Chapter 99

Harry bit his fingernail. Actually, it was more like the skin around his fingernail. Looking at his fingers for a moment he wasn't sure when he'd started biting his nails. This wasn't very stressful, he was standing on the command deck of the saucer. Safe. The space around them was quite devoid of Time Lord activity.

He'd recently eaten. There was plenty of interior space around him.

He was safe.

He was…safe.

The Timeship was available and they could dematerialise whenever they needed. There wasn't anything holding him here.

He was safe, surrounded by Daleks, they would keep him from any Time Lords.

He was safe.

Harry shoved his hands into his coat, before taking them out again and putting them behind his back, still rubbing his fingers against one another, feeling the inconsistencies in the nails and tried instead to focus on the screen in front of him.

"That looks like a death trap," he said as he tilted his head sideways as he continued to look at the image. It reminded him weirdly of Grimmauld Place in its worst moments, things hiding away...

"That structure has been damaged by solar winds and energy waves in the local vicinity," the Saucer Commander observed as its eye piece followed Harry's tilted head.

Harry though was having his doubts about information provided by the Eternity Circle. The intergalactic hyperlink they'd got from them, not from Seriphia, but elsewhere had stated that the Time Lords were utilising several outlying worlds and outposts for further ferutu and tele-psychic experimentations.

The former Voran had pestered him about during his torture by the Time Lord. The latter Romana had used to refer to magic when he'd met her back when he'd been in Hogwarts.

It was a very vague assertion by the Eternity Circle, but there were few associates of the Time Lords who wrought energies that fit the profile like Ginny did. The Ginnys.

"I'll take a squad over to the death trap of a space station, if there's anything of interest we can pressurise a section or you can get in a space suit," Oswin announced brightly, now in Dalek form beside him, which was her way of signalling to him that she meant business.

Harry's face was one of brief annoyance as he exhaled and nodded. "Fine, I'll stay on the command deck with the Saucer Commander here," he looked over at the sensors. "We're safe enough with the battle group here."

"Yes, the Time Lords' war lines are some distance from this location," the Saucer Commander drawled as if to emphasise the point.

-/

Someone, maybe Oswin had corrected for the blue tinge of the Daleks' eyepieces and he could now see everything on the space station 'Think Tank' in its death trap glory.

"Definitely this place was destroyed and put back together," Oswin was saying, it didn't sound like it was a microphone, in fact it was probably her internal voice, or something.

What Harry did know is that there wasn't any much atmosphere there, although the absence of anything floating around them might suggest gravity of some sort.

It made him anxious.

Twitchy.

A lot had of late.

He knew why.

He tried not to focus on it too much.

He felt like he'd been through worse. That he should be over it.

Have got over it, or dealt with it when it happened.

Then, every so often something would make him think...

Looking back at the video link from the Think Tank again he tried to resist the urge to bite his nails, not that there was much left of them, just the rough outline of them.

"Oswin, turn back, on the wall," Harry said as the image swung back around to a full length of reflective material. "Just a mirror," Harry said to himself as Oswin, or one of the other Daleks turned away from it. In the bare lighting and limited perspectives Harry was annoyed that he couldn't tell which of the Daleks Oswin was. He could when he was in the room with her, even in her Dalek form, it wasn't just recognising the writing below her eyepiece, it was...something intrinsic, maybe something that he sensed rather than seeing, something instinctual.

"Found something, Gallifreyan hardware, looks like something they used to access its database," Oswin was saying.

"Temporal readings indicate use of Time Lord temporal technology," a Dalek off to the side of the command deck reported.

"Can we access it, without interfering with it?" Harry wondered.

"Explain," the Saucer Commander demanded.

"Discretion, I don't want to destroy the Time Lords' base here until we're certain we've got the information we need," Harry paused. "Or until we find some Time Lords to interrogate," he muttered to himself, mostly.

-/

Later, when Oswin was back on board, she was stood beside him where he was perched looking at a computer read out in one of the specialised areas of the saucer.

The information just seemed to be a bunch of people's names, dates and other things which didn't seem to bare any relation to the Time War, the Daleks or the Time Lords. Nothing that matched anything else in the Daleks' database.

Pushing himself away from the computer Harry dragged out of a pocket the recording device he'd used to note down the list of locations that the Eternity Circle had suggested they look; it was certainly a list, but one that didn't include vampires, which the Eternity Circle, whenever they needed to consult with them, seemed obsessed by. Even for Daleks their obsession about vampires was weird.

This location had been the easiest to visit.

"We'll learn nothing here, I want to go to another planet on the list," Harry said to Oswin who was looking over the computer data. "Somewhere not a space station." He was still jittery, anxious; he'd wanted to go out to that space station, even if it had meant some danger. Even if it meant being shot at. Least he could shoot back at them, at something, something dangerous.

"Any decisions as to where or when we should head off to?" Harry twitched slightly at Oswin's voice, she'd managed to come with him from the computer analysis, into the lift and up onto the command deck, and he'd been too wrapped up in wanting some excitement to notice.

"Most of these are co-temporous," Harry paused as he scrolled through the list.

"At least that's what they said on the messy hyperlink, if they hadn't insisted in using holograms they could have got more bandwidth out of their signal," Oswin tutted to herself.

Harry smiled at her annoyance. "Karfel, let's see if there's anything there."

-/

There wasn't, well not much evidence that Ginny or the Time Lords had been there. It was a quite boring planet.

There were singing plants that the Dalek squad he'd transmatted down with wanted to exterminate. There were some weird temporal readings, but nothing they could localise.

"You've got that expression on your face again," Oswin observed when he transmatted back up to the ship.

"An irritated, tetchy expression?" Harry asked as he dragged a hand through his hair, the noise of the singing plants still in his head. "I should have let you exterminate the singing plants," he muttered as the Daleks left the transmat area, their eyestalks turning to look at him for a moment before silently moving away; back to their duties.

"Are you..." Oswin began as they made their way to the command deck.

Harry drew in a breath of air, being back on the saucer away from the singing plants of Karfel, actually made him feel less...less...he shook his head as they entered the lift. "Torture," he finally said as the lift propelled them towards the command deck. "By the Time Lords," he finally said as they walked out onto the command deck without saying more.

The relief he'd felt, waking up in the Timeship, having what felt like a normal meal on Barastabon had given way to the irritation, the desire to get back to work. To get the job done, and the lack of that, the lack of being shot at, it was...irritating him.

"Just want to do something," he said as he looked at the list the Eternity Circle had provided again. They were after all the most knowledgeable group of Daleks, researching weapons tech and whatever. So far, duds with their information this sojourn.

"Nothing is worse than death, think of that," Oswin offered brightly.

"Singing plants are worse than death," Harry muttered and passed the list to Oswin. "I've chosen the last two, you choose one."

Oswin looked at him as he leaned against an empty patch of wall nearest to the Timeship.

"Deva Loka?" Oswin said out loud.

Harry frowned, he recognised that name, and not because he'd just read through the list, he'd assumed a different emphasis on the letters.

"That's also got fancy wind chimes that do something telepathic," Oswin paused as Harry looked up curiously. "They used it in 'Transform My Backdoor – Stellar Transformations' an unsuccessful makeover show I unfortunately managed."

Harry felt a little smile play over his face, "What happened?

Oswin shrugged. "Ran over budget, who'd have thought mixing gardening and make overs on dome worlds would get expensive, terraforming was never going to be cheap, I warned them. Then the Stella Stora Sigma Schutz-Staffel SturmSoldaten filed a copyright claim and it all got a bit messy, I think the sausage factory got taken in lieu of damages."

"The Stella whatever won?" Harry blinked. "Sausage factory?"

Oswin laughed. "The production company won, and all they got was a sausage factory on Smarley's World," she sighed dramatically. "They weren't even good sausages."

Harry looked to the Timeship, there wasn't anywhere they needed to go in it, all the planets had the same relative temporal coordinates, whatever Ginny and the Time Lords were up to it was happening around now, give or take a few weeks, or months. "Should we get the Daleks to roll a dice or something?"

"Raaga then, sounds interesting," Oswin said and gestured at the middle of the room bringing up the holographic star chart.

"Tinclavic mines," Harry said immediately. "If they're there I doubt they'll be there long."

"If you knew that why didn't you say?" Oswin asked a good question.

Harry looked over at her. "The Doctor's mentioned some of these places, I've heard it said, the names look different written down," Harry noticed some of the Daleks turn around at the mention of the Doctor's name but they went back to their work after a brief moment.

"I'll choose one and we'll jump there, so you can get a bit of a surprise then?" Oswin said suddenly.

Harry nodded in agreement, "Something exciting."

-/

Ordifica was a weird water world, it didn't so much give him the creeps, as set him slightly on edge, and they hadn't even set foot on the surface of the planet. The planet's leaders had granted them permission to land, which considering they were on a Dalek saucer and the Time War was raging somewhere, somewhen, that seemed...friendly.

"Ah, well, this makes more sense," Harry said as he walked down the ramp with Oswin and two Daleks behind him as he saw two a woman in a long black dress that made him feel a distinct sense of creeping dread.

Or maybe it was the bone mask she was wearing.

"Welcome to Ordifica, Sorcerer Harry Potter, Mage Oswin Oswald," she greeted. Her voice muffled from behind the bones of the mask, her eyes peering out from within.

"I'd have thought that Faction Paradox would keep away from such a temporal war with time active powers like the Time Lords and the Daleks," Harry commented, not bothering to greet her.

Harry could tell the woman was smiling, it was her body language, or maybe it was the laughter.

"You've met us of course," she said calmly.

"In another life, perhaps," Harry commented.

"The best sort, please," she gestured away from their saucer towards some buildings.

"I'm going to have to do it aren't I?" Oswin asked with a sigh.

Harry looked at her puzzled.

"Who is she Harry?" She said in a bright tone.

