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The Nun.
Standing in the console room, watching as his immediate predecessor vanished back to his place in their collective timeline - starting from the moment they'd been loomed, gone through the Academy, stared into the Untempered Schism… on and on through the years travelling with Susan in the TARDIS after stealing the ship from Gallifrey, encountering Marco Polo, fighting the Daleks on Skaro in their city twice, both occasions witnessing them attempting to wipe out the Thals in a pointless act of evil before encountering the Daleks on a blitzed out Earth…. All the way into his second incarnation where he met Jamie, Zoe, Victoria, encountering the Cybermen, the War Lords, the Ice Warriors, and all the way through his exile to the final moments of his last life, that was his timeline - the Doctor could not believe what had happened.
He was glad his previous two lives were gone after helping him save the universe from the deranged Omega who had threatened to use his power of singularity to destroy the entire universe, to get revenge on something that was not anybody's fault; the arrogance of his first incarnation who had run off in a barely working TARDIS - yes, he loved the old girl, but his original incarnation had just run off from Gallifrey without being properly prepared, ruining Susan's life in turn - disgusted him while the childlike stupidity of his predecessor had grated on his nerves.
But the revelations…the things he had learnt in Omega's antimatter universe…stunned him.
Omega was still alive, after thousands of years while the Time Lords asserted their dominance over time using his knowledge and theories as they went, but he was still alive. Trapped in a universe of antimatter, willing himself to still be alive. His mind had somehow moulded and manipulated that world, allowing him to build a fortress and even create some form of life that he used for his own purposes. But the long centuries alone in the antimatter universe had driven Omega insane. At some point, Omega had decried that the Time Lords, and to an extent, the peoples of the universe were guilty of his incarceration in that antimatter universe.
Somehow he had begun draining all of the energies of the universe in an attempt to return to his own reality after discovering and learning how to manipulate the singularity within the black hole which trapped him.
Desperate since their energy was being drained, the Time Lords had broken the first law of time and summoned the Doctor's previous lives so then they could learn what was going on and then stop it. Things had gotten off to a bad start at first; two versions of the same individual in the same place were bound to cause problems, and since the Doctors had tried to work together, they'd found out they were just getting in each others' way.
So what did the Time Lords do, they brought back their first incarnation.
He couldn't do much, he was trapped in a time eddy and wasn't able to manifest properly. But the First Doctor had quickly stopped his future selves from arguing and actually make them do something constructive. When they got into the antimatter universe and met Omega, well it was only a matter of time before they learnt of his secrets, and thanks to the Second Doctor's recorder which had fallen into the force-field generator in the TARDIS, they had managed to stop Omega from destroying the universe. If the Doctors had needed any more proof of just how far gone Omega had become, well they had it in spades since he was willing to destroy everything, especially when he learnt the corroding effects of the singularity had already reduced him to nothing…all that remained of Omega now was his mind.
The Doctor still shuddered as he remembered Omega's terrible screams of loss before he lashed out in a terrible temper when he discovered his entire body had been lost in the antimatter universe. The Doctors had no choice but to end Omega, and when they discovered the force-field generator after communicating with their original self had that recorder in it.. well, it was easy.
But the Doctor still felt sorry for what had become of Omega, one of the greatest founding fathers of Gallifrey, reduced to a deranged monster willing to destroy everything.
The Doctor looked up as he suddenly felt a strange build-up of temporal energy in the vicinity. It was not particularly strong, but as he looked around the console room for the source he was confused. The TARDIS was completely still, the temporal and spatial systems were not active, and yet there was temporal pressure…
Whatever it was, it was close.
And then he heard it, that familiar wheezing groaning sound and he looked desperately around himself, wondering if a TARDIS was materialising inside his own although he discounted that quickly; the Time Lords would never attempt such a thing normally because of the dimensional disturbance of landing one-dimensionally transcendental object within another, it could result in a time ram.
A Time Ring?
Suddenly his eyes fixed on the console when he realised the sound was coming from there, and on the top of the time column, a small circuit in the shape of an atom appeared.
The moment the object had manifested itself, the Doctor snatched it up and held it in shock.
It was a dematerialisation circuit. A brand new dematerialisation circuit; the Time Lords had sent the circuit down a time corridor to the TARDIS, and as he turned the circuit over in his hands, the Doctor could not believe what was happening, this was like a dream. As he held it, the knowledge he had once known and worked so long and so hard to try to recall over the years he'd been stranded on Earth, returned to his mind; suddenly all of his advanced knowledge of temporal theory, time travel lore, all of the dematerialisation codes of his TARDIS…all of it suddenly returning to his mind.
Suddenly he remembered how to fix a dematerialisation circuit. He remembered how to remove an inhibitor carefully and safely. Throughout the Doctor's exile on Earth he had been painstakingly trying to restore his TARDIS to full working capacity, but thanks to the knowledge blocked in his brain, he hadn't been successful. And he had known even during those desperate moments - the time where he and Liz were caught up in the TARDIS's time vector generator field, the whole mess at the Inferno Project when he'd tried to use the reactor powering Stahlman's experiments and drilling program which had sent him into a parallel world, the disaster with the Master and the Sild - he should never go too far in case something happened, like the dimensional dams breaking down and creating a size leak, or focusing too much of the interior dimension on itself so it became a black hole which would swallow Earth up just to free himself.
But now that knowledge was back. The Time Lords had ended his exile. They'd finally given him back his freedom. They'd forgiven him. Now he could travel to anywhere and anywhen safely without reprisals.
The Doctor was almost hyperventilating with delight over the circuit's arrival and the unlocking of his knowledge that he almost forgot he couldn't leave just now. He had to install the circuit, build a new force-field generator, and run a few more checks on the ship before he left.
X
Colonel Mace rubbed his eyes as he drank some more coffee from his mug. His eyes were aching after spending long hours in UNIT Headquarters on monitoring duty. Ever since the disaster which had turned half of London into a lake, UNIT had been given more important duties to ensure the security of the human race and their world. Forced to work with Torchwood and a few other alien-defence groups, UNIT had taken those responsibilities seriously.
The damage to Earth was bad, and all of the governments had agreed to release the word of alien existence. Full disclosure had always been the nightmare of the United Nations because they knew if the public knew of hostile aliens there would be panic, riots, more deaths and destruction. Everyone would be frightened as they looked into the skies, and all of those Star Trek nuts who believed Gene Roddenberry's absurd belief once humanity left Earth and met new worlds, they'd be at peace with them would be disappointed.
Mace had been in UNIT long enough to know real aliens were not that dissimilar to humans. Many of them were good, but some of them were cruel, dangerous. Roddenberry would have had it hard going if he knew of the Daleks, the Zygons, or the Cybermen, but he'd probably rewrite perceptions to fit in with his ideas. Spin things to say the Daleks misunderstood humanity's intentions or something stupid like that.
