Episode: Paradigm of the Daleks
Chapter: Curse of the... [2/4]
Summary: Winston Churchill wanted to protect his people. Edwin Bracewell wanted to help win the war. Amy Pond wanted to see her Raggedy Doctor happy. The Master wanted blood. Or the one where they answer Churchill's call and realize nothing matters anymore.
Rating: T
Utah, North America, year 2012. One lone and damaged Dalek, fallen through the Time War and sold as nothing more than an alien curiosity. It committed suicide when, in an attempt at repairing itself, it became contaminated with human DNA.
Satellite Five, Earth, year 200,100. The Dalek Emperor, whose ship fell through time after the end of the Time War, and half a million Daleks cultivated from the worst of humanity. They were destroyed when the Bad Wolf, a human infused with the power of the Time Vortex through the TARDIS, divided them through all of time and space, there and nowhere at the same time. A fate worse than death, brought about by the ingenuity of a human brain bent on protecting its friends.
Canary Wharf, London, year 2007. Four Daleks of the Cult of Skaro, hidden in a Void Ship during the Time War with a Genesis Ark. The Daleks from the Genesis Ark were sent to the Void alongside an army of Cybermen from a parallel universe, but the Cult of Skaro escaped.
New York, North America, year 1930. The four Daleks from the Cult of Skaro, who used an emergency temporal shift to avoid being sucked into the Void, and a group of Dalek-human hybrids. The leader of the Cult merged with a human and was executed by its followers, two other Daleks were killed when their human hybrids rebelled, and the surviving hybrids were euthanized by the fourth Dalek, who escaped with another temporal shift.
The Medusa Cascade, Terran year 2009. The last Dalek from the Cult of Skaro, Davros, and the New Dalek Empire. The first's teleport took it into the Time War—probably when it was weakened by Gallifrey being taken out that fateful Christmas at the Naismith's—for it to rescue Davros, who created a new race of Daleks. The Daleks took twenty-seven planets, including Earth, to create a new Cruciform, the Crucible, and perfect the Z-Neutrino Destabilizer into a Reality Bomb. However, thanks to the Biological Metacrisis, which resulted from the combination of regeneration energy in a severed Time Lord hand, artron energy from a time-traveling human, the human's own DNA and the unstable temporal pocket in the Cascade, the Daleks were destroyed, every single one of them.
Only, apparently, they weren't. Some of them survived and they came here, to London in the year 1941, and are now 'working' for the Allied cause, aiming only to defeat the Nazis and prevent the invasion of the United Kingdom.
Koschei closes the archives onscreen with a breathless hysterical giggle and collapses to his knees.
Dun-dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun-dun.
He knows it's nothing but his heartsbeat, pounding in his ears with increasing speed as he takes in quicker and shallower breaths, but his stupid brains are unable to listen to that beat without immediately relating it to the drums. The drums, a rhythm of war, a reflection of madness, a tempo of death.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
His throat closes, blocking his attempts at taking in the air he seems unable to get, and so he shakes his head instead.
"I was supposed to destroy all of them. None should have escaped; they were supposed to die with Gallifrey. I am so, so sorry."
"Shut it!" Koschei shouts, turning around and standing up in the same motion, but Theta just stands there, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched and defeated expression fixed on him. "You, apologizing? Hah! What in Omega's cursed name do you have to apologize for? I was the perfect warrior for the Time War, I am the one who should apologize! I was guarding the Cruciform! I should have stopped those bastards, kept them away from it so we could collect all the planets and erase the Daleks from existence!"
"I'm so sorry, Koschei," Theta apologizes again with that low and solemn tone that says more than his words.
"I said shut up!" he roars, lashing out with time feelers that make the air ripple all around him with heat and ash long gone, and the TARDIS' background thrum turns into a warning buzz. "I was the one who broke the time lock, the one who let the Daleks get to the Cruciform and obtain its schematics, the one who ran!" he adds, ignoring the increasing blurriness of his sight, the shaking of his fists and the cracking of his voice. "I'm the one who should be dead…"
The glass under him feels too hot against his clammy skin when he drops to his knees and presses his forehead against it, curling as tightly as he can and fisting his short hair painfully.
