Chapter 57
9 weeks since the Toclafane invaded...
It was an empty part of the ocean. The Toclafane didn't usually travel close to the water.
Only when they were destroying things, or overseeing transport of supplies. Usually across the English Chanel. There were now several ferries sitting at the bottom of said crossing, the Resistance greatly annoying the Master.
This particular patch of ocean wasn't empty.
Only on the surface.
Then there was a pop and two people appeared hovering mid air. One of them was displeased with the arrangement.
-/
Ros Myers. Formerly of MI5. Formerly of...a lot of things.
Now part of the Resistance.
It was ridiculous she thought to herself.
A broom.
She'd seen the wizards take them out on patrols.
And she'd seen the demonstrations that Professors Cox and Dawkins had wanted, for what seemed like their own curiosity. It was on their own rest time, she didn't care.
She had not thought she would ever need to ride one.
A broom.
A part of her mind said it shouldn't be able to support her. That it shouldn't be able to fly, nor should it be able to support both hers and Potter's weight without snapping in two.
Potter was as nonchalant as ever, although he seemed to be particularly pleased to be away from the village.
"Well, you should tell them to come up Ros," Potter said in a level tone. There was 'bubble head charm' protecting them against the wind out here. Though what she could feel on her hands it wasn't that strong.
As if agreeing with her, or perhaps to avoid further interference with their comms equipment Potter removed his wand and flicked it around in a practiced manoeuvre.
Ros keyed in the comms channel.
After the disastrous attacks in the early days of the invasion the submarine fleet, or what remained of the world's submarine fleet had gone to ground. Quite literally.
The Resistance had slowly managed to make contact utilising what remained of UNIT's deep sea base communication system.
The fleet needed resupply and information. Two things that she and Potter had in their expanding bags, many, many large bags.
But they also didn't trust easily, early in the invasion the Master's forces had seemingly managed to spoof the various naval fleets' communication systems in order to destroy them.
She and Potter had both been in brief communication with them.
She also had credentials enough to confirm who she was and who she used to represent. Potter had the same, Potter had also mentioned his organisation probably wasn't well known to the submarine commanders. Understandably not everyone knew about the magical and aliens pies that the League of Paranormal Investigations had its fingers in.
He had gone on to say he had 'a few more credentials, though from the wrong monarch'. He said the latter with with smirk that seemed like a joke only he would get. The smart git.
Although without the git, without him and the wizards and witches who were part of the Resistance she did wonder where she and they; the human race would be now.
Perhaps a fanatic would be leading them around. Like Martha Jones. Luna Lovegood had helped her on her way, away from Britain. Lovegood had been in the area making contact with the local Resistance outpost far north. It wasn't much of a group up there, but they were providing information and contacts with one of the Master's rocket pads. The mad man seemed to be using every random piece of land where he could dig something up and use it to create his rockets.
According to Lovegood Martha Jones still seemed determined.
The faithful always did, just like the fanatical.
Like Potter she was cynical about Jones' task.
It was a nice fantasy, Jones' and the Doctor's plan. But more than likely humanity would need to get themselves out of this situation, not to leave it to some alien who'd already failed.
They had extracted from Oliver Wood's mind an image of the countdown on board the Valiant, so Jones could be more precise about her precious countdown.
She received a small data burst to her comms equipment indicating they were on their way up.
"Looks like we've got company," Potter muttered as he did whatever he did to raise the broom she and him were sat upon.
The Resistance did have other magical transportation to use such as magic carpets. If someone had suggested that such a thing could exist...well, she'd already known some things existed. But carpets.
They didn't have many of them though, nor the capabilities to fly them.
The HMS Taurean was relatively famous, in intelligence circles. It had been used to commit a terrorist act on the British Government and was the first to receive money directed at it by PM Harriet Jones following her election for updates to its electronic warfare and computer systems. No one wanted buffalo to be used again.
-/
They were going to confirm identities and credentials whilst the sub was surfaced but as Harry glanced at his energy detector he noted it had detected something, it might have been an echo on the sensors or maybe it might have been a Toclafane.
They were still working on accurate detection of the Toclafane, working out what exactly they were would hopefully help. Richard had said that by the time he and Ros returned from their sojourn to the ocean he might have discovered something, something of use to them.
