I'm sorry it's taken so long to upload this short story to the anthology, but I've had a busy month and I am hoping to upload more at a later date.
As usual, I don't own Doctor Who.
Shadow of Klein
The Consequences of A Third Doctor.
Like his previous self, the Doctor wanted something dignified, smart, as befitting a Time Lord, but at the same time, he wanted something simple to wear. That was easier said than good, however, as he went through the wardrobe looking through the extensive collection of clothes on offer, mentally checking if he liked the clothes or not before he moved on or took a much closer look; he grimaced when he saw the gaudy collection of jackets worn by his sixth incarnation and he quickly walked off, shuddering at the garish colours.
No, he would never wear one of those ever again.
His sixth incarnation had been one of the most …difficult lives he could ever define, but one of the reasons for that was how long his fifth incarnation had actually been alive before that mess on Androzani Minor, and the violent nature of that regeneration since it had started hours before out of instinct when his body had suffered from the effects of spectrox toxaemia so much it had begun the process, forcing his fifth self to clamp it down in the hopes of recovering the bat's milk in time before violently going through with it when he'd accidentally knocked the vial out of his pocket.
It was the violent nature of that particular regeneration which was one of the reasons why the Doctor now hoped to give in to regeneration freely after putting it off for a short time so then nobody else would suffer the way Peri had, but considering how many years he had spent in his sixth incarnation, there was little need to worry. Still, he was tempted to gather all of those gaudily coloured jackets and hurl them out into the Time Vortex or into a supernova; he remembered the way when he was younger, and how he had wanted to wear something that bold. Well, now he had he could say it wasn't worth the trouble.
The Doctor suddenly came across the same kind of clothes his first incarnation wore; he had outgrown them, now he was centuries older than his original incarnation, but he found himself looking at the cravat, the wing-collared white shirt, and smart shoes thoughtfully before he walked off in search of something like it.
Alright, maybe something similar but not too identical.
At the same time, he was left worrying about Ace.
He knew, regardless of what he had said to her, Ace blamed herself for what had happened in Colditz, resulting in the death of his seventh incarnation. While the loss of an incarnation was bad, the Doctor actually felt refreshed; his seventh incarnation had had good moments, he wasn't discounting that; he had no idea what kind of long-term good the destruction of Skaro with the Hand of Omega would have had in the long-term although from what he knew of the future, with the future of a Time War at the back of his mind although it was a blur that he could barely see even with his temporal senses he could perceive enough to know it was right there in the back of his mind.
A confusing nexus of timelines, tangled up with each other with time being rendered so malleable it was like a cat's cradle. The Doctor knew his seventh self had been roped by the Time Lords into addressing the matter with the Hand of Omega, but many of the details were vague with nothing to do with his new regeneration. But he knew the Time War was out there, seeping through from some future time period, separated by the timelines and the time tracks, and the sophisticated temporal barriers and security systems imposed on time and history by the Time Lords.
The Doctor knew he would have to deal with it at some point but he was not going to manipulate his way through it. His seventh self had done that, coming up with plans and counter-plans, but with his new post regenerative point of view, the Doctor could see how his predecessor had created plans to deal with immediate dangers, nothing long-term. At the same time, the Doctor was aware his predecessor had pushed those around him away, so focused on forming plans to deal with evil and darkness while at the same time terrified of becoming the Valeyard he didn't see he might actually be bringing the Valeyard's dark future ever closer….
The Doctor paused when he found a long, elegant dark green velvet frock coat paired with a pair of beige trousers. The Doctor took them off their respective rails, and he held them up before he smiled. He quickly put the trousers on and they fit perfectly. Next, he found some shirts before he found a white wing-collared shirt, and nearby were a number of waistcoats, including a double breast silver-grey paisley waistcoat. After examining the waistcoats, the Doctor quickly donned the silver-grey paisley waistcoat after grimacing at the others.
Heading for the part of the wardrobe where the ties and cravats were usually found, the Doctor searched through them. He fingered the bow tie selection, picturing himself mentally with his new look with a bow tie that matched his current colour scheme, but in the end, he decided to experiment with his clothes for the next few weeks, much as his third self had experimented with his own outfits without picking a single one outside the set criteria ever since he'd found himself in that dratted hospital during that mess with the first Nestene invasion during his exile to Earth.
The Doctor was just finishing tying up the cravat, and when he was done, he smiled. Yes, he appeared very elegant. He was now almost a cross between the elegance of his third incarnation and yet with the Victorian style of his first while he retained his new physical youth.
