I was a bit surprised at the response to this. It must be emphasized, however, that this is a story I've never gotten around to completing, nor to I have any inclination to. This is more something I discovered amongst my own archives, and thought you'd appreciate.
In any case, I can't actually remember what I had in line for the plot, as this story was conceived years ago, when I first started on this site. I have a vague recollection that Dahn'Gerrel was collaborating with Carrington (the main antagonist of the original story of Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death), and Tali was forced to go along with their plot, but I can't remember what they wanted to achieve for the life of me. I think the Geth might have gotten involved at one point, but again, I can't remember the details. I wanted to do a Malcolm Hulke-style story, with villains with complex motives and some moral ambiguity (Hulke even rewrote part of The Ambassadors of Death, which, while officially credited to David Whitaker, was actually rewritten quite heavily and by a number of writers, specifically Trevor Ray, Malcolm Hulke, and Terrance Dicks).
Anyway, I hope you enjoy...
THE CHILDREN OF RANNOCH
CHAPTER 2:
ON THE QUARIANS
The moment the Doctor heard that, he stopped work on the TARDIS console, and all but dragged Liz to Bessie, his modified Edwardian roadster, and began driving as fast as he could to the Space Control centre. Liz was somewhat put out, considering he hadn't bothered asking her to come along, but then again, he seemed very serious.
As they drove along the road at speeds that didn't seem legal, she asked him, "Doctor, these Quarians…are they dangerous?"
"As dangerous as the Silurians were," the Doctor said, before wincing. He should have picked a better analogy. "What I mean is, the Quarians are people. They're not a particularly warlike race as a whole, though their Migrant Fleet is technically under martial law. They can be negotiated with, though I'm not sure what they're doing on Mars. Too far afield from the usual wanderings of the Migrant Fleet. But I think there's a clue in this Tali'Zorah's name."
"Tali'Zorah nar Entra, that's what she said."
The Doctor nodded, smiling. "Spot on. Tali'Zorah is her actual name. Tali would be her first name if she was a human. 'Nar' means birthplace, specifically which ship she was born on in the Fleet. However, if she had finished the Pilgrimage, she would have added a 'vas' and a ship name to the end."
"Pilgrimage?" Liz asked.
"A rite of passage," the Doctor explained. "Resources are understandably scarce on the Migrant Fleet, and genetic diversity is needed, so they have to swap ships. The Pilgrimage helps solve both problems. It's somewhat ritualistic, but the Pilgrim has to prove that they are capable of pulling their weight. They travel the cosmos, looking for a gift to bring to their new ship. Usually a good cache of supplies."
"But…you're saying this like they're on spaceships all the time. What happened to their homeworld? Did it get destroyed?"
"Usurped," the Doctor said. "I don't know all the details, as I rarely venture into Council Space, but apparently they conducted research into artificial intelligences that was illegal in Council Space. I'll explain that later. Anyway, the Quarians created the Geth, basically a versatile and sophisticated program that formed a neural network for efficiency, as well as robotic bodies or platforms for them to use as workers. The problem was, apparently the Geth became sentient. I'm not sure who fired the first shot, but from what I heard, the Geth forced the Quarians to flee their homeworld, Rannoch. As punishment for their hubris, the Citadel Council forbade them from settling another world."
"Horrible," Liz murmured. The Doctor could only nod in agreement. "So, you're saying that the Quarians are peaceful, in all likelihood."
"Like many races, including humans, and my own people for that matter, they have good and bad within them," the Doctor said. "Which is why we're driving to Space Control. Hopefully, the Brigadier won't blow them to Kingdom Come before I get there!"
The Brigadier was considering that very option, but only as an option, one of many. A military man he may be, but he was far from stupid or violent. In truth, he considered peaceful contact to be a marvellous change to shooting at alien menaces who tended to be immune to bullets.
Although that Silurian was certainly vulnerable, he recalled, not with satisfaction, but with small relief. He had shot that Silurian trying to kill the Doctor, saving the man's life. Of course, the Doctor then laid out his plans to revive the Silurians one at a time. But by that time, the Brigadier had his orders, and carried them out. Not with satisfaction, or with remorse. Like when he shot the Silurian, all he felt was relief. At least until the Doctor caught up with him.
The man was impossible! He worked with the military, but he thought himself above it. True, he did have, if he was to be believed, centuries of experience, and he had been glad enough of the help during their previous encounters. But he talked down to the Brigadier like he was a child, or an idiot. The Doctor failed to realise that Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart worked hard to get his promotions, and not through the connections some people high up in the Royal Army seemed to have. Like that fool (albeit a pleasant enough one) General Scobie, who had ended up being replaced by the Autons. He had retired in the wake of that little fiasco, officially due to ill health, but unofficially, the trauma of being attacked by his own replica and then being made into his own waxwork at Madam Tussaud's led to a nervous breakdown.
