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Temporal paradox? What is a temporal paradox, you ask, my boy? It is confusion, befuddlement, temporal mud and slime. Mind my words, Chesterton, temporal paradox is not a game to be played nor an idea to be formulated. Leave it well enough alone. One cannot change history. One should never even contemplate the notion.
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- First Doctor to Ian Chesterton
Part 1
24 hours earlier
First Communications Officer Alan Smith was working the end of his shift, restlessly waiting for the clock to announce the proverbial 'changing of the guard'. His stomach was growling, his mind was aching and he was quite sure that his feet had rebelled hours ago. There had been no activity this night as there had been no activity on any night so long as he had worked the evening shift. And he had worked the evening shift for so long that he had ceased to say how long it had been. He wanted his supper, he wanted his wife, his son and his bed, not necessarily in that order, but at that moment, his mind was unable to formulate exactly what order he did want them in.
The door behind him opened and a smallish man of passably forty entered. Without turning around, Smith called out a greeting.
"Hallo, yourself, Smith," George Trenton answered, closing the door soundly. "I'd ask if there was anything that I needed to know, but I'm sure that nothing has changed since I went off duty two days ago."
"And you'd be correct," Smith called back with a smile. "Something needs to be said for consistency, I suppose."
Trenton laughed. "Well let me log in and then you can get on home. Lord knows that wife of yours'll be eager to see you."
George strolled forward and picked up his headset and with a flourish of a man accustomed to the action, he slid it soundly on his head. His fingers deftly flew over the buttons of the computer system. With a grimace, he mouthed along with the voice on his headset:
"Welcome to the Genesis Project Station Communications System. Please state your name, rank and position, your time and place of log on will be recorded."
He cleared his throat and said: "George Trenton, Second Officer Communications Branch, third shift monitor."
"Thank you-"
The computer voice was cut out immediately and he leaned forward with alarm. Smith did the same, nearly toppling out of his chair as he did so. An electronic screech sounded and a loud announcement was made in a masculine voice as opposed to the friendly female voice that had been heard a moment previously. "Communications outage in the personnel wing. I repeat communications outage in the personnel wing. Outage includes video, audio and electronic tracking."
"Shit," Smith shouted above the din in his ears.
Trenton held up his hand to stop his friend as the voice continued. "Security breached. I repeat, security breached. Alpha level."
Both men glanced at each other and then, in unison, pulled off their headsets and pulled out their guns. Although neither one was well trained in their use, it didn't matter. The personnel wing was where their families were.
**
There was a whining in the air like a young child who has its toys willingly withheld and a section of the precise recycled air on the station gave birth to a two meter tall blue box. As it settled, the sound level was returned to normal except for the far off wail of red alert. Inside there was an impossibly large console room with three decidedly worn out travelers. The eldest one slipped a hand in his pocket and rubbed at his head, ruffling his hair, with his other hand. "Now THAT shouldn't have happened."
"Now what?" the woman asked. She wore a dress of splotchy color and a pair of brilliant red heels. Her auburn hair, closely and smartly cropped to her head, was a direct contrast to her elder companion's wispy longish blond hair. It was, however, akin to the head of copper hair that the younger male companion sported. Both of the younger companions leaned on the console and waited: one eagerly, one resignedly for the forthcoming explanation and apology.
"Our landing here, of course," the Doctor answered. He lifted his weary blue eyes to fix the woman with a stare. "We shouldn't have been able to materialize, here, Tegan. At least, not now, that is."
Tegan Jovanka crossed her arms over her chest and turned to the younger male. "What's he on about now, Turlough?"
Although she had hoped for an explanation of an easier level to comprehend, it was not forthcoming. Turlough unbuttoned his school coat and loosened his tie as he walked forward to join the Doctor at the console. Although the boy was no Time Lord, he did have a fairly good grasp of temporal mechanics and higher math. He was also an expert at fudging knowledge when he didn't have it. "Why not, Doctor?"
"Well" he lifted his eyes from the console to adjust a small knob on the third side of the console. "For one, my bio data is already present. This sensor here," the Time Lord tapped at a small flashing light, "is attuned to my data and locates it. It helps her to keep a firm connection with me. She has found the data, external to her dimensions as well as internally. For another, there should be nothing solid here to materialize on or in."
Tegan leaned more into the console. "You mean something's here that shouldn't be? And" she bit her lip. "If your bio data is already present, that would mean one or more of you is/are already herewouldn't that cause"
"Limitation Effect if it's by mistake. If not, we are both meant to be here, then, the TARDIS'll take the temporal strain. It has before." The Doctor sighed.