Suddenly the TARDIS lurched, making him frown before he raced through the corridors back to the console room.
Ace was standing over the console and was holding on when the TARDIS lurched again. She looked up and her eyes widened when she caught sight of his new appearance, but the Doctor didn't have time to be admired.
"What happened?" The Doctor asked her.
"I dunno," Ace only just managed to hold onto the bucking TARDIS console as it lurched again. "I was walking around the console when those lights came on," she pointed a hand and jabbed a finger in the direction of the console, "and then the whole ship lurched. What are they?" She asked.
"They're warning lights," the Doctor was about to explain more as he examined the console and the readings of the local vortex, "we're still too close to the nexus around Colditz."
"Oh no," Ace whispered over the lurching of the TARDIS, and the wheeze of the engines as the old ship tried desperately to right herself, and get away from the nexus, "you mean we might be heading back?"
"I don't know," the Doctor grunted as he tried to get the TARDIS out of what was happening, "I'm having a…oh, no."
"What is it?" That was the last thing Ace wanted to hear from the Doctor.
"I was wrong. We've already slipped inside the nexus."
"What? But what was that lurching?"
The Doctor rechecked his scans, hoping that his theories were wrong. But he sighed. No, he was not wrong. "Shifting timelines creating time winds. We're still close to our own timeline, but we're now in the middle of a cluster of alternate timelines held in place by a null time-zone."
"What's that?" Ace's head was already pounding with the amount of time travel info she was being bombarded with.
"Null time zones are basically created the moment an alternative timeline comes into existence, where the universe decides whether it splits off or replaces what was meant to happen," the Doctor explained as he frantically went to work as he tried to think of a way of getting out of this mess, "Normally they only last a short amount of time, no more than a second or two and they are usually undetectable although Temporal Observations on Gallifrey rely on information feeds from TARDISes to detect them since such closer analysis can provide a great deal of closer information, but when they do split off they prevent other time travellers going back or forth to those specific divergence points. But it looks like the temporal storm around Colditz was powerful enough to create a null time zone with numerous timelines."
"Numerous?" Ace echoed, looking at him with fear. "You mean we might never get back?"
"Oh nothing like that," the Doctor smiled reassuringly, and Ace couldn't help but blush. "No, we're still close to the original universe, but I need to find a decent enough path to get us back to our own universe."
"Could someone have created them all at once?"
"Well, no, but-," the Doctor began to reply, before he paused thoughtfully, blinking as he tried to work out the particulars in his still settling head. "Actually, yes, Ace. It could happen.
With that he checked the controls and the displays before he looked up, his expression shocked and grim. Ace watched him with worry, knowing it was not good news.
"What's wrong?" Ace cut in, wondering what was happening now.
"There are five," the Doctor whispered in shock before he pulled himself together. "There are five parallel worlds right in front of us."
"What?"
"There are five parallel timelines right in front of us, but I don't know for sure if there aren't going to be more, but hopefully if I can reach enough of them, I might be able to find a way of getting the TARDIS back to our own reality," the Doctor said quickly like he was trying to reassure her.
Ace was just about to ask him a question, or rather a barrage of them when the familiar sound of the TARDIS landing filled the air in the console room, but it sounded so much slower than normal. "Where are we?"
The Doctor quickly checked the readings, and then he nodded. "We're landing in a timeline not too different from our own, so that's good. And Gallifrey definitely exists in this timeline, and it's not alone; I'm picking up a majority of timelines near our own where Gallifrey exists."
"Can your people help us?" Ace asked, wondering for a moment why the Doctor said it like that, but she dismissed it, guessing that in at least one timeline Gallifrey and his people were either gone or they couldn't be found.
The Doctor made a face at the thought. "Mm, better not," he decided while he decided to view the idea as a last resort, "my people and I have always had a rather…contentious relationship, and I have no idea if my counterparts if I have any, have a good relationship with the Time Lords or not. In any case, there's a chance the Time Lords could lock us up simply for entering their realities."
"What? Why would they do that?" Ace cut in.
"Oh, all sorts of reasons," the Doctor waved a hand vaguely while he ran a hand through his longish hair. "Different viewpoints, different technologies they don't want their reality contaminated with…or because they have no idea if our arrival could result at the end of their reality. It does happen; some inter-dimensional travellers have technologies or abilities that only become dangerous if they crossover into another timeline. And there's the chance our counterparts are dangerous and they would mistake us easily for them."