No. The only language some of these aliens understood was death. It was a sad truth, but it was the reality they lived in and there was nothing they could do about it.
Surrounding Earth and the moonbase as well as the space stations surrounding the planet, were a number of satellites that used reverse-engineered alien technologies (courtesy of Torchwood; Mace was annoyed with the organisation who'd had access to so much hardware and technology and while they had slowly and quietly introduced the principles into human science, there was still a great deal Torchwood just would not talk about, and it was one of the reasons why there was strong antipathy towards UNIT and Torchwood) to scan the stars in case there was any sign of an alien ship warping, teleporting, or jumping towards the solar system ready to blast it to bits. There were dozens of monitoring stations all across the planet of course, and thanks to the lunar colonies and bases as well as the space station instruments which probed hyperspace as well as ordinary space, Earth had superb monitoring capacity.
And it was nonstop every single day of the week with Night-Owls (UNIT's slang for those who were given the jobs at the godless hours at night, but Mace being a Night-Owl himself knew how tough it was with the long hours and the moments where you were about to fall asleep) on constant watch duty, keeping the planet safe. Or at least they tried; everyone remembered a few years back when the Slitheen ship appeared, but the study of the ship showed it had a holographic stealth sheath which hid it from conventional sensors, and the criminal family would have had no problems thinking of a way of getting through.
That whole mess had resulted in a month-long string of investigations and redresses of the whole defence grid to ensure nothing like that happened again, but aside from that incident, Earth had been quiet as of late aside from those reports near where the Doctor resided of strange beings teleporting close by. Thinking of the planet's exiled Time Lord made Mace frown in a melancholic way.
Many in UNIT believed as Torchwood did the Doctor should be giving them more help than what he provided, but while Sir Alastair's influence spread only so far, the Doctor had provided a great deal of help. So much so that Harriet Jones herself had turned him into an important advisor.
But Mace had worked with the Doctor, and while the Time Lord did become easily irascible and irritated, Mace had actually found him good company and a great help.
Earth was not the same place. In the past ignorance was seen as blissful. But the golden days were gone. Everyone knew about what lurked beyond the solar system, or they thought they did. But Mace knew out there right now there were people who were more than scared to close their eyes to sleep at night. Many blamed the Doctor for the whole thing, but Mace knew it was not the Time Lord's fault. Mace knew there had been times where the Doctor's mysterious people were involved in his life and that they did not care one way or another what happened to Earth, but the Doctor was the exception.
He did care.
Suddenly Mace was roused out of his thoughts when an alarm chimed through the room. The fatigue lifted from his mind like an invisible blanket and he was on his feet, rushing towards the chiming console. As he drew closer to the station, Mace's eyes were drawn to the screen towering above. The image was relayed by the satellites in orbit, and they showed something Mace found hard to understand. It was as if some giant space entity or god had taken a giant pair of scissors and had cut/torn a raggedy hole in space, with flashes of lightning crackling around the wound.
One of the operators looked over her shoulder, her expression was drawn and worried. Mace didn't blame her one little bit. Dalek kill cruisers and battle saucers, easy. Sontaran fighter ships and Rutan war saucers were a piece of cake, but the manual didn't say anything about a lightning storm in space. Maybe they needed to redress the manual and stated 'All of these alien objects are only a few examples; the universe is massive and we haven't seen anything which is why UNIT exists in the first place.'
"It just appeared out of nowhere, sir. One minute it was the size of a small dot, then it expanded and seemed to tear space apart with it."
Mace absorbed the brief explanation without any expression. "What do the scanners make of it?"
"We can't get a clear reading; there's too much electrical interference for us to get a clear reading, but it's like nothing in our records," the second operator jabbed a finger towards the box in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. 'NO MATCH CORRELATING WITH RECORDS.'
I hate it whenever we encounter something that doesn't match up with what we've met before, but if that didn't happen then we'd be out of a job, or our lives would be much simpler, Mace thought to himself.
"Sir, the interference has cleared up a little bit and we're getting some readings. Okay, that's odd," the operator added.
"What is it?" Mace was already on the verge of slamming a hand on the planetary alarm button which would send a warning message to all UNIT ground stations across the solar system in response to this. He didn't have any time for odd comments that were vaguer than they should be.
"That hole in space is not something you'd get from a hyperspace portal or a wormhole, but it does have wormhole characteristics. But the most incredible thing about it is the tachyon and chronon count."
Mace frowned. "What does that mean?"
The operator looked over his shoulder. "It's time travel, sir," they said grimly.
X
As he was being led into UNIT Headquarters - there were times he wondered why the current leadership had decided to build their new headquarters in the Tower of London of all places - the Doctor was both curious and worried about what this was all about. The relationship he had with UNIT could be described as both tentative and volatile; unlike the easy-going relationship he'd had working with the Brigadier, Benton and the others, the new UNIT preferred it if he did not get involved, mostly because he was an alien himself.
However sometimes it could not be avoided, and sometimes he was asked by UNIT to help them solve problems, and while the Doctor sometimes became frustrated both by the limitations of this point in history, he had very nearly lost his freedom helping others, and so he was keen on helping whenever he could. But there had been times over the years where he was worried UNIT would forget his help, and arrest him and it had happened so many times before. There was growing xenophobia towards aliens in UNIT and while he could understand the source behind that strong emotional response, it was not his fault the Time Lords, instead of just returning him early before the disaster which had led to the domino effect where everyone knew about aliens, returned him right after the mess.
Led into the main control room the Doctor was pleasantly pleased to see Harriet Jones. "Hello, Harriet," he greeted.
Harriet turned towards him, a tense and nervous smile on her face while she was dressed smartly despite the late hour. "Doctor," she returned the greeting with worry in her voice. "We need your help. Three hours ago, the UNIT defence grid signalled a full alert when a strange temporal anomaly appeared on the edge of the Solar system."
The Doctor rubbed his chin. His interest was now sparked, and he walked with Harriet towards the main viewing screen. The moment he saw what it was that had worried UNIT, he stopped in astonishment.
"No," he whispered in horror. The view on the screen showed the usual blackness of space but rimmed in red with rough edges that seemed to rotate like a spiral somebody had started to paint but had just stopped because they'd found something better to do while evil-looking flashes and bolts of lightning emerged from the opening which looked like someone had roughly slashed the fabric of ordinary space.
What was worse for the Doctor, especially now the Time Lords had released the blocks on his mind and had returned to him his knowledge of and perception of time and time travel, was the feeling of agony coming from the wound, like time itself was screaming out in pain and rage over what had happened to it.