"They had a war with the Time Lords, Mother or Cousin? Not anything less senior?" Harry asked, truthfully his knowledge of Faction Paradox was limited, but he knew enough to be wary. These people had, maybe fought a war with the Time Lords. It might not have happened.

"Cousin. A little brother or sister could not be trusted to meet," she said and then added. "Or maybe we did."

"And the colony's other members?" Harry asked.

She shrugged.

"Any Time Lord visitors recently?" Harry asked, while sparring with a woman in a mask was certainly a change of pace, this planet creeped him out, he couldn't exactly work out why. He could hear the Daleks moving around more than usual, maybe it was that. But there was something...off here.

"The Time Lords attacked and destroyed this place in the 26th century Sorcerer," the Cousin said in reverential tones.

"Seems you've rebuilt," Oswin said looking around.

"No, but we didn't need to," the Cousin said simply as she stopped in front of a building and gestured up at it.

Oswin followed her gesturing arm. "Transmission tower, bit primitive for post-26th century."

"The Remote?" Harry was rushing through his limited knowledge of Faction Paradox and associated people, mostly garnered from Sarah, UNIT reports and some of his alternate world memories. But he was determined to hold the upper hand, or at least not run screaming away from the woman in the bone mask.

"Of course, Anathema is gone, but it is here," the Cousin said. "Its transmissions would warn of a Time Lord incursion."

"What about a woman, red hair," Harry extracted his wand, writing in the air swirling circular patters of modern Gallifreyan; Ginny's name, or what he assumed it was, from the notebook he had, there were some Gallifreyan words at the start including written over and over something, which according to the Daleks' computer analysis translated into Ginny's name, more or less.

"You have good penmanship," the Cousin said looking at the word hanging in red flame, appraising it as it faded out. "Someone did pop in, we had reports from St Augustine City."

"No TARDISes in the area?" Harry asked.

"The Spirits would recognise a TARDIS," she said simply.

"Of course they would," Harry murmured.

"What did she want?" Oswin asked.

"I couldn't say," the Cousin said vaguely.

Harry turned away from here to look back at the saucer and decided it was time to leave. "And would you if you knew?"

The Cousin laughed. "That would be telling Sorcerer."

"Would you get involved, in the war?" Harry felt the Daleks' attention focus in on him and the Cousin fixed him with a look.

"Would you be willing to make a sacrifice to the spirits?" She asked curiously.

"The paradoxes wrought in the war not enough?" He countered.

"That is sport, watching the Army of Meanwhiles and the Horde of Travesties," her voice took on a reverential tone. "That is beauty."

Harry was starting to wish there had seen something of the Tharon, physical that he could have taken, that would have been something he could have sacrificed to the spirits of House Paradox. But there was the question of whether he should go messing around with purveyors of paradox in a temporal war between the Daleks and the Time Lords. Involving House Paradox might be more likely to bite the hand that's feeding it as it purred by his feet.

-/

He'd felt like he'd wanted to apparate back to the saucer and lift off away from Ordifica, but they had too many Daleks with them to do that, so he'd just walked back as fast as he could without seeming like he was rushing.

The Cousin seemed fine, just walking along calmly.

Of course she made an offer before they left. "Faction Paradox can help you Harry Potter, should you need our assistance."

"And the price is sacrifice?" Harry snorted and shook his head.

"Not always Sorcerer, we can be very amicable," the Cousin said simply.

"You," Harry paused as he walked up the ramp "or the spirits?"

He didn't wait for the answer, he didn't care about the answer.

-/

Harry only relaxed once they were back in space and at lightspeed away from Ordifica.

"I wanted something I could fight, something I could face, something..." he trailed off. "Not mind games," he dragged a hand through his hair in irritation.

"Can we get a hyperlink to the Eternity Circle, get more information?" Oswin asked out loud.

"Negative, hyperlink disruption due to Time Lord obstruction," a Dalek announced.

"Which planet next?" Oswin asked.

Harry looked around the command deck for a moment and wondered...he actually wasn't sure what he was wondering. The sparring with the Faction Paradox Cousin had not settled his mind, nor his agitation.

He turned around and walked over to the Timeship, at least, inside it he felt some sense of calm.

He looked to his room, instead walking into the central control room, sinking down onto the floor into a seated position and then, slowly unfolding himself, lying down looking at the ceiling. It was higher than the other corridors and rooms within the Timeship. It was higher than the cell the Time Lords had kept him in, and the dull negative noise of the interior of the Timeship relaxed him. It was a noise not unlike the interior of the Doctor's TARDIS, but not.

He reached up, putting his palms over his eyes, and closed them to the darkness.

He wasn't sure how long he was laid like this, but another body joined him on the floor.

"Calmer now?" The other body asked.

Harry put his arms down, but kept his eyes shut.

"Was calm, just..." he opened his eyes. He wasn't sure if he'd been asleep, he didn't think so. He groaned slightly as he forced himself up and then offered his hand to Oswin who smiled daintily at him. "Time for a change."

-/

"I'm sick of flying around randomly looking, I've got ultimate authority haven't I?" Harry mused out loud, not waiting for an answer. "Put up a map of the local area and movements of Dalek and Time Lord on the map."

Harry groaned. There were a lot more seals of Rassilon and the Dalek symbol for Skaro/Home on the map now.

"Now highlight the planets..." he patted his pockets.

"I've got it," Oswin held up the small computer device he'd noted down the list of names.

Karfel, Varos, Ordifica, Zonda, Iwa, Raaga, Rhodia, Cantus, Deva Loka, Krop Tor, Ry'leh, Arkheon, Vita 15.

"Ignore the space stations, I feel like the Eternity Circle threw Think Tank and Resus One to throw us off," Harry added, it felt like noise to the data.

Now there were some glowing dots on the map.

But still no sense to be gathered from it, Harry mused with irritation.

13 planets.

13 lives of a Time Lord.

13 Ginnys.

"Is the data from the stealth ships on here?" Harry asked.

"No," drawled a Dalek.

"Put that on, and TARDISes," Harry ordered.

There was the slightest of pause. "I...obey."

More data joined the projection.

Harry exhaled, too much information, too much noise.

"Add the space station data, maybe that'll help," he said doubtfully.

He knew that TARDISes travelled in threes if their past experience with being attacked by them was anything to go by. Maybe a war measure, if there were six sides to a TARDIS console, that meant the standard size was 6, now 3?

But how did that help...he let his mind wander as he walked up to the floating holographic map and mused on it. They needed to sort through the noise dynamically.

After a while, an idea slowly exploded in his mind.

"Oswin, I think I've got an idea," he said brightly.

Oswin gave him a look.

"You know Judith," Harry asked, mostly to himself, slightly to Oswin.

"Your friend on Earth," Oswin said slowly.

"She was used as a Dalek battle computer," Harry began.

"For creativity, the Daleks no longer use that, battle computers are effective enough," Oswin added. "More proficient."

"Unwilling subjects probably," Harry added. "Well, what about a willing subject?"

Oswin looked at him as though he were mad and said so.

He gave her a look. "I don't want to visit every one of those planets. That cousin and the singing plants were bad enough," he paused and looked back at the map. "I'm sure she's out there, doing something, I just..." he waved his hands out in front of him. "It's like I can just about feel what is there and it's just outside my grip."

-/

Oswin watched as the Saucer Commander disengaged from its spot on the command deck, she would need the extra connections that it had access to if she was going to do as Harry had suggested.

She'd agreed, though had some reservations. But she was also curious. Her access to the PathWeb was good, great, it allowed an unbelievable amount of access to the Daleks, and she could block its access to her, should she need to. But it was still limited there were parts of what the Daleks had access to that alluded her. Like Harry she wasn't sure what, not exactly, she wasn't even sure if she wanted or needed to have access to these things.

The other reason; she looked down, Harry had returned to the Timeship and come back holding what looked like a cushion.

"If I'm going to be connected I don't want to be kneeling for ages."

"The back of your head will be better anyway Harry, more neural connections," she said as she backed into the Saucer Commander's position.

The other reason was...Harry. She wanted to get to his mind, help him, help him heal, consider, think...

He faced the Time Lords, was tortured by them for...she had an idea of how long he had faced torture by the Time Lords. The Timeship knew, despite being held in a Temporal Prison.

The Time Lords were experts at time, and temporal manipulation. She suspected Harry didn't know how long he had been held and tortured, not exactly. Perhaps his time spent in their Zero cell warped his perception of time, or their torture itself.

It had affected him, more than he was willing to admit. The irritability, the impatience, they were the ripples on the surface of the lake.

Him suggesting being the creative source for a battle computer was somewhat unexpected, but, she hoped, filtered through her and the Dalek battle systems would allow him to channel his mental disquiet into their task here in the Time War, more so than venturing to the long list of planets that the Eternity Circle had provided.

-/

There was a bit of a 'clunk' sort of noise as Oswin backed into the position that the Saucer Commander had occupied.

Said Saucer Commander was watching him as he made himself comfortable on the cushion he'd retrieved from the TImeship. He wanted to say something to it, but it turned away as Oswin spoke.

"Snug, and a lot more connections, more than I thought there were," she said behind him.

"Ready?" Harry craned around.

"Yes," she drawled.

Harry felt the hairs on the back of his skull shiver as her manipulator arm approached the back of his head. "Any last words of encouragement?" He asked.

"There's not much in the Dalek's records, they haven't used this sort of stuff for hundreds of years," she answered.

"If not more," Harry mused.

"Just relax," she said as the manipulator arm connected with the back of skull and he tried to do just that.

Harry settled in and felt the spark, he felt the power of the Daleks. Hundreds of thousands of ships across the galaxy, millions of Daleks across hundreds of worlds.

'This must be what ultimate power must feel like'

'Megalomania much?' said another voice in his head; Oswin's.

It all felt just outside of...he couldn't describe it. He was fairly sure he wasn't meant to...meant to actually grasp it, that he was trying too...