He shook his head while Ace gave him a look that said she wasn't sure if those reasons were all there was, and he got to work tapping away at the console while the TARDIS materialised in the alternate timeline, and the Doctor quickly compared this reality to the one he and Ace were native to. It didn't take long for the TARDIS to make the comparisons between this universe and his own. The TARDIS was old enough to have a good enough map of the universe, so it didn't take him long to find the divergence of this timeline.
"Ah, marvellous!" The Doctor grinned when he found the divergence point, but then his expression shifted and became grimmer. "Oh, dear."
"What's wrong?" Ace asked, feeling she had been asking that for too long today.
"Well, we're arriving in one of the timelines, and we're approaching Earth. In this universe, my counterpart is a time meddler similar to the Monk, only he prefers to give small hints to those who he meets on his travels," the Doctor replied.
"You can tell that?"
"The TARDIS might be from a different universe but she's still sensitive enough to pick up on the changes," the Doctor smiled as he patted the console affectionately, "and my biodata is all over the universe. So it's easy to find."
"I'll take your word for it, Professor. So what's your other self done?" Ace didn't want to know how the TARDIS was able to tell the difference; it would likely take hours anyway.
The Doctor didn't answer right away as he studied the monitor, his expression turning grimmer as he studied the swirling circular symbols of the Time Lord language. "According to this, the Doctor of this timeline has recently left Earth in the 2020s after spending close to seventy years here, altering history. Not only has he worked with UNIT, but he's also given them and other alien watching organisations the technology they needed to ensure any alien they meet is not a threat."
"That…doesn't sound bad," Ace commented tentatively, unsure what to say about that. She had been with the Doctor long enough to see the Intruder Countermeasures Group fight off the Imperial and Renegade Dalek factions while seeing UNIT deal with Morgraine. In her mind, they needed all the help they could get.
"True, but the TARDIS has enough detail of this reality to tell my other self gave Professor Quatermass of the British Rocket Group a lot of aid, adjusting formulas so Quatermass was able to get people into space, and after that, he provided the equations so not only did humans have the means of building reaction-less impulse engines, but he gave them the basics of hyperspace travel as well…a century before they're meant to have it. This might be a different reality, but it seems some things are meant to be constant."
"Oh," Ace was unsure what else to say by this point, but after the revelations she'd been forced to face in Colditz just now, she was unsure if a Doctor who meddled in history so brazenly was a good thing.
But what would make a Doctor do such a thing in the first place?
"Why is he doing it?" She turned to him in confusion, remembering all the times this Doctor told her about the risks, so she found it hard to comprehend why a different Doctor would change history like this.
"Apparently he wants to make the universe a better place, that the Time Lords should change history to help those in need; I agree with him in theory, but I don't agree with the practice," the Doctor shook his head as he looked at the console. "We're going to have to land on Earth."
"Why?" Ace shook her head in confusion as the Doctor began busying himself around the console in preparation for landing.
"Well, the instruments are still affected by the turbulence. I want to give the old girl a chance to cool down. In any case, we could go exploring and see the differences here while we wait," the Doctor said as he made the final preparations for the materialisation. As he worked he wondered what had changed to make his other self here in this universe like this, what could drive his other self to change history in such a manner?
He may have changed history in his own lives - his first and fifth incarnation's involvements during the fire of Rome and the Great Fire of London were moments where he had known history was going to change around those moments anyway, so he had interfered - but never on this scale.
The time Gallifrey had sent that CIA operative to give him the mission to change Dalek history didn't really count; that time the Time Lords had given him the mission, it wasn't something he had done on his own, but that mess with Maradnias where his sixth incarnation's interference transformed a simple civil war into a bloody nuclear conflict which destroyed half of the planet was down to his own choice.
It was tempting to try to track down his other self, but the moment the thought popped into his mind, the Doctor decided against it. The TARDIS wasn't in good shape right now, she needed the time to cool down and in any case, there was the chance the Time Lords here were likely tracking down. If they found him and Ace, they would likely blame them for the crimes of his counterpart and that was the last thing he needed.
While it would have been good to gain access to his counterpart's TARDIS, and use that TARDIS's connection of Gallifrey's Eye of Harmony to safely jump time tracks, and get to the next reality on their journey home, the Doctor had to admit there was little they could do.
The console chimed.
The Doctor looked up from the displays. "There's a ship travelling under full fusion drive," he muttered thoughtfully.
