The Time Corridor

by TimeTraveller-1900

Still trapped on Earth in the 1970s, the Third Doctor sees Professor Whittaker's time scoop which brought the dinosaurs forwards in time to the 20th century to frighten the Londoners into evacuating as a way to escape, with help from the Cardiff Rift.

The Time Corridor.

By TimeTraveller-1900.

"You have heard the charge against you that you have repeatedly broken our most important law of non-interference in the affairs of other planets, what have you to say – do you admit these actions?" The First Time Lord began with the trial, and he and his other colleagues looked at the renegade Time Lord known as the Doctor, who looked very out of place in the trial room. The Doctor was a small man with a mop of untidy dark hair, wearing a baggy frock coat which was several sizes too big and made him unkempt; next to the more regal Time Lords, it was hard to believe he was one of them. But he was.

As the Doctor listened to the Time Lords begin the trial, something he had been expecting and dreading even longer than the last disaster when he had contacted the Time Lords for help, he wondered what he was going to say in his own defence. The Doctor was silent for a moment, his mind going back over to the accusation the Time Lords had levelled against him. The law of non-interference was the most important law on Gallifrey, and the fact he had broken it was a serious one, and he had known that in the days of his previous incarnation when he had travelled with Susan and those school teachers.

At first, the Doctor had been trying to keep Susan safe while still having access to the TARDIS, but it had been a while before he had come to the conclusion that he had been interfering even longer before that. He had simply not accepted it; it was not until he had encountered the Daleks on Earth and then came face to face with the man who massacred the Didonian race and planned to use Vicki as a character witness that he accepted the truth he had already known to be true.

He had been interfering.

He had interfered when he had helped the Thals survive against the Daleks.

He had interfered by producing the cure to the poison that was killing off the Sensorites.

He had definitely interfered when he had made the mistake of getting involved with the Aztecs.

The Doctor knew he had to be bold even as he planned his defence. "I not only admit them, but I am also proud of them! While you have been content merely to observe the evil in the galaxy I have been fighting against it!" He had to make the Time Lords see that they had some responsibility in the universe's affairs - it was one thing to adhere to the Web of Time's security by watching it, but that stance of just observing could only get them so far.

"It is not we who is on trial here, Doctor, it is you," the Third Time Lord pointed out.

"No no, of course, your above criticism aren't you?"

The First Time Lord's face crinkled into a frown. "Do you admit that these actions were justified?" He asked disbelievingly.

"Yes of course I do!" The Doctor said indignantly as if there was any doubt before he gestured to the monitor screen. "Give me a thought channel and I'll show you some of the evils I've been fighting against."

The Time Lords exchanged looks before they gave the Doctor permission. As the screen activated, the Doctor paused as he struggled to work out what he was going to show the Time Lords first. At first, he was going to just show them the enemies he had encountered recently, but there was more than one. "The Quarks, deadly robot servants of the cruel Dominators, they tried to enslave a peace-loving race. Then there were the Yeti, more robot killers, instruments of an alien intelligence trying to take over the planet Earth."

The Doctor projected the image of WOTAN's console and the alternative timelines he had experienced when the TARDIS landed in an alternate 2006, and the later encounter he'd had with the artificial intelligence before he had shut it off for good. Then the Doctor projected an image of the alternative timeline where the TARDIS accidentally with its earlier self, preventing the First Doctor from landing on Kembel, therefore allowing the Daleks to conquer Baralda as a show of force before moving on to other worlds, forcing Urbinia to surrender, but resulted in a devastating war.

The Time Lords watched silently, and the Doctor knew their senses were saying that what was happening in the alternative timeline was not meant to be happening, and once the Doctor was finished showing them that alternative timeline, he showed them the timeline where his first self had landed on Kembel, and prevented the Time Destructor's use.

The Doctor turned and saw the Time Lords were seeing the serious side of his journeys. For a moment he was tempted to show them what the Monk and the Master had done, but it was important they see what other calamitous effects were thrown at history. "Let me show you the Ice Warriors," the Doctor went on, projecting the image of an Ice Warrior on the monitor screen, "cruel Martian invaders, they tried to conquer the Earth too. They tried to spread through the atmosphere a fungus which would have bled the air away; while I was facing them on that occasion, I saw two alternative timelines. One where the human race would have fought to the end on a planet rapidly losing its oxygen supply, and a timeline where the Ice Warriors would have launched more weapons against the planet."

