Alternate Footsteps: Volume Two
Episode Four: Foreshadowing
Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor worked at the controls, wondering where Ace was. He should have known that the Daleks would have wanted him to save their skins and he would do just that. But not to save the Daleks. He wanted to save Ace. He had always believed in her and trusted her, especially during the days when they would travel together. Oh, how long ago that seemed. He wondered if being on Gallifrey had changed Ace in some way. Perhaps it had. All he knew was that she had seen something and that had made her want the Time War to have never happened.
"Doctor, are you alright?" Ameela asked him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He glanced at it and realised that he felt a mixture of fear and sadness.
"No, Ameela. I'm not." he admitted, slowly retreating from the console and looking away, "Things have been hard on me recently. I need to put things right, once and for all."
"Tell me about it. I was stuck on Vostar Alpha in a single second of time."
"I was stuck in a white void and alone. I should find out why we were saved."
"Yeah. We'll probably find out one day. Now though we need to save your friend. Agreed?"
The Doctor smiled with joy and returned to the console, adjusting controls and mashing buttons with greater enthusiasm than before.
Far into the past, another TARDIS had arrived on Inka, a distant jungle planet orbiting a large red sun that pulsated with light. This TARDIS was stuck in its natural form: a tall dark grey cylinder with a silver door. It was parked in a large clearing, underneath a jagamout tree, its vines creeping along the floor. The soil under the TARDIS was white with blood red streaks cutting across it like small wounds. Some may have even called this planet beautiful. Unfortunately Ace hadn't come to this planet to admire its beauty. She had come this planet to use a weapon she had picked up from Tawkaar's Bazaar, an intergalactic market selling weapons and objects of war. She had never wanted to do this but she had seen the horrifying effects of the Time War firsthand. Her mind had been wiped by the Time Lords because she had seen too much and now she would get her revenge. She would wipe out the Time War and wipe out the two races that had started it. Why couldn't the universe just be nice to one another? Why couldn't species just get along? She had once had a friend who would ask that question. He was a Time Lord and he was just as bad as the rest of them. He was brilliant and clever and funny but also dark and scheming. She was doing this because of him.
She was doing this because of the Doctor.
Ace held, in her hands, a large black box with two slots and a large red button. The two slots were the perfect size for samples of Dalek and Time Lord DNA, which had been extracted perfectly and inserted into the two glass test tubes that she had inserted into the slots. She decided to walk away from her TARDIS and towards a straw hut that had been built a few metres away. She knew what the weapon did: it erased the DNA that had been inserted from history. It removed the cells perfectly from any lifeform that had them. Daleks would no longer be Daleks and Time Lords would no longer be Time Lords. She knew that she had used a TARDIS to get to Inka but history would bend around that. Enough damage had been done to time already. This was going to fix it, albeit with some death.
The Doctor's TARDIS, meanwhile, had detected a build-up of chronon particles on the planet Inka, far into the past. The Doctor had set course for the planet and activated the materialisation control, making the familiar police box shape of the TARDIS wheeze and howl into the spot next to Ace's TARDIS. Ameela watched the time rotor rise and fall within its glass column before following the Doctor out of the doors and onto the surface of Inka. She gazed around her surroundings in awe, a childish smile on her face.
"It's beautiful." she remarked, feeling the soft vines on the floor, "Why would someone going to murder two species come here to do it?"
"Because they wanted to make themselves think again." the Doctor replied, his eyes focusing on a straw hut in the distance, "I know Ace and she won't do this easily."
"So why do you need to convince her?"
The Doctor's eyes turned to look at Ameela grimly.
"I know what she's capable of. If she wants to murder two species, she will do it in a massive way."
Ace stood in the straw hut, staring at the weapon. She had poured the samples of Time Lord and Dalek DNA into the two slots and now all she needed to do was press the button. Could she do it? Could she kill them all?
"You won't do it, will you?" came the voice of an old man from nearby. She looked up to see a battered man with a shock of grey hair, a brown leather jacket and who was accompanied by a young woman in combat fatigues.
"Go away!" she yelled at them, her anger resurfacing once more.
"Ace, I know you. I know you won't do this."
How could this old man know her? Unless... No, it couldn't be.
"Doctor?" she asked him, advancing towards him slowly.
"Not any more. I'm the man that was the Doctor. I decided to get rid of that title long ago."
"And how's that going for you?"
She indicated his companion.
"Oh, she's just someone I picked up along the way. Things have been in a bit of a rush recently." he explained, walking past Ace and scanning the weapon with his sonic screwdriver, "This weapon is remarkable. It has the capability of erasing two sets of DNA from history, reshaping two species forever. The Daleks will no longer be the Daleks and the Time Lords will no longer be the Time Lords."
"With that weapon, you'll be worse than the Daleks and the Time Lords, wiping out two species with a single button." Ameela commented, leaning against one of the walls with her arms folded, "Why are you doing this?"