The look of worry on his face though, suggested to Harry that he already had some ideas about what the Toclafane were and he hadn't liked what he'd found.
Harry had had many of those experiences lately, most of them had resulted in more unpleasantness.
The pleasantness generally didn't outweigh the unpleasantness most days. For many days the unpleasantness cascaded over into nights.
"Ros Myers, Harry Potter." That was as much of an introduction as Ros gave him.
"My credentials." Harry removed an envelope from his pocket. It was a photo of him and the King and the Queen consort. It was one of several photos that had been taken on that day. He actually had an album, plus more for 'credentials' of them. Not that he remembered much of it. The Doctor had been too busy with...
Harry stopped himself, according to his diary it'd all be a bit confusing. That he'd even recorded it in a diary was notable in itself, bit it all made sense in the temporal fog that surrounded the events in question.
Thankfully his musings were cut off by the submarine commander staring at the photo.
"Is that...?" He began surprised and confused looking up from the photo at him.
"His Royal Highness King George VI." Harry smiled, a genuine smile.
Even Ros seemed surprised.
"He gets around. Such an awful slut. My credentials commander," she said passing him her identification.
Several more confirmation questions, something he thought they'd done enough of on the surface and they could finally start the resupply process.
"So do you have a boat waiting or something to magic up supplies?" He asked jokingly.
"Something of the latter," Harry said smiling broadly.
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Richard Dawkins, 'Professor' or Richard to most of the people in the Resistance sat in 'his' office. It was away from the rooms in the small surgery that they used to dissect the Toclafane. The mostly intact Toclafane that Harry had brought to them. They were along with the sections of others that they'd also recovered.
He wished he had more people to discuss this with. The students whom he worked with, the wizards too provided insight. But a conference would be wonderful to discuss his findings.
The disturbing suggestion of what he had uncovered.
It was still somewhat inconclusive.
Harry had given the opportunity to talk over matters during the link up with other Resistance groups that they'd had in the past weeks.
Richard sighed and picked up the tool that Harry Potter had lent him a few weeks ago 'it should make things go a little faster'. Harry had lent it to him when he'd overheard the students lamenting their inability in 'cracking the shell' of the Toclafane with anything short of jackhammer.
This tool was far more than a screwdriver.
Harry had said he'd been given it by a very dear friend, Richard presumed this was the Doctor, although not the one on the Valiant.
Complete bodily and psychological regeneration, it wasn't outside the realms of reality.
Although their definition of acceptable reality had been shifted many times in the past 8 weeks.
He'd had a very interesting few meals with Hermione Granger, a friend and schoolmate of Harry and an archaeologist also. It had been fascinating hearing her frustrations with 'how the wizarding world worked'.
They were curiosities more than frustrations, every time they uncovered something more about the wizards and their biological abilities along with their, and indeed the whole human race's psychic abilities it just lead to more curiosities.
Scooping up the sonic screwdriver he put it in his inner pocket, it was something he was true to his word with Harry and did not let it out of his sight. Richard decided he would need a second opinion, or another machine to test his outcomes. Fortunately the Resistance had both, and from what he knew of what Brian had been up to it was currently wandering around some of the storage barns with him.
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Harry, LPI, UNIT and the armed forces had gathered a lot of stuff. That was how he thought of it sometimes.
The technology was stupendously powerful, amazingly advanced and it was all here.
After having worked out with K9's assistance that the space, that could be seen when the Toclafane invaded was an almost incalculable time in the future.
He was now overseeing the 'political temporal plotting' group, an attempt to plot how the Master diverged history and if they might have some ability to undo what had been done. That concept in itself was...amazing. And dangerous. But amazing. That Harry and Ros Myers might suggest it as a possibility. Though they had not said how this would be achieved.
He had also been in discussion with Liz Shaw...on the moon. The Moon! Discussing their plan, the ultimate escape, to Mars.
It was in discussion with her that he'd discovered certain perpetuated fictions concerning Mars.
It was these the reality behind these fictions that in fact made Mars a valid escape from Earth. If it became as bad as Torchwood Four and other Resistance groups in Europe and Asia were forecasting.
'Environmental degradation' was the term in most common use to describe the wholesale effects on the environment. He and Richard along with the other scientists who'd shifted off to Torchwood Four and the other Resistance groups had seen the data.