The Brigadier cared about his men. The fiasco when he took that squad into a Yeti-infested Convent Garden had affected him deeply. And when they died, killed by some alien menace, he took it personally. He tried not to let it show. Conduct unbecoming an officer. And his motive for destroying the Silurian base was not revenge.
Could there be any peace with the Silurians? If a new base was ever found, maybe the Brigadier could find out. They'd be better prepared this time. The Brigadier didn't dismiss the Doctor's arguments, but he couldn't let his erstwhile ally's personal morals affect the safety of this world.
Maybe this was his second chance, though, to get things right. Assuming these Quarians were friendly, UNIT might have a remit beyond security of the Earth.
Of course, there were going to be D-Notices up the proverbial now(1). Current First Contact procedure had initial media blackouts, until more information could be gathered. If necessary, a hoax story could be sent through to the papers. He remembered the nerve gas cover stories for the incidents involving the Great Intelligence and the Cybermen, and the IRA splinter group cover story for the Auton attack. He was surprised that the public swallowed it(2).
A technician was trying to get his attention. "Brigadier? There's a couple of people in an old jalopy, who claim to be from UNIT. Doctor John Smith, and Doctor Elizabeth Shaw."
"An old man and a young woman with red hair?" the Brigadier asked. Upon receiving an affirmative, he said, "Send them in." He smiled slightly beneath his moustache. The Doctor had come running here, had he? Probably anxious to make sure that he didn't blow these Quarians up.
After some thought, he went over to a desk where Cornish and another man were conferring. "Professor Cornish? Sir James Quinlan?" The latter was addressed to a well-fed man with a florid face and a moustache. Sir James Quinlan was the Minister for Space Travel, though that was mostly a nowhere post mostly used for liaising with NASA and the ESA(3), and he usually spent time here. However, this new event seemed to have stoked Quinlan's ego no end. First Contact, and on British soil, no less.
"Yes?" Quinlan asked impatiently.
"UNIT's scientific advisors have arrived."
"Do we need them?" Quinlan queried, his nose wrinkling.
"Doctor John Smith is an expert on alien species," the Brigadier said with a smile. "He is the finest xenobiologist we have." Liz had taught the Brigadier the term recently, and he enjoyed using it to impress Quinlan, who clearly hadn't heard the word, although he grasped the meaning.
However, Cornish had, and he also didn't seem impressed. "Brigadier, until now, xenobiology has been a purely speculative science."
"My dear chap, that suggests a rather closed mind," came the distinctive voice of the Doctor, striding in as if he owned the place, Liz following closely behind.
"Ah," Quinlan said with oleaginous and false politeness. "You must be Doctor Smith."
"Indeed," the Doctor said, shaking the man's hand. "Sir James Quinlan I presume?" He then turned his attention to Cornish. "And Professor Ralph Cornish. How is Bernard doing?"
"Professor Quatermass? He's retired to Scotland."
"A pity. He was surprised when I told him that his so-called Martians actually came from a not-dissimilar world outside this solar system," the Doctor said with a smile(4).
Cornish opened his mouth, but couldn't speak, not at first. Eventually, he said, "If you really are a xenobiologist, how did you come by this knowledge?"
"By travel," the Doctor said laconically. "And I know more about the Quarians than you do."
Quinlan looked at Cornish, and then the Brigadier, Liz, and the Doctor, before saying, "We'd better continue this in my office, away from prying ears…"
It took Cornish and Quinlan considerable time to accept the fact that the Doctor was an alien himself, raising not unreasonable objections about the fact that he looked human (to which the Doctor retorted, 'My dear chaps, you look like Time Lords'). Once they did, however, the Doctor did fill them in on what he knew of the Quarians.
He also explained, as simply as he could, the nature of the Citadel Council. A trinity of species, the Turians, the Asari, and the Salarians (no relation to the Silurians, despite their reptilian ancestry), were heads of the Council, while a number of species, such as the Volus, the Hanar, the Batarians, and the Elcor, were client races.
"You'd like the Turians, Brigadier," the Doctor remarked sardonically. "Their entire society is militarised, albeit with a meritocratic bent. They're better than the Daleks or the Sontarans, at any rate. At least they can be negotiated with."
"Do they have any interest in Earth?" the Brigadier asked.
"No. The Citadel is many thousands of light years away, and they aren't conquerors. Even the Turians don't expand that far. In fact, that's what's worrying me. My knowledge on the Quarians isn't as comprehensive as, say, my knowledge of the Daleks or the Cybermen, but they generally don't venture out of Council-controlled space. And many of their ships are basically patched-up hand-me-downs."
"What are they like, in terms of appearance?" Cornish asked, interested.
"Human-like, though they have three fingers, two toes, and legs built more like a kangaroo, curving backwards. They also have slender figures generally. However, they will in all likelihood be wearing spacesuits when they arrive."
