Second Interlude (Part One)
Under the terms of her agreement with Pandak, Pengallia had dedicated her monarchy to the prosecution of what the people of Gallifrey were already calling the Time Crusades. She had led her armies against any and every possible challenger to the Time Lords' authority.
By their Queen's side in each of her military campaigns stood the Myrmidon, foremost among the Time Battalions and appointed by Pengallia as the Honour Guard of Demos. Under her leadership, the Myrmidon had stood at the forefront of the Time Crusades, revered as heroes on Demos, Gallifrey, and across the Empire.
It hadn't always been like that. The Myrmidon had fallen foul of Presidential favour long before Pengallia had taken them under her wing. Before her reign they were renowned as bloodthirsty savages who had been repeatedly censured for their over-zealous use of terror-tactics against their foes, using a ruthless blend of physical and psychological abuse that included the unsanctioned use of mind probes on prisoners, whom they later crucified or impaled as an example to their enemies. When Pengallia embarked upon the Time Crusades, it had been a simple matter for her to harness their bloody traditions, restore their faith and devotion to the old gods, and to her own patron, Nemesis, in particular.
In less than two centuries Pengallia and her Time Battalions had succeeded in reversing the fortunes of Gallifrey, revisiting the scenes of its greatest defeats and ruthlessly excising its enemies from existence. All foes fell before her sword: the Black Sun; the Charon; the Crialans; the Ferasheol; the Lobri; the Phaedra; the Thraxx. In doing so she had carved out a new empire, and returned to the Capitol expecting glory and recognition.
The meeting with Pandak had gone well at first, until she had offered up a thousand subject worlds and implored him to restore the Gallifreyan Empire, urging the Time Lords to share their great powers with the peoples of the universe. Pandak had, of course, refused, instead accusing her of suppressing planets in defiance of Presidential Edict. She had vowed there and then to challenge Pandak. She would return to contest the Presidency after one last campaign; she would, she promised, remove the last and greatest foe of the Time Lords: K'thannid, the Elder God whose forces resisted even the mighty Prydonius at the Siege of the Winter Star, where K'thun, the Archon's spawn, had transcended physical form to force the Great Hero's retreat.
True to her word, she had led the Time Battalions to Ice- Askar, leading the assault at the head of her men, as always. Together, they had braved the howling winds and the cutting ice as city after city fell. The Myrmidon and the other Time Battalions drove K'thun's forces back until only the last and greatest city stood between Pengallia and victory. By the time the enemy had been routed she already lay dead, her body battered and broken alongside that of her dragon, Vermitrax, whom she had sliced from its dying mothers womb, and raised from birth. Searching for her amongst the blanket of corpses that littered the ice caves, her faithful Myrmidon had carried her body back with them as they battled to return to the Great Fleet that bombarded the world from above. Aboard the Temperlost, the TARDIS she had christened during her rage against Pandak, she experienced her first regeneration, praising Nemesis for breathing life back into her body.
Her return to Gallifrey had been triumphant, and the victory had assured her ascendancy to the highest of offices. No sooner was Pandak deposed, than she had set off to conclude the war that would secure the Time Lords' place as the unchallenged lords of time and space.
That had been two years ago.
Pengalliadvoramiel, Ninth President of the Supreme Council, Protector of Gallifrey and all of her Dominions, Duchess of Patrex, Holder of the Wisdom of Rassilon, Guardian of the Legacy of Omega, Steward of the Grand Artefacts, and Defender of the Laws of Time stood among the ice-flecked debris of what had once been K'thannid's Citadel. Surrounded by her battle-brothers, they had cut a swath through the k'thellid forces; the so-called star-squid whose time-bending powers had made the assault seem so suicidal.
Most of the creatures had died when the seas were vaporised, but many more had been caught in the labyrinthine city that formed the Citadel's foundations. For every Myrmidon there remained a dozen k'thellid, each linked by the dreams of their Great Archon, all able to tap into the vast reservoir of artron energy that lay within the Well of Deep Time. But action, Pengallia had explained, required thought, and the mantric bombs they had unleashed moments before her arrival had delayed the creatures long enough for a bloody, one-sided massacre to follow. Rivulets of white, ichorous blood ran along the edge of Belicurax, the great blade she had had forged in a secret cavern deep beneath the copper moon of Pazithi Gallifreya.