It was...extraordinary was one word for it. Astounding one another. Terrifying was the term he continued to come back to.
The genocides of the magical creatures of by the Toclafane were the start, Rolf Scamander had been out seeking secondary creatures, animals that relied on those creatures. It had been unsurprising to learn the entire chain of biology to be collapsing.
The environmental effects were worse, they were very quickly passing the point of 'no return', while it was a dramatic term, their situation was becoming dramatically negative.
It seemed every few weeks they needed to revise their estimates, as more and more of the Master's factories came online and the production of the rockets increased.
It was then, in their wanderings through the piles of technology and vague corridors formed by them that K9 had stopped. His ears twitching back and forth.
"An individual has entered the storage barn Professor Cox," he said.
Brian smiled. He'd tried to get the robot to call him Brian without any luck.
"Who is it K9?" He asked tensing. He remained on alert after being attacked by the remains of something that had been retrieved from one of UNIT's storage facilities. Whatever it had been had snuck back off into the storage boxes; something with AAA on it. He'd been through a full medical scan at Torchwood Four and again by K9 but it didn't reveal anything. Harry had tried and failed to get him to carry a weapon. Even one that Harry offered from his personal store that had a stun setting 'just don't confuse them Brian' he'd said jokingly. But ultimately he'd refused. Ultimately Brian had decided to have K9 accompany him most of the time. K9's weaponry could and had defended him from anything dangerous. K9 also served as a useful database for the myriad of objects within the storage barns.
"Scanning Professor Cox," K9 responded immediately. "It is Professor Dawkins Professor Cox," K9 said after a moment. Brian had wanted to ask how the first time that K9 had done that detection. Each time he'd been able to persuade K9 to explain it to him they'd been interrupted and he'd had to leave K9 in a room somewhere and attend to a crisis or briefing or something else.
Brian suspected that K9 now didn't tell him because of what kept happening when he tried. Harry had said he wasn't surprised, although Harry had made his dislike for K9 abundantly clear.
K9 likewise did not seem to like Harry Potter.
Brian smiled again looking down at the robot dog.
"Brian?" He heard Richard shout.
"I'm down the corridor with the Jathaa sunglider wreckage," he shouted.
There was a moment silence and Brian realised that Richard probably didn't know what a Jathaa sunglider looked like. Until a week or two ago neither did he.
"I can assist Professor Cox by emitting a sound to–" K9 was cut off as Brian saw Richard walk around the opposite end of the corridor.
"Followed your voice Brian. K9," he said looking down.
Richard looked awful. Brian said so.
"You would too if." He looked down at K9. "I was wondering if I might borrow K9, I have some things I would like to double check."
Brian nodded, watching Richard. "You've worked it out, the Toclafane?"
Richard seemed pensive. "Perhaps."
Brian pulled out the keys to the biogas Land Rover he'd taken to bring K9 with him up here. He presumed Richard had ridden a bike up here. "I'll take your bike back."
"Thank you Brian," he said with a quick smile. "Now, K9, I really would like your assistance."
"Yes Professor Dawkins," K9 seemed upbeat, as far as Brian could tell of the robot dog, he was wagging his tail, that was some hint he supposed.
"I'll walk with you out. I think I'm done for today," Brian said.
"Mind wandering?" Richard asked as they walked back toward the entrance.
"The mind boggles." Brian shook his head.
"Indeed."
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"I'd like you to check these DNA results K9." The robot was sitting on one of the benches. It was surprisingly light, Richard had discovered when he'd picked him up onto the bench. There had been a ramp with the Land Rover Brian had suggested that K9 liked to load himself into the vehicle.
"Affirmative Professor Dawkins," it said extending a probe from its centre panel and its 'ears' twitching.
"Results displayed on screen Professor Dawkins. Do you require a print out?" On the small screen on the side it displayed the same data he'd been aware of.
"What are your conclusions K9?" Richard asked, what he didn't need was just a computer's read out of data. According to Brian K9 had access to a whole database of information. Now was an excellent time to utilise it.
"Further information required. Access to Toclafane samples," it requested.
"Yes. Here," he said retrieving a tray of dissected samples and the casing around it.