"Is the atmosphere poisonous to them? Do they not breathe oxygen?" Cornish asked.
The Doctor shook his head. "Rannoch, their homeworld, has an oxygen atmosphere similar to Earth's. However, their biochemistry evolved along right-handed chirality, rather than left-handed chirality, like humans."
"Chiral-what?" Quinlan asked. The Brigadier and Cornish (whose specialty was in physics and engineering, not biochemistry) were similarly confused.
"What the Doctor meant," Liz clarified, "is that while the chemicals that make up their bodies are the same chemically, the atoms in the molecules are oriented differently. It makes a big difference in biological systems like enzymes and cellular receptors."
"Well done, Liz," the Doctor said with a smile. "In addition, they've stayed in sterile conditions on their ship for so long, that their immune system is nearly non-existent. What could be a minor fever to you and me could be lethal to a Quarian, and even then, exposure to benign microbes with our chirality could cause anaphylactic shock. The Turians also have right-handed chirality. There are surprisingly few life-forms who do."
"And their weapons technology, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked pointedly. "You did say that they lived under martial law, and that they were pariahs in the cosmos."
The Doctor harrumphed, annoyed. But the Brigadier had a right to know. "They use projectile weapons similar to yours, except of considerable sophistication. They use a form of relativistic acceleration to turn small shard of metal, smaller than a grain of sand, into a lethal projectile, shaving said metal from metal blocks. It gives them almost effectively unlimited ammunition, but if their weapons are fired too often, they tend to overheat swiftly. They also use kinetic barrier shields. Bullets will drain the shields' power, but it would take time. Satisfied?" he finished acidly.
"Hardly," the Brigadier said, raising an eyebrow. "Are they a threat, Doctor?"
"If my theory is correct, Brigadier, then they are as much a threat as tourists. Well-armed tourists, which defeats the analogy somewhat, but tourists nonetheless. There are only two of them, and you would have been able to detect the Migrant Fleet if it had entered the Solar System by now. The Quarians do tend to mine other planets for their resources, but they don't do so to garden worlds, which is what they would describe Earth as."
"And if you aren't correct?" the Brigadier asked.
The Doctor sniffed disdainfully, before saying acidly, "Then you'd have about as much trouble with them as you did with the Silurians."
It was a low blow, the Doctor reflected as they drove to where the Mars Probe had landed some hours later. He still had much anger about what had happened to the Silurians. And the Brigadier was just doing his job, asking his scientific advisor and chief xenobiologist what the capabilities of the enemy were. But the military mind rankled at the Doctor. That blinkered narrow-mindedness.
Then again, at least the Brigadier didn't do things for personal glory. That fool Quinlan sat preening himself, excited to be in charge, on paper at least, of First Contact with an alien species. He didn't even consider the Doctor to be one, even if he had apparently accepted the Time Lord's claims.
Cornish was another matter entirely. A fellow scientist, not quite on Liz's level, never mind the Doctor's, but you could see in the man's eyes the glitter of barely restrained excitement. And while the personal glory of making First Contact obviously appealed to him, it was clear that he wasn't as interested in fame as that poor fool Doctor Quinn(5) was. He was a better scientist because he put the joy of making these discoveries ahead of his own advancement.
The capsule had landed in a field in the countryside nearby. Unlike the Americans, and more like the Russians, the BRG tended to have the capsule land on solid ground rather than the ocean. It was now cooling down enough, thanks to a light rain, for it to be safe. Already, a group of UNIT soldiers were ready and waiting around the capsule, their weapons ready. The Doctor sniffed disdainfully. A lyric from a half-remembered song from nearly two decades from now wormed through his mind: We come in peace, shoot to kill(6).
As they approached the capsule, Cornish frowned. "I'm surprised they made it back. Supplies of fuel, oxygen, and food were only for two astronauts. Would the Quarians have resupplied the capsule?"
"Indeed. They would have brought their own supplies, especially the food," the Doctor said. "Perhaps they modified the engines to increase efficiency. The Quarians are very skilled engineers. Comes from living on hand-me-down spaceships that have to be regularly maintained."
Cornish nodded, before activating a special radio he had brought from Space Control. Holding the microphone up, he said, "Mars Probe 7, this is Cornish. We're right outside the capsule. Are you all right? Over."
A pause, before a crackle. "Professor Cornish, this is Michaels. We're fine. Bit of a bumpy landing, though. We're just trying to get used to normal gravity again. So are the guests. We'll be out shortly. Over."
The gathered people looked at each other, in varying mixtures of relief and anxiety. Cornish then spoke into the microphone. "Michaels, the capsule's surface is cool enough to open the hatch from the outside. If you have no objections, we'll do just that and help you out."
"Sure. Just make sure you have the ticker tape parade and the Jamaican holiday lined up," the astronaut joked.