"Is that important?"
"Hmm, what? Oh, no. But the fusion drive could really help us jump to the next reality."
"How?"
"If I link the TARDIS with the output of the fusion core, I can then slip us sideways in time; I did something similar by accident five regenerations back. I was trying to restore the TARDIS to working order when I fell into a parallel world by accident," the Doctor replied, thinking grimly on the memory of that parallel world; of the alternate versions of his UNIT friends who were changed in the fascistic environment, and their stubborn refusal to listen to him when he'd warned them of the dangers until it was far too late.
"Will that work? I mean I thought you wanted the other you's TARDIS to link the Eye of…something?" Ace asked uncertainly.
"The Eye of Harmony, and yes. I had wanted to use the TARDIS of my other self in this reality, but I can use any kind of power system, but the use of a second Eye of Harmony connected to Gallifrey would go a long way to helping us bypass the barriers separating the realities. But we can still use a fusion plant to get us to the next one," the Doctor said as optimistically as he could, although he hoped they succeeded.
Quickly the Doctor started setting the controls and soon they were landing.
"Are we on board?"
"Yes," the Doctor grinned at her before he quickly checked the readouts and nodded. "Everything seems alright outside. But we'd better be careful. I've landed us close to the fusion plant, but there's a chance the security systems on this ship will detect us, so we'd better not wander around," the Doctor added while he stared pointedly at Ace.
Ace, despite annoyed at the Doctor believing she would wander around, especially since it seemed she hadn't learnt anything in Colditz, nodded. "I'm not going anywhere."
The Doctor smiled disarmingly at her that she quite forgot her annoyance. "Marvellous. Anyway, shall we go?"
X
The engine room of the fusion-ship/transport/cruiser, whatever - Ace had no idea what it was called and truthfully when you had been on as many ships as she had over her time with the Doctor, they all blended and merged together - was certainly impressive, if you liked things to look like a giant car engine or something you found in the engine room of an ocean-going ship.
Ace had seen dozens of engine systems during her time; in Spacefleet she had seen the engine rooms of countless ships, some of them were from Earth but others were inspection visits to wrecked and derelict Dalek warships, and while every species designed and built their ships along with their respective philosophies, some were more aesthetic than others while many were more practical, Ace had never ever seen a spaceships' engine room which was anything like the one on the USS Enterprise out of Star Trek, so she wasn't surprised when she stepped out of the TARDIS and found herself in an engine room which was crammed full of pipes carrying different fluids, cylinders and conduits all stuffed into this one space. Space was so tight that both Ace and the Doctor had to walk single file through the fittings.
Ace frowned. There was something about this ship she hadn't been able to understand when she had stepped out of the TARDIS, but as they walked through the passageways while the Doctor gently uncoiled a length of cable leading from the TARDIS to…wherever they were going to go, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
Was it the thrumming sound in the engine? No, that was nothing unusual.
But it wasn't until she and the Doctor both passed into a different section of the ship, where she almost lost her footing and had to grab onto a handhold that she realised what was wrong.
"Hold on, this ship doesn't have artificial gravity?" Ace demanded irritably, hoping this Doctor wasn't going to be as secretive as the last one.
"It does of a sort. This reality has access to artificial gravity technology, thanks to my counterpart but clearly not all of their space technology has it," the Doctor said, and she saw him cast a curious eye on the handlebars and straps. "Hmm, I suspect the designers and builders of this ship didn't see the point. The fusion drive's acceleration produces the artificial gravity, and that's clearly enough for them. Anyway, shall we go on?"
A memory entered Ace's mind as they carefully walked through the engine room; she was surprised there was a low gravity area in the heart of the source of the artificial gravity, but she suspected there were moments where the acceleration couldn't be kept constant. "I remember my time in Spacefleet," she told him. "A group of my friends and I were hitchhiking on various ships through the galaxy. The Sontarans had diverted a number of Earth's warships so they could set up a number of clone worlds in a solar system Earth had just colonised, and I and a group of five others were given an important assignment to stop it. However the Sontarans kept going for warships, so Spacefleet realised they needed to send in the cavalry a different way. The ship we were on travelled in hyperspace most of the way, but it was so primitive it needed to accelerate just to produce enough gravity to make us move."
"Spacefleet?" The Doctor repeated, and his expression became sad. "I remember what happened-."
"Don't," Ace held up her hand. "Stop. I already forgave you for the worst of that whole mess, Doctor. Can we drop it now, please, and get on with this?"