'Don't try, relax Harry, it's your creativity and drive, it will be megalomania if you try to control it all'. Oswin's voice again as he tried to relax. Focusing on the oddly soothing pulsing background noise of a Dalek saucer, the Dalek saucer that he was sat in. That was real, physical reality, something calming, something real. He needed to let the other parts of his mind, the unconscious creative parts do the work; to let Oswin access that raw creativity.

-/

Across the Time War in the local space-time, ancient pathways in computer systems became active. An ancient rule left in their database over successive empires and phases of expansion and decline. The orders of control and influence came with one of the most highest and ancient rank; Sorcerer, channelled through that of a Mage. They, together were amongst the highest in Dalek society, only an Emperor held a higher rank.

Parameters set by Dalek Mage informed their search, planets, TARDIS formations; an individual.

Saucers twitched and shifted, now under Dalek battle computer influence. Daleks in the field of battle over thousands of locations, arenas and worlds had another data set, another mission specific to seek out and locate.

-/

On one saucer, the saucer within which the Sorcerer and Mage were located, Harry let his mind relax, his body too, relaxed against the Mage's manipulator arm. It felt like...he couldn't quite process, it was like a distant match of Quidditch and chess and innumerable other things, just off to the side in his mind, the he was engaged in, but not actively. It felt like electricity and static, like reaching his hand out at the fire and heat tantalising him, like a storm crackling on the edges, the petrichor in the air and fuzz of excitement of the impending storm.

Data washed in, like waves and tides, a Dalek puppet observing Time Lord troop movements near Marinus. A pair of spider Daleks, some of the Skaro Degradations not confined to a planet viewed three battle TARDISes arrive on the planet they were surveying.

A Dalek fleet engaging with a flotilla of bow ships.

A single saucer holding Dalek troops rescued from a time torpedo by a damaged saucer, their rangerscopes casting a wide sensor field; witnessing a brief materialisation of three TARDISes.

More and more information flowed through the Sorcerer and Mage, the latter had stopped trying the process it all, and instead just let it wash through him, like standing on shore; waves lapping at his legs, the latter filtering it, revelling at the information flow, it was something she had never experienced, not like this.

-/

On the planet Iwa it was observed three battle TARDISes arriving, it was observed by Dalek Science Squad, present to purchase criminals for robotisation as advanced troops in areas of battle unsuited for Dalek squads.

One of the battle TARDISes had damage on its artron relays, four humanoid exited. Interacted with the prison guards and departed.

-/

The Saucer Commander turned around, observing the Dalek Mage; its manipulator arm was affixed to the Sorcerer. Their neural connection was leading to vast sums of data flow between this saucer and the wider Dalek fleet.

The Sorcerer's heart and mental functions were elevated, but not within dangerous levels.

The Sorcerer took in a deep breath of air, had the Saucer Commander been inclined to the slightest poetry of the soul it might have described it as a tantalised breath of excitement and awe. Unfortunately it didn't.

-/

Harry felt like he had goosebumps on top of excitement, like he had tendrils that reached across the stars and suckers that could snuff them out. It was an amazing, delicious and tantalising feeling, unimaginable power; he could conquer the galaxy or crush the lesser civilisations. It was almost intoxicating, he appreciated the metaphysical tap on the shoulder, or hand to stay his weapons that Oswin provided. This was an means to an end, not a power trip.

-/

On the smallest continent of the planet Rhodia, a Dalek puppet paused in her negotiations with the Quill removing a small portable rangerscope from her pocket and cast around in a wide arc. They were aware of the Time Lords' interest in the Rhodians' technology. But the information being sought by a Dalek battle computer was unique and very specific. The Dalek puppet smiled as she found her target; a TARDIS with damaged artron relays beside an undamaged one into which a red furred humanoid was entering.

Replacing the rangerscope into a secluded pocket she returned to her dealings with the Quill. Their thirst to rid themselves of the Rhodians from the Quill's planet neatly mirrored the original Daleks' struggles against the militant Thals on Skaro, not that the Quill nor the Daleks appreciated the symmetry. But the Dalek puppet did.

-/

While Oswin channelled and felt the information and power that Harry controlled via their link through the Dalek systems, she utilised a different portion of her mind and her systems to probe and analyse his mind and body.

She had done so, after Harry had broken down, following their escape from the Time Lord's space station. There had been extreme levels of exhaustion, along with some sort of bodily trauma that he had suffered, it had seemed have been triggered at the same time; a mental and physical event.

But he'd fallen into an odd healing sleep, which had allowed him to recover remarkably quickly. She suspected in part it was being in the safety of the Timeship, away from the Time Lord's machinations.

But after that, there'd been after affects.

His mind was something of a jagged sense or reactions and associations, this was to be expected, the Dalek battle computer interface needed these, but below that was a longing. It was an odd sensation that she knew very well.

She had for a very long time, wanted, needed, longed for and might have given anything to return to her original body, her original self, before the Asylum.

There was a feeling a sensation that this, this interaction with the Dalek systems was fulfilling something, a need for stimulation. Harry had said, well, not said that he wanted to be shot at, but that the possibility of it, that excited him. He'd also acknowledged that wasn't something a normal person thought.

But who wanted to be normal, she'd commented.

Normal people didn't get to have adventures, normal people didn't jump on a spaceship with promise of new things.

Normal people got eaten alive by space shadows or turned inside out meeting sonic booms.

Activate engines, jump to coordinates.

It was a order that rushed through from Harry, through her to the systems of the saucer they were on, and to the fleet around them. It felt distant, but very controlled.

-/

The Saucer Commander turned around, the Dalek battle computer; the Sorcerer and Mage had given orders. Their target; three Time Lord battle TARDISes had been discovered, and coordinates laid in.

Then both Sorcerer and Mage spoke "Dalek battle computer to all units, jump and begin attack run," their order drew the attention briefly of the Daleks on the command deck. The intoned voice of Sorcerer and Mage together as battle computer was not a sound heard by any Daleks, for a long time, perhaps not ever.

Again if the Saucer Commander had been so inclined it might have considered it several stanzas' worth of poetry.

Alas, it wasn't, the Dalek drive for poetry had been replaced with war with the Time Lords.

-/

Harry felt his order ripple out from there neverspace of the wherever that he and Oswin were situated within.

The power that he had control of to just order the Dalek fleet, it was unbelievable. Of course he and Oswin theoretically had that power standing in front of any Daleks, but this...this was so much more instant, much more...it was like having his hands deep within the pudding of the Dalek machination.

-/

Meanwhile...on board one of three Gallifreyan Battle TARDISes, one woman in Time Lord battle robes and long platted hair looked over the selection of locations on one of the TARDIS's screens.

Ordifica, Vita 15, Orbos, Cantus, Krop Tor, Rhodia, Arkheon, Heaven, Resus One, Vespin, Karfel, Mordane, Doloth Star Base, Iwa, Canopus IV, Raaga, Pkowik station, Deva Loka, Beta Two, Zonda, Varos, Ry'leh, Kairos.

The list of locations had been devised on Gallifrey, along with this stratagem. To introduce the maximum level of randomisation, she was to choose the locations from this list, so that the enemy could not predict their movements. Other TARDIS groups would also be pursuing their own paths and destinations along with temporal and spacial tethering points. The planets' relative space-time locations and resonate fields would play a part in encircling the Dalek's fleets.

Her part was securing the planet's psychic translocating links with far less technology and impact on the surrounding space-time than the other groups. Her superiors had been very firm that this was to be conducted with the utmost security, the plan, devised by the temporal theorists on Gallifrey would only completely succeed if all the pieces were in place. It was however much more conservative with resources than a frontal battle with the Daleks' fleets and their planets and stations they currently held.

While the current plan utilised locations in the same temporal location the result would have far wider ranging results.

Their progress so far had not been impeded by any large Dalek forces, they had detected some small movements of troops nearby on a few of the planets they had visited thus far, but none that warranted engaging them.

That was not the purpose of their mission, much as it annoyed those with her in their TARDIS.

Thus far their three TARDISes had not been detected by any Daleks, despite their mission necessitating travel through normal space to correctly align their TARDISes' astrosextant rectifiers with the local spacial areas.

That changed when suddenly and unexpectedly a fleet of Dalek saucers leapt out of warp practically on top of the trio of TARDISes and began firing on them.

"Return fire," she ordered of the soldiers who moved in around the weapon control systems of the console as she operated the scanner screen; the shutters parting way the TARDIS shook under maintained weapons fire. "Why didn't we see their fleet approach?" She wondered aloud.

"Unknown Lady Ginny, time torpedos launched," he responded.

Ginny smiled, in such close quarters the Daleks' fleet of ships would be unable to manoeuvre away from the time torpedos' paths. "Fire again, I want to make sure they're damaged enough not to follow us, prepare to dematerialise once we're certain of their destruction."

"Understood Lady Ginny," he answered from the controls.

-/

The Saucer Commander watched the sensors on board the saucer and then turned to look to Dalek Mage and Sorcerer. The latter's biological response had shifted as they had engaged in combat with the Time Lords' TARDISes.

A tone alerted the Saucer Commander that the Battle TARDISes were returning fire with multiple volleys of time torpedoes. In such close range that the saucers were they would take heavy damage.

It began to send orders to damage control Daleks to prepare to protect the Sorcerer.

Then the Sorcerer spoke. "Not today Ginny."

-/

Harry felt the time torpedos launch out of the Battle TARDISes...no it wasn't a feeling, it was more reactionary, the sensors output flowing through the battle computer subroutines.

Alerting him, preparing him, Oswin off to the side making him wary, making him wait and prepare. Cautiously telling him to relax, let the systems that she was connected to him and through him, have that inspired control.

It was getting easy, he was...enjoying this, this control and not control, this, he had stopped trying to quantify it and instead just allow it to happen.