The Brigadier motioned for a couple of his men to the hatch, including, the Doctor noted, the recently promoted Sergeant John Benton. The Doctor liked Benton, albeit after a bad initial encounter when Benton was spying on International Electromatics and all but abducted the Doctor and Jamie, for the man's rather unfazed attitude to the strange and bizarre. A career soldier, admittedly, but Benton was a decent, stolid and solid man.
The two soldiers opened the hatch, albeit with some difficulty, before it swung open with an ominous hiss. Benton and the other soldier stared for a time at what was within, before they began helping a spacesuited figure out. The helmet was on (quarantine procedures, Cornish explained, standard even when aliens weren't involved), and the name stencilled on his front identified him as Michaels. Another spacesuited figure was helped out, and turned out to be Lefee. They were exhausted, haggard, but in fairly good spirits.
However, it was the next figures pulled out that were more extraordinary. Liz watched as a man and a woman, in skintight spacesuits obviously decades, if not centuries, ahead of everyone else, were helped out.
They were as the Doctor described. They looked somewhat human, but there were many details that marked them as otherwise. Three fingers, including the thumb. Two toes. Legs which curved backwards. Different proportions to normal humans, especially on the female, whose hips were wider than they should have been. The effect, enhanced by the figure-hugging spacesuits, were of graceful beings. The female had a purple coloured spacesuit, while the male had a red one, both with elaborate cloth worn over them, including a headdress over the top of the helmet, like that of a gypsy. They had some sort of weapons on their backs, but they didn't show any inclination to use them.
"Now, Brigadier," the Doctor said, quietly, "don't be alarmed when they reach for their wrist. They use something called an omnitool, like a miniature computer. They use those, amongst other things, as a translator."
The female alien did indeed carefully touch her wrist, and to the amazement of the onlookers, orange light seemed to grow and form around it, turning into a sort of gauntlet. Eventually, she looked up, her eyes shining beneath her visor.
"Greetings, people of Earth. I am Tali'Zorah nar Entra, and this is my associate, Dahn'Gerrel vas Tonbay. I was told this is a standard greeting among your people," she said in an electronically distorted voice, holding up her right hand, the one without the omnitool. She spread her second and third fingers. "Live long and prosper."
There was a brief moment of silence amongst those present, before a few of those who knew what it meant broke out into laughter. Even the Doctor couldn't hide a smile.
On a nearby hill, hidden by a camouflage net, a rather vicious-looking man by the name of Reagan was watching what was happening below. He didn't know why they were laughing, and he much less cared. He just had a job to do.
He pulled a walky-talky up to his face, and spoke quietly. "Watcher to Tower. Greyhound One(7) has the guests. Repeat, Greyhound One has the guests. He's brought his boffins."
Eventually, a reply came. "Tower to Watcher…return to base. We will prepare for stage 2. Extraction of the guests must be expedited."
Reagan nodded. "Understood. Watcher out." He then moved away, ready to carry out the orders of his boss. The aliens were not to remain in UNIT custody for very long…
CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS
1. D-notices were effectively censorship notices sent to press organisations regarding matters of national security. They're mentioned in at least one Doctor Who story, The Mind of Evil. They are technically requests rather than a legally enforceable censorship demand, but they are generally complied with anyway.
2. These cover stories were what I remember the cover stories for The Web of Fear, The Invasion, and Spearhead from Space, as discussed in Who Killed Kennedy.
3. There's considerable debate as to when the UNIT stories are set for various reasons. I have taken The Ambassadors of Death to have taken place in late 1969/early 1970. The ESA (European Space Agency) wasn't formed until 1975, but this is where I say I don't give a crap.
4. My attempt to reconcile the events of Quatermass and the Pit (which had insectoid Martians influencing the evolution of humanity) and the Whoniverse's Martians (the Ice Warriors). In brief, I believe, in the Whoniverse, that the aliens Quatermass discovered in the ancient spaceship weren't actually from Mars, but from a similar world.
5. A scientist working for the Silurians in Doctor Who and the Silurians. He was determined to make his name by using knowledge the Silurians gave him. Unfortunately, their demands became even greater, and with little knowledge offered in return, so when one of the Silurians was wounded by a soldier and fled to the surface, Quinn seized his chance. Ordered by the Silurians to save the wounded Silurian and bring him back, Quinn brought the Silurian back to his cottage, and was determined to hold it as a hostage. Unless the Silurian told him its secrets, he would not return it to its fellows. Quinn underestimated his foe: it killed him, and it fled not long after meeting the Doctor.
6. A reference to the song Star Trekkin'. Star Trek exists in the Whoniverse, albeit as a TV series, hence the joke at the end. The song itself wouldn't be made until 1987.
7. Greyhound One is the Brigadier's callsign as UNIT leader.