Again the Doctor projected the memories of those two alternative timelines. Time Lord minds were extremely good at knowing what was meant to be and what was not meant to be, and they were good at keeping the memories of those instances in their minds.

And now it was the Time Lord's turn. They saw the timelines, one after another, where the Ice Warriors landed their ships on the hopeless and helpless Earth, where the invaders possessed all of their strengths despite humanity's desire to fight to survive. Sadly they soon lost their ability. Earth in that time had become so dependent on T-Mat, they could not move their troops to the areas they needed as road, air, sea and rail transport systems had long since become obsolete and what was left was a shadow of what they used to be, in the possession of people long since derided as eccentrics and cranks. The Ice Warriors had the benefit of being able to fight in the increasingly airless environment of Earth, which was becoming a younger version of the planet Mars, and the humans were running out of oxygen and air to breathe.

The next timeline showed the Ice Warriors simply bombing the human homeworld from space with sonic cannons keyed to the fluids in the human brain to kill them en-masse, to make their landing easier. While some survived by luck and by chance, they were too few in number, and soon fell to the clamps of the Ice Warriors.

The Doctor watched the screen grimly, thankful he had put the timelines out of his mind as best as he could to ignore them so he could focus on the Ice Warrior problem. Turning to the Time Lords, the Doctor sighed, "The Ice Warriors were not the only ones to try to conquer the Earth, and they were not the only ones to create new possibilities of what would happen should I have failed. Let me show you the Cybermen, half creature, half machine."

The Doctor showed the Time Lords the possibilities of the Mondasian Cybermen succeeding in ensuring the survival of Mondas and the cyber-conversion of the entire planet Earth, eradicating the human race in the process, and endangering the galaxy with a massive Cyber-army who would have conquered all.

Next, he showed them the timeline where the Cybermen would have destroyed Earth, endangering all of the fixed points which would have come later on, knowing that the Time Lords would pay attention to that.

The business with the Space Wheel where he had met Zoe after Victoria had left the TARDIS had also spawned possibilities for potential timelines, but the Doctor was not finished yet.

"The Ice Warriors, WOTAN, and the Cybermen were bad enough, but worst of all were the Daleks," the Doctor projected an image of a Dalek on the monitor, "a pitiless race of conquerors exterminating all who came up against them! All these evils I have fought while you have done nothing but observe. True, I am guilty of interference, just as you are guilty of failing to use your great powers to help those in need!"

The Doctor hoped that by showing the Time Lords those potential timelines, especially the ones which would have threatened those fixed points, they would show him mercy…. The Time Lords exchanged a glance. "Is that all you have to say?"

The Doctor was indignant. "Well isn't it enough?" "Your defence has been heard and will be carefully considered, but you have raised difficult issues, we require time to think about them. You will be recalled when we have made our decision," the First Time Lord said.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and pulled a face.

X

"They will both continue their lives as if nothing had happened," the first Time Lord told the Doctor, who stopped laughing after seeing the a typical way his old friend Jamie chased down a redcoat soldier who'd shot at him. Sobering quickly, the Doctor realised this was the time he had been dreading. His sentence. He had to admit, he was actually relieved his friends, whom he had tried to escape with only before now, were not here to see this, but he would miss Jamie and Zoe. Particularly Jamie….

"Ah yes, very efficient. Now then, what about me?"

The first Time Lord began, "We have accepted your plea that there is evil in the universe that must be fought and that you still have a part to play in that battle."

The Doctor was unable to believe his luck. "What what, you mean...that you're going to let me go free?"

The First Time Lord exchanged an amused glance with his colleagues. "Not entirely. We have noted your particular interest in the planet Earth. The frequency of your visits must have given you special knowledge of that world and its problems."

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose that's true... Earth seems more vulnerable than others, yes."

There was a ghost of a smile on the face of the first Time Lord. "For that reason, you will be sent back to that planet."

The Doctor sighed, relieved to hear it. "Oh good," he replied.

There was definitely a smirk on the face of the first Time Lord as he finished, "In exile."

The Doctor's expression became one of horror. "In exile!?"

