The Frightful Battle at the End of the Universe

Chapter One

Deep in the heart of the well-charted sector of the very fashionable spiral arm of the galaxy, lies a large, highly regarded orange sun. Orbiting this at a distance of 94 million miles was the most majestic, cinnamon-tinted planet whose overly pompous life forms were so advanced that they thought that time travel was a pretty old idea. In fact, they were called (or rather, insisted on being called) the Time Lords. And one day, nearly 5 hundred and seventy-six thousand millennia before the universe was to be destroyed in the final battle between good and evil, an old man who lived on this planet, received a visit from himself.

He had just recently received his doctorate, and was so pleased with it, that he no longer used his given name, which he had never really liked, and most people couldn't remember anyway. His colleagues would usually refer to him as, "Um," or even, "Hey…"

"Hello, Doctor," said a friendly voice. The Doctor looked up from his station at the Ministry of Observation in the Panopticon. It was a large room made of an orange hued marble unique to Gallifrey, and had long corridors, high ceilings and enormous archways. Time Lords shuffled quietly about, minding their own business as they carried out errands they imagined to be far more important than they actually were. Everything and everyone in the universe was monitored by the great society of Time Lords. And it was all recorded, catalogued and then promptly stored and ignored.

The Doctor's current body was old, had long white hair, and he had just started walking with a cane. And the man who had just greeted him was decidedly different. But the Doctor recognized him immediately. It was himself. Only this other Doctor was in a much younger body, had longish dark hair, and was apparently wearing some sort of Terran cowboy costume, with a long, dark green coat, but minus the hat and six-shooter.

"Doctor," the older-looking one said. "Hello."

The younger-looking one, who was in fact hundreds of years older, looked around nervously. "Look, are you busy?"

"Busy? Well, I've just got this cosmic war to observe and record. But otherwise, no. Not especially."

"Good. Is there anywhere we can talk?"

"What?"

"We've got to talk. And drink."

"Drink? Do you mean alcohol! Dear, dear me! I never touch the stuff! Just tell me whatever it is that's on your mind!"

"All right." The younger looking man pulled a nearby empty chair close and sat down, leaning closely to his other self. "How would you react if I told you that the entire universe is going to be destroyed in a final battle between good and evil, and that we, me, you… are, is the only one who can do anything about it?"

"Goodness gracious! Is that the sort of thing I'm likely to say?"

"You see, I've learned from being plugged into the matrix that our own race, the Time Lords, have imprisoned Thor, who is vital to the successful outcome of Ragnarok; the final battle at the end of the universe. And if nobody else is going to do anything about it, then we had better be the one to act."

"And you think I can do this?"

"I know you can."

"And what makes you so certain?"

"Because I've already done it. Both of me."

"You and me?"

"No. You and another me… us. Look… how about a mind link?"

The younger Doctor sighed. He worried that he was missing some crucial battle somewhere in the universe that should have been observed more closely. It was all being recorded of course. All of it. But the Time Lords wouldn't have asked him to monitor the recording unless it was important. Would they? It was hard to say. "Oh, very well," he finally said. He sat up straight, cleared his throat and said, "Contact…"

"Contact."

The two incarnations of the Doctor then linked their minds telepathically. The younger Doctor learned from the older Doctor that the universe was indeed in danger of being destroyed by the forces of evil and chaos. And he learned that he would have to leave Gallifrey behind. Something that he had already been toying with doing anyway. Saving the universe was a long-term plan, that wouldn't be completed for several regenerations and hundreds of years. But it was something that had to be done.

The link ended suddenly. The younger, older-looking Doctor leaned back in his chair. He folded his hands in thought. "I see." He continued to contemplate all he had learned from his future self. "Well, thank you."

"Good luck," said the older one as he got up, then turned and left the room.

The younger Doctor continued to sit in front of his terminal from which he could monitor anything in the universe and then chronicle any of the important bits. Important? A far more subjective word than most Time Lords imagined it to be. The Doctor thought that summer afternoons were important. He thought that stopping wars was important. He thought that ignoring his boss was important. But the rest of the Time Lords thought that writing about summer afternoons was important. They thought that chronicling wars from a safe distance was important. And most importantly, they were under the mistaken impression that obeying current societal norms and not making any kind of a fuss was the most important thing of all.