Although only a handful of the k'thellid now survived, their panic-stricken psychic screams were finally eating into the minds of the Myrmidon, many of who collapsed from the psychic backlash, as they pursued their prey deeper and deeper into the mountain.
Less than two spans ago, the Citadel had floated at the very heart of K'thellid's boiling sea, poised at the very apex of the world's only mountain, wherein K'thannid himself lay, at the very heart of the vortex, which the k'thellid – K'thannid's cephalopod offspring – called the Well of Deep Time. The mind of K'thannid, worshipped on a thousand worlds as 'The Protector of the Way', stood between Gallifrey and its conquest of time. His powerful mind had straddled the heart of the vortex since the universe began, and legend had it that Rassilon himself negotiated the peace that allowed the Time Lords unfettered access to the vortex in return for the Elder Gods' neutrality in the affairs of the universe.
The Well of Deep Time was an unique phenomenon, believed to be the only natural interface between the vortex and the lower dimensions.
The plan to remove K'thannid from the vortex was a simple one. Pengallia had planned to draw him out by attacking his home world, K'thellid. The first stage had involved the fleet entering the vortex; letting K'thannid see them gather around K'thellid's periphery before they struck.
The first wave of ships materialised inside the planet, their Demat Guns cutting great chunks from the planet's interior, transporting oceans of water and vast tracts of rock and other matter back out into the vortex, where K'thannid could see the damage they were doing, forcing it to return to its home world to wreak revenge upon the betrayers who were attacking the very fabric of his existence.
With much of the water boiled away, a second wave of ships unleashed their time destructors, ageing the populated areas of the planet until is biomass crumbled to dust under the pressures.
Within microspans, only the Citadel remained, but without the boiling ocean to support it, the forces of gravity tore at it, pulling its walls in equal directions until it burst open, raining down in every direction to crash against the rocks or splash into the newly formed oceans which lined the newly exposed inner surface.
Then came the Time Battalions.
Transmatting into the corridors that surrounded the entrance to the Well of Deep Time, Pengallia and her Myrmidon had raced through its flooded corridors, desperate to fight their way through to the Well itself before their advantage was lost.
Outside, in the periphery, the Great Fleet hung, waiting for K'thannid to arrive. Like a force erupting from the heart of a volcano, the Great Archon burst into the periphery on the crest of a time flue. Before many could react it was upon them, deconstructing them, scattering their debris to the time winds.
But something was wrong. The ships he had destroyed were unoccupied; decoys. The other ships were ready for him, their transduction shields raised, and their time torpedoes bombarding him relentlessly.
For all the fleet's armaments, in the vortex K'thannid was unassailable. It would wear them down and destroy them, and they knew it. No, thought the Great Archon, they are merely a distraction. Ignoring the fleet, it turned its attention to back to K'thellid.
Home.
On the surface of K'thellid – or rather, the surface of the dark temporal shade of K'thellid, which occupied the periphery – a single crevasse flared with golden light as the hurricane which formed K'thannid's consciousness swirled inside. Beyond this flume lay the interface between the Well of Deep Time and the lower dimensions.
"He's taken the bait," reported Captain Panaki from aboard the Temperlost, which sat at the heart of the Great Fleet. "Prepare the Cremasters."
Small, spider-like ships slipped from their moorings and encircled the shadow of K'thellid. One by one their quantum isolators fixed themselves upon the strings, which tied the world to linear time and slowly, but surely, reeled them in.
Captain Panaki's report was welcome news, but Pengallia had to hurry. When the effects of the mantric bombs had dissipated, so too had the element of surprise.
"To me, men," she commanded, wading through pools of steaming water and shouldering great chunks of frozen debris aside. The Silver Queen charged forwards into the Citadel's central chamber, sweeping Belicurax ahead of her, until she came face to face with K'thannid.
Like K'thun, its offspring, the Great Archon had long ago shed its physical form. As tendrils of energy emerged from the rough opening to the Well of Deep Time, they quickly latched on to the focus of the Elder God's power, a great golden statue that had once resembled the archon's true physical form.