"Gallifrey is gone, the Time Lords are gone, you are gone… But the Daleks are still here…"
"Oh, Koschei…" Theta whispers, heartbroken, and close enough that Koschei knows the ghost is trying to hug him much like the actual Doctor did once he returned his body to its proper timestamp, back aboard the Valiant.
The humans might have chalked that to whatever 'magic' and 'faith' their pitiful brains could conjure, but Koschei knows better. Time Lords are multidimensional, not merely tridimensional, but to properly interact with the rest of the universe without driving whole planets insane, they restrict themselves. Flaring and actually using their multidimensional aspects like the Doctor had done then, would have destroyed the humans' minds… if he had actually actively used them. Instead, he had harnessed the artron energy produced by billions of human minds focused on one very specific branch of the timeline, channeled through the Archangel Network, which was specifically designed to support and enhance the aspects related to mind-manipulation.
Faith and hope and prayer, the Master had mocked. A telepathic field binding the whole human race together, Martha Jones had thought. Wrong, the both of them, but no less right for it. Time Lord telepathy is not of the mind, it is of their multidimensional aspect. There is no such thing as a 'telepathic field' for a Time Lord. If one was to try such a thing… Well. There was a reason they didn't do it, and it was that straightening the timelines after that was a pain, if possible at all. Which is why they found alternatives, such as the Archangel Network, and why the Doctor had been able to tune into the psychic network and integrate with its matrices. The Master's mind had been nowhere near it, he had to merely channel a trickle of his self, of the impression he wished to convey, and let the network transmit it. A bigger version of the psychic impression they projected as naturally as breathing, to hide their more otherworldly aspects of their multidimensionality from the primitive tridimensional creatures that populated the majority of the universe. They might not be able to deal with them, but they could feel the 'wrongness' Time Lords exuded.
And so, the Doctor had connected with the Archangel Network, and used the energy from all those human minds to bring forth a timeline in which he wasn't de-aged, and in which he'd decided that sacrificing a ship was worth the whole of the universe and let loose.
Even if the Master had disregarded any non-interference rules he still adhered to, he wouldn't have had enough energy himself to counteract the amount the Doctor was channeling. So, he had done the second-best thing and coiled himself as tightly as he'd been able to, hidden as much as possible inside his tridimensional shell so that the Doctor could not link properly and bend him to his wishes.
The Master might have always been the better at the Time Lord version of telepathy, but powered by that amount of artron energy? He wouldn't have stood a chance.
Fortunately, the Doctor had still been as sentimental as ever, and so the Master had been able to keep him at bay for just enough time for the Toclafane to arrange a distraction.
He's under no delusions that, sentimental fool or not, the Doctor would not have hesitated to immobilize him. And, with such power at his disposition, it would have most likely involved ripping the Master's time feelers off, at the very least. He would have grown new ones in no time, after all, but that would have kept him controlled, subdued, and, most importantly, completely unable to reach for human minds to subtly work his telepathy. Luckily for him, the Master had chosen to surrender when the Captain had cut his escape, and so spared himself any more pain than that caused by Lucy's shot.
… Koschei would give anything to be there right now, to accept his fate and regenerate, even if that would have left him at the Doctor's mercy. Eventually, he would have checked on the drums, realized what they were, and they would have fixed it. It would have been a tortuous and really lengthy and twisty road, harsh on the both of them, painful to the extreme, but there was a chance it wouldn't have led to the Naismith mansion and the failed return of Gallifrey. That Dalek, Caan, would have appeared again, as they are wont to do, but it wouldn't have been able to get into the time lock. The Daleks wouldn't have returned, there wouldn't have been a Crucible, Donna Noble wouldn't have had to forget – though, there's also the chance that Donna Noble wouldn't have met the Doctor again, but even then, it would have been better than her eventual fate. She was a strong one, Donna Noble. She had managed with no problem without the Doctor, after all, had managed to do some investigating and found him after their first encounter and, after their last, found a loving husband and got married. How many of the Doctor's other companions could claim that?