His students, or rather those that worked with him, they were no longer exactly his students. They had all been pressed into work as scientists within the Resistance, but he still thought of them as his students. Some of his students had observed the similarities between the Toclafane and the Daleks. Even the empty one that Harry had retrieved that remained within the village still had much of its internal systems present. One of his students had even requested further information from Harry. Who had done even more than that providing the information and a location in the storage barns of a partially destroyed Dalek.
The data from that had been quite useful, and interesting, and somewhat disturbing.
The Toclafane and the Daleks shared many essential systems. An exterior shell with weapons and defences, with the interior what appeared to be a life support system.
Harry and UNIT's history of the Daleks stated that they had been mutated by a nuclear war lasting millennia and then further mutated by a scientist within their ranks.
Davros was his name.
Harry had professed an interest in the Daleks and had promised to show him an example of their poetry. That they produced poetry suggested a complex society, more so than was suggested in the UNIT files.
"Scanning," K9 said again as he put the tray in front of the robot dog. "Scan complete Professor Dawkins."
"Results?" Richard asked seating himself on one of the stools so he was sat opposite K9.
"Exterior shell is composed of an unknown alloy." Richard knew that. "DNA and biological residue suggestive of matter state changes resulting from genetic modification. Suggestion; biological sample may have undergone advanced form of body beppling."
"Boddy beppling?" Richard frowned, it was a term he was not aware of.
"A basic genetic modification in the 30th century. Samples may have been exposed to Icaron radiation," K9 offered though Richard did not feel much the wiser. He wanted to ask many questions and become distracted, lost in the facts. But the reality was present.
He pulled off his glasses, tucking them carefully into a case and placing them in his pocket.
"Can you confirm K9..." Richard swallowed a pause, then began again "Can you confirm that these...can you confirm the origins of these Toclfane are...–"
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"Humans?" Harry repeated and was glad he was seated, because if he hadn't been he surely would have needed it.
In the room with them were Professors Cox and Dawkins, Ros Myers, Robert Townsend plus Jane Blythe.
"Genetically yes." Richard looked to Brian and the group.
"With the existence of the 'paradox machine' on the Valiant it begins to make some sort of sense," Brian continued.
"So that's why he needed a machine like that," Harry said to himself and realised some of the table was looking at him. Not the Professors, well not in the expectant 'explain' way the others were. "It's a classic paradox. Go back in time, kill your ancestors and then you can't go back in time." He snapped his finger. "Paradox," Harry explained quickly.
"Indeed." Richard agreed. Probably.
Harry was reeling somewhat, thinking back to Mickey Smith's debrief about where the Doctor took Rose when she'd been missing for a year and what Sarah had said about where Rose had been; the end of the world. Or rather the end of the Earth. Tegan had mentioned when they'd first met that she'd seen the beginning of the universe; Event One. The Doctor had also shown Sarah a 1980 ruined by Osirian interference.
Had the Doctor gone to see what became of humanity and began this terror of the Toclafane?
"Does this change anything?" Ros Myers asked impatiently.
Harry gave a half shrug and looked over to Brian and Richard.
"I don't know. That they have not cancelled themselves out is amazing, a brilliant feat of quantum physics realised," Brian mused.
"They are like your Daleks," Richard began, Harry was going to argue about them being 'his' but didn't, no one else was going to claim ownership of them, they were all mostly dead.
"That does make sense. Did someone have a hand in the Toclafane's creation?" Harry wondered. "Humanity didn't end up like the Toclafane through evolution alone I presume?"
Richard shook his head vigorously. "No, no. This was most definitely an engineered process," he paused and looked at his notes. "Aside from the life support systems within the spheres there had been manipulation of the brain, it may explain some of their behaviour."
"Being locked into a floating armed sphere isn't enough to explain their behaviour?" Jane commented.
"A Dalek outside its shell is still a Dalek, I imagine if we ever managed to crack open a live Toclafane they'd be just as psychotic."
"K9 did discover one thing when he was assisting me," Richard continued.
"Oh?" Ros asked.
Richard looked at his notes again. "The Toclafane should be able to be disabled with an electrical charge of 58.5 kiloamperes with a transferred charge 510 megajoules precisely."
Harry gave a little snort. "Precisely. That sounds like K9." Everyone looked at him for a moment.
"And what's that outside of K9's precise language?" Townsend asked.
