Caterina and the Doctor exchanged bewildered looks. "Well, what is here?" Cat asked. "Everything looks different."
"We're in 1969 London," said the woman beside the Doctor. Her accent was what Cat thought of as English, much like the one the Doctor himself used. "How do you know the Doctor?"
"Well, it's a bit of a story…"
"That it is." The Doctor helped Cat to his feet with his spare hand. "Ah, Caterina Delgado, meet Doctor Martha Jones. Martha, this is Cat."
Martha offered her hand and Cat accepted a handshake. "What are you a doctor of?" Cat asked.
"Medicine," was the reply.
"Cool." Cat returned her attention to the Doctor. "So, this is the past? What… how did I end up here?"
"The same way we did, I expect," the Doctor said. "The Weeping Angels."
"The what?"
"The kindest predators in the universe, well, this one anyway," the Doctor replied. "They feed off of the temporal displacement of sending members of other species back in time. So they don't have to kill you. They just take away the life you knew."
"Oh. That's…" Cat swallowed. The statue in the garage had been a threat without her realizing it. Most likely it and those of its kind were the source of the anomalous readings she picked up. How many people had they done this to so far?
And then another consideration came. "Oh God, Angel. She's going to be freaking out. I've got to find a way to get a message to her, to the Alliance, to tell them where we are and they can send a ship to do a slingshot or something…"
"No, don't worry about it, Cat," the Doctor insisted. "I've been making arrangements."
"Oh?"
The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket and took out a thick folder and packet with a notebook and other things. "Let's just say I came forewarned, and I knew how to handle this. All we have to do is sit tight and let history take its course." He handed it to Martha before facing Cat. "So, Cat, you clearly came looking for me. What can I do for you?"
With investigative work done, to a degree, everyone met again at the repository. "All catalogued pieces of debris have been accounted for," Data noted.
"That's good news," sighed Robert. "Any leads on the criminal element?"
"They're scared," Garrus said. "Someone's warned them off the hunt for Sovereign salvage. Someone with enough power to make them listen."
"Well, isn't that ominous?" Lucy asked with a flippant, almost-joking tone.
"I'm not sure this situation is proving very humorous," Robert answered. "Intimidating criminal gangs on the Citadel means we're dealing with real heavy hitters."
"Especially considering the Asari gangs, since they're all biotics," Bailey noted.
"There are Asari crime gangs?" Lucy asked.
"As much as the other Asari wish there weren't… yeah," Garrus said. "So the thieves are people who can intimidate them. Or bribe them into keeping their hands off. Neither sounds very good if you ask me." He looked at Robert. "Did you find anything?"
"Possibly. For one thing, I'm 90% convinced the Shadow Broker isn't involved in this," he said.
"You've spoken to Barla Von, then," said Bailey.
"Yeah. He says the Broker isn't involved. More to the point, the Broker isn't happy with the apparent competition from someone capable of this much pull with the gangs."
"And he suggested our thieves might be working with the poor residents of the Citadel instead of the criminals," Zack added.
"In other words, taking advantage of them in the aftermath of the attack," Lucy noted darkly.
"Exactly. But we have an advantage there," Robert said. "They're far less likely to be loyal to their employer than a professional crook."
"Assuming their employer hasn't intimidated them," Bailey added.
"True. But the important thing is that we talk to them. And since they're being offered cash rewards for turning in Sovereign debris..."
"Oh. I get where this is going," said Geordi. "You want to build a trap."
Robert replied to him with a knowing grin.
The final requisitions reports and requests were piling on Julia's desk throughout the day, representing the ship's departments preparing the Aurora to return to service. She was reading through them when the hail came in.
Angel's face appeared on the monitor and immediately Julia knew something was wrong. There was a wild, terrified look there. "She's gone! Something happened and… and she's gone!"
"Cat?" Julia felt a little twist in her gut. "Where? What happened?"
"She… ugh, I can't stand how stupid she gets about this sometimes," Angel continued. "She beamed down and found the TARDIS, but nobody was there and then there was a power surge and now she's gone and there's no trace of her, just some sciency readings and I don't know what they mean! I need help here, Julia, I need Jarod and the other science whizzes to get to WR84 and help me!"
"They're still at the Citadel," Julia noted. Sensing this was not the reply Angel wanted, she added, "I'll get the