It was an imposing sight. The graven image stood roughly a hundred and twenty feet tall; its great, tentacled head rested upon the squat shape of a toad-like biped whose open, bat-like wings stretched out to encircle the ceiling of the chamber. Tendrils of golden energy licked against the rough surface of the idol, and its large, round eyes began to fill with an inner light. Slowly, surely, the statue moved.
Animated by the essence of a god, K'thannid's Avatar shifted forwards, turning its attentions to the tiny woman whose silver armour and heliotrope robes picked her out as his nemesis.
Without a moment's hesitation, Pengallia released her sword. With the speed of thought, Belicurax crossed the chamber and impale the great statue. As if alive, the sword appeared to melt into the statue, revealing its true nature as it turned to liquid, its ornate hilt morphing into fine silver tendrils, which spread across its victim's body like a spider's web. Wrapping itself around the great mass of golden rock, it fixed the idol into place, soaking up its energies and transforming them into powerful bonds, which, for a limited period of time, could hold even an Elder God.
What is this? K'thannid demanded
"The one thing that can contain even a being as powerful as you, K'thannid: a TARDIS exterior."
Clever. The idol struggled against its bonds; the strain caused hairline cracks and clouds of dust to appear wherever pressure was exerted. After a moment, K'thannid relaxed.
Behind Pengallia, the Myrmidon, the Honour Guard of Demos, entered and circled the room, systematically starting to search the chamber, their weapons drawn and their eyes peeled. They had seen k'thellid enter the chamber, and they would find them.
"K'thannid," Pengallia stepped forward to face the Elder God's avatar. She drew a small white card-like square from one of her pockets, and raised it aloft. "Your power over the vortex is at an end. When you left the Well, my ships had orders to seal it off. This world and its periphery are being encircled in a great cocoon that even you can't escape from. The power reserves in that body are all you have left. There are no k'thellid left to share your power, and there is no vortex link to reinforce it."
Pengallia, the Archon spoke, the Betrayer. Your coming was foretold, but the time was clouded from me. There are forces in this universe that have sought to destroy me and failed. You are their agent.
"I am nobody's agent but my own. The Time Lords were weak to leave you alone; they didn't realise that until your kind are removed from this universe they can never truly be the lords of time."
So you do this for Gallifrey?
"For the Empire."
Gallifrey will repay you in kind for what you have done.
"Gallifrey rejoices in what I have done, K'thannid."
Oh? What have you done, Pengallia? Imprisoned me? That may protect the universe from my power, but how do you intend to survive?
"With this," she waved the small white square she had been holding.
What is that?
Pengallia smiled. "Make your move, and find out."
The statue's eyes began to glow, their brilliance forcing the Myrmidon, and their commander-in-chief, to shield their eyes as the Great Archon probed his enemies for weakness.
Pengallia's defences were impregnable. She wore the great sash beneath her robes, protecting her from any kind of temporal manipulation; on her head she wore a crown; a facsimile of the Coronet of Rassilon itself, inscribed with the most powerful of runes: quantum mnemonics, whose power extended over all the Elder Gods.
The Myrmidon were not so well protected. Again, their armour was impregnable; inscribed with similar mnemonics to those in the coronet.
You have prepared well, said K'thannid.
But the armour extended only to their collars, and similar mnemonics were not in place to protect the most vital part of the warriors: their minds.
But not, the idol flexed its tentacles and tilted its head forwards, straining against the validium bonds, well enough. As it strained, the golden rock began to crack and crumble, exposing some of the roiling energies within. The bonds glowed as they feasted on the extra power.
On cue, the staccato eruptions of a dozen exploding heads filled the chamber, spraying Pengallia with the blood and brains of her loyal troops. A look of revulsion spread across her face as she turned to see a dozen swaying, headless, corpses slump to the ground.
I may be restrained, said K'thannid, but the last of my children are not.
As Pengallia watched, a dozen k'thellid emerged from the dark corners of the chamber. Oozing and sliding across the floor, they dragged themselves, tentacle by tentacle, towards the fallen Myrmidon.