If the Doctor was honestly the type of man to swear, he would be screaming every profanity he knew, but all he would do at the moment was limit himself to the most basic curses. He had seen dozens of temporal anomalies in his lifetimes; on Gallifrey, the Time Lords regularly took their students at the Academy out into the universe to observe some of the ones which had been stabilised aeons before when the Time Lords had gained the ability.
The biggest rift he had ever seen was the Medusa Cascade, but whereas that rip in the fabric of time and space was purely natural and beautiful, he recognised what this one was, and it filled him with horror.
Harriet and Colonel Mace, who had spotted the Doctor walked over with the Prime Minister of Great Britain, heard his whispered exclamation and were eyeing him with worry for what it might be and concern.
"Do you recognise it, Doctor?" Mace asked.
For a moment the Doctor couldn't reply, his mind dominated by the horror of whoever was responsible for this.
He recognised it, and he knew if any other Time Lord was right now observing this, they would be feeling the same outrage he was although he was uncertain if the Master would have felt anything, although he knew his enemy would think twice about using this method.
"It's a Rip Portal," he growled out, outrage bleeding into his voice.
Harriet turned questioningly towards Mace, but she saw the same cluelessness in the UNIT colonel's expression. "What's a Rip Portal? We know its time travel-."
"Oh, that's not time travel!" The Doctor snapped, mentally wincing at the way he'd lashed out at one of the few friends he had on Earth, but he was too outraged to care. And he closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. "There are many forms of time travel. Rip engines are one of the worst forms of time travel in existence; they literally do as they sound. They tear a hole in the fabric of time and space-."
"Like a wormhole, or a time corridor?" Mace asked, recalling from reports he had seen of the UNIT files how the Daleks, then later the Sontarans, and the Cybermen, used time corridor technology.
"I wish," the Doctor closed his eyes. "Time corridors, although crude and seen as inferior to TARDISes and other pieces of Time Lord technology are preferable to Rip engines and Rip portals." He opened his eyes again and stared solemnly at the two humans while he desperately tried to remain as calm as he could possibly be. "When you go through a Rip engine, it creates a form of a wormhole, but its incredibly unstable and wreathed in time winds, which tear away at the traveller's DNA so by the time they emerge, they either disintegrate or they stay the same, except they can't travel through time again unless they do fall apart due to the time winds."
"That's horrible," Harriet whispered, looking disturbed by the prospect.
"But why would someone use it, what would be the point if it's so dangerous?"
"I honestly haven't the faintest idea, Colonel. Whoever opened that portal so close to Earth I have no idea what they plan to do, but I doubt it's because they wish to observe us," the Doctor folded his arms.
Mace and Harriet both knew enough of time travel technology to know many time travellers just wanted to visit to study the past, but they didn't know enough of time travel lore to understand the dangers behind Rip engines. What the Doctor had told them about the method had worried them deeply since they knew whoever came through would likely die before they got close to the planet.
With that in mind, Harriet asked the major question. "Doctor, is the Rip Portal dangerous to Earth? I mean, will it affect us from this distance?"
The Doctor didn't answer straight away. He was more interested in the small status boxes to the sides of the screen. The Rip portal was a good distance away from Earth, but it was close enough to cause some problems. "I would make sure anyone checked into hospitals be subjected to a quick genetic scan," he advised, knowing that thanks to alien technology salvaged from ships wrecked on the planet over the decades there was now genetic scanning equipment to help human doctors diagnose people who were suffering terrible genetic illnesses from an early age. "Inform the hospitals to keep watch of anyone who's showing signs of their genetic codes being….," the Doctor paused as he mentally went through everything he knew about Rip engines, "torn apart. Their DNA helixes will definitely show signs of that, but they will also show signs of mutation."
"Mutation?" Mace whispered while Harriet and a few other members of UNIT personnel looked horrified by the implications of the Doctor's advice. "Serious ones?"
"That's I can't answer; Rip Engines and similar technology are naturally unstable, but I would warn your people to be careful. With time corridors and time portals using the same technology, there are few effects. There's a chance, a slim chance, the portal won't affect Earth but it's best to be careful. At the same time keep watch in case technology is affected; powercuts, time running slowly or fast, things like that."
The Doctor knew he was being vague, but the problem was anomalies like this are incredibly unstable and the effects were unpredictable.
Mace glanced at Harriet for a moment before he raced over to one of the nearby phones, and he began making urgent calls. While the Colonel was occupied, Harriet moved closer to the Doctor.
"Who do you think is doing this, Doctor?" Harriet asked.
"I truly have no idea. The fact they've chosen to use such a method of time travel is worrying enough, but I'm more interested in what they plan to do with it. Has there been any activity in the breach?"
"You mean has anything come out?"
"Yes."
"No," Harriet replied, shaking her head; the human looked even more worried now she knew how dangerous this was. "All we've gotten from it are those lightning flashes," he gestured towards the screen, "but there's been nothing. Visual, as well as more advanced scans, have revealed nothing except abnormally high tachyon and chronon counts."
"There would be, Harriet," the Doctor stroked his cheek thoughtfully. "There would be. Rip engines leak chronons and tachyons the same way a sieve leaks water, but the tachyons and chronon particles are bled out in such a way that makes space-time in that part of the solar system unstable. Think of time and space like a carpet, Harriet; if you walk on it up and down often enough, you wear the carpet out."
"Do you think that's happening now?"
"Probably, but I don't understand what the point is…Wait, what do you know about alternative timelines?"
Thrown by the unexpected question, Harriet blinked in confusion at the Time Lord. "Not a great deal, why?"
"Rip portals are dangerous and unpredictable; while its a primitive method of time travel, it can be used to affect history because the fabric of time and space has been damaged," the Doctor explained, his mind spinning as he tried to work out how this could come about.
Rip portals were unpredictable enough as it was, but who could be behind this-?
"Look!"
The Doctor turned reflexively towards the sound of the voice before he saw the faces of everyone in the operations room were looking at the screen, and he followed suit. The Rip portal was crackling like a lightning storm was rippling through it and the flashes seemed to be rippling space even more before the centre of the time rift seemed to bubble madly with incredible energy. As the only experienced time traveller in the room, the Doctor recognised what was happening.
Something was coming through the rift; the rip in time and space flashed several times before something small emerged from the rift. The automatic cameras and scanners dotted about the solar system instantly zoomed-in, compensating for movement and the different angles. The Doctor tilted his head curiously as he took in the shape and design of the ship.
The alien craft that had come through the rip rift was small, and it had a simple egg-like shape common to races who didn't care for making their ship's outward designs overly complex. There was a hump and some kind of fin-like the rudder of a jumbo jet or a space shuttle, but the hump was lined with tiny lights, windows. As the ship left the rip rift, lightning bolts streaked out and caressed the hull in flashes of harsh light.
