AN: This is a story that I originally had published by the Doctor Who Club of Australia years ago. I've broken it up into three chapters for publication here, I hope you enjoy.
It was raining. It was always raining. At least, that's what it seemed like to Jell.
She stared out of her high, arched window and looked at that deep, crimson sky that she used to find so beautiful. Lately though, it seemed to have lost all traces of its former beauty. The churning, tumultuous clouds of indigo chewed up the skyline, turning it into something nightmarish and grotesque.
Suddenly, something caught her attention. It was down below, tucked away in the corner of the north and eastern walls, hidden in the shadows. There was a sort of blue light fading in and out of existence. It was more than that though. It was as if a shape were being born out of nothing; a tall, rectangular box of some sort. She noted how the rain drops passed right through it as it faded in and out, but gradually, as the form became more solid, they began to bounce off of it with gentle tapping sounds.
Finally the box settled into existence and she stared on in disbelief as a man exited the strange blue box. He looked fairly young, though it could be hard to tell with some species. He looked around for a bit and she gasped as their eyes made contact. There was something about those eyes. They were tired and heavy; weighed down by centuries of struggle and conflict.
The man just looked at her for several moments before holding a finger to his lips, asking for her silence. With that, he was gone, vanished into the shadows.
Jell didn't know what to do. She had to report this to her masters, if they found out that she had failed to do so then the consequences would be lethal. But there was something about him. Something about those eyes. Who was he? Was he here to help them? She had to find out.
She stuck her head out of her office doors and inspected the hallway. It was empty. She exited her office hurriedly and made her way to the stairs, trying not to run or otherwise appear conspicuous.
She made her way to the ground floor without incident and headed for a small maintenance door which would lead her to the blue box. She always hated the factory floor – it smelled of rust and solder and decay and the cavernous space echoed with the sounds of machinery. At least there weren't any screams this time.
She was within a few metres of the door when she heard a voice that turned her blood to ice.
"Halt!"
She froze in her tracks.
"Why have you abandoned your post? Explain! Explain!"
She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, before turning slowly to face one of her new masters. It was a mutated creature clad in bronze armour; a being of pure hatred and evil that, until eighteen months ago, she had only known to exist in the tall tales of traders and other space-farers: a Dalek.
She wracked her brain, trying to think of her best course of action. It didn't take her long to realise that she had done nothing wrong and therefore, had no reason to lie. She had seen a man appear outside and so she had come down to investigate or, even better, alert her masters to his presence. Even the Daleks wouldn't find cause for extermination in that.
"Explain!" repeated the Dalek, its casing rocking slightly.
Jell opened her mouth, ready to tell the truth. But then she remembered those eyes. She still couldn't help but think that that man could be the answer to all of their prayers. Could she really risk losing their only chance of salvation, no matter how unlikely it might be?
"You see," said Jell, stalling, "I, umm..."
"Speak!"
Jell flinched as the Dalek waggled its gun.
"You see..." That's when she saw the man from outside approaching the Dalek very cautiously from behind. Once again he put a finger to his lips before producing a small device from his coat, consisting of three circular pads connected by some wires.
"No more delays! Speak or you shall be extermin-aaargh!"
The Dalek screamed in a garbled voice as the man attached the device to the dome of its casing. Almost immediately, the scream died out and the Dalek turned lifeless; its extremities becoming limp and inactive.
"That's quite enough of that," said the man. His voice was gruff and didn't quite match up to his young face.
"What was that?" gasped Jell.
"I'd have thought you'd have figured out what a Dalek was by now – they've been occupying your planet for nearly two years."
"No," said Jell, "that thing you used on it."
"Oh, just a small electromagnetic device capable of frying the circuitry of a Dalek battle casing. And as it was my only one, I was hoping that I could save it for an emergency. But as per usual, a lower life-form needed saving and thus my plans were thrown right out the window."
"Sorry," said Jell, rather sarcastically.
Without another word, the man turned and began to walk away.
"Wait," said Jell as she began to follow him. She stopped as she got closer to the Dalek and eyed it cautiously.
"The life-support was fried too," said the man as he continued to walk away, "so there's no need to worry about our tentacled friend jumping out and killing you the old-fashioned way."
Jell looked at the man, then the Dalek, before continuing on after him. Though, she still gave the dead Dalek a wide berth.
The man was smart, keeping to the wall and staying in the shadows when possible. They were at the far end of the complex, about as far away as you could get from the main hub of the factory and the bulk of the Daleks' forces. Out here they'd probably only encounter the occasional guard, like the one they'd just left, given how thinly the Dalek contingent was spread on Skalavorn.
"Wait," she said as she fell into step with the man, "who are you?"
The man opened his mouth, as if he were about to answer, but then frowned and caught himself. "Nobody you need concern yourself with."
"OK, you're a man of mystery, I get it, but can't I at least get a name?"
"I don't have a name."
"You don't have a name?"
"None that I can use."
Jell didn't think that made a lick of sense.
"Ok, well, what are you doing here? Are you here to free us? Are you going to fight the Daleks?"
The man furrowed his brow. "I'm here to cripple the Daleks' war effort and take out as many of their troops on Skalavorn as possible."
War effort? Jell thought for a moment before reaching a conclusion that made her equal parts terrified and hopeful.
