With a grunt, Tegan landed against the side of the instrumentation. Her glare at her protector/attacker fell on blind eyes; he was already facing the opposite way. The Doctor's arm extended to hold her back as he checked on the safety of their perch. "You could warn me," she hissed.

"Shush," he muttered.

Tegan peered over his shoulder. They were directly under the first arm of the giant generator. It draped over them like a protective elm branch. The metal arm was as large around as a man; to her darkened vision, it looked like steel. But beyond the arm, she could see little. Workers appeared to be but ants they were that far away and they buzzed around like drones to the queen. She couldn't make out any details.

"They're preparing for a trial of some sort..."

"Everything seems like it's a trial around here," she whispered back. "And Bria..."

"She was affected by the photons..." he muttered. "It was only a matter of time. They don't quite have the process correct. The inability to handle sunlight is inherent and not a dominant gene; it's tied to a great deal else in their genome. By changing that, they are putting pressure on other parts of their genome that should not be changed. Soon, they will render a certain part of their physiology unable to handle the environment in which they exist."

Tegan sighed. "Will it kill them?"

"It will make living as they do exceedingly hard. But, from what I have seen in the computer programs, Tegan, they are engaged in an all or none proposition to regain galactic movement. No wonder the White Guardian wanted intervention; to continue as they were would release them on the Galaxy. They will be at odds with Time Lords who would certainly involve themselves and they would debase themselves from their own cultural center of several millennia. It would cause their empire..."

"You're feeling sorry for them, aren't you?" she asked quietly. "How can you?"

"Yes, well...Tegan, they are an example, a shining one, mind, of an empire flourishing against the natural pressures of their own genome."

With a sigh, she shook her head and woozily leaned into the machine. At her back, she felt the vibration of hidden power. "So what are we going to do? If we just interrupt this, it will be like..."

"Treating the symptoms and not the disease. Yes, I had thought of that. They will simply rebuild. But this particular experiment is getting too close to completion. If, on the other hand, we were to use this instrument to expand and cement the time pocket..."

"Use their technology against them."

"Quite," he responded. His hand cupped her elbow. "Tegan, you look ill."

"You took more blood than usual," she replied, easily and tiredly. "It does that to a person."

Silence met her reply. Then there was a harsh inhale. "Ah...well...I was..."

"Let's get this done before you have that happen again," she said. "Come on, Doc...I want off this planet."

The Doctor nodded and turned to indicate across the floor. He jogged easily across the space, leaving her to run in his wake. For being by something large, Tegan found that she felt closed in and claustrophobic. She entered the small room with a sigh of relief.

With a grunt, the Doctor knelt in front of the main terminal inside and began to remove the cover. She watched the door nervously. "Can't they smell me?"

"No doubt. But they won't be approaching you, Tegan. They'll be trying to address my threat." A low sigh of gratitude escaped his lips as the cover came off.

"Oho...that's humble of you..."

"It has nothing to do with pride," he commented lightly. "I can do more damage than you as I think your friend Luke knows."

"They're afraid of you?"

"Yes, well..." Tegan winced as another piece of the shield quietly crashed to the ground. "Apparently, I'm much older than them..." He gave her a wide smile. "And one thing not to cross is an old vampire."

"So they won't be coming after me?"

A small torch-like object appeared out of his pocket. She squinted in the dark.

"You have tools in there?" she asked.

"After our little run in with the Cybermen," he remarked as he sat cross-legged in front of the console. "I thought it best to keep more tools on hand. And the answer to your question is: I don't think so."

Tegan squatted by him. The Doctor's fingers tangled in the wires and began to put different wires together. When he hopped up, Tegan barely had enough time to get out of his way as he ran across the room to tap out a sequence on the computer terminal. She followed him to stand by his side. "Aha, yes...yes...it will take a bit of time."

"But..."

The Doctor held up a finger and shook it. "Not now, Tegan."

She sighed exasperatedly and moved away from him, towards the observation window. "At least I know that becoming a vampire doesn't change you too much," she commented sarcastically.

"Ah, well..." he commented happily. "Some things are Universal invariants. Can you see the main generator arm? It will look like a large umbrella handle..."

"How could I miss it?" she muttered.

"Good, good...watch the energy flow at the end of it...it should look like an arc. Do you see it? Yes? Tell me when it switches color," he ordered as he leaned heavily on the terminal with one hand and typed with the other. "Especially if it turns purple."

"What does that mean?"

"Imminent destruction."

Tegan frowned. She could see most of the floor from their vantage point. "You do know what you're doing, don't you?"

"Of course, I do," he stated, clearly affronted. Then after a moment, he amended it. "I'm fairly sure I do, Tegan. I shall reverse the energy flow which will expand and cement the time inversion and then feed the energy back through the generator. It should cause a crosslinking of most of the serious bits."