Not for the first time since returning to Gallifrey after sending off the hypercube, the Doctor wondered if bringing the Time Lords in to deal with the War Lords and their War Games was a smart idea and was worth it. When the Doctor had seen that row of TARDISes on the scanner, his hearts had nearly stopped at the sight of an image he had dreaded since he had left originally. He had stolen the TARDIS, but that was a minor affair considering what he had been doing.

Then again, there were other Time Lords who were doing much worse than he was, like the Monk, who meddled in history. Or the Master who just wanted to conquer everything around him.

"You will be sent to Earth in the twentieth century and will remain there for as long as we deem proper," the first Time Lord continued, "and for that period the secret of the TARDIS will be taken from you."

"But you, you can't condemn me to exile on one primitive planet in one century in time!" The Doctor stammered before he got the words out, and he remembered the way Ben and Polly reacted to his regeneration before that encounter with the Daleks on Vulcan convinced them of who he was. "Besides, I'm known on the Earth. It might be very awkward for me!"

"Your appearance has changed before, it will change again that is part of the sentence," the first Time Lord replied. "You gave a very good defence, Doctor, however, you still broke our most important law. Non-interference. An example must be set."

The Doctor was indignant. "You can't just change what I look like without consulting me!" The first Time Lord raised a hand, "You will be given the opportunity to choose your appearance. Choose quickly, for time is not on your side, Doctor." The Doctor had opened his mouth to protest, but he realised the Time Lords were not going to tolerate any trouble from him on this. He would have to choose. "Here is your first choice."

The Doctor turned around, he was shown a sketch of a face. A very old man with a bushy white beard that put the Doctor in mind of Father Christmas.

"Oh, he's too old!"

A sketch of an overweight man with short dark hair appeared on the large monitor.

"Well he's too fat isn't he!"

A sketch of a thin-faced man appeared on the screen this time.

"No! He's too thin!" A sketch of a younger man appeared on the screen. "That one's too young! Oh, now that won't do at all! This is ridiculous!"

"You're wasting time Doctor," the First Time Lord said patiently.

"I know, but it's not my fault is it?! Is this the best you can do? I've never seen such an incredible bunch! Why can't you show me different images? Some more variety?" The Time Lords glanced at each other again, and a new sketch appeared on the screen. This time it showed the face of a man with a large nose.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "No-," he began, but he stopped and studied the new image. He was slightly physically older than the Doctor but nowhere near as old as some of the others. He had coiffured hair and a beak of a nose. But his eyes and face showed wisdom, and that had certainly been missing from the other sketches.

The Time Lords noted the pause, and they were about to speak but the Doctor nodded at the sketch. "That one, it's calling to me."

"This is your choice, Doctor?"

"Yes," the Doctor replied, turning around to face them. "If I am going to be exiled to Earth, I will need to make it count, won't I? Thank you for giving me the chance and not simply forcing me to regenerate without just choosing a face for me."

The Time Lords bowed their head. "Of course. Maybe in the future, we will release you."

The Doctor nodded, his mind recalling the letter he had left for the Monk in 1066; he had said to the Monk, if he had felt he had learnt his lesson to not meddle in history, then he would return to release him.

The Second Time Lord spoke up for the first time. "Doctor, we are offering you a choice for where you wish to reside in the 20th century. We need to know your decision before your mind is affected by the trauma of regeneration."

The Doctor considered his options for a moment before he nodded. "1970s Earth, Britain," he said, remembering his last visit to that point in history. "I have friends there, a paramilitary group dedicated to protecting the planet from alien attack. I can work with them."

X

London, 1970s Earth.

As the Doctor - now in his third incarnation, raced through the corridors of the secret bunker wherein Sir Charles Grover and Professor Whittaker had set up the time travel technology which was connected to the small nuclear power plant to allow them to scoop dinosaurs from history to evacuate London, he found himself wondering why Grover was planning this in the first place.

Yes, he could sympathise with the politician's point of view of how humanity's industries were ruining the planet, but it was the scale of the conspiracy which bothered the Doctor the most; Mike had already betrayed UNIT and General Finch had been hindering the investigation while they planned to rewind history, changing it forever so then human civilisation would never have existed.

Grover had to be stopped. History had to be preserved.