"I lost someone." Ace confessed, the painful memories coming back to haunt her, "I lost a good friend of mine because of this war. She was exterminated by the Daleks."
The Doctor stared at her, amazed, and started laughing hysterically, clapping his hands together. Ameela and Ace looked at him in confusion, unsure as to why he was laughing so much.
"You think... You think that one death means you have to do all of this?!" he cried in disbelief, his laughter turning to anger swiftly, "I've lost my closest friends to the Daleks and do you see me wanting to commit genocide? Lucie, Katarina, Sara, Molly. Ameela's lost her planet to the Daleks and she's still going! What makes you so special, Ace? What makes you think you need to do all of this?"
Ace looked down at the weapon in shame. He was right and he was the Doctor. He was the Doctor she had known all those years ago who went around with a red question mark umbrella and a thousand Machiavellian schemes ready to dish out.
"I don't know." Ace admitted, "But I lost a friend who I could trust. Wouldn't you want to wipe out every Dalek in existence?"
The Doctor remembered Lucie's death and how he had almost flown to the end of the universe afterwards. Something had stopped him and moved him a little in the other direction.
"I did, but I moved on. I fight in the name of the people I lost. I fight to make their deaths count. This war affects us all, Ace. We just need to carry on and hope that there's a way out soon."
Ace looked away, almost in shame. She couldn't bear looking at her old friend, even if he had rejected his name. He was still the Doctor to her and that was what mannered.
Outside the straw hut, two Daleks materialised into existence, their eyestalks turning around to look for the Doctor.
"THE TEMPORAL TRAIL FROM THE DOCTOR'S TARDIS LEADS HERE." one of the Daleks cried, "WHERE IS THE DOCTOR?"
"TIME LORD LIFE SIGNS DETECTED WITHIN THIS BUILDING. EXTERMINATE!" the other Dalek cried, firing a beam of blue light at the hut.
The door to the hut exploded into flame and flew away, revealing the two Daleks that had arrived outside. The Doctor shielded Ace and Ameela from the two bronze destroyers and backed away slowly. A Dalek fired a beam of blue light at the weapon Ace had wanted to use, making it spark and crackle.
"What are they doing here?" Ace wondered, "You'd better not have brought them here."
"I think they followed us here." the Doctor said, "They must have locked onto my TARDIS's temporal trail and arrived here. I should have suspected they would try and do something like this."
"YOU WILL SURRENDER YOURSELVES TO THE DALEKS!"
"I thought you didn't want to exterminate me."
"YOU WERE USED TO LEAD US TO A KNOWN FUGITIVE WHO WISHED TO WIPE US OUT. WE NOW HAVE TWO PREDATORS OF THE DALEKS WHO WE CAN EXTERMINATE. YOU HAVE DONE WELL IN ALLOWING YOURSELF TO DIE!"
What followed was a harsh grating, screaming noise that scarred the souls of the non-Dalek lifeforms that stood in the straw hut. That was the noise of a Dalek's laughter and it terrified the Doctor and his friends.
The Daleks led the Doctor and his friends to three small bronze teleport discs, which had been obviously sent to teleport the Doctor, Ace and Ameela back to the Dalek ship. He looked longingly at the TARDIS, hoping that he would find a way out.
"STAND ON THE TELEPORTATION DISCS." a Dalek screamed, forcing the Doctor onto a teleport disc. He stood on it and glanced at Ace and Ameela, smiling at them to try and keep himself confident and hopeful.
They all then disappeared, fading away with a blue glow.
They reappeared in the central command centre of the Dalek saucer, surrounded by bronze Daleks who were working at their stations, operating computers and piloting the saucer towards a new destination. They looked around the centre in horror, not sure about how they were going to escape.
"DOCTOR, YOU AND THE WOMAN KNOWN AS ACE SHALL BE TAKEN TO THE EXTERMINATION SQUADRON. THEY SHALL MAKE YOU DIE WHILE SCREAMING." a nearby Dalek ordered, barking, "YOU WILL FOLLOW ME! MOVE! MOVE!"
The Doctor and Ace followed the Dalek away, leaving Ameela alone in the command centre, surrounded by the things that made her skin crawl.
Two Robomen had handcuffed the Doctor and Ace to a wall and had left them there, as five blood red Daleks moved forwards, their gunsticks ready to fire. Their eyestalks focused on the Doctor and Ace, blazing with their hatred for their enemies. Their hatred was so powerful even the Doctor and Ace could feel it.
"Looks like the end then." she said, glancing at the Doctor, "Exterminated."
"Indeed. At least I'm not dying alone though."
"EXTERMINATE!" all of the Extermination Squadron screamed simultaneously, firing at the Doctor and Ace.
TO BE CONTINUED...