"Gladly."
The Doctor and Ace eventually came across a large spherical conduit, where the Doctor joined the cable with a power outlet like Ace had done with her home television back in Perivale.
"Is that it?" Ace asked.
"Yes."
Ace was almost disappointed, but it fitted in with her experience. Ace had learnt most technologies in the future were just enhanced ideas of what she could find in her own time, although there were things that didn't fit in. Why wouldn't a ship come with a plug socket?
"So what are you planning on doing with the power of the ship, Doctor?" Ace asked as they walked back into the console room.
"I'm going to draw some of the energy of the fusion generators into the TARDIS," the Doctor gave her a casual smile before he busied himself at the controls. "Once I set up the TARDIS, I'm going to draw on the fusion drive to give us enough of a push to the next reality."
"It's that easy?"
"Oh, Ace-Ace-Ace, nothing is simple. You should know that by now. I'm going to draw a lot of energy from the ships' fusion drive. At the same time, I'm going to delete a few rooms in the TARDIS to really push us into the next universe."
"Doctor, what do you think we're gonna find in the next universe? I mean, we've just found a world where your counterpart has given science and technology that's more advanced than what they should have, but what will we find in the next one?" Ace asked.
The Doctor paused as he thought of it while he built up the power needed for the time jump. "I honestly don't know, Ace. The problem with parallel universes is there are so many of them, all of them with totally different possibilities. That's the reason why the Time Lords have laws forbidding or limiting travel between universes, but it does happen. I don't know what we're going to find in the next reality. Anyway, we'd better get going."
The Doctor's hands danced over the console and there was a hum of power before the TARDIS vibrated while the time rotor began rising slowly. "It's working. Soon, we'll be out of here…."
Suddenly everything stopped, forcing the Doctor to jump back in shock. "What?"
"Doctor? This is Agent Zeuro, office of the Temporal Intervention Directorate," an officious voice spoke from the console.
"Oh no," the Doctor moaned.
"You are in violation of Time Laws, 112, 133, and 6000-," Zeuro went on.
"Who is he?" Ace asked, looking at the Doctor quizzically.
The Doctor sighed. "He's a Time Lord of this reality, Ace. The Time Lords must have been monitoring this solar system, detected my TARDIS as we arrived-."
As if the Time Lord was waiting to confirm it… the Time Lord confirmed it. "We have been monitoring the Sol system. We were not expecting your return to this part of the universe, Doctor. But it doesn't matter; I am going to take you to Gallifrey where you will stand trial for the damage you have caused to history."
The TARDIS's ambient noise changed completely, making Ace turn to the Doctor questioningly. "What's that?"
"I don't know," the Doctor trailed off, looking around the console room worriedly before he checked the readouts. His eyes went wide. That was not a good sign. "Oh no. That TARDIS is locked with ours. Basically, he's partially materialised around us, and we can't escape…. Unless…," a gleam of thought passed over his face. Quickly the Doctor raced around the console his hands dashing over the controls.
"It's no good, Doctor, you cannot escape-D-Doctor, what are you doing? You're draining power from my ship-!" Zeuro's supercilious voice became panicky as the TARDIS began to shake, and the usual take-off sound began, but it sounded strained and more high pitched. The Doctor carried on with his work before he slammed his fist down on a single control.
The TARDIS shook extra hard before the take-off sound sounded normal again.
"What was all that about?" Ace demanded as the TARDIS stopped shaking.
"One way of escaping a TARDIS interlock is to basically reverse the time vector drive, the backwash is powerful enough to send both ships off to different parts of the universe, but I was also draining that TARDIS of some of its energy while deleting rooms this TARDIS does not need to push this ship into the next reality."
"So we're there?"
"Well, I hope so."
"You hope so?"
"Ace, I've never done anything like this before; yes, I've had my TARDIS interlocked like that, but that was completely different. I'm more worried about two things; first, how we left; we tore through the Time Vortex and past the dimensional barriers like a stone being skimmed across the surface of a pond. I don't know where we are. Second, I'm worried about how much energy we have left."
Ace paled as the full implications of that last statement reached her. "You mean.. we might not have enough energy to get away?"
The Doctor just looked at her grimly while Ace looked on at him in horror before the TARDIS started to land again.
And then it went dark.
Author's note - Zeuro was inspired by a Time Lord in the Doctor Who Unbound drama A Storm of Angels. I thought it was appropriate.