"Lightning bolt," said both Harry and Brian, except Harry upwardly inflected it whilst Brian was far, far more confident.
"Not something we have easy access to." Jane said. "And need I point out our weapons we can use are beginning to slow, and they're becoming less effective and our supplies aren't exactly infinite."
"Hold that information for our regular briefings Jane. We've just found out our psychotic decedents have come back through time with a psychopathic Time Lord bent on recreating an empire lost in a time war," Harry commented. "I need a drink."
"It's 10 in the morning Potter." Myers counted with a small quirk of a smile.
-/
He'd settled for tea. Something the Resistance did have somewhat good supplies of. Wrapping his hands around his mug he breathed in the steam from the mug.
"It doesn't change anything," Harry said to the table. "We still continue with the plan. We still can't destroy the machine. It's still a TARDIS, there are not many things in the universe that could destroy one of those."
"And the paradox, what could happen if we did?" Townsend asked looking around the table.
Everyone was silent.
Harry considered speaking up. There were some people who could provide answers, but he wanted to hold them back for when they really needed answers, it would not be without a cost and at the moment they were just brain-storming. It was not something they needed to involve the Eleven Day Empire in just yet.
As their meeting ended Harry sidled up to Richard and Brian.
"Now that you're finished with this I can offer you a bit of break. It can't have been easy or..." Harry shook his head. They were all aware that the scientists and the students that they'd rescued were not used to facing the terror, the concern, the angst day in day out that others like Harry, Ioan, Judith, even Draco and of course Ros and those others were used to. They had already had a few wizards Romilda Vane and Nigel Wolpert bow out of missions, shaken by what they had seen thus far and the work that they had done. They did not want to burn out anyone else. This would be a long campaign.
"I would like to be of further assistance Harry, as much as there would be an interesting research project about wizards..."
Harry glared at him. "You and just about every other scientist in the Resistance Richard. Can't you just accept it's magic?"
Brian laughed.
"Not helping Brian," Harry muttered. "You can join chuckles here on the Mars and temporal divergence projects."
"You really think they're the best courses of action Harry?" Richard asked, some concern in his voice.
"It's a step in a direction," Harry answered. "We've been getting some worrying reports about the construction of the rockets."
"Oh?" Brian queried.
"It just puts a bigger question mark over the head of the viability of Earth." Harry lamented as the phone began to ring, its 1960s bell ringing out around the room.
"The 'environmental degradation' as we've do eloquently put it seems to be leading us that way. What else could the Master do?" Richard asked as someone answered the phone.
Harry looked away from where the phone had been ringing. "Just something that we've been getting from our contacts in Europe and Asia," Harry paused, they didn't know much, but what they did know suggested they might need to advance their timetable. He said as much to the two professors before him.
"What-" Brian started but Harry cut him off.
"We've heard the term 'black hole converter' be mentioned, along with 'crack the Earth in half' by the Master's lackeys." Harry exhaled.
"Crack the Earth," Richard repeated.
"In half," Brian finished, his voice full of wonder, fury and curiosity.
"So, perhaps get working on our Mars solution. Or the FTL portion of it," he paused and gave them a little smile. "or work out which part of the diagrams is the joke."
"Joke?" Richard looked to Brian.
"The Doctor's joke. We still don't know which one." Harry lightly smiled at his own joke. "Or if you feel like supervising there's the political temporal research group. If we decide to go down that path."
"The very dangerous path Harry, yourself said we would be messing with a paradox."
"We are in dangerous times Professor," Harry paused. "Professors. Soon we will really begin to run out of options and our choices will be between some bad things and some very bad paths."
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A/N:
The big reveal.
Ultimately it doesn't change anything about what the Resistance does. Knowing that they're what humans become doesn't help them at all. Nor does knowing what the Paradox Machine does because they're working on what Harry and Martha know about the Paradox Machine. That one bad move could crack open the sun or destroy the universe or something. Until the Doctor tells Jack to basically shoot it they don't know anything about how to destroy it.
The HMS Taurean was the submarine in World War Three that Mickey uses to fire the missile at 10 Downing Street.
Some of what happened with King George VI and the Queen consort will be revealed later, although not in a lot more detail (that'll come in a "Missing Adventure" story that'll tell the stories of Harry and Draco's brief time with the Shalka Doctor).