Harriet turned to the Doctor. "Do you recognise it?"
The Doctor took a moment to study the ship. The alien craft looked fairly primitive, but he didn't recognise the shape although it did bear some resemblance to what he had learnt of the ships used by the Tythonians although he knew this was not Tythonian. "Sorry, I don't," the Doctor apologised.
Harriet sighed. "So we have a potential first contact which could go horribly wrong," she muttered.
"It may not be like that, Harriet," the Doctor tried to be optimistic although his earlier worries about this ship about to force a change onto history still lingered even in his voice.
"You said yourself that ship could be here to change history."
"I did, yes. I haven't forgotten the dangers. Nor have I forgotten there is a chance the temporal radiation seeping from that rift could be harmful to Earth, but at the same time, there is the chance these aliens are here for benevolent reasons and they just use a shoddy piece of technology which is naturally unstable. While your speaking to them, be ready at the same time," the Doctor advised.
Usually, he would ask his allies to make peace. He had done it with the Silurians and the Sea Devils, and he had tried to make a kind of peace with the Zygons, but in this case, things were different. With a rip portal bleeding time energy over the Earth and was the temporal equivalent of a black hole that bled radiation in the form of cracked time particles, anything was possible and the Doctor's lack of recognition for the ship only made it harder for him to guess if this ship was friend or foe.
He hoped it was a friend. The last thing Earth needed was a new enemy, a new excuse for xenophobia to run riot.
No sooner had the thought entered his mind that, as if on cue the alien ship fired a number of sun-yellow energy beams against Earth.
"It's opened fire!"
"Track those beams!"
"Activate the defence grid; open fire when ready," Harriet's voice carried over the entire room.
"That won't be necessary, Harriet. That ship is going to destroy itself in a moment," the Doctor interrupted.
Several UNIT personnel looked at the Time Lord in surprise, masking their own distrust in the man. Some of them had overheard him advising Harriet Jones the aliens might be peaceful travellers who just used a primitive means of time travel, but some of the more enlightened staff knew the Doctor wasn't to blame for this. He hadn't known this would happen.
"What do you mean?" Harriet asked, knowing the Doctor well enough to know he was telling the truth and she was about to ask him even more questions when a bright flash of light from the screen caught their eye. Like an egg trapped inside an invisible hand, fiery cracks appeared in the ship before it exploded in a flash of light.
"What just happened?" Mace asked. "Some kind of self-destruct mechanism? Stop us taking them prisoner, learning about their technology?"
"No. When they came through the rip portal, their hull and power systems became unstable."
"And that destroyed them?"
The Doctor nodded gravely. "Their power plant just gave out. Dangerous things, rip engines and portals."
"The rifts' closing," someone called.
The Doctor, Colonel Mace, and Harriet watched as the rip rift, still flashing with lightning closed up, but it didn't close. It just left an unsightly hole that flashed with lightning.
Studying the sight thoughtfully, the Doctor rubbed his chin.
"We should get a team out there," Mace said after a moment, "and pick up whatever debris is out there."
"No," the Doctor said quickly, "I'm sorry, Colonel Mace, but that's dangerous. That rip is unstable and any ship that goes near it could be hit by those lightning flashes, and anyone on board the ships will be killed."
"That could be messy," Mace commented.
"It would," the Doctor said, "that rip needs to be stabilised and sealed. My TARDIS is now operational, although it needs a bit of work. Just send me back to my home, and I'll finish it off and get out there."
Mace waved for Captain Price to come over. "Have arrangements made to get the Doctor back to his TARDIS, please captain?"
"Yes sir," Price saluted.
As he was escorted out, the Doctor ran through his mind the list of things he'd need to do. He only needed to do a small amount of work for the new dematerialisation circuit, and the navigational computer and the time rotor. It wouldn't take long for him to do, he had started them ever since the Time Lords sent him the new circuit.
One thing came to mind for the Time Lord while he was thinking. Wasn't it a bit too convenient the Time Lords sent the circuit to him at that moment? Yes, he was free now. Yes, he had the means of leaving Earth. But was all of this coincidental? The Doctor didn't really believe in coincidences. He had learnt over the centuries things just happened.
Dismissing the thoughts as irrelevant, the Doctor turned his mind to wondering who and why somebody would do this.
Most people did not suddenly build a time travel machine and ripped a hole in the vortex to launch an attack for no reason. Earth in the future would be the centre of many events which would ripple through the universe like boulders dropping into a lake. The humans would storm through the universe like a plague of locusts, or a storm, or waves of explorers or conquerors depending on the era.
They would be responsible for devastating planets, driving races to extinction, and they would scare dozens of races into submission. Was it any wonder someone would take this pre-emptive strike?
But who was it?
He knew it wasn't the Daleks. They had better and more subtle methods of time travel. Granted, their time machines and their time corridors were crude and nasty, and the Daleks never bothered to correct their methods, believing arrogantly they'd attained perfect time travel already.
It wasn't the Cybermen. They might launch an attack on Earth to devastate and soften the world up to make humanity ripe for conversion. But they wouldn't use such methods. They were subtle, although they had to be since their kind were always in decline. In any case, they didn't have time travel, although he knew they wouldn't hesitate to use it if they got their cybernetically augmented hands on it.
The Sontarans didn't even possess rip engines. They used Osmic projectors. Besides, they would have attacked in force by now. None of his other enemies had the means of doing this.
It was a mystery, and if there was one thing the Doctor had always enjoyed it was a mystery.
X
After saying goodbye to the UNIT driver, the Doctor stepped into his TARDIS. As soon as he was inside he went to the controls and he began powering the TARDIS up, and he probed the rip portal gently. The portal was being bombarded with a mixture of hadrons, muons, dark matter, chroniton and artron particles.
But there was something else there, and as he examined the readings from the console's initial scans, the Doctor's expression became more of a grimace as he took in just what was keeping the rip portal open. He hadn't told Harriet or Colonel Mace, but rip portals usually had a very brief opening time. They usually closed up quite quickly. This one had been opened within the last two hours. It should have begun to close, but instead, it had increased slightly in size.
Humans currently believed wormholes and similar phenomena were kept open via the use of exotic matter. While it was true with some wormholes although there was the chance the space pressures would force the wormhole to slam shut anyway, others that branched the dimensions tended to remain open regardless although the space pressure got to it.
But this was no common wormhole.
In fact, a rip portal was an embarrassment to all wormholes, warp holes, space warps, spatial rifts the universe over. The rip portal was like someone folding space and time over the Time Vortex and then punching a hole right through it. The Vortex energies should be closing it up, but the rip portal was still open. Looking at the readings on the console, the Doctor could see whoever was behind this…they had knowledge of advanced temporal physics. The rip portal was currently being sustained by a potent mix that kept the temporal wormhole stable and judging from the scans he was making, the rip portal had gone through the Time Vortex.