But at the same time, the Doctor wished Grover and his people had come up with a better plan. If they had used Whittaker's knowledge they could have found a way of transporting themselves to a different world and building a world from there.

And….

The Doctor had his own interests in time travel technology; with the TARDIS still immobilised by the Time Lords and his exile, and his attempts to sidestep it, either using other time travel machines or by escaping in other ways a total failure, the Doctor was impressed by Whittaker's skill.

As he approached the control room, the Doctor heard an unfamiliar voice saying angrily, "You're going to destroy all the civilisations of man. Leaving Earth for another planet, was one thing, but this is evil!"

The Doctor knew enough of the Operation by now to know Grover had conned a group of people who shared many of his views, but they clearly felt his plan to erase everything and starting from scratch was too much.

"Civilisation has already destroyed man," Grover insisted, "It's time to make a fresh start. If we take the Earth back in time, we can guide man onto a better path."

The Doctor entered the room and found the control area full of people wearing blue denim clothes. All of them looked angry and disgusted. Among them was Sarah Jane Smith, the young journalist who had joined UNIT a few weeks before after he had petitioned the Time Lords to send the TARDIS to medieval times to stop the Sontaran Linx.

"Oh, Doctor!" Sarah said in relief.

The Doctor barely had a chance to nod to his friend when Grover spoke in his rich, cultured voice and friendly manner which had impressed him more than any of the political leaders in this period. "Congratulations, Doctor. You're just in time to be present at the most important moment in the world's history."

The Doctor glared at him. "On the contrary, I'm just in time to prevent an atrocity. Do you have any idea what you're planning on doing? You are planning on rewriting your world's history."

The Brigadier and Benton came in with a couple of soldiers. "Don't move, any of you!" The Brigadier snapped, covering everyone with his gun before he nodded at Benton, "Benton."

In the confusion of the Brigadier's arrival, Whitaker threw off a tall dark-haired man who'd been holding onto him and pulled a lever. The Doctor stiffened. His memory had largely been removed by the Time Lords when they exiled him, but he still retained his time senses. A brief glance showed him that everyone was frozen as a fierce time eddy filled the room. The Doctor gathered his strength as he pushed against the effect to push the lever back where it was. Once he was done, the Doctor touched Whittaker's temple and concentrated on going through his memories, looking up papers and documents, blueprints for the time travel technology.

Once he was finished, the Doctor went to another panel and his hands flew over the switches. Time resumed for the humans in the control room, even as Grover dove for the lever again.

"No!" Whittaker shouted, his usually unaffected manner gone, replaced by panic after seeing what the Doctor had just done. "He's reversed the polarity!"

But it was too late, and Whitaker and Grover were left to fight over the lever.

"Keep back!" The Doctor ordered, already knowing that the time machine was powering up.

Grover managed to throw Whittaker off and he pulled the lever down again, and he and Whitaker and the console disappeared like ghosts.

Sarah Jane turned to the Doctor curiously. "Well, where've they gone?"

The Doctor sighed, "Back to their golden age. And I hope they like it."

"Their golden age?" An old woman asked. "You mean-?"

"Whittaker's time machine was primed to take all of you back in time, rewinding Earth's history to write the past. But I reversed the systems, so the only thing that went back was the time machine…and anyone foolish enough to touch it," the Doctor smiled grimly at the woman. "If I hadn't, you would have all gone back into the past, and you would never have realised you were in a different reality where Earth civilisation never arose."

X

"I still don't understand, Doctor. When Whitaker first pulled that switch, was time reversed or wasn't it?" The Brigadier asked as he, the Doctor, Sarah Jane and Benton were sitting drinking strong UNIT tea in the temporary headquarters which was in a school.

The Doctor sighed at the question as he took a brief look around the room.

When the emergency with Whittaker's time scoop began, the school was one of many places in the city used for processing looters. When the Doctor and Sarah Jane returned after dealing with the Sontaran, they had been captured for being looters when they were anything but.

For the Doctor, the accusation was proof that humans were sometimes completely stupid. Instead of dealing with the bigger problems they were happy throwing resources away on smaller ones.