"What are they doing?" Pengallia demanded, raising the white card in as threatening a gesture as she could manage.
Your attack has changed our environment; you have destroyed many creatures that the k'thellid rely on to survive. Fortunately, you have also provided us with an alternative.
One by one the k'thellid reached their targets, extruding thick pink feelers from their torsos and using them to burrow into the open wounds between each of the Honour Guards' shoulders. As Pengallia watched in horror, the squid-like creatures pulled themselves onto the fallen Myrmidon, becoming one with their victims; fusing with them; reanimating them.
Within moments they began to stir. One-by-one, the squid-headed humanoids raised themselves from the floor. Picking up their weapons, the k'thellid hybrids closed in on their enemy.
"Is this the best you can do," she asked, drawing a force-knife and flailing it to put distance between herself and her attackers. "I'm the greatest warrior here."
Against a dozen single blades, perhaps. But against a foe with the coordination of a single mind?
With a final burst of resistance, Kthannid's Avatar strained against its bonds, and at last, the great statue burst into dust, unleashing the golden energy of K'thannid's transcendent form. With nothing physical to latch on to, Pengallia's sword contracted back into its original shape, and Belicurax clattered to the floor.
Golden threads of energy spiralled across the room with blinding speed, infusing the bodies of the k'thellid hybrids, whose squid-heads glowed as they transubstantiated, becoming one with their god.
Now, it/they thought, surrounding her with drawn blades and primed stasers, I am free again.
Pengallia ducked forwards, her blade disembowelling the body of a former guard as she rolled forwards, to where Belicurax lay. As she did so, the boot of another guard came crashing down onto her wrist, knocking the force-knife from her hand. Panting, she turned to face the alien creature that stood above her. It's sword-tip came to rest upon the narrow gap between her helmet and her armour.
She laughed. "So that was your move. Exactly as the Matrix predicted. I'm glad old Rassilon got one thing right."
Opening her free hand, Pengallia revealed the small white card she had been carrying.
"This," she smiled, as the card began to unfold, "is an ansible. A communication device."
And?
"It restores the link between Gallifrey…" as she spoke the card had opened out into the form of a small white cube "… and these warriors."
The eyeless brow of the k'thellid hybrid furrowed as the cube appeared to unfold again, this time into the higher dimensions. Sensing a dangerous gambit on the Queen's part, the hybrid standing over Pengallia raised its sword to deliver the killing blow… and stopped.
What is happening? K'thannid's choked voice bellowed through a dozen linked minds. Something was started to happen. They were beginning to glow.
"It's called regeneration," explained Pengallia, picking herself up as her attackers staggered and swayed around the room. "It's usually reserved for Time Lords like myself but, once I'd convinced them of its military applications, the High Council agreed that it should be made available to all of our citizens."
Help…me…
Most of the hybrids were on their knees, grasping at their heads as the eerie glow pervaded every cell in their bodies.
"Of course," she explained, retrieving Belicurax and hefting it reassuringly, "this more artificial form of regeneration requires a telepathic link to work effectively. The ships that cut you off from the vortex also cut us off from Gallifrey, so when you killed them, their regenerations weren't triggered… until I opened this link."
Pengallia turned her attention back to the white box. Its job done, she willed it to fold itself up once more. On the ground, the bodies of the hybrids were changing form, their cells reabsorbing the golden light that surrounded them. As she watched, their alien heads began to assume familiar shapes again… humanoid faces.
"Hello," she smiled as the first pair of eyes blinked open.
Captain Aldus, her second-in-command, stretched his hand out before his eyes, examining the new body. "The armour's too loose," he whined.
Smiling, Pengallia pulled out a small scanning device, running it over the Captain.
"Excellent. It looks like your body has assimilated the k'thellid biodata."
"And K'thannid?"
"Well, most of him is inside you," she gestured towards Aldus and his men, "and, when we return to Gallifrey, inside everyone who regenerates from now on. Today the Time Lords can add the power of a god to their arsenal."
"You said most of him?"
Pengallia nodded.
"The rest is trapped in here," she held up Belicurax, patting it appreciatively, "for now."