The Doctor made a face at the carelessness of the idiots who'd done this.
"Oh…my goodness," a weak voice spoke from behind him.
Swinging around the Doctor found that Captain Price had followed him inside with three other members of UNIT. While he was curious about their presence within the TARDIS since they all looked fully armed and ready for a fight. It was just their surprise at the interior of the TARDIS which had thrown them off. He had never understood that about UNIT; they knew enough about him as the alien founder of their organisation to know his ship was bigger on the inside. So why was it they always seemed to be so surprised all the time? The Doctor had known the woman for a while, even worked with her on occasion and even liked her, he did not want her to come with him. That was the only thing that made sense. UNIT, or those above at least, had decided the aliens who'd opened the rift in the first place were hostile and they needed to be stopped.
He didn't like this. UNIT's current attitudes towards aliens following their recent history, although he could understand it, made him despair of the military mind even more. What worried him the most was most of the UNIT's soldiers were more trigger happy than they should have been. He was worried now in case the UNIT soldiers inside his ship suddenly damaged something like the time rotor.
"Captain Price," the Doctor said, keeping his voice as pleasant as possible while he decided to play dumb and get some answers. "Is there a reason why you and your…soldiers are inside my TARDIS?" He asked while he spared the soldiers a displeased look.
Price quickly got over her surprise of the TARDIS interior space and turned to him with a polite smile. "Doctor, I've been ordered by Colonel Mace and the PM Harriet Jones to accompany you on your mission to discover who these alien attackers are."
Price's voice might have been mild and even, the Doctor couldn't simply help himself but dislike the hostile words in that reply. But what really annoyed him the most was how Price had described the whole thing, like he was a dedicated bounty hunter.
"No," he said firmly, and he quickly spoke up before she said something stupid like how she had her orders. "Captain, I honestly don't know what is on the other side of that Rip Portal. It will be a risk even me going in there alone, so I don't know what effect that it will have on humans."
He was telling the truth about how he had no idea what was on the other side of the portal, but he was even more truthful on how he had no idea if the shields of the TARDIS would be enough to stop the human soldiers from being affected. The Doctor knew there was a chance even he could be affected even with his greater strength and temporal immunity, but he was prepared for the risks. Price and the others weren't.
Unfortunately, just by looking at the humans, the Doctor could tell they were coming regardless. He would have to resort to something drastic to keep them safe.
"I'm sorry, Doctor, but we're coming with you whether you like it or not," Price's voice became stronger, although the Doctor had no idea if it was out of anger over what had nearly happened to her world or his own desire to keep them on Earth.
"Oh, very well, captain," the Doctor replied with a sigh when he saw the resolve in her eyes and realised he was wasting his own time. "Give me a minute to set the controls and adjust the shielding for your own safety."
As if he were sitting in front of a piano performing a particularly difficult and challenging concerto, the Doctor's long fingers played on the TARDIS console, and there was a sound of rising power as the humming increased in the console room, startling the soldiers.
The sound of the TARDIS's dematerialisation took Price and the other soldiers by surprise although they knew the magical time machine made this sound whenever it was beginning to take off. As the sound echoed all around them, Price mentally prepared herself for the inevitable battle in front of her and her team.
But then she began to feel strange like she felt as if she wasn't in her body. She looked around the console room to see if her fellow UNIT soldiers were feeling the same way, and to her shock, she saw they looked like they were fading away. Horrified, Price looked down at her hands and body, and she saw that they were melting away.
"Hold on, Doctor," Price protested, wondering if the legendary co-founder of her organisation was trying to betray them in the worst way possible, but then she realised that it wasn't her or her soldiers who were vanishing. The console room and the Doctor was, and soon Price and the other soldiers were outside the blue police box shape of the TARDIS which was still dematerialising.
X
"Somehow this doesn't surprise me," Harriet Jones commented to Colonel Mace and Captain Price after the latter had given her hurried report about what the Doctor had done.
"Why did he do it?" Captain Price didn't understand it, although she had shared a look with Colonel Mace that was quite pointed. While UNIT had learnt to trust the Doctor and accepted many of his methods were eccentric and hardly what they'd refer to as being 'by the book,' they were effective. But there were many in UNIT who distrusted the Doctor and saw him as both a resource to exploit and a threat to planetary security. Sadly there was quite a bit of logic to those views, and it wasn't helped by the Doctor's absence when Earth itself was seriously damaged which resulted in a lake in the centre of London, and mile-wide craters which had nearly compromised cities like Seoul, Beijing, Paris, Hamburg, and San Francisco.
True, the Doctor had managed to gain the advantage at the last minute and stopped any more damage done to the planet, but by then the real damage had been made. Alien life was now known to the general public and people were now looking at the stars with fear about what awaited them. There was a huge demand for alien tech to be reverse-engineered for the defence of the planet, just as many were demanding Earth go out into the galaxies and find those who were a threat. And destroy them.
Sadly it wouldn't be as simple as that. There were aliens like the Sontarans, the Cybermen, entities like the Great Intelligence and the Nestene Consciousness to deal with, but they were in the nursery compared to the Daleks, who would not hesitate to transform Earth into a graveyard.
"Maybe what you said is the truth; the Doctor saw a great danger inside that rift, and he didn't want you to be exposed to it," Harriet suggested, but it sounded like a matter of fact statement. She was aware like many others the Doctor was rumoured to be a hero who took the glory from others.
Harriet was not one of them.
She had seen the valour the Doctor had used when they'd first met and he'd ended the Slitheen threat.
She had been there while the Sycorax leader had been challenged to a duel.
On both occasions, the Doctor had not given any signs of wanting glory. He didn't even want anyone to know he had been there. Harriet had the feeling the Doctor was out there, trying to ensure humanity was safe. She hoped so.
X
The rip portal was like a wound in time, gouged into the Time Vortex and bleeding through different dimensions of the universe until even the TARDIS herself couldn't probe them. As his ship hovered near the edge of the portal, the Doctor scanned the phenomenon to try to determine where and when it came from. But it didn't work, there was too much temporal radiation for the TARDIS to work through. As he considered what he needed to do, the Doctor was tempted to pass through the portal and find out what all of this was about, but that was risky and the readouts showing how much radiation there was outside would likely damage the TARDIS.
That was not a good move.
He had just managed to get his ship working again, he didn't want to suddenly cripple her for this. With a deep sigh he wouldn't solve such a compelling mystery, the Doctor began adjusting the controls while he continually checked on the rip portal as he adjusted the TARDIS's dimensional stabilisers to seal it shut.