"Not today Ginny," he muttered to himself as the time torpedoes launched out of the Battle TARDISes towards their fleet, towards his fleet. He had ordered, controlled, influenced the fleet to come out of warp very close to the TARDISes, their danger control systems warning him against such a move.

But now he could see why, it left them very little room to move, if they were to move like regular saucers.

But this saucer wasn't a damaged saucer left from a battle with the Time Lords, it wasn't one that he had to crash land onto a planet, this, and the dozen others that were around them were fully functional Dalek saucers, and they could move, they could dance to his will.

-/

Ginny watched with some enjoyment as the time torpedos sped towards the Dalek saucers. But then just before their predicted impact the Dalek saucers fired their docking thrusters pushing each of them up and almost dancing them around one another, shifting and slipping out of the path of the time torpedoes, while spinning some of their weapons around to fire on the time torpedoes.

And then they returned to firing on the three Battle TARDSes.

She was speechless for a moment, it was not something she had seen of the Daleks. However she had not been in the space-based theatre for much of the war thus far.

"Prepare to dematerialise, with such a heavy space presence the Daleks will not have forces in the vortex, we can move backwards down our time track."

"Yes Lady Ginny," said one of the soldiers as Ginny leant over the console and programmed in the coordinates to allow them to manoeuvre around the Daleks' space-time.

-/

TARDISes preparing to dematerialise.

It was a Dalek voice which he didn't recognise and was at a loss of what to do.

Continue firing and then...he sent the question of how to stop them through him and Oswin, a solution must exist, out in the Dalek's databases that they were attached to.

-/

Ginny cursed as one of the Dalek saucers moved in as one of the Battle TARDISes began to dematerialise.

The Dalek saucer's engines flared on her TARDIS's sensors; a warning, it was forming a warp ellipse around them; forcing them into an orbit on the same space and time area as the saucer.

She grabbed for the dematerialisation controls as the Dalek saucer's systems fell into uncontrolled containment and cascade failure.

Then she was thrown backwards away from the console and felt several of the roundels around her explode from the focused energy; blackness crowded her vision for several moments.

She blinked as consciousness came back to her; she could hear the cloister bell tolling and the controls were in emergency mode; drawing all three TARDISes towards the nearest planetary body.

Many of those with her were dying or in states of regenerative shock.

Pushing herself up she waved her wand at her injured body, temporarily fixing bones and bloodied areas of her body as she hobbled towards the inner doors of the TARDIS.

The dimensions were already folding inward; she quickly levitated all those in regenerative shock towards the inner door.

The TARDIS would keep them in stasis until they could be rescued.

"Lady, Lady Ginny," one of the soldiers began.

Ginny pushed him through the inner door, he had massive energy and dimensional wounds from where one of the roundels had exploded, he had already suffered an aborted regeneration from the artron energy explosion that had resulted, she didn't have time to console him.

Leaning over the console she directed the TARDIS towards the planet and tried to send a distress call, her hands on the telepathic circuits, burning as she placed her palms on the white hot console.

However there was too much weapons fire to get much of a signal out and she hoped the other TARDISes were less damaged from the assault by the Daleks.

-/

The Saucer Commander spun around to face Sorcerer and Dalek Mage as one of the fleet of Dalek saucers' primary power generation was forced into overload.

Soldiers had been transmatted off, however there were still massive losses on board the saucer.

Sensors registered massive damage to Time Lord TARDISes.

Sacrifices of saucers was not recommended as a battle tactic by the Supreme Council. However, the Sorcerer outranked even them.

-/

Harry saw, felt the TARDIS begin to make their descent to the planet below and said or maybe thought to Oswin that maybe it was time to finish here, they could continue in the real world.

But as he thought this, another part of his mind wondered, just for a moment, what else he could do, what else he could wrangle, what he could...reach out with a mighty hand, across planets and stars...

Then it all fizzled away and he heard Oswin's voice, not in his head.

"That's enough megalomania for you magic man, time to return to the world of the real."

Harry groaned and blinked looking around and looked down at himself for a moment. Taking a moment, a second, a space of time to remember that he didn't have spheres around him, he couldn't cover the wastes of the battleground gliding over it. He didn't have a gunstick and a manipulator arm, he couldn't see through the ultraviolet and infrared, nor could he extend an eye piece out of his puppet features and a gun from his hand.

Wriggling his toes in his feet he felt the pins and needles flush into his lower extremities and winced, reaching out and grabbing the Saucer Commander's manipulator arm, which was positioned near him. It seemed to be watching him with some curiosity.

"Follow the TARDISes to the surface of the planet," Harry ordered as Oswin came to his side as blood rushed to his feet making him feel a little light headed.

"Saucers are following," the Saucer Commander paused. "Fleet is continuing attack."

It sounded like a question. "Good, I'm not sure if we'll be able to finish them off in space or atmosphere."

"A surface attack?" Oswin asked.

Harry shrugged. He hoped so, as much as it had been...indulgent of his megalomania to be in the Dalek's battle headspace he wanted to face someone face to face and have a proper battle.

-/

The Daleks had established chronon loops around the two other TARDISes. Ginny adjusted the neutron ram on the console and leaned across to the wall and aimed the influx booster stabiliser at the exposed roundel. The interior dimensions of the battle TARDIS had contracted, the TARDIS itself was in 'safe mode'. It would hopefully prevent the Daleks entering or establishing a stable chronon loop around her TARDIS. Unfortunately it meant she couldn't gain access to the interior dimensions; they were in stasis, along with all of the injured Time Lords she'd pushed in. It was unfortunate two she hadn't seen had suffered severe regenerative trauma as they'd fallen to the surface. The subsequent energy release in the control room here had been concerning.

The moog drone clamp and the master drone clamp made a noise, signalling along with the sonic screwdriver she was holding on a low setting she could now turn off. Twisting the interdimensional real-world interface controls she swore as part of the console burnt out. She had hoped to establish a minor relative dimensional corridor between the two other TARDISes that might allow them to pool their resources, even with the three Daleks each maintaining the chronon loops she'd hoped to get something.

Looking to the scanner, which at least was functional, she could see that no Daleks had approached her TARDIS, despite one of the saucers landing very close to it. The ramp was open however she couldn't see into its depths.

Every so often a rush of wind blew through the landscape, flaring against its shielding. It suggested that the atmosphere wasn't safe for oxygen breathers.

She could only guess, all of the TARDIS's safety indicators had been damaged or destroyed in the attack and crash landing.

She just hoped that her distress call had been received.

-/

Oswin looked at Harry cautiously. He looked like a caged animal. He'd been wearing an expression of extreme annoyance since he'd discovered that the atmosphere's particles would likely attack his lungs and leave him unable to do most things.

Like living.

The saucer's sensors and rangerscops had established that the other two TARDISes had been successfully contained with temporal prisons. Work was beginning by the Daleks maintaining those to enter those TARDISes. They had been damaged, though not enough for them to make a speedy entrance into them.

However this one, the one that Harry was interested in was the one that was causing more questions.

It had its dimensions 'locked down', in 'safe mode' for want of a better term. From what she understood it meant that traditional techniques for entry couldn't be used, nor could they establish an effective temporal prison. The latter didn't matter, the TARDIS wasn't going anywhere, they had successfully destroyed their means of accessing any power beyond this planet, the atmospheric fine particles also assisted in this.

"Move our Timeship down to the area near the ramp," Harry suddenly said as he took off for the Timeship.

Oswin looked around as he disappeared into the Timeship and it, itself disappeared.

Harry stepped out a moment later and was greeted by Oswin and three Daleks.

He handed them the energy baffles he's retrieved from inside the Timeship.

"You think those will give you a better idea than the Daleks' systems, honed from the Time War's battles?" Oswin asked as she watched Harry set up the distinctly archaic and mis-matched mix of technologies outside the Timeship and away from the ramp where now thick cables were leading out to where the Daleks were setting up Harry's energy scanners.

Harry shrugged. "Gotta to do something, since I can't go outside," he looked longingly at the ramp.

"I didn't say that. You can go outside," Oswin teased "it'll just be an unpleasant death if you do."

Harry sighed dramatically. "Anything to stave off death."

A few moments later the Daleks filed back in, reporting that they had placed the devices where he'd instructed.

Flicking a few of the main power switches, several of the dials bounced as they calibrated and a screen, displaying a mix of Dalek and English flared and fizzed into life.

"Well?" Oswin asked as she peered at the screen, the Daleks following her around to look at the lash-up of technologies.

"It exists," Harry said, as he made small adjustments.

"A mass detector could and did tell you that," Oswin pointed out, they had established that it had fully materialised on the surface and that it was there, not being a hologram or some sort of extension of its chameleon circuit or something like that.

"Less data than I've seen from structures affected by temporal incidents," Harry mused as he twisted a dial and checked back on his notes of the only other TARDIS that he'd been able to attach his portable gear to. The one he'd found out about after he'd got those nightmares and memories of the year that had never been. "It looks like a mostly dead TARDIS," he said after a few moments and twisted the controls down to zero and then leaned forward turning them back on, then looked around at the Soldier Daleks who were observing the screen. "One of you, go out and shoot it, maximum extermination."

"I obey," it said without questioning his order.

"Why?" Oswin asked.

"I'm curious," Harry said, as he listened out for the Dalek outside.

Then there was the briefest of bounces on the dials and more data flowed in. A few moments later the Dalek returned. "No effect on Time Lord TARDIS," it reported.

"Not much of an effect," Oswin commented. "All three of them?"

Harry shrugged and nodded.

As they began to file towards the ramp Harry called over to them. "Focus your fire on a specific point, you choose wherever."

"Understood," they said in unison.

-/

The Daleks had placed some sort of equipment around her battle TARDIS. Most of its sensors and primary systems had been damaged, the scanner at least allowed her to observe the environment outside of the ship. Beyond that she couldn't discern much.