It had been a few hours since Grover and Whittaker were sent back in time. Finch and Mike were both locked up as were any of the hardcore Grover people, but everyone else had been vouched for by Sarah Jane and was simply being questioned. In the meantime, the Doctor had spent a couple of hours searching through Whittaker's papers for the time travel plans while he organised the dismantling of the Time Scoop. He would see to it later.

"It was for the world outside the forcefield," the Doctor replied, "Your time was just frozen for a few seconds."

Sarah Jane crinkled her forehead. "But what about you? Oh no, don't tell me. You're a Time Lord."

The Doctor smiled without humour. He didn't like being reminded of his Time Lord heritage. "Quite!"

Sarah Jane shook her head. "Poor Grover," she said, "being sent back in time like that."

"It was either he or Whittaker who went back, instead of the world you know, Sarah Jane," the Doctor pointed out. "If the system was not reversed, the world you know, the one all of you know, would never have existed."

Benton nodded. "What do you think has happened to them by now, Doctor?"

"I don't know," the Doctor shrugged.

"The man was mad," the Brigadier commented.

"Yes, well, of course, he was mad," the Doctor agreed, knowing that a large part of the plan was insane but some of the reason for it was sound. "But at least he realised the dangers this planet of yours is in, Brigadier. The danger of it becoming one vast garbage dump inhabited only by rats."

"It'll never happen, Doctor."

"Don't be so sure, Brigadier; I'm a time traveller myself, I may be exiled, but I know the future is constantly in motion. There are dozens of potential possibilities for your future. In some potential alternate timelines, Earth is poisoned so badly because your people are happier arguing about trivia instead of considering what's more important. Or your world becomes uninhabitable because of a nuclear war. I've seen the effects of nuclear holocausts on other planets; one led to the creation of the Daleks, who came about because of their race and another fought against each other for centuries and in the end, the planet was ruined. But on Earth, it's different. You work for a government who are happier to wrangle over petty squabbles than the bigger picture. Pollution-wise…it's not the oil and the filth and the poisonous chemicals that are the real cause of pollution, Brigadier. It's simply greed," the Doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"I thought you'd made alternative energy sources for us, didn't you Doctor?" Benton asked.

"I have," the Doctor nodded. "The trouble is they will need a long time before they really take off. At the same time, I've worked with the British Rocket Group, giving them help with some of their projects."

During the trial, the Doctor had come to the realisation that no matter what he did, he would be seen as nothing but a meddler by the Time Lords. When he arrived on Earth, he had worked out he would be trapped for decades, perhaps longer, so he decided to try to move humanity's technology ahead.

"Hmm," the Brigadier muttered thoughtfully. "Well, I've got work to do, writing my deposition for General Finch's court-martial."

The Doctor sighed under his breath, seeing that despite what he'd just said, the Brigadier still wasn't entirely convinced.

"Excuse me, sir?" The Brigadier stopped when Benton called, turning curiously to hear what his sergeant had to say. "What about Captain Yates?"

The Doctor sighed again at the mention of Mike. Of all the things that had happened following that mess with BOSS in Wales, the last thing they had expected would be for Mike to betray them all like that. After being brainwashed by the AI, Mike had been left floundering, and while the Doctor had done his best and Mike had gotten help, he had been left in a suggestible state and Grover had gotten to him. When Mike turned on them, it had been a terrible shock.

Now, the Doctor felt terribly sorry for his old friend.

The Brigadier looked grim. Like the Doctor, he felt pained by the whole thing. "Extended sick leave and a chance to resign quietly. Best I could do."

The Doctor closed his eyes, wondering what Mike would do now. "Poor Mike."

The Brigadier turned to Benton. "Come on, Benton," he said, striding out of the room smartly.

Benton turned and grinned at the Doctor and Sarah. "Still I'll say one thing. Not many Sergeants get the chance to punch a General on the nose."

Benton was just turning to the door…to find a very unamused Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart there. "Just don't make a habit of it, Benton."

After the two men left, the Doctor turned the time travel plans he had taken from Whittaker's mind around in his head. He had no intention of letting it go to waste. With the Time Lords still keeping him on Earth, the Doctor planned on finding a way out.

X

Cardiff, 1989.