"Stop that. Koschei, stop that, you know you can't do that," Theta chastises, voice sharp, and Koschei tenses, only then realizing how he'd been weaving timelines in an effort to reach the splitting point of that Could Have Been.
He really can't do that. The paradox such would cause, all the Fixed Points that would twist the universe back in place, would rip him to shreds, at the very least. A Could Have Been around his own timeline? Madness.
Well, no one ever said Koschei was the sanest of people, anyway.
But even then, Koschei lets out a tremulous breath and unravels the crackling and straining timeline he'd been messing with. For something this big, he would need tools that no longer exist.
Paradox machines are one thing, and, even with a TARDIS, they are hard to build as it is. A Could Have Been on a Time Lord's personal timeline, involving another Time Lord, one whose own timeline is entwined with the first's, and so close to a paradox?
No one can do that. Not anymore. And certainly not outside of something as intense as a thrice Rassilon-damned Time War.
"But they can't be here…" Koschei whines, and is not ashamed to admit it, curling further before he finally scrounges enough strength to take in a shaky breath and meet Theta's pained eyes. "They can't be, we destroyed them, locked the Time War again. They can't be here, it's not fair."
"Oh, I know, trust me. I do," Theta scoffs, dropping to the floor so he can glare at his hands on his lap. "I always lose everything that matters to me, but they always come back. And now they're haunting you too, and it's so not fair… Why would they even be here? And working for Churchill, what is that about?"
"You should be the one here. You would go over the weirdest tangent you could find and somehow figure out their endgame and put a stop to it," Koschei whispers, staring unseeingly at the glass floor with a scowl that is not so much angry as it is pained.
"You give me too much credit. Half the time it's dumb luck."
"Liar."
"Alright, ten percent of the time," Theta corrects himself with an unbothered shrug, before answering Koschei's snort with a small but sincere hopeful grin. "Besides, why would you need me for this? Come on, Koschei, don't you remember all those missions, back during our service? Oh, you were brilliant! Remember that once with the Nestene, on whatsits name…"
"Przzkl?" he supplies with an amused grin, and Theta perks up with a bright smile.
"That one! You definitely ran circles around them! Makes one wonder why they chose to trust you, all those centuries later. But still, that one was brilliant!" he muses, though he immediately forfeits any curiosity in favor of another bright grin.
"What, you think I didn't have my own adventures after you ran away?" Koschei asks with a mocking grin, before sobering. "It's not the same thing."
"No, it really isn't. You're far more experienced now, and with no drums to distract you," Theta answers, also serious, and doesn't smile until their eyes meet again. "You don't need me for this, Koschei. You never did. Now, go out there and be magnificent."
Koschei hesitates for a moment before swallowing his automatic answer that I really do need you, nodding instead.
Theta nods, beaming, and pops out of existence.
Koschei closes his eyes and takes one last deep breath to push the echo of his much calmer heartsbeat out of his head. And then, when he's centered himself once more, the Professor gets to his feet, straightens and dusts his clothes, and moves to the door.
Amy stops just before the TARDIS, pulling back the hand that had been reaching for the handle in surprise before she gives him a thorough look. She's holding a tray with a couple of steaming tea cups and a plate of dry biscuits, and, almost against his will, the Professor gives them a long look before he refocuses on Amy.
So, what if this body is still geared towards obtaining as much food as it can? It isn't like the Professor has given it any time to accept the fact he no longer needs as much. And, besides, he does like eating this time around. Lucy's family had pampered him perhaps a bit too much, what with all the fancy restaurants and professional chefs working for them, and his status as Minister of Defense and Prime Minister after that hadn't helped curb the new habit.
But back to Amy.
"Are you alright? You were in there for almost an hour," she asks worriedly, and the Professor grimaces when he sees that it really has been forty-eight minutes and nineteen seconds since he entered the TARDIS.
"I needed to check on some things," he answers as dismissively as possible, but his voice is too rough and subdued to produce the effect he wants. "Where did you get these?" he asks almost immediately after, grabbing a biscuit and hoping the change in topic is not too obvious.