She knew that the Soldier Daleks served much more than just being soldiers of the Daleks, while they could have some independent thought they bore little on the intelligence of the Time Lords.

Given how they placed the equipment it seemed they were unfamiliar with the devices, and the devices' control interface seemed unlike that of most Dalek technology, the thick cables trailing back into the Dalek saucer did bear some relationship to Dalek technology, it wasn't something that she had seen being used by the Daleks so far.

Several minutes later, enough for her to find the food machine and discover it had not been too badly damaged a single Dalek left the saucer, firing on her TARDIS. It registered as a dull thud through the battle TARDIS's shell.

Ginny leaned against the console, secure and unconcerned. The TARDIS was secure, even with so many damaged systems.

Then as a few more minutes followed and the Daleks returned as she was drinking some water.

Unlike Dalek formations for a chronon loop they each assembled around the location of the door and began blasting it with fine concentrations.

Each time the noise made a 'thud' sound through the shell of the TARDIS, but there was no physical damage within the console room that was apparent from the Daleks' blasts outside.

Then after several minutes the Daleks turned around and returned to their saucer.

It was, Ginny mused looking at the scanner and finishing her water unusual behaviour for Daleks and suggested a more advanced intelligence at work.

And if that were the case, then they may be worth speaking with. Anyone with enough intelligence to work with the Daleks could be manipulated, she thought to herself as she grabbed a sonic screwdriver and cleared the damage around the communications panel on the console.

-/

Harry leaned back on the chair he'd transfigured for himself as he considered the data, there were minute fluctuations around the energy field that his energy scanners were registering.

"We're not in any danger are we? Sitting here?" He wondered aloud.

"No," drawled the female tones of Oswin.

Harry nodded, wary of the operation on Ribos that had led to the series of painful times; caused by being too focused on one thing.

"More power is better it looks like," Oswin continued in more questioning human tones from just behind him, she'd not been outside to have a look, although she had stood at the top of the ramp and directed the Daleks outside in their blasting attempts.

Harry nodded and craned around to look at her and then the Timeship. "More direct contact?" He pondered as he leapt out of his chair and wandered into the Timeship and up to the second level of the Timeship to search for his suction pads, wondering out loud to himself that if he could permanently stick them to the TARDIS outside maybe they'd be able to channel enough energy through, maybe wired up to the saucer's power systems? After being stuck on the Skaro Degradations planet he'd needed to take apart much of a Dalek saucer to get the Daleks to help fix it. The saucer definitely had a lot of power to play around with.

Whether it was enough punch breach a TARDIS was another question, and if they could, why hadn't the Daleks done it already?

Oswin would probably say something like 'lateral thinking wouldn't occur to the Daleks', which he guessed would be the point of the Cult of Skaro, when the Daleks get around to creating them.

"Harry, have you left the screens on?" Called Oswin from downstairs as he was gesturing with a wand everything he needed into expanding bags. He'd still not gotten time to properly tidy up in here. Even though he (sort of) knew where everything was, although it had all shifted during the attack by the Time Lords. The Timeship unlike the Doctor's TARDIS didn't move its internal spaces around at a whim. Tegan reminisced to him drunkenly how that pissed her off at first, but when it annoyed Adric she secretly enjoyed it.

"No, why?" Harry asked as he walked out of the lift down the short ramp into the control room.

Of the three screens one was showing the exterior view of the Timeship, focused on the ramp, the other was showing a component within the Timeship, the third middle one was in its square line-drawn off-state.

"Hang on," Harry said putting down his bags and going over to the opposite side of the room where he kept the manual for the Timeship in a small alcove.

Oswin tutted in a way she did whenever he didn't know something about the Timeship. He knew the basics and some more besides. If there was something he'd learnt from the Doctor; that was to feel your way around your time craft, getting to know it.

"Well?" Oswin asked as he flipped through the pages that weren't pages.

Harry looked up, his nose and face in the book. "It's the secondary dimensional warping controls," Harry paused "I think they're like a TARDIS' dimensional stabilisers."

"Which means Harry? We're not of the same thinking now," she reminded in a mock annoyed tone.

Harry nodded and looked between the screens, back down to the manual and his bag of things and tried to remember how solidly he built the suckers and the detailed energy scanners. "I've got an idea."

-/

There was some concern brewing within her, Ginny mused as she considered the scanner screen. Not enough to leave the confines of the TARDIS. She had only a staser rifle, left by one of the Time Lord soldiers who'd been injured.

The three Daleks had returned to their saucer, then a single Dalek returned outside. Just outside of the saucer's shielding, she had witnessed as it passed through the force field.

It was now stood observing her TARDIS.

The other Daleks were beginning to attempt ingress into the other TARDISes while others around them maintained the chronon loops.

Only her TARDIS appeared to have a more intelligent, focused approach to attempting to gain entry.

She did wonder if they knew of her mission, and their aim was to extract knowledge out of her.

She knew the Daleks employed brutal interrogation techniques like the mind probe, but she was quite certain that it would not function against her, not just because of her wizarding mental defences, but also the Time Lord mental blocks only she could unlock within her mind. The mental acrobatics had been something she had needed to learn, it couldn't simply be implanted via telepathic circuits. Although she had learnt it within a zero room, so as not to impact on real time events.

Whatever intelligence was commanding the Daleks from their saucer had withdrawn them, after testing her TARDIS's defences. They'd failed, but the lack of any further action continued to be of concern.

She had completed the repairs to the scanner, and her hand had hovered over the exterior communications controls more than once, but she had stopped herself from communicating with the Daleks, there was nothing the enemy could say to her, and in her current position they had her at a disadvantage. However, she still had the upper hand, they could not enter her TARDIS. She just held out hope that her communication had gotten through to Gallifrey, they her mission had not been completed.

The War Council would assume that they were continuing, they were under orders not to communicate unless there was a drastic issue, the communication lines were fractious at best between TARDISes and Gallifreyan command. Only if you were on a Time Station or a larger space station could communications progress in some semblance of normalcy.

Then as she was wondering on communicating, four Daleks exited the saucer holding some sort of large device on their extended manipulator arms, cables trailing from them into the saucer.

-/

Harry had ordered a fourth Dalek to join them and was handing out the suction pads that he'd wired up into the Timeship and then back out and into the saucer's power supply; which was all running through his mix of control interfaces.

He could only guess what might happen when he threw the switch to this mess of cables, not a fzzt or melting of the power core. But hopefully a bit of a bang.

Using the Timeship's dimensional warping abilities to try and pop open the battle TARDIS out there, via brute force, and maybe a bit of Dalek fire to help it along.

There were more Daleks lining up from the other saucers to come out and assist, he wanted those in this saucer to keep an eye on the power systems, and fire control systems, just in case.

"Now, make sure you get a connection, this," he held up his wand, which he was going to use to cast a modified sticking charm to the devices "should ensure a permanent connection with the battle TARDIS."

"If you sense that it has not attached, fully extend your manipulator arm and divert all power to shielding," Oswin continued as he began to spell the devices.

Then without a word they trundled outside.

-/

"Three confirmed sticking, the fourth at the front doesn't seem to be sticking Harry," Oswin reported.

Harry nodded, he still wasn't really sure what was going to happen, they couldn't raise the ramp because of all the cables going outside, but they had increased the shielding and there were additional Daleks at the top of the ramp to control any debris that might come at them.

"You think I should say something to her?" Harry asked Oswin.

Oswin shrugged. "You've been through all this and now you're thinking of talking?"

Harry returned her shrug and ordered a communications channel be opened and then cancelled it and looked to Oswin. "Do your Dalek voice, tell her to exit her TARDIS, we'll even let the other two go."

Oswin and the Daleks with them turned around and gave him a look.

-/

"Exit your temporal vessel."

The message was short, and completely in keeping with the Daleks, and Ginny wondered why they had not progressed with whatever they had planned.

Whatever it was, whatever substance they were using to adhere their technology to her TARDIS it had not been a success, or rather not a complete success, with one Dalek outside holding the device to maintain contact with the TARDIS's external shell.

She cursed that she had not been able to repair any of the external sensors, so she couldn't discern what it was that they were doing, besides watching them.

"What do you want with me, what about the other TARDISes?"

-/

Harry smiled broadly to Oswin.

"Were you just looking for confirmation that she was alive in there?" Oswin asked, she was still in Dalek form.

Harry shrugged. "I thought she might surrender."

"Surrender yourself," Oswin said "The Daleks offer you life. This is our only offer. Show yourselves, exit your time craft."

Harry gave her thumbs up. "I'm impressed," he paused. "she's not doing anything."

-/

"Surrender yourself. The Daleks offer you life. This is our only offer. Show yourselves, exit your time craft."

Ginny's hand hovered over the door controls. The only benefit she could see was that the Daleks assumed that there was more than just her within the TARDIS.

As she stood, her hand over the controls, something began to happen, energy, began to pulse through the TARDIS. She thought, for the briefest moment that she was saved that another TARDIS was in range.

But then more roundels exploded out from the walls as more energy began to pulse through the TARDIS accompanied by an electric wind, a noise she'd never heard before.

-/

Harry didn't wait long before pushing the leaver to full.

"Impatient," Oswin commented as she shut down the communications system.

The noise of the Timeship's engine drifted like a noisy wind away from it and down the ramp.

"Show us outside," Harry asked as Oswin did something and a large screen appeared in front of them.

There was something, some sign of energy pulsing around and into the TARDIS.

"I'm going to go for the boosters," he said leaning forward to slowly push the second leaver up.

Dalek moved forward from somewhere off to the side. "Alert, power fluctuation and heat loss on booster systems."

"Hopefully we won't need this for too long," Oswin commented.

Then, as she finished that sentence there was a noise and Harry couldn't quite process what happened, the TARDIS outside exploded in every direction and probably more than he could process.