The Doctor nodded in satisfaction and took a deep breath as he finished his work on the Time Corridor generator he had made up with what was left of Whittaker's research notes and what he'd been able to construct using the technology of the 80s and with the odds and ends from his own TARDIS, and he smiled in delight that it was nearly finished. He still had one or two adjustments to make. Whittaker's time travel technology was really easy to replicate when you got your head around it.

Whittaker had apparently found time eddies and other forms of temporal phenomena, that was how he had found a way of scooping those dinosaurs and taking them out of their time and space and depositing them in the C-20th.

Thanks to rifling through Whittaker's mind, the Doctor discovered that the scientist had originally planned on creating time portals. He was concerned about what could happen to a time machine if it could go lost, and he wasn't entirely sure how he could create a machine that had total freedom of movement. The solution was to have one part of the time machine acting like an open-ended transmat so it would send the traveller to the appropriate destination, but Whittaker's work was ridiculed before he could work on it properly.

The Doctor personally thought it was a shame since it would work. Granted, he would need to still return to Earth so his freedom of movement wouldn't be perfect. But at least he would have some freedom. The time eddies were just too small for what he wanted. The Cardiff rift was perfect for his aims since it was a large gash in reality, linking dozens of worlds and times together with that of Earth.

Perfect. With the rift, the Doctor would be free to open time corridors to different times and places in the universe. All of his experiments had ended in either success or failure, but with every result, he was able to perfect the equipment, the Doctor had learnt the hard way over the years things could still go terribly wrong.

The Doctor walked to the console and inputted the coordinates for the 51st century. He had a vortex manipulator to get hold of.

X

London, 2009.

In 1989, the Third Doctor had largely restored his freedom to move in time and space, using the time corridors which used Professor Whittaker's time travel knowledge. For the next 300 years - for himself at least since he still needed Earth as a relative reference point and to return to form from time to time, he had visited many dozens of worlds and times.

Largely he was able to forget about the hold the Time Lords still had over him, and he visited worlds like Inter Minor where he stopped a malfunctioning Miniscope from killing the prisoners inside it, he visited the 26th century where his old enemy the Master had tried to start a war between Earthmen and Draconians under the plan of the Daleks before he had tracked down a massive army of Daleks on the planet Spiridon. He had become embroiled in an attempt by the Cybermen in the future who wanted to destroy Earth to save Mondas before he had gone on to stop them from trying to destroy an interstellar conference to sign a pact to unite their forces in a war against the Cybermen in the first place. He had stopped the Kulan from trying to conquer Earth again after defeating their original attack in 2001.

But this was one adventure that the Doctor had not expected. The Time Lord Morbius had returned suddenly, with his brain placed inside an android body that had the strengths of a Cyberman. Once he had returned, Morbius had instantly begun preparing for war. He had drained Gallifrey of its resources so the Time Lords would be unable to do anything to stop him from conquering the universe.

Morbius had threatened the whole fabric of the universe, but not before the Time Lords, desperate and hopeless, sent the Doctor to deal with the evil Time Lord.

They were desperate. Fighting Morbius had been very dangerous, and the Time Lords had gotten their power restored to them after the Doctor had managed to steal Morbius's stellar manipulator and restored Gallifrey's power.

The Doctor stood in the TARDIS console room, pottering around, surrounded by the collection of art, books, and other items he had been collecting from the different places he had travelled to both before his exile and since he had used time corridors to break his exile. When the Time Lords were restored to power, they instantly found Morbius and they had taken him away. There was no doubt in his mind that the Time Lords would execute the deranged Time Lord for his crimes while they cleaned up the mess.

Suddenly a groaning, wheezing sound filled the air. It sounded like a TARDIS landing. The Doctor turned in the direction of the sound, and he saw the small three-pointed device arrive on the console, shifting in and out of focus before it solidified. The Doctor gasped as he yanked the device up, and as he did, memories and knowledge he had once known began to click back into his mind.

He remembered everything.

"The Time Lords," he gasped, blinking rapidly as if he were in a dream, "they've sent a new dematerialisation circuit. And my knowledge of time travel law," he blinked in surprise and shock, "all of the dematerialisation codes….they've come back. They've forgiven me. They've given me back my freedom, my true freedom!"

The Doctor stood numbly in the console room for a moment before he disconnected the time corridor equipment. He'd still keep it, but right now he had a TARDIS to work on.