The look Amy gives him tells him that it was quite obvious, so he immediately bites onto the biscuit to get some time to prepare a satisfactory answer – but Amy sighs instead, shoulders dropping.
"They gave the All Clear not long after you left, so the Ironsides are serving tea now," she answers instead, lifting the tray with an amused smile on her face.
The Professor frowns, confused by her expression and lost as to how those words and the tea go together—
"That's our new secret weapon. The Ironsides."
—and spits the half-chewed biscuit out, gagging on the crumbs sticking to his tongue and the roof of his mouth, which he scratches off almost violently.
Amy jerks away with a yelp, the cups shaking dangerously but not falling, even though some tea spills out. The Professor doesn't care, spitting the remnants of the biscuit and trying not to be sick as he realizes the Daleks gave Amy that food and I almost ate it. All his analysis of his biochemistry come clear, though, so either they didn't really put anything in the biscuits or he spit it out before anything that could have been in it got into him.
He would like to say it's the first, as the second wouldn't fit the Daleks' style, but playing human toys isn't much like them either and yet they are doing it.
So, just to be safe, the Professor runs his tongue all over the inside of his mouth to make sure he got everything before one last spit.
"What was that about?!" Amy exclaims, leaving the tray on a mostly cleared shelf, with both worry and annoyance on her face.
"What were you thinking?!" he snarls instead, gesturing widely at the tray. "Accepting food from a Dalek? Getting anywhere close to a Dalek?! Don't you remember what they did to Earth, Amelia?!"
"What are you on about? What problem do you have with the Ironsides? Look, whatever you're thinking, you're wrong. I talked with Churchill and he agreed to lend me their schematics to show you. See? Here. I was going to bring them in, but the door was locked, so I left them—"
"You what?!" the Professor manages to choke out, stiffening, as Amy grabs a roll of blueprints from another shelf.
"I did some detective work. What, you thought a human wouldn't be able to figure some things out? It was really obvious it was the Ironsides that freaked you out, so I decided to learn more about them," she answers proudly, unrolling one of the blueprints to show him the schematics to what looks like a Dalek's armor, only with machinery inside instead of an actual Dalek. "Blueprints, statistics, field tests, photographs… Churchill gave me everything, to put you at ease. Bracewell—he's a Scottish genius, by the way, just pointing that out—invented them and approached one of the soldiers a few months ago," she explains, handing him the blueprint that he takes with shaking hands, and ignoring his chocked 'invented'. "Of course, Churchill had his reservations, which is why he called you. He said he thought they were too good to be true. But after all of that trial time, he's thinking about building a hundred more of them," she adds with a big grin, a picture of one of the 'Ironsides' in her hands and awe in her eyes, and the Professor whimpers. "Uh, are you alright? I know this is not how history is supposed to go, but—"
"History?" he squeaks, bringing his shaking under control with a couple breaths and focusing on his anger instead. "Oh, it is history I am worried about right now, alright, the future of the whole universe. Did you seriously not tell Churchill about the Daleks? Remember the Medusa Cascade? Lots of planets in the sky, Daleks flying around killing and kidnapping people?"
"What are those 'Daleks'?"
And Koschei freezes again, before waving the blueprint—fake, fake, there's no way this thing isn't fake—around.
"They invaded your planet, stole it away!" he hisses, but her confusion and the worry towards him are genuine. "You can't… Do you really not remember…?"
"No, sorry," Amy answers softly, shaking her head, before dropping the papers on a shelf and reaching for his arm. "Professor, are you sure you're—"
Koschei steps back, out of her reach, blueprint ripping as he clenches his hand into a white-knuckled fist, hatred and ire curling into a blazing star between his hearts.
"Don't call me that," he cuts, voice low and cold, and Amy tenses. "The Professor was a bumbling human fool. The Daleks want to play, think they can get scot-free with whatever they're planning just because they survived the War? Well, there's one last Time Lord they'll have to deal with," he snarls, throwing away the ripped blueprint before storming out of the storage room.