Stuff exploded upwards, falling to the ground while it also exploded in every other direction, some of it impacting with the fore fields. People, bodies, equipment, everything exploded out for what seemed like tens of minutes.

Harry grabbed both leavers and pulled them down, the droning noise that had begun at some point ebbed down and he ran down to the edge of the ramp, followed by many Daleks.

"Scan for my biodata source, bring her here," he said as he stepped out onto the surface of the planet and let them pass him, the force fields having extended down from the edge of the saucer to cover a part of the planet under the shadow of the saucer.

It looked like some sort of Dali painting had exploded everywhere around them.

It was surreal in a weirdly appealing way.

"Remember, don't go any further than that Harry," Oswin warned, she was back in human form and standing beside him, taking in the landscape they'd created.

"I should have brought a camera," Harry pondered.

"Get your paints out, you can do a landscape, I've got some contacts that love a bit of disaster art," Oswin commented stepping aside as more Daleks behind her could go out into the landscape.

Harry turned as one of them stopped, it was the Saucer Commander. "Problems?"

Its eyestalk swivelled to him and then back to the landscape and then back to him. "Rangerscopes register unknown energy disturbance on edge of the planetary system."

Harry looked to Oswin quizzically.

"Cause?" She asked.

"Unknown," it reported in a different tone.

"Dangerous?" Harry wondered then asked "Dalek?"

"No." It was a short reply that seemed to be left hanging.

"But if it's not something we've done then it's probably something the Time Lords have done and therefore something that will probably be very dangerous for us," Harry continued to think out loud. "How long until it reaches this planet?"

"Three point six thousand rels," it reported.

"Fifty minutes," Harry pondered as he reached around, rubbing the back of his neck in thought and looked to the Saucer Commander. "Ready our saucer for immediate take off and tell the others."

"Trouble?" Oswin asked looking out into the landscape and back to him.

"A feeling..." Harry trailed off and then twitching slightly as something exploded.

-/

Ginny shuddered awake, her arm was burning. Exposure to the atmosphere.

The last thing she remembered was explosions going off around her.

The Daleks they'd...done something to her TARDIS...no, there was...the dimensional stabilisers had overloaded first and she'd caught sight of the fault locator lights all illuminating, something to do with the architectural configuration and the dematerialisation circuits failing together.

An outside source affecting them.

But the Daleks didn't have the technology, or the knowledge to enter a TARDIS in safe mode, it was why it was so effective against them, why she was meant to be safe.

Gritting her teeth she pulled her arm in closer to herself.

She felt it pass through a force barrier and she chanced a look at her surroundings.

She was against a piece of the TARDIS, a pair of roundels and a piece of the floor. Pushing herself up she let out a sharp cry of pain.

Then she heard them, and hoped they hadn't heard her.

Cries of "Seek-Locate-Exterminate!" And "Destroy and rejoice, locate and destroy!" filled her ears as she struggled to get her wand out ready. She didn't know where her staser was.

Then as she was mustering the strength to fire a spell a Dalek came around a half piece of one of the TARDIS' inner doors, as she destroyed it she also had time to wonder of where those other Time Lord soldiers were, if parts of the interior had also exploded and destroyed and was around her...just what had happened?

-/

"They've located her and paralysed her, they're bringing her and a bit of the TARDIS with them, it's maintaining a atmospheric bubble around her."

Oswin wasn't listening to anything, except tilting her head slightly, it was a bit weird her getting the Daleks on the radio just like that.

Harry shook his head in amusement, that he found weird, not the whole being able to flit between a Dalek and a woman in a red dress, that he found completely normal.

No, not normal, it just was.

Fingering his wand he found himself filling with some level of angst, not to see her, not exactly, but she was a Time Lord agent, he'd not had to face them since...

Since the events, the torture on that space station.

He found himself eager to face her, eager to face them.

Then three Daleks arrived dragging a bit of TARDIS and a bit of cow with them.

She was laughing.

"That's not a good sign," Oswin whispered beside him.

Harry shook his head, biting his lip in thought. "Ginny," he said in an unnecessarily cheery tone.

Ginny fixed him with a look. "You're not a hallucination, and you're here," she made an effort to spit at the ground.

"Maybe I'm here to rescue you?" Harry asked gesturing to the Daleks to move away from her.

Ginny snorted. "You're here to kill me Harry Potter, you ally yourself with the Daleks, that's all they do."

"And the Time Lords are so different?" This brought a glare from her. "Delta Magna...?" he left the planet's name hanging.

"You...you can't know about..." she trailed off as whatever colour remained in her face drained.

Harry smiled a cool smiled. "Met another of your selves there."

Ginny looked at him with a face of death. "You killed her too."

Harry silently commended her spirit as she made another effort to spit on his boots. He'd not tried to do that to his captors, he doubted they would have responded to that sort of threat.

"Yes, I did," Harry said after a long while of silence. "You're an abomination created by the Time Lords" he began in a cold tone. "I should have ended you a long time ago," he paused again as he heard something coming from the saucer. He felt a squeeze of his shoulder and Oswin rushed away outside of his peripheral vision up into the saucer.

Ginny opened her mouth to counter something, that was when he shot her with the killing curse.

Then Oswin came running back down the saucer's ramp. "We've got a problem."

-/

Harry swallowed hard. It was like a warbling ribbon of energy coming through space and it was coming at this planet.

He bent his legs slightly to take the impact of the saucer lifting off of the planet. "How long until it hits the planet?"

"18 rels," answered a Dalek. "Energy wave is accelerating."

"How long to break atmosphere?" Harry asked.

"25 rels and counting," it answered.

"What happens if we're near the planet when it hits?" He asked, knowing the answer.

"Annihilation" the Dalek responded in a sombre tone.

"Wonderful, ideas?" Oswin asked.

Harry looked over to the Timeship, but knew with that amount of energy barrelling towards them they were safer in here, relatively at least. There wasn't anything as far as he knew that might stop them from dematerialising. But it would take at least 10 rels to get in, determine coordinates and to dematerialise, and who knew what a Time Lord weapon would do to local space-time.

"Harry, 20 rels and counting," Oswin called near him breaking his internal monologue

"Go to warp," he said in a low croak as he awkwardly swallowed.

"Saucers still within atmosphere, operation not recommended," the Saucer Commander stated, its tone suggested that it actually meant 'not allowed'.

"How long till energy wave hits?" Harry demanded.

"15 rels and counting," said a Dalek off to the side of the Saucer Commander.

"Audible countdown," Oswin ordered

"14 rels and counting, 13, 12, 11," the Dalek began.

"Go. To. Warp. All saucers," Harry said walking across the command deck to stand eye to eyepiece with the Saucer Commander.

"8, 7, 6, 5," the other Dalek continued to count.

"I. Obey," its lights lighting up his face as he felt a rumble beneath his feet and the whole saucer tilted.

In what felt like slow motion the gravity in the saucer seemed to invert and Harry found himself grabbing onto the top of the Saucer Commander's dome as its midsection spun around to grab his torso and everything went white.

-/

"That's a change..." Harry found himself saying as he blinked away the white. "Thought I blacked out."

"Temporal-spatial effects on local perception and gravity," said a Dalek voice nearby.

Harry blinked and opened his eyes to see he was surrounded by Daleks with their manipulator arms holding him near the back of the command deck.

"Did we escape?" Harry asked.

Oswin was at the front of the command deck. "Yes and no, the planet didn't." Oswin gestured with a hand wave as a screen appeared showing the remains of a planet, it looked like it had crumbled like a dropped biscuit.

"But we're alive aren't we?" Harry asked, hoping this wasn't the afterlife. He didn't intend to die surrounded by Daleks.

"Yes, but..." Oswin trailed off. "You're not going to like it."

-/

He didn't really mind it, it could be worse, he reasoned as he ran along the corridor. It felt like a bit of a break if he was honest.

Whatever the weapon had been it had blown up not just the planet they'd been on, but most of the planetary bodies in the system and cut a swathe through this system and around the nearby space.

It meant they were reduced to sub-light speeds. The Timeship wasn't much better off, they could get into it, but it wouldn't be going anywhere. Its sensors indicated the vortex was also disrupted. They might be able to dematerialise, but travel through it wouldn't get them anywhere faster until they were outside...whatever it was. In the Timeship it was a whole lot of fuzzy lines on the three screens indicating energy things.

Outside the saucer's sensors just indicated some sort of jazzy disruption to local space.

Turning along the corridor Harry made for one of the connecting corridors of the saucer, still running a Dalek moved off to the side as he passed.

They had been at sub-light speeds for four days now, four days into probably a 10 day journey to get out of this area of space.

Turning again he made for one of the central corridors, it was here he got an optical itch, again.

It had been happening off and on when he'd been walking or running through this corridor, it felt like there should be something here, but he suspected he might be imagining it. His mind had been through a lot in the past few weeks.

And Oswin and several of the Daleks had scanned this area of the corridor floor to ceiling and hadn't found anything.

Plus when they'd jumped to warp there had been spatial artefacts from the energy wave that had damaged and buckled areas of the saucer. Not enough to do them any bad damage, just enough to warp some of the internal structure and various panels of the saucer.

-/

Harry looked with some satisfaction at the rotating weapon, or the holographic representation of the weapon. It probably wasn't healthy to be obsessing over such things.

"I want it to be small enough to fit in a pocket," Harry said to the Dalek operator gesturing his coat.

"Yes, Sorcerer," it said.

He had spent the first few days exploring the saucer and found this room, it was some sort of equipment room where the Daleks got replacement weapons and speciality manipulator arms.

He doubted he'd actually ever get to use the rotating weapon, especially not on the individuals who'd interrogated him. He also suspected it wasn't a healthy obsession to have.

But all the Daleks here lacked any appreciation for poetry, most of them weren't even that interested in talking about Dalek history.

"Preferably with multiple bolts, in case I miss," Harry added.

"Designs will be processed Sorcerer," the Dalek said as it did something at its console.