"Yes, it's working," the Doctor declared with a smile when he saw the portal start to collapse on itself like a flower closing up for the night. As the TARDIS continued to close up the portal, the Doctor continued to remain alert in case whoever had opened it in the first place tried again. He was just making the final steps to closing and stabilising the local space-time of the portal when the TARDIS suddenly lurched. Concerned the Doctor quickly checked on the controls and the readings.
Not good.
Definitely not good.
Quickly he tried to adjust the TARDIS's course but whatever had him caught was clearly as powerful as the TARDIS herself. The Doctor tried to dematerialise, but as the time rotor rose and fell the system stalled quickly
"Oh no," the Doctor whispered before he desperately tried to restart the dematerialisation to get himself out of this mess, but nothing happened.
"Hello, Doctor! By now you're just caught in the grip of the tractor beam transmitted through the rip portal I created, just for you," the voice of an unfamiliar but familiar woman came through chuckling over the TARDIS communication systems as if this was the greatest joke she'd heard or told in her life, "oh yes, that's right. You heard what I said correctly. I did all of this for your own benefit. An amazing start for your release from Earth. Congratulations by the way, but it won't last long. You see, while you were away, admiring the rip portal near Earth, I snuck inside your TARDIS. Believe me, Doctor, I was tempted to cause more damage to your precious antique than what you did to me. But enough of that for now," the voice suddenly became chipper again, "I knew you'd try to get out of the tractor beam by dematerialising, but I programmed it to pour too much energy into the system. By now it's too late to stop you from dropping in before I finish with you!"
Gritting his teeth in annoyance at what this strangely familiar and yet unfamiliar woman was talking about, the Doctor took a look at the readouts. She was right. The TARDIS had already been sucked through into the portal. There was no doubt the TARDIS shields and defences were left intact, the woman wanted him alive for something. Besides, the TARDIS would protect him regardless.
The Doctor gripped onto the console as the TARDIS rode and bucked in the grip of the tractor beam as it passed through the portal. The shaking stopped and the Doctor took a look on the scanner. Earth and the familiar sights of the human solar system were long since gone. The TARDIS had emerged in a completely different part of the universe.
Quickly the Doctor checked over the console to see how it had lasted in the transition. Aside from a few dents in the console's surface and the crack he had never repaired in the time rotor which was nothing more than a hairline crack more than anything truly substantial, the console looked fine. He checked the year-meter and location metres. They had been some of the more frustrating letdowns since he'd stolen the TARDIS long ago with Susan, and likewise one of the first things he had fixed the first chance he could get.
As he was examining the instruments to see if his precious ship had survived the transfer, the TARDIS began to materialise, but because his checks proved the instrumentation was still shaken by the turbulence of the rip portal, the Doctor had no idea what was outside, nor did he have a clue what was happening. Things were certainly back to normal, really.
The Doctor looked down at the instruments and he let out a sigh. There was nothing else for it, he would have to go outside, and he didn't like the idea of going out there while there was an enemy who knew him and he knew in turn and they'd hacked his TARDIS, and he made a mental note to really make some adjustments to the TARDIS security systems. Hmm, perhaps he should take a leaf out of the Master's book, and if anyone entered without his presence they would be trapped in a time-loop for a bit. It was less extreme than being gassed to death, but the Doctor was now considering it…
The Doctor sighed and he flicked the switch to open the doors before he stepped out curiously and slowly. The TARDIS had landed in a large converted laboratory; the architecture looked fairly gothic, and the inclusion of the advanced technologies littered around the place was incongruous, to say the least.
When he stepped out of the TARDIS, the Doctor took a sniff. Instantly he knew that he had travelled 200 hundred years into the future, and it was a Saturday, but he didn't know where exactly he was, and he had nothing to give him any clues.
Still, as he looked around, he pushed that concern aside and focused on what he had all around him and his interest piqued.
Being here brought back the memories the Doctor had of the time he and Sarah Jane had been sent to Karn to deal with the brain of Morbius; Solon's castle had been primitive-looking despite the advanced technology that the people of Karn were famous for having before Morbius wiped all but a few of them out, and the surgeon had been forced to outfit the place with technology salvaged from ships the Sisterhood had crashed on their world because their high priestess had become so paranoid she had believed every ship venturing close to their thrice damned planet wanted their precious elixir of life.
But here, that was as far as the similarities ended with a loud bang.
Solon's castle had been filled with plundered medical technology, this looked like every kind of technology for various forms of science. But here, it was like a cross between a working laboratory that was being continually augmented with new pieces of hardware - oh look, a seven core dimensional particle accelerator. The Doctor checked and nodded. Yes, it was a model that shouldn't be around for another 12,000 years.
But he was puzzled.
The aliens who were behind this didn't have the technology to steal equipment like this unless they were knocking holes into the fabric of the universe, and he doubted it quickly. Most races who used rip technology quickly discovered its side effects, and nobody was insane to think it was ideal time travel.
"Hello, Doctor," the familiar and yet unfamiliar woman's voice from the TARDIS spoke from behind.
The Doctor turned and saw a woman who appeared to be in her early thirties with jaw-length brunette hair and blue eyes, wearing a nun's habit, of all things while smiling at him smugly. Within a second of laying eyes on her, their minds touched.
She was a Time Lord.
Three seconds, their mental connection allowed the Doctor to recognise her, and he groaned in annoyance. "Oh, no, of course, it would be you," he grumbled.
"Now is that any way to greet an old friend?" The woman giggled.
"I don't think we are friends, but you're still the same meddling Monk, regardless of your new incarnation," the Doctor spat before he looked at her appraisingly. "I like the face, and the less said about the habit, the better. Aren't you bored yet of the clerical, religious look?"
"Oh poo, Doctor," the female incarnation of the Monk pouted before she grinned mockingly at him before she looked down at her habit and the long black dress before she looked up into his eyes. "I felt these clothes suit me. They're less itchy my last habit, and they're more comfortable-."
"I thought you were tired of being typecasted of being called a Monk, and now a Nun?" The Doctor shoved both hands into the pockets of his jacket, deftly pressing the recording button on the pocket recorder he had. He'd gotten into the habit of recording moments like this; you never knew when something important would come up and it would vanish because you had been careless enough to ignore it.
The female Monk sighed dramatically. "I don't know what you mean, but must we argue?"
"Did you have anything to do with the rip portal?"
"Of course, I helped the Xon open it."
"The Xon, who are they?" The Doctor went through his mind all the races he had heard of, but the Xon were not in that pantheon, but then again he hadn't really been travelling often to know who was in the universe. But he wondered what these Xon had done to make themselves so interesting for the Nun.
"The Xon are my current client race, Doctor," the Nun smiled disarmingly.
"That does not exactly help."