The first soldier they come across startles at the intensity of his glare, but easily directs them to Bracewell's laboratory after a bit of stammering. So, without a second to waste, Koschei follows the directions, with a worried and silent Amy right on his heels.
If he wasn't so focused on their destination, Koschei would have turned around, asked Amy just what she's so worried about, and would have given her the simplest yet most accurate of explanations so that she would be reassured and stop getting on his nerves with all the worrying. But right now, there are more important things than Amy's worry or Koschei's bizarre urge to calm her down. There are Daleks to deal with.
Koschei ran from the Daleks once – with a good reason, anyone with the slightest shred of survival instinct would have ran when faced with the Emperor, and even more so when they managed to take the Cruciform, if only in an attempt to lengthen their lifespan for a bit.
But any Time Lord would have returned to the closest outpost, or to Gallifrey, to try and mount a counterattack to recover, or at least destroy, the Cruciform. Koschei didn't trust the other Time Lords to do that, so he ran and hid away. A small part of him wonders now if the drums, urging his flight instinct and fanning his fear, hadn't actually meant for him to do it, so that he could get Gallifrey out of the time lock after, but the bigger part of Koschei's mind pushes it away.
Now is not the time. One way or another, it happened. The Time War is over, Daleks and Time Lords are gone, and Koschei is here with the very last Daleks, after the Doctor got rid of all the rest.
If he's going to do one thing, just one thing, with this life he has been gifted, it will be to avenge Gallifrey, to avenge his people—all of them, even those he didn't care for, because no one deserves death at the hands of the Daleks, swift as it may be—and to avenge himself and the Doctor. After all, if the Daleks hadn't declared war on the universe, if they had never existed, Rassilon wouldn't have been brought back, wouldn't have put the drums in his head, and wouldn't have forced the Master into trying to get Gallifrey out of the time lock, which ended in the Doctor's death.
His hands tingle with anticipation, and he forces himself to pocket them to stop himself from doing anything drastic, curling one around his screwdriver and thumbing the laser function on.
Koschei will destroy the Daleks, but he needs to learn what they're planning first, needs to stop that and make sure this is the end. No more Daleks, ever again.
There's only one gliding around Bracewell's laboratory, carrying parts and papers to wherever it is told, working as an errand boy for the other scientists milling around.
Koschei snarls, time feelers bristling with artron static, before he reins himself in and leans against the table the human 'inventor' is working on.
"Professor! Oh, it is so good to see you again. How are you feeling? Miss Pond assured us you were taking some rest—" Bracewell babbles with a smile, of all things, and Koschei silences him with a single dark glare that is not hypnotic, he's not that far gone yet.
If he doesn't get what he wants, though, that'll change fast, Rules be damned.
"So, you invented the Ironsides, Professor Bracewell? Tell me, what gave you the idea?" Koschei asks as calmly and nonchalantly as he can, but both Bracewell's and Amy's uneasiness are proof that he's failing.
He doesn't care. He's here for answers and Dalek blood, not to play nice with the bumbling primitive fools that are this backwards planet's dominant race.
"Ah, well, you see, it was nothing specific really. I just get a lot of funny ideas, sometimes in the strangest of places. See these designs? I got them while in the bath! Imagine gravity bubbles that could—" he answers, his excitement overpowering his wariness, reaching for more blueprints and papers that Koschei thinks might be about hypersonic flight and life support in the vacuum, but which he slams his hand on without a second thought, cutting the human's rant and making him jump.
"Not interested," he purrs with a large and sharp grin that makes Bracewell lean back with a nervous gulp. "I'm more curious about the whole 'Ironside' thing, you see. Who came up with it? You or them?" he asks, jerking his head to where the Dalek is clearing a workbench, completely unbothered by anything going on around it.
"Them?" Bracewell repeats, startled, and turns for a moment to see what Koschei gestured at before facing him once more with a reassuring smile. "Oh, no, nothing like that. They are mere robots. Clever ones, I will admit, but they are fully under my command," he explains, turning towards the door, and, this time, it is Koschei who follows his gaze and tenses.