Turlough nodded. "Sounds rightsounds like that business we went through with the Brigadier a while ago."
"Quite right, Turlough," the Doctor called out, turning around to snatch his hat from the stand behind him. Tegan lowered her arms in shock.
It was Turlough that called out the question, however: "Shouldn't we leave then? If this is a mistake, the results could be disastrous."
The Doctor smiled at his companion and reached over to activate the door. "Exhilarating, isn't it, Turlough, to walk on the edge. I'm going to find out what this is all about. Coming?"
Tegan grimaced, but rounded the console in time to follow the Doctor through the portal. Turlough remained behind for a moment but then pulled his tie tighter and followed along behind his two friends. "Exhilarating isn't the word I would use, Doctor," he muttered.
**
Tegan was standing some distance from the doors, glancing around at the area in which the TARDIS had materialized. She could barely see more than twenty feet away due to the gloom around them, but what she could see convinced her that they were in a large, empty metal coffin. The Doctor strode across to her, his steps light. He appeared to float a little away from the ground with each stride.
"We're in an area of reduced gravity," he explained. Although Tegan had noticed that her strides were longer than usual, it was seeing him walk in the same manner that drove the point home. "A space station."
"Did you at least figure out the time we are in?" she asked.
"Tegan. Of course, I have. We're in 2172."
"You know it amazes me that you can tell time in that thing at all," she answered back. "But you don't know where."
"In the area of Mars."
"Mars is it?" Turlough answered, joining them. "2172? And this has to be Terranmust be one of the first space stations."
"Interesting, isn't it," the Doctor answered. "I wonder which oneand I wonder why one of my other selves is here."
"Are you sure that sensor is accurate?" Tegan called to the Doctor's receding back.
"Yes."
"Then where's your other self?"
"I intend to find out!"
**
A lone man moved down the hall, a small cylinder held in his hand like a talisman to ward off evil. His coat, depending on the color of light he walked under muted from black to bottle green to brown or midnight blue. His gray pants and waist coat, however, just simply shone. As he turned another corner, the man tilted his cylinder toward another door and, after a period of a high pitched whine, the door slid open.
Undeterred, and certainly not impressed with the trickery, the man strode over the door lip and into another corridor. He adjusted the setting on the cylinder with both hands after juggling the bundle he held in his other arm into a sturdy position. As he passed under a sounding alarm, he waved the cylinder and the sound was cut out immediately.
In the silence that followed he nodded, pleased. "Much better. Nowif I remember correctlythe personnel wingis that way."
He started down the corridor and began to walk at a quicker pace. As he entered the main personnel wing, he spied a pair of uniformed men herding, leading, children at gunpoint. They spotted him quickly. As they approached, they seemed to tower over the compact man. "Hands up."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Hands up."
"They appear to be in use at the moment. However, once they finish their assigned task, I'm quite sure that they would be happy to oblige." The words were offered with a polite smile.
"We've a smart one, here. Put that boy down and put your hands up. We're going to take that kid."
The man lowered the child to the ground, his eyes trained on the blaster which was as much trained on the boy as it was on him. When the child was on the ground and being gently shook awake by his protector. "Michaelyou must stand on your own feet. Wake up."
The boy blinked his eyes open and gazed at the warm blue eyes of the man that knelt next to him. "Uncle?"
"Remember how your mother told you tales of her adventures with me?" the man asked, glancing up at the guard. Seeing a menacing glare, he hurried his words. "Do you?"
"Yes, Uncle." The boy stared up at the guard. He quickly processed what was going on.
The man stood up, making sure the boy was steady. "We'll have to part ways now. Like it seemed I always did with your mother." He reached down to brush the boy's black hair out of his eyes. "But I'll find you. I always found your mother. Do as this man says, Mike, please. For me."
Michael nodded and released the man's hand. As he moved away, he turned around and glanced at the man. The man's blue eyes looked haunted. Knowing the boy needed something from him, he smiled, his thick lips gently curving.
The Doctor watched as the boy was turned and hurried down the hall with other children his age. He brushed agitatedly at the single cinnamon colored hair curl that fell into his eyes. But he had little time to watch the boy to insure his safety. The last thing the Time Lord, now comfortably comfortable in his eighth incarnation, saw was the butt of a gun aimed for his head. The resounding smack of the metal against his skull almost drowned out the sound of the alarms.
Almost. But not quite.
The guard stepped over the man's fallen body and strode down the hall after the children and his partner.