"Oh, fair enough," the Nun shrugged with the same attitude which had always aggravated the Doctor. "Okay, the Xon are a species I feel has great potential. They got out into space a short time ago. In the original continuity, they would have slowly exploded space so I felt I had to involve myself, and they advanced really quickly when I gave them the basics of space travel."
"Oh, of course, you did!" The Doctor cried in annoyance. "I don't suppose it occurred to you to leave well enough alone."
"Of course not, Doctor. You're aware of how much I want to improve history. I can't do that if I don't interfere," the Nun pointed out.
"It would be better if you left everything alone. Can't you see if you leave races alone, allow them to grow on their own, they'll advance more quickly instead of simply being handed everything you give them on a plate?" The Doctor asked although he knew it would likely do little good since the Monk had never listened to him before.
"Actually I can't. Anyway, I gave them access to hyperspace and they soon began to spread."
"So why did they launch an attack on Earth? Did you give them Rip engine technology?"
For the first time, the Nun looked uncomfortable and she even wrung her hands together, clearly knowing that he would not like the answer regardless of whatever excuse she came up with. "Answering your questions in reverse, Doctor, I gave them the basics of time travel technology because I saw an opportunity to make them great. But they developed rip engine technology on their own, using their hyperdrives as a blueprint. But I didn't know I'd given them enough knowledge to do something like that."
"No, you never did know when to take responsibility for your actions, and accept the consequences. Why would you be so monumentally stupid to give time travel technology to a species who clearly don't know what they're doing?" The Doctor demanded angrily.
The Nun huffed and looked upset. He didn't care. "There's no need to put it like that, Doctor-."
What did you expect you stupid fool? The Doctor didn't say what sprang to mind, though; the Nun had never accepted the truth as being her fault, never had and never would, in any of her incarnations, so there was no point.
"Why are they attacking Earth? What did you tell them?" The Doctor decided to move on.
"Ah, yes," the Nun suddenly smiled at him in that smug way he recognised throughout her lives, that way that said how she regarded herself as so clever only for the rug to be pulled out from under her feet. "I might have lied to them a little-."
"What did you say to them?"
The Nun huffed. "If you'll let me finish, Doctor. I told them humanity would destroy their civilisation in the future, but if they launched a pre-emptive strike in the past, then they would have a chance for surviving."
The Doctor said nothing. He was staring at the Nun in horror, unwilling to believe what he had just heard her say. "You did what? What are you possibly trying to do, meddler?! You want to improve history, and yet you're trying to destroy a planet whose past you've meddled in more than once, why, what's the point?!"
He felt it was a good question. The first time the Doctor had met the Monk since both Time Lords left Gallifrey, the other Time Lord had been trying to change the outcome of the Battle of Hastings by destroying the Vikings so King Harold wouldn't have to march up north and defeat them first, which led to the loss at the battle since his men were already battle weary.
As plans went, the Doctor had come up across better, admittedly, but it was simple and elegant. But the Doctor had let a few things slip to the locals, and the Monk had been forced to give up the plan. But every time the Doctor encountered the Monk, the other Time Lord was trying to change history for the better, so why try to destroy Earth now?
"I'm actually trying to make both Earth and the Xon better, Doctor," the Nun protested before sneering at him pointedly, "and is it so hard for you to believe; you interfere continually."
"I know what I'm doing-!"
"Oh, and I suppose us mortal Time Lords don't? You always were conceited, you believe nobody else has the right to make the universe a better place!"
"That's not fair!"
"Say that to King Harold, Doctor. Or those people at that clinic I was tending to. The people of Halcyon-."
"Halcyon?" The Doctor repeated, eyes wide. "What did you do there?'
The Nun ignored him, too angry and ranting. "All I ever wanted was to make the universe a better place to live in, Doctor. Yes, I break the laws of time. I've been doing it so often that my life is in flux, I can't even tell you which regeneration I'm on now. But you meddle in history as well. You were there when the Silurians and the humans fought each other. Oh yes, I dropped in on the occasion at the time, but I left before I could even plan a way to change things around because my TARDIS picked up Time Lord activity and I didn't want to run the risk of being caught by them. You were also given a mission by the Time Lords to change history so the Daleks never rose to power. What did you do instead, you let them survive!"
"Whereas you would have destroyed them?"
"What, a chance to really make the universe better? An opportunity presented by the Time Lords themselves? In a heartbeat or two, definitely. Anyway, you didn't go through with it. Everywhere you go, you change history, and you've got the nerve to tell others not to do the same?" The Nun's voice was rising with every word.
The Doctor puffed himself up as he readied himself for a fight. "I'm trying to help people!"
"So why do you deny others that right as well? Are you really so arrogant to believe only you have the right to help others?!" The Nun screamed at him, her eyes spitting with rage. Suddenly she let it all out of her mouth, years of poisonous rage the Doctor could tell she had been keeping bottled up within her for centuries. "You stranded me in 1066; do you have any idea what that filthy age is like!? I had to spend months modifying my TARDIS scanner to re-shift the internal dimensions, and I needed another month of work before my ship was ready to leave. What about Tamsin, my friend? You let her die and blamed me for it! How dare you, you self-righteous hypocrite! I only left Gallifrey to help others and make the universe into a better place, whereas you don't bat an eyelid whenever the Time Lords change history themselves. Oh, and they're just as bad as you are!"
"That's not fair!" The Doctor knew getting defensive was not going to help here, but he didn't like being compared to the Time Lords.
"It's true. And here, I'm trying to help two species evolve into something better than they are now; the Xon are only just rising to prominence while those intellectually challenged humans you adore so much are wallowing around on a planet constantly under attack by aliens like the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Kulan, and the Silurians and Sea Devils. Why, an interplanetary war would do them the worlds of good, but here you are trying to stop me, just as I'd hoped! I've been stuck on this miserable planet for 30 years, and I have been doing everything in my power to-!"
"Wait a minute! Stuck here for thirty years?" The Doctor repeated.
The Nun took a step back, the anger already leaving her completely as she realised what it was she had just let slip. Her anger was replaced completely by uncertainty. "Well-," she began, but she suddenly closed her mouth.
A light suddenly lit up inside the Doctor's mind. "I wondered why my TARDIS suddenly acted strangely. You had more than revenge in mind for me, didn't you? You wanted my TARDIS to escape."
The Nun chuckled, and now all of the anger and uncertainty in her eyes had left her it was like looking into the face of a different woman. "I did. But you've got it wrong."
"Oh, how?"
"I met a future me of the me I am now - and yes, I know about the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, so don't waste your breath - and I learnt of the plan to summon you here through the portals and she told me it worked out in the end, and in return, you and I would shut down the Xon rip engine completely and remove all record of Earth from the Xon files," the Nun said cheerfully, completely changing her attitude from a moment before.