A second Dalek, gliding inside calmly, carrying a small tray with a single cup of steaming tea on it.
"Thank you," Bracewell tells it with a smile as the Dalek stops in front of them, taking the cup. "See? They are the perfect servants, and the perfect warriors."
"Servants," Koschei repeats blankly, trying to process the image of a Dalek standing next to a human with a tea tray on its manipulator arm, before snorting and doubling over, laughing so hard that his midsection hurts. "Servants! The mighty Dalek race, the biggest threat in the universe, servants!" he cackles, grabbing onto the table for the couple seconds it takes him to get his breath back and straighten with a new snarl. "What did they promise you."
It's not a question, it's an order. Judging by his flinch, Bracewell correctly interprets it as such.
"What? N-No, you've got it all wrong, Professor. They're my creations, they're—"
"Do not call me Professor, you addlebrained primitive idiot," he hisses, and Bracewell tenses and shivers under his piercing glare. "Whatever they said, however they convinced you, they are not servants. But you are right, they are warriors. They are death."
"Exactly! Death to the Nazi menace," Churchill exclaims, entering the laboratory and gesturing for the other scientists to leave with a wave of a hand. "And that is exactly what we need."
Theta is not here, probably to avoid distracting Koschei in such a delicate situation as is any kind of dealings with Daleks, but Koschei most definitely could use his help right now. The hand around the screwdriver clenches tighter, and it is only because of Amy's worried and expectant look that Koschei manages to stop himself from putting the imbeciles out of their misery.
"First the Nazis, then the rest of the planet, and next the universe! Mark my words, Prime Minister, if hatred ever had a face, it would be this one!" he shouts instead, gesturing towards the Dalek still by Bracewell's side, which makes his skin crawl.
That gunstick is too close for comfort, and it isn't even aiming at him yet!
Only, instead of Churchill retorting with some irrelevant nonsense about Nazis, or Bracewell once more jumping to the defense of the 'Ironsides', it is the Dalek itself which acts.
It glides closer, turning to actually face Koschei—
"Would you care for some tea?"
Koschei slams the tea tray off of the manipulator arm, the momentum knocking it into the gunstick, which makes the weapon twitch away from his midsection even as Koschei twists so that it isn't aiming at him anymore.
"Stop that!" he roars, almost getting into the Dalek's eyestalk, conscious enough not to touch it or angle himself in range of its manipulator arm, and the Dalek glides back and away from him. "The only thing I care about is your dead carcasses burning to nothing! What in Omega's cursed name are you planning?!"
"We seek only to help you," the Dalek answers calmly, and Koschei has to stop any and all motion, breathing included, so he can focus on dulling the sound of his heartsbeat filling his head, reminding himself that it is not the drums.
He lets out a breath in a rush, dropping any and all expression in favor of a deadly glare in the Daleks' direction, both of them standing next to each other now.
"Then die," he hisses threateningly, his hand increasing the charge of his screwdriver so that it whines loudly, unbothered by the fact he doesn't remember taking it out of his pocket.
"I do not understand. We seek only to help you win the war," the Dalek tells him calmly, as if it truly was a machine, and Koschei chuckles.
Low, rumbling, coming from the back of his throat much like a growl would if he wasn't trying so hard to keep it at bay.
"Oh, business as usual then? Let us destroy all lifeforms that are not Dalek, starting with the Nazis and Earth. But why this planet, why this time? You may be unknown in this time period, but surely, they don't have the resources you need. Even with an idiot to get you in Churchill's own Cabinet Rooms, you have nothing. Then again, the only thing you ever need is death, so, in that sense, you are in the right place," he hums, still completely immobile, though alert to the slightest buildup of energy that could hint at a Dalek charging its weapon.
"Doctor, this is nonsense! Whatever monster you are after this time, the Ironsides are not it. They were created by Bracewell, for God's sake. Miss Pond delivered the schematics, didn't she?" Churchill huffs indignantly, walking up to him while gesturing between the Daleks, Bracewell and Amy.