"Is that all?"

"Well, no," he said. He turned around to squat by the main computer terminal again. "It might cause a dangerous overflow of energy which might cause the generator to self-destruct. It's hard to tell with the block transfer computation how far the equation has linked space and time. That backwash will have to go somewhere."

"Oh great." She felt a little safer knowing that the vampires were scared of the Doctor, but wondered if she should have been scared that her friend seemed to be drifting closer to the dangerous line of what she considered was no return.


It had taken Lukan the better part of twenty minutes to regain his senses. He had only seen another react in the manner the Doctor had and that had been his father. But the changes, the force of the passage of temper on the Doctor's face and inherent in his being left Lukan feeling overwhelmed. He hadn't realized that the other vampire was that old, that powerful.

And, of course, it added to his curiosity about the situation. Why in the name of Pyrthra would one so ancient be messing about with the science and technology panel anyway?

But most of those left his mind as Bria came on the screen. She looked warn and old. His sudden inhale brought a wry smile to her face. "I look like hell, don't I, Luke."

"What has the physician said?" he asked as he deftly avoided the question. "And it would help if you ate your meals with more regularity, Bri."

She nodded slowly. "That's true, I suppose. But I have been eating...they won't let me miss a meal here. The physician says I'll make a recovery...if I'm not exposed to the photons again."

"Soon?"

"Ever."

Lukan rubbed his brow and suppressed a shiver. "Have they figured out what went wrong? Is it the safeties? I could have sworn they were in place."

"Oh, they were," Bria responded. "Although if you ask people here, they'll say it was the lack of engineering controls that caused the exposure to the photons. But I know what was there and what wasn't. We exceeded what was needed. No, there are rumors that it's the genetic recombination technology; that there is an incompatibility. That it will affect us with the wrong set of non-dominant genes..."

He winced. "It doesn't matter how, I suppose, but it does matter what they are doing to help you, darling."

Bria swallowed. "Time. To work out the difference and possibly gene therapy...when are you coming back?"

"Soon, love. The Doctor and that girl...Tegan...are here. The Doctor is apparently an Ancient. Fooled me, he did. I would have had him for a new-born. But he's here and causing as much trouble as he did there old. There's an alert out for him; they think he's planning on sabotaging the main generator..."

"Which is? You know I don't know what's going on there, Luke."

"I'll tell you about it when I get back, darling. Take care of yourself and remember...we're going home heroes."

Bria gave him a sad smile and leaned over to switch off the viewer. He had a feeling that she thought she wasn't going to live to go home.


"Doc..."

"Hmm?" Tegan could see he was still involved in the working of the generator computer console. She could probably tell him anything and get the same response.

"Doc, we've got company."

"Ah, well...that doesn't surprise me," he commented.

"Yeah, well, they've brought firepower...or something similar."

The Doctor quickly joined her at the window. She gave him a frown. "Might as well finish up; I think they're going to ask us to leave soon. In not a nice way," she clarified.

"Yes, yes...I'll be done quickly. Only a few more changes to the wires and the system should be reversed."

She had been staring at the collection of vampires off to the right along with their growing collection of what looked like gigantic guns to her. The last few words he uttered had her staring at his back as he moved towards the bank of computers. "Should?"

"Yes, Tegan...should. I'm not entirely sure. But if you would like," he turned and gave her a toothy smile. "I could just nicely ask them to stop their experiments..."

With a frown, she turned back to the observation window. "Bloody hell."

The Doctor squatted back down and continued to work at the wires. After what seemed hours, he hopped to his feet and tapped his fingers against his lips. "That should do it. All that remains is employing the block transfer equations...and that I can set up to be done...in twenty minutes."

"What? On a timer?"

He back away from the computer terminal like an artist from a finished canvas and came over to join her. The only thing that marred his usual bright smile was the incisors over his bottom lip. Still, as he slipped his hands into his pockets to glance beyond her to their growing unwary audience he looked as he always had. "Something like that, yes. Shall we, Tegan? We're working on a schedule now. Time is of the essence."

"And what happens to this thing?"

"It will switch on and begin to generate the physical representation of block transfer computations in twenty minutes. So long as it is not tampered with, it will simply do the opposite of what it was meant to do. It will," he continued as he leaned into her space, seeing her confusion. "It will cement this time and space pocket, not expand it or render it open to space. And then, when the computations are finished, the generator will turn itself off."

"And that's it?" Tegan asked as he escorted her to the door. "That's too simple."

"Yes, well...not everything in the Universe is complicated, Tegan. I'm rather glad the TARDIS isn't here; these block transfer computation generators would reek havoc on the poor old girl."