"Oh wonderful, a temporal paradox. So let me get this straight and clear in my mind; you have been stranded on this planet for 30 years, giving the Xon technology, and was even stupid enough to force a war onto Earth and them which was never meant to happen. In that time you lost your TARDIS and your future self obviously found it after working with me to get it back and destroy the Rip engine technology you handed to them on a plate. Have I missed anything?"
"No," the Nun smiled at him. "I think you've covered it all."
"Give me one good reason why I should," the Doctor snarled at her. "Why should I help you? Paradoxes are easy enough to break if you know-how, and I do know-how-."
"So do I. But this is not the kind of paradox that can change; I've just admitted to you that we work together. Think, Doctor, think!" The Nun walked closer to him, holding out her hands desperately, opening her mind to him and he saw in his mind the image of the Nun and another version of the Nun, who had come out of their TARDIS and told the first original Nun about what had happened.
The Doctor concentrated on the connection, but the whole thing seemed genuine to him. At the same time, the Nun was still speaking. "My TARDIS is gone, but a future version of myself worked with you to get it back, and we can repair the damage."
"You are hardly my idea of an ideal companion. But I agree."
The Doctor led the Nun, who was grinning, back to the TARDIS and she looked around with a sniff around the console room. "What is this model anyway?"
"Don't you know?" The Doctor looked up from his work as he set the controls. "After all you sabotaged my ship-."
"I haven't done it yet, Doctor," The Nun countered as she looked around curiously. "This is a Type 40 Mark 3 model."
"Yes, that's right."
"You know, Doctor, you only have to update your TARDIS software and hardware to make it into a Mark 4. It's ever so easy. I can show you if you'd like," the Nun walked around the console room.
The Doctor was tempted to indignantly tell the Nun that his TARDIS was how he wanted, but at the same time the offer was tempting considering how state of the art the upgrades were, but he quickly discounted it. The sooner he and the Nun dealt with this the better. In the meantime, he kept a close watch on her. He wasn't happy having the Nun, or indeed any version of the Monk in his TARDIS; he remembered the times when he'd stolen the Monk's dimensional control and the directional unit. The Monk had good reason for wanting revenge and the Doctor knew it was dangerous giving the Nun access to his TARDIS.
That was why he was keeping watch on her. He trusted her as much as he trusted the Master or even the Rani.
"Can I have your TARDIS key to help you track down your TARDIS?" Short and sweet. If he could keep it going like that, then this would be over quickly.
The Nun nodded and walked over to him, handing over her own TARDIS key. The Doctor took it and pressed it against the console before he pushed home the last switches, and the TARDIS dematerialised.
"Well, we've got the location of your TARDIS. We should be there soon."
"Are you sure?" The Nun was now dancing on her feet, clearly grinning at the prospect of being with her TARDIS once more.
"Yes. We're arriving now," the Doctor pointed at the Time rotor as it was slowing down, but he frowned as he studied the readings as the TARDIS began materialising. "Wait, we've only moved a few meters…"
Out of the corner of his eye, while he had been focused on the console, he noticed a flash of movement coming from a dark sleeved arm, but by the time he registered it, he felt a small jab of pain stab into his neck. As darkness overtook him, the Doctor found himself staring at the Nun, who grinned at him the entire time before everything went dark.
X
The first thing he was aware of when he was waking up was the sound of a bell. As he focused on the sound, the Doctor looked around the console room and saw to his horror the console was on fire. Leaping to his feet after somehow pushing away the nausea caused by whatever it was the Nun had used on him, the Doctor got to the console. The moment he touched the sides, the pitch of the interior changed as the engines accelerated.
The Doctor frowned in confusion. Mm, curious.
His eyes widened when he took in the velocity regulator. The TARDIS was accelerating, far beyond the safe cruising speed of the vortex. A look at the year-meter which had been one of the first systems he had torn out and repaired when he was first exiled to Earth was showing the needle moving further and further into the future, but the Doctor had no idea where they were heading. He only knew they were passing through millions of centuries of time.
The Doctor tried to reduce the speed, but the accelerator was jammed.
As he worked, a hologram of the Nun appeared over the Time rotor - the Doctor noticed the rotor rising and falling gave the impression the other Time Lord was on the deck of a boat, but he dismissed it as irrelevant.
"Hello, Doctor. I'm sorry I couldn't stay, but I felt it best to get away before you regained consciousness. So how did you feel about my trap? That's right, the whole thing was a scam, and you were so easy to fool. But first, let me tell you what my scheme was. When I heard your freedom had been granted, I stole two Xon starships - so I didn't make up the Xon, although I did lie about helping them to the extent I told you although I spent a year providing more advanced technology for them - and I found a decent enough planet two years in the past relative from the point you were on Earth, built a base there and created a Rip portal using the hyperspace engines onboard one of them and I directed it against Earth. And I was behind the attack on Earth, which will have dozens of magnificent changes to Earth's future.
"Anyways, I digress; I did all of this to get revenge on you. The opportunity was too great, and I took it. I've hardwired the TARDIS navigational computer to take you whizzing around the universe a few times before dropping you on the same planet I landed on when you stole the directional unit from my own ship. Oh, don't worry, I didn't do what you did, after all, I am better than you! Oh, don't be too surprised if you have to put on thermals; it's an ice planet, nothing more than a giant snowball. I've damaged your TARDIS sufficiently to stop you from trying to escape, but when you land," she shrugged, "who knows? Perhaps your ship will never fly again while I whizz through the universe on my own! Goodbye, Doctor!"
The Doctor threw the projector to the other side of the room before the hologram even faded, not wanting to listen to the Nun's mocking laughter anymore, and the console lurched again as the TARDIS seemed ready to leap out of the Time Vortex. Now he had heard the story, he felt like a fool for believing the Nun so readily but he hadn't had any evidence. So she had ripped open a hole in time and space, grabbed his attention and then spun a web of lies that seemed too convincing. She had played him and like the fool he was, he'd fallen for it.
He would worry about that later. Right now, the Doctor's biggest problem was getting out of this mess. As his fingers played around the controls, wincing and cursing as the sparks flew out to burn the tips, the Doctor knew he had to get the TARDIS under control.
He only hoped he succeeded.
Author's Note - When I learnt Dalek Universe 1 by Big Finish featured a female version of the Monk voiced by Gemma Whelan, I had to get my hands on it. As I listened to it, I felt it made sense the Monk's life, in general, is in so much flux because of the time meddling, and they would share the same anger towards the Doctor, seeing him as a hypocrite. It was touched upon during the Seventh Doctor novel No Future where the Monk had been spying on the Doctor for centuries and saw the Time Lords had let him get away with breaking the laws of time.