"They're fake," Koschei hisses, and sees Bracewell puff up in indignation.
"Fake? I drew them myself," he protests in a mixture of hurt and maybe even a bit of disappointment, but Koschei doesn't care, never looking away from the Daleks.
"Come to your senses, Doctor. The Ironsides are a blessing! All the people suffering under the Nazis, my country could be saved. They are precisely what we need."
"The Daleks are a curse! All of my people suffered under them, my world died because of them! First Gallifrey, then the universe, that was their plan. And it was their downfall. They were destroyed alongside the Time Lords. The two greatest races in the universe, gone. And I will make sure it stays that way," he seethes, his tightly-clenched fists shaking at his sides even as he bristles, the lights flickering in answer.
Koschei sees Churchill's gaze move between him and the Ironsides, stock still by his side and retracting the hand that had been reaching for his shoulder. Amy, standing next to the closest column, covers her mouth, never looking away from him, and, even from the corner of his eye, Koschei can see she's holding back tears. Bracewell is outright gawking, head shaking softly in clear denial, though he's also grown quite pale.
"B-But they are not. I made them. I… I am so sorry they remind you of these – these Dah-lek people, but they are not, you must believe me! They are my Ironsides," Bracewell tries to explain, subdued and starting to verge on desperate despite the undertone of confusion.
"I am your soldier," the Dalek adds to Bracewell's words, and Koschei lets his shoulders slump with a sigh before straightening.
Only one option left, then.
"My soldier, huh? Very well," he answers pleasantly with a nod – and presses the charged screwdriver against Churchill's forehead. "Do your duty, soldier," he orders with a grin so sharp that it makes his cheeks hurt, eyes never leaving the immobile Daleks despite how Bracewell recoils and Amy stops herself from stepping closer.
"Prime Minister!"
"Doctor, no!"
But Koschei doesn't shoot, just stands there, in a room that seems time-stopped with how still everyone is holding themselves, and stares at the Daleks.
"Don't you see? They're not shooting. I'm holding the Prime Minister, their supreme commander, at gunpoint—laser-point, actually—and they haven't even twitched in his defense. The Ironsides are prime killing machines whose only aim is to serve the United Kingdom by eliminating its enemies. They could shoot me dead before I could activate the screwdriver, but they haven't. Which means they aren't Ironsides," he explains, grin widening as a bubble of laughter brews in his chest, triumph and expectation fueling it alongside anticipation. "Well, soldier? An Ironside would kill me to protect the Prime Minister, but a Dalek… Oh, a Dalek would have shot me on that rooftop. Which means you need me alive, even at the cost of dear Winston Churchill's life. So, what will it be? Will you tell me your plan so we can get back to me destroying you? Or do I need to kill all of the Cabinet Rooms to make you talk?" he asks, taunting, and ignores the gasps from the humans.
"No! Doctor, you can't! If you kill Churchill, the war—"
"Time is in flux, Amelia," Koschei cuts, and sees her fidget from the corner of his eye, still focused on the immobile Daleks. "I can do whatever I please. The things that have to happen will happen, and, everything else? Everything else can burn. After all, it's what will happen if the Daleks get what they want, so why should I worry? I can always play Winston's part if it comes to it, or just let the future move in a different direction. Who cares? As long as the Daleks lose, I win," he explains, smirk widening, and presses the screwdriver tighter against Churchill's forehead when the man starts sputtering indignantly. "And if they do kill me, then I have nothing to worry about! That'll mean they're Ironsides, soldiers of the British people, not Daleks, the biggest genocidal bastards of the galaxy. So, what if the war goes on a different path? No Daleks, no worries," he adds, tilting his head up almost triumphantly, because he knows. "Well, Ironsides? What will it be?"
"Desist. You are an ally of the Prime Minister. I am your soldier," the Dalek answers, still immobile, though Koschei is more than aware of its gunstick aiming at him.
"Alright," he whispers, dropping his smirk and taking a deep breath as he adjusts his grip on the screwdriver— "Exterminate!"
The Dalek shoots.
AN: Next episode has (semi-)graphic descriptions of injuries.