Harry nodded. "Good."

-/

It had been a full week into their journey and after nearly breaking his wrist with the recoil he'd told the Dalek to go back to the first designs and create something that would be lethal to the target, not him.

Instead he'd chosen something more interesting to titillate his intellectual sense.

Chess.

He lost most games.

After he'd taught the Daleks the rules, even the Saucer Commander, who had been a bit short with him seemed to appreciate being able to beat him at something.

He'd chosen a little area off to one side of the command deck to set up a table with the board and pieces, with a chair for himself. He didn't bother with a chair for the Daleks.

He decided 'Playing Chess' would be a sub-section to his book in the chapter on Dalek body language. It was a real distillation of it all. Such a focused task allowed him to analyse everything they did, the little twitches of their gun and manipulator arm. The adjustment of their eyestalk.

Them, reading him.

It was so much more intense than playing someone like Ron, or even Draco. Then when they moved, the almost dainty way they adjusted and picked up the pieces.

It made the few things he'd read about Daleks and the claim that they weren't able to be dextrous because of their limited ability to interact with the world seem very wrong.

He heard though didn't look up immediately as the door to the command deck opened, he could hear footsteps, so it was obviously Oswin.

"You winning yet?" She asked.

Harry shook his head. "I lose nine times out of ten, I quite like it," he said brightly as he picked up a pawn, holding it in thought, then he felt it; a slight unfamiliar movement of the air in the command deck.

"Seal the command deck, full scan," he whispered quickly in Dalek.

"Shield your eyes," came an order in Dalek as Harry buried his face in his elbow.

-/

Oswin stood in the lift to the bridge, she'd been wandering around the saucer in thought, much like Harry this pause in their progress had been useful.

Useful to consider and process what had been so far, what they had experienced, and more to the point what he had experienced.

His interrogation by the Time Lords was something, rather irritatingly she had not discovered much of, even during their time connected as a battle computer.

At least, not on the surface, in the moment and during it, she had not been able to discover much. It wasn't like accessing the Pathweb, Harry had guarded his mind better than when he'd first opened his mind to her.

She knew he had been traumatised by the event.

She had confirmed Harry definitely did not know exactly how long he had been held by the Time Lords, although that was not a primary concern for him, not entirely. He had remained defiant against them during all that time, interrogated by the Time Lords. But there remained harsh, hard edges within his mind from what they had done to him.

There were a few people, those who'd helped her, who could assist Harry, when they returned to her own time.

The anxiety, anger, frustration, that was all present, but also buried, within him. It manifested as determination and dedication, and occasionally frustration and anger.

He however also remained curious, almost jovial at times, even when he'd discovered they would be trapped on this saucer for at least 10 days.

She'd just finished having a look around 'Harry's corridor', the corridor that he swore he felt something, or saw something there. She worried it might be something lingering of the Time Lord's interrogation on his psyche.

She and several soldiers had been over this corridor looking for anything that might be within.

There were no micro-fractures, nothing malfunctioning, nothing that might be within the audible or vision of Harry Potter.

As the lift doors opened the she stepped onto the bridge she saw with some interest and amusement that he was playing chess again.

"You winning yet?" She called over to him, he didn't turn around to acknowledge her.

"I lose nine times out of ten, I quite like it," he said with amusement in his voice, he'd confided that just playing the Daleks he learnt things, winning wasn't the goal.

Then she felt something, and Harry was whispering.

-/

Harry felt several flashes go off around the command deck while he had his eyes shielded and he heard Oswin make a noise.

"Can I un-shield my eyes now?" He asked.

"You can look traitor," said a rough voice of a man.

Harry stood up, turning slowly and saw a Time Lord in full battle armour holding a weapon to Oswin's head.

"One move and I'll blast your associate's head into atoms," he said roughly, he had a helmet on, but his mouth and nose had burn marks around it. To emphasise his point he jabbed it hard into Oswin's head.

Oswin looked worried, but didn't say anything.

"You've done well, to remain hidden," Harry commented in a cold, calm tone.

"I don't need the praise of a traitor!" The Time Lord hissed.

"You don't?" Harry asked surprised. "Then why reveal yourself if not for praise?"

"I said I don't want to hear a traitor talk to me!" He snarled again, pushing his weapon harder into Oswin's head.

Something about Oswin's expression made him genuinely worried. If it was a Time Lord weapon designed to fight Daleks, especially at that close distance he wasn't sure if even Oswin could survive that.

He could hear the twitching movement of all the weapons of the Daleks on the command deck.

"Drop your weapons, all of you!" He hissed. "My armour is still intact, your weapons can do nothing to me, but still, down!"

"Is that true?" Harry wondered.

"Yes," one of the Daleks let out a short answer.

"There, so why not just let-" Harry began.

"Weapons! Now!" He jabbed the weapon into Oswin's head again.

Harry glared at him. "They're Daleks, they're not going to do that," Harry said in a withering tone. "How about I order them? That make you feel better Time Lord?" Harry asked.

The Time Lord didn't say anything.

Harry slowly turned around as the half the Daleks followed him as he turned his back on the Time Lord to face the Dalek he'd been playing chess with, it looked at him. 'Be ready', he mouthed as he pulled his wand out, slipping it into a sleeve and transferred the pawn he was still holding to his non-wand hand. "Lower your weapons," Harry said in a condescending tone, "as the Time Lord wishes it."

Harry turned back around to face the Time Lord, he still had his helmet on, so there'd be no chance of influencing him. "What do you want? It seems not to talk."

"Not to a traitor!" He almost shouted again. "Heard of traitors to the homeworld before," his face scrunched up like Ron when Harry'd first mentioned hanging out with Draco.

"What do you want?" Harry asked. "You've been around the saucer for a while, why now?"

"I want access to your time craft," the Time Lord demanded.

Harry looked at him and wanted to say 'that's not going to happen'. "What's wrong with your TARDIS?"

"Your stunt damaged the engines," he answered, his face, what Harry could see of it contorted in annoyance.

"And a Time Lord such as yourself couldn't fix it?" Harry resisted the urge to tut.

"Allow me entry to your time craft and I will allow you and your associate to live," his face contorted again in what Harry assumed was disgust. "Better than a traitor to Gallifrey and their species deserves."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You know, Time Lord, you're so very wrong," he paused taking a step forward on a diagonal to close the distance between them.

"What?" his hand trembled at Harry's closeness.

Harry shifted backwards, now he was standing off to the side, and all the Daleks now had a clear shot of the Time Lord.

"To be a traitor you have to be on your side in the first place," Harry explained calmly trying to get him to look at his face as he worked his wand out of his sleeve.

"What...what do you mean?" He stuttered.

"I'm not a traitor, and I haven't betrayed Gallifrey," Harry said with a smile as he dropped the pawn and cast two spells one immediately after the other; an unlocking charm directed in one long swoop over the Time Lord's body and a summoning charm at Oswin.

Then as Oswin was flying towards him several Dalek energy weapon rays hit the Time Lord, making him scream.

"You okay?" Harry asked gently he asked holding her.

"Just about, could've killed me, that close," Oswin said, he voice a little uneven.

"Is he dead?" Harry called over to the Daleks.

"Yes," the Saucer Commander said. "Send communication to other saucers-"

Harry's eyes went wide. "Countermanded!" He shouted as he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Explain!" The Saucer Commander exclaimed in annoyance.

"He's got a TARDIS somewhere on this ship, we need to be rid of that, there could be other infiltrators on the other saucers..." Harry explained quickly as he thought to himself extracting a bag from his pocket and summoned all of the pieces of the Time Lord's armour into the expanding dimensions and bent down and picked up the weapon.

"Keyed to Time Lord biodata," a Dalek off to the side offered.

Harry slipped it into a second bag and stuffed both into his pockets.

"Do we have a mind probe on board?" He wondered.

"Time Lord is dead," the Saucer Commander said needlessly.

"That shouldn't be a problem," Harry commented with a smile.

-/

"What are you up to?" Oswin asked as Harry pulled off all the panels around room to get access to the fine electronics that lurked within.

Behind him he heard two Daleks bring in the dead Time Lord.

"We'll need his skull off, and access to the brain, and also fine probes," he explained from the floor as he set about soniccing off various wires.

"Don't touch those two, they're live," Oswin suggested, pointing at the two dark purple wires.

"Make sure there's no sign of regeneration," Harry suddenly said as he heard something begin on the table above him.

"Begin secondary scan," ordered a Dalek.

A noise boinged from the roof above them as Harry craned to see that the dead body of a Time Lord had been placed on the bench.

"No regenerative energies present. Time Lord is dead," the Dalek reported.

"One of you, get the lance and remove his skull, keep the brain intact," Oswin ordered.

Harry gently pulled the control cables out of the panel and accepted Oswin's hand as he stood up. He wrinkled his nose at the distinctly chemical and not chemical smell as one of the Daleks had exchanged its manipulator arm for the lance.

"What are your intentions?" The Saucer Commander was hovering, not literally, in the doorway to the room.

"These are control cables for the mind probe," Harry said brightly and frowned as he looked at the set of mostly black cables. "One of them is the safety, which I've cut, we don't need that."

"Without safety controls the subject will die," the Saucer Commander pointed out needlessly.

"He's dead, made sure of that haven't we," Oswin commented shaking her head.

"Probes are ready Sorcerer," said one of the Daleks near the brain end of the Time Lord.

"Okay, here's what you need to do," Harry explained.

-/

"Are you sure this will work?" Oswin asked, the three other Daleks in the room were looking at the mind probe controls which he'd carefully soniced the probes into and an additional power supply that was filling the room with a smell of ozone and melting plastic.

Harry shook his idea. "I've experimented with things like this, but nothing this…recently dead."

"You are aware of the mind probe's process?" The Saucer Commander asked looking at him, its eye focusing on him.