They exited the engineering corridor and into a flurry of activity.

"Get off!" Tegan yelled as she was pulled from the Doctor's side and forced to her knees across the floor from him. Her short hair was pulled, keeping her barely on her knees, fighting the urge to rise off of them to avoid pain.

The Doctor's eyes glowed as he sank to his knees across from her. She could see his anger boiling through and hoped he wouldn't erupt. She couldn't handle it. But as Lukan drew close to her, she began to think that maybe the Doctor in all his unbridled anger glory was easier to stomach than Luke in her face.

"Don't play with her," the Doctor warned.

Lukan lifted an eyebrow and turned to the Chancellor. The older man nodded knowingly. "He is an Ancient, Luke. Look at his eyes; he appears to be rather protective of his abomination."

"I've been called a lot of things," Tegan growled. "Abomination was not one of them."

"Quiet, Tegan," the Doctor intoned as his voice deepened. She frowned until his glowing eyes turned to her and then she found that she had to look away. After a moment, he cleared his throat. "She's not important, Chancellor."

"Careful, Doctor," the man responded, his voice growing lower with each syllable. "You aren't in a position to say what is and isn't important here. You, in fact, are a rogue and an endangerment to the existence of this project."

"Yes, well..." the Doctor responded, leaning forward on his knees to bring him close to the lead Science advisor. "I do rather feel that the experiments you are doing are the endangerment. Lukan," he turned to address the younger vampire. The growl that escaped his throat had the man releasing Tegan's hair. "Lukan, what about Bria? The gene therapy isn't working particularly well on some factions of the populace, is it? She was affected by the photons, wasn't she? Mainly because the some of her non-dominant genes which control basic body processes are being affected by-"

"That's enough..."

The Doctor ignored the Chancellor, talking louder. His tone on tone baritone became bass as Tegan listened. "Are being affected by exposure to the photons. It wasn't anticipated prior to its use, was it? Time Lords and Vampires use almost 85 percent of their genome in some form or another. And photon resistance isn't something that's-"

"That's enough!" the Chancellor roared. "Time Lord's indeed," he added with a nervous laugh.

"I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor clarified.

"That's impossible, old chap," Luke cried as the rest of the crowd erupted in noise. Tegan used the distraction to slide over to the Doctor. He allowed her to get a little behind him.

"Well, a changed Time Lord, through Guardian intervention. But I know what I'm talking about!" he shouted over the noise. "Look at Bria, Lukan. She's ill. And many more are as well. If you continue from this point there are only two outcomes. One, that you continue and succeed and make this planet uninhabitable and it will no longer house your empire. It will also split your species into two profound species, one with the ability to weather light and the other not. Evolution of that profound nature and so quick is not something a society can survive. Or Two: That you will fail, wiping out Rassilon knows how many millions."

The Chancellor growled. The Doctor issued his own growl, one that made Tegan shiver. "And if you think the White Guardian will allow you access to the Universe, you are sadly mistaken, Chancellor. He is allowing you to continue here, healthy. He wouldn't allow you entrance for your own death. Nor will the Time Lords."

"Doc..." Tegan whispered as she saw the anger and pain in the surrounding people's faces.

"That generator will reach critical power soon and will cement this time pocket, Chancellor."

"You've rewired it!" the Science head shouted. Tegan saw his fangs elongate and contort his mouth. His face became wrinkled in front of her. "Sabotage!"

"And it would rather take you longer than the time I've set on it to sort it out. So I would advise leaving this area...in case I haven't gotten my sums completely right." The Doctor smiled. The smile dimmed as the Chancellor ordered one of the surrounding weapons to train on the main generator arm. "I wouldn't!" he warned.

"I'd rather have to rebuild it than to have the time pocket cemented into place," the Chancellor shouted and then he waved his hand down.

Tegan watched in horror as the arm was hit with an energy beam and saw, to her horror, that the glowing energy arc high above her head turned purple. "Oh hell..." she whispered.

The Doctor reached for her and climbed to his feet. "Only a minute left...if the arm can withstand the influx of power..." he muttered.

For the first time in a long time, Tegan bemoaned the loss of her watch. She gripped the Doctor's arm as they began to back away with the others. Everyone seemed entranced with the arm and the glowing, radiating power. The Doctor had to cover his eyes from the glow.

"Shouldn't we run?" she encouraged.

"They would shoot you where you stand," he warned.

"But!"

"Brave heart, Tegan," he replied as the ground began to shake. "And trust me!"

Tegan gaped at him, but saw the familiar blue eyes of her friend earnest. The rumbling of the ground stopped but the glow increased. And then, with a loud explosion that seemed to dim out everything else she had ever heard in her life, the generator exploded.