"Ah, there you are, um, um… yes," one of the Time Lords said to the Doctor as he walked up to the Doctor's station. "Now look here, old time-fruit, I was wondering if you could sort of look after my shift tomorrow and monitor the peace negotiations between the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax and the Strenuous Garfighters of Stug? I'm having my robes hemmed, and I want to make sure they do it properly this time. If you remember last time, they made me look like I was a Sontaran wearing a circus tent! And I don't want to look like I'm a Sontaran wearing a circus tent!"

"No," the Doctor said. "I'm sorry. I have other plans. I'm going to save the universe, and it could take quite a bit of time."

"Oh, really?" said the other Time Lord, not quite knowing whether to believe the Doctor or not. "The whole universe, eh? Well, big job. Yes. Well, best of luck to you and all that."

The Doctor's annoying colleague went away again, and the Doctor was left alone with his monitor screen. And he began to make his plans…

#

The Doctor eventually finished observing the petty intergalactic war to which he had been assigned, he saved and labelled the file in the matrix, and then went home for the night. Visions of the two sides completely annihilating each other raced round and round in his head, like am annoying tune he couldn't get rid of. He thought to himself that if only he had been there, he might have been able to negotiate some sort of peace, and let everybody live. Surely that would have been better for everyone. He didn't understand why everyone else in the universe seemed so determined to hurt other people instead of realizing that whatever differences they had were never ever worth anyone else's life.

The Doctor shared a luxurious set of rooms with his granddaughter. Susan had also spent her day observing aliens. But for her, it was entertainment. The concept of reality television eventually found its way to Earth in the twentieth century where it depleted the minds of Earth people for several generations. But it was the Gallifreyans who had made it a way of life centuries before that. They were masters of the concept. They observed other worlds in other galaxies, they watched the life forms live and fight and love and die. And as they watched, they felt a sense of superiority. They needed to see other, more primitive people screw up their lives in order for them to feel good about their own lethargic existence. They would never get involved in the lives of other races. In fact, the idea of actually doing something and getting involved with others was almost offensive to them. And certainly far less safe.

The Doctor removed the more cumbersome of his elaborate robes and sat down on the sofa, asking Susan to join him. Even her name had been taken from the people of Earth. Susan had named herself after an Earth girl she had observed whom Susan insisted was at a lower temperature. Or perhaps "cool" had been the word. "Susan, my dear. I'm afraid that we are going to have to leave Gallifrey. You and I are going to head out into outer space."

"But, grandfather, there are monsters in outer space!" Susan cried.

The Doctor sighed and put his arm around his granddaughter's shoulder and spoke gently and patiently to her, almost as though she were a five-year-old idiot, "Now, now, Susan. You really mustn't fuss so. They may be monsters to us. But at the same time, we probably appear to be monsters to them."

Susan nodded reluctantly. "I suppose so, grandfather."

He patted her shoulder affectionately and smiled, now that he had set the silly girl straight. "Now go and gather your things. I want to be under way tonight."

"Tonight!?" She immediately began blubbering again, "But, grandfather, I don't know what I want to bring, or who to say goodbye to or, or…"

The Doctor gripped both her shoulders, "Now listen to me." And still she cried. "Listen," he said a bit more sternly. "You need to get a grip on yourself. I can't have you crying like that on every planet we visit, now can I?"

She sniffed a bit and fought back the tears as bravely as she could… which wasn't very much. She shook her head in answer to his question.

"If you do," her grandfather continued, "I may just be forced to leave you behind somewhere," he bluffed, not knowing just how prescient he was actually being. "Now go and pack your things. I shall come and get you in a little bit. And then we can leave these," he gestured vaguely to the walls around them, "these ridiculous fellow Time Lords of ours behind."

"Yes, grandfather. I'll be ready." She wiped the tears and snot from her face and left the room.

