anything you could regret later-"
"I'm sure. But thank you, Doctor. For giving me a choice. It's more than anyone else did."
She shut her eyes and waited for the transformation to start.
/
\
"We made sure," Theri insisted. "And we took-"
She stopped, suddenly aware that she was essentially under arrest and on trial.
"Yes?" Serene asked, folding her arms, her expression cold. "What did you take from me?"
"If we're compiling a list of offences, best to be thorough," the Doctor added. "We've got abduction - from a famously neutral location, by the way - holding her prisoner, using mind control to get her to take part in your coup against her will, and non-consensual, forced surgery, yes?"
Theri hesitated.
"I-"
"There's probably a load of footage from the security cameras that can prove all that, right? I mean, I know there is, because I found it."
The Doctor, outwardly calm but seething inside, raised the sonic and hacked the screen on the wall so it showed film of an unconscious Serene brought into the room on Taer Prime she'd been kept in on arrival. Then it cut to a recorded Rydan, calmly recounting the intent to 'harvest' from Serene, before Theri drugged her and took her away, into surgery.
The Doctor stepped back and took her friend's hand; Serene was trembling, but she remained quiet. That part was over. She'd survived it, survived all of it, and with any luck, soon it would all be over.
"There's more, obviously, but I was a bit pushed for time," the Doctor continued. "So I think we can all agree, my friend here was forced into becoming a pretender to the Zinariyan throne, or whatever you wanna call it, against her will, and that she's not a person of interest to you?"
The Alliance leaders conferred. The Kennan leader turned back to the Doctor and Serene.
"If she will give evidence that she does not, and has never supported this movement-"
"Already done."
The Doctor used the sonic again, and new footage began to play on the screen. Recorded inside the TARDIS, Serene stated clearly, and in as composed a manner as she could, that she did not oppose Alliance rule, had no intention of ever supporting any other method of government. She stated that she had never even lived on any of the Alliance ruled worlds, except as a baby, and that she had spent most of her life as a lay sister of the Cerebral Order, claiming the privilege and neutrality that came with associating with such an organisation.
"Do you intend to remain here, to become a citizen of the Alliance?"
Serene found herself wavering. Despite everything that had happened, this was, technically, her home. She'd been born here on Taer Prime, as had all her ancestors. She was Zinariyan, these were her people. But…
"No."
"Then you will not be charged with any offence," the Sito leader said.
"It is quite clear you were brought here by force, and any actions as part of the coup were against your will. We have more pressing concerns."
"Time we were off," the Doctor murmured. Serene looked over the room one more time. This was in hand. It was over.
She was… free.
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor began dematerialisation immediately, before the Alliance could think of any awkward questions they wanted answering, or to think more on her own part in bringing down the coup.
"I wasn't far off when I called you Grand Duchess Anastasia," she said to Serene, trying to lighten the mood a little.
Serene still didn't get the reference, but that didn't matter.
'Probably should avoid visiting Revolutionary Russia, though,' the Doctor thought.
"So… we never made it to the Alvlthe galaxy. You remember? Whole planets made of crystal?"
"Actually-" Serene said, hesitant. "There is somewhere I'd like to go."