"You're fighting in the Time War, aren't you? You're a Time Lord!"
They came to a metal door, locked with a security pad. The man produced a slender device with a red light from his pocket, pointed it at the pad and then the door opened, allowing them to enter.
"And what if I am a Time Lord?" asked the man as they passed through the door and came to a set of stairs.
"Well, I mean, that's good, isn't it? I mean, you guys are the only beings in the universe fiercer than Daleks. You're Dalek-killers, right?"
The man stopped in the middle of the stairwell, so she did likewise. He fixed her with a deep and intense stare – the first time he'd really looked at her since she'd witnessed his arrival from the window.
"I want you to understand something..."
"Jell."
"Jell," repeated the man. "There's something you need to understand. This isn't a rescue mission. I am not your saviour. I am here because this factory is one of the biggest in the universe and the Dalek's are using it as their primary producer of weapons, armaments and other utilities that are vital to their continuing participation in the Time War." He shifted his stance and a shadow grew over his face. "And I'm the one who's going to blow it up."
He turned away from her, obviously done with discussing the matter and continued up the stairs.
Jell stood there for a moment, a little taken aback.
"But what about us?" she called as she hurried after him. He had reached the top of the stairs and was in the process of opening another door with the small device.
The door clicked open and the man lowered his head slightly. "I'll do my best to minimise casualties," he said before entering the room.
"Minimise casualties?" she echoed incredulously. She paused in the stairwell for a moment, taking in the weight of what he had just said, before following him through the door. "This factory covers most of our planet. Eighty per-cent of the population work here and another twelve per-cent are directly or indirectly dependent on this place. If you take it out you won't just cull our population, you'll cripple our economy and destroy our infrastructure. You'd might as well just blow the whole planet up and be done with it."
The man leaned against a console and shook his head. "Are you really quite finished?"
Jell decided that there was no reasoning with him. She'd just have to determine his plan and try to steer him towards a less destructive option. Failing that...she'd have to stop him.
They were in the main control room for this sector. Once upon a time it would have been fully staffed, but the Daleks had diverted most of the workforce to labour and machine operator jobs, leaving just a skeleton crew to work the fifty-thousand command centres and control rooms spaced throughout the factory. Needless to say, many of them were unmanned these days.
"What are you looking for?"
"Nothing that you could help me find," he grumbled, scanning the length and breadth of the console.
Jell scoffed and strode across to him. "I'll have you know that I've worked in this factory for most of my life and I've been the general manager for the past six years. That took years of hard work and dedication. I've been to every sector of this complex dozens of times and I know every inch of it like the back of my own tendril."
The man slowly turned his head and looked at her. If she hadn't known any better, she'd have sworn that she saw the corners of his mouth twitch into a smile, for just the briefest of seconds.
"The geothermal controls," he said.
Jell took a step closer to the console and peered down, hoping beyond all hope that she wouldn't embarrass herself after her bold speech.
"There," she said waving one of her light blue tendrils towards a patch of red and grey buttons.
"Much obliged," he said with a faint nod before moving over to the controls.
"Wait, what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to close off the geothermal vents, allow the pressure to build and then...boom! No more Dalek armaments. For a time anyway."
Jell's face contorted in horror.
"There should be plenty of time for the workers to get clear," he said.
"Plenty of time? Did you not here what I said about the size of our workforce?"
"You have long-range teleports, don't you? You'd have to for a place this size."
"Well, yes..."
"And surely you must have emergency evacuation procedures? A muster point on the other side of the planet?"
"Yes, but - "
"Well there you have it, problem solved." He lowered his head and began to examine the controls, his hands hovering over them like a predator waiting for just the right moment to pounce.
"No!" Jell bellowed, her usually cool blue, translucent skin now pulsating with waves of deep crimson.
Her tendrils wrapped around his wrists, ensuring that he wouldn't be able to touch the controls and her body pulsed and contorted as she grew to twice her regular size.
The man looked shocked more than scared, but it was still enough to snap Jell out of her primal rage. She immediately returned to normal size; her tendrils releasing the man and retracting back into her body.
"I'm sorry," she said timidly, "It's just that when the Blood Fever comes over us, it can be difficult to control. When the Daleks first arrived we thought that that would help us fight back. Many banded together and tried to fight, but a bio-chemical defence mechanism doesn't make a factory worker a warrior and they were still no match for the Daleks' weapons."
Suddenly a thought occurred to her. "But with you here, things can be different. You're a Time Lord; you're fighting in the Time War! Under your leadership, we could mount a resistance. You can end the Daleks' occupation of Skalavorn without destroying it."
The man just looked at her with sad, uncertain eyes.
"Please, at least let us try! Don't we have the right to fight for our planet before you condemn us all?"
The man looked at her for the longest time, those sad and ancient eyes boring into her very soul. Finally he broke away from her and turned around, pacing the room for a few moments.
"Fine," he said, turning back to her. "If you can demonstrate to me that there is a significant enough force on this planet, capable of defeating the Daleks, then I might, might, just consider it. But if I don't think that there's any chance of it working then I'm sorry, I will go right back to my original plan. Do you understand?"
Jell swallowed and gave a tight little nod. "Yes. Yes, Thank-you."
6