Harry stared and met the Saucer Commander's gaze. "I've been tortured by the Time Lords, and survived," he heard a noise of the other two Daleks look at him. "And I've played around with my own fair share of these things, never on such a high setting as the Time Lords used."

"You experimented on yourself?" The Saucer Commander enquired, its tone sounded surprised, or maybe it was annoyed. It at least beat it pointing out the obvious in its questions.

"Let's get on, while the body's fresh," Harry changed the subject and looked between the three Daleks. "I'll do the questioning, I think the subject's mind will respond better to a non-Dalek tone, so no speaking until I turn the mind probe off? Understand?" Harry demanded looking between the three Daleks.

"I understand," the two Daleks holding the probes near the brain said.

"I…obey," the Saucer Commander seemingly reluctantly said.

"Oswin, if anything dangerous happens, grab me and pull the power out," Harry looked at the Saucer Commander, "if that happens, then maximum extermination."

"I obey," it said this in a happier tone.

"Alright," Harry said as he turned the screen on and looked to Oswin.

"Recording," she said.

"Power on," Harry said adjusting a dial, the Time Lord's body twitched, "adjust alpha probes 2 and 3 and beta probes 7 and 8," Harry ordered as the screen wobbled around and he aimed his wand at the Time Lord's body.

The spells he'd chosen to cast weren't healing spells, not really, they were more close to reviving spells, along with some preparatory spells for legilimency. He had no desire to heal the Time Lord. It had been tricky enough to get him to this state.

"Gallifrey," Harry said softly to body and adjusted the power flow up and was pleased to be rewarded not with a smell of burning but of people in robes, a shining dome behind them and a burnt orange sky.

"Lord President," he said in as equally soft voice as the image fizzed and showed a man with a high collar, a metal glove and steely expression.

"The enemy," he said, wondering what image might be presented.

He was pleased that he didn't figure in the remaining stimulated with energy brain cells in the Time Lord. It was predictable, as all these stimuli were. The Daleks. Only a couple of dozen of them though in his memories.

This is what he'd realised, especially after his interrogation at their hands, no one ever calibrated their mind probe, even he hadn't properly done so with his own testing of his one. Well, he'd tested it on himself, and assumed that was enough.

But this was fringe science at its best.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and Oswin leaned in to whisper. "They say," she looked over to the two Daleks holding the probes, "that there's entropic engram degradation cascade progressing, whatever Artron energy is feeding through his nervous system."

"If you mean make it quick, I was getting to it," Harry hissed.

"Protection," Harry said softly as he prodded the body with another stimulating spell. The body twitched suddenly. He heard the Saucer Commander's gun twitch.

An image of the interior of a TARDIS appeared on the screen.

"TARDIS," Harry said, the same image on the screen.

"Chameleon circuit," Harry tried, and saw another image of the console, of a keypad and the scanner screen. He squinted at the screen but couldn't make out what it was that was on the screen.

"Barriers," Harry tried, maybe it was a translating issue?

Another different image of Time Lords in the TARDIS operating the console, obviously from earlier in the day.

"Seek escape," Harry tried and was rewarded with the Time Lord stepping out of a wall panel in a corridor. It was patterned colour of the corridors outside this laboratory. He stepped away and any door that had been there disappeared.

Harry was already pulling down the power and rushing out the door.

-/

Harry stood in the corridor, the one that had so far frustrated him by feeling that something, something that he couldn't put his finger on, which didn't make sense was in here.

Of course, it was a TARDIS, that was why it didn't make sense.

"Scan the area, full spectrum scan," Oswin was ordering the two Daleks who'd been with them in the lab.

Harry turned around and saw her smiling at him. "Saucer Commander?"

"Back on the command deck, waiting for my word, ours, that it's safe. Should've listened to you magic man, there was something here."

"Scans inconclusive," the Daleks reported.

"Narrow inconclusive scans to…" Harry turned around and walked backwards and looked towards the lift at the end of the corridor and put his arms back feeling the panels either side. "Here," he walked back to them.

"Scans inconclusive," they said again.

Harry gestured with his wand, he didn't have time to pull out the potions he'd used in the 1970s to reveal places on a map from a limited source. "Point me," he said thinking of escape, but his wand just pointed back towards the lifts, back towards where the Timeship lay.

That was his escape, not much of one at the moment.

"The chameleon circuit, that's how the TARDIS changes isn't it?" Oswin asked suddenly.

"It is how a TARDIS disguises its appearance in relation to its environment," provided one of the Daleks in a tone of disapproval, Harry had a whole paragraph at least on that tone alone in his never to be finished book of psychology.

"So, colour all the panels around here and see which one takes time to blend in," Oswin reasoned.

Harry nodded and then shook his head. "Stuff sticks to a TARDIS, it's not till it dematerialises that the vortex burns it off, it's indestructible…" he trailed off and turned around to the Daleks. "Are these panels doing anything that structural?"

"No," one of them reported.

Harry gestured at one of the panels transfiguring it into a wall paper covered wall. It was the same wallpaper as in Dudley's second bedroom, what had become his.

"That's a terrible pattern," Oswin commented, "clashes with everything here."

"Agreed," Harry said as he stepped to the next one, and the next and the next…and then…

"Bingo," Oswin grinned.

"We must destroy the enemy TARDIS," exclaimed the Daleks behind him.

"No, we need to get it off the saucer, can you still see it?" Harry asked.

"Can you scan it?" Oswin asked shaking her head. "I know it's there, but it's like it's…"

"No," the Daleks said defeated.

"But you know it's there?" Harry asked looking to them.

"Yes," they said still in a defeated tone.

"Interesting," Harry said.

"Can we leave it there?" Oswin asked.

Harry shrugged. "I doubt it, I've no idea what it will do, can we cut it away?"

"Negative, primary power distribution is above," one fo the Daleks answered looking towards the roof.

"Okay," Harry said pocketing his wand and stepping forward for a bad decision.

"Harry," Oswin warned.

"Tell the command deck to get ready to push the engines a bit harder, or ramp up the shields or something, I'm going to try being nice and then…"

"Nasty?" Oswin asked as she tilted her head. "They know," she said.

Harry stepped forward to the panel and put his palm onto it. "Hello," he said to it. It was humming almost imperceptibly below his palm. It wasn't like the Doctor's TARDIS at all, nor the Master's, this felt, sounded sick, solemn and…something else. "He's dead, no regeneration," he said, thinking the thoughts, projecting them to the front of his mind. "There's nothing here, nothing to do, no hope," he felt the pitch of the door, of the TARDIS shift below his hands. "Go, return to home," he whispered as he felt an electric fizz below his hands and something yanked him away.

"Massive energy spike," Oswin announced, and only then did Harry realise that fizz had distracted him from the rumbling, spacecraft shattering vibration and noise as the whole corridor seemed to rip and tear itself apart and then with a wheeze and vworp then there was nothing near them.

And then there was an explosion outside.

Harry ran back up to the lifts with Oswin and the two Dalek beside him.

On the command deck the Saucer Commander informed him that a TARDIS had imploded nearby, damaging two saucers.

"Interesting," Harry commented, it was a testament to the day he'd had that seeing a destroyed TARDIS was not as interesting or as satisfying as seeing one 'pop' open. Especially as it had been him that had pushed the button.

-/

Harry made his was back down the laboratory, the body was still there, as was all his modifications.

Oswin followed into the laboratory a few moments later, she hadn't left the command deck with him.

Harry looked at the control box he'd come up with and started pulling cables out and looking at them.

"I don't suppose you can delete anything the Daleks might have recorded of all this, save a copy for us though?" Harry asked her.

"You don't want the Daleks knowing how to interview a dead body?" She asked.

Harry turned around and shook his head. "Not really, I doubt it'd work for them, not at first, but we both know the Daleks are ruthlessly efficient if they need to be," he sighed. "I don't want to contribute something new to the Daleks' toolbox of interrogation techniques, not as I'm meant to be trying to stop Ginny from doing the same," he paused.

"That's what I was doing upstairs, wiped," Oswin said with a flourish of her hands.

Harry pulled her into a hug, "Won't they realise something's been deleted?"

"This isn't about just deleting something Harry's there's finesse to removing this, they still know the body was used to find the TARDIS. The equipment was damaged in the process of the TARDIS exploding," she said simply. "I thought you wouldn't want them to know this stuff."

Harry nodded as he collected up the probes and bound them together with a simple spell and then looked around before pulling out an expanding bag from a pocket and stuffed them in. He'd dispose of them or something in the Timeship, best not to leave any evidence here of what they got up to, he explained as much to Oswin as she helped him tidy and 'damage up' the remaining equipment in the lab.

"What about the transfigured panels?" He suddenly said with a jerk of remembrance outside.

"Internal rangescopes were 'damaged' as well, I've made sure the command deck is locked down till you can get rid of the wallpaper Harry," she smiled.

"You're the best Oswin, I'm sure I'd be dead without you," he said hugging her again.

"Probably several times now Harry," she said as he let go of her.

-/

A/N:

Apologies for the delay, life and other things still getting in the way of really writing or editing.

Although after taking an extended break I'm feeling a lot more creative and have managed to finish the next couple of chapters. And actually feel like writing (this story at least) again.

The list of planets Harry and Oswin have is different to Ginny's list. And Ginny's list has a couple of planets from not just Doctor Who, but also Blake's 7. But I feel like they're all in the same sort of universe.

This chapter did feature a visit to Vita 15, but there wasn't enough to craft dialogue around. Including Faction Paradox, albeit briefly helped illustrate Harry's annoyance better than a bar fight would've (which would've happened on Vita 15).

In my notes I was going to have Harry and Oswin try and 'HADS the TARDIS away' method of moving a TARDIS, but it didn't feel like quite the right fit, so instead Harry talks into leaving in a sort of parallel to the Seventh Doctor talking the Supreme Daleks to death in Remembrance of the Daleks.

Thanks for reading.