The Doctor shook his head and tutted at the retreating back of his granddaughter.

#

The following morning, before any decent Time Lord was awake, the Doctor and Susan crept down to the TT capsule dockyards. They went through the doorway, only to be stopped by a bored security guard who was sitting in his chair, long since having given up on being asked to do anything. "Halt," the guard said with a sigh. "Pass?"

"Er… yes. Er, pass. Er…" The Doctor patted his pockets in an attempt to delay the guard until he could think of something else.

"Come on," said the guard, who was anxious to get back to sitting there and doing nothing.

"Well, I seem to have misplaced it."

The guard shook his head and gestured to the main door in the hopes that the Doctor and Susan would use it to leave. "Come on. You know the rules."

After a brief hesitation, the Doctor and Susan turned and left. Once they were safely through the door, Susan shrugged her shoulders, "I guess that's that, Grandfather."

"No, it isn't, my dear. We'll just have to go to the repair yard. Nobody guards the time capsules that are parked there."

"Why would they? They don't work."

"Oh, I'm sure we'll find something that moves. Come along."

They made their way to the repair yard and found several unguarded time capsules. They picked one. But then a strange young lady encouraged them to take the next one, which they did, for some reason which the Doctor never understood.

They entered the console room, set down their luggage, and shut the doors. The Doctor was not very familiar with the controls. He had assumed that he would be able to work it out easily. But all these old-fashioned buttons and levers were beyond him. None of them were labelled, for one thing. He decided that he would simply have to start labelling them himself. (In the end, he only ever got as far as labelling the Fast Return switch.)

Susan looked at him as he hesitated over the controls, a concerned look on his face. "Is everything all right, Grandfather?"

"Oh, yes, of course. Of course. I was just, erm… coming to terms with the importance of what we're about to do."

"I know how you feel," Susan said. "I'm going to miss all my friends."

"Yes," said the Doctor with understanding in his voice, but not actually understanding his granddaughter at all. The Doctor had no real friends. There was nobody that he was going to miss. He wasn't going to miss the local cuisine. He wasn't going to miss the arrogance, the clothing, anything. He had only ever really been happy when he lived half way up the mountain as a boy. And then he had to move to that rickety old farm house where he spent all his nights sleeping in the barn. It had been a difficult start in life.

Susan stepped closer to watch her grandfather operate the controls. "Let's go, then."

"Er… yes. Here we go." He pushed some buttons, pulled some levers, watched the dials react, pushed more buttons, pulled some more levers, until after about ten minutes, their time machine finally dematerialized. "Well, my dear. We are now underway."

"Where are we going?" Susan asked, impressed that her grandfather knew all those buttons and levers so well.

"Who knows? The directional unit of this time and relative dimensions in space machine doesn't seem to be fully functional."

"Grandfather, you really can't go on calling it a time and relative dimensions in space machine all the time. How about TARDIS? I've even convinced some of the other Time Lords to call it that."

"Fine. Fine. TARDIS. You're quite a little trend-setter, aren't you?" he said, rubbing her chin affectionately.

He then sat down quietly in the middle of the floor. "What are you doing now?" Susan asked.

"I'm leaving myself a telepathic message. Stealing this TARDIS is only part one of my plan to save the universe. Part two will come much later. But because of the nature of what I have planned, I must be unconscious of the details myself. I will be steering myself in the right direction very gently, subconsciously. And then at the right time, I will remember."

"How much time do we have before the universe is in danger?"

"Oh, I should think five billion years or more. Give or take a millennium." He crossed his legs, closed his eyes, and went into a trance.

In the trance, time had no meaning. Not even for a Time Lord. He composed his thoughts and then buried them deeply. And there they would stay until he was in a position to do what was necessary.

Eventually he opened his eyes and found that Susan had left the console room. The Doctor rose slowly to his feet and looked down at the console. He waited for the TARDIS to materialize. And when it finally did, he checked where they were. The databank read out the name of this planet: Quinis. It didn't sound familiar. So he reached into his pocket and pulled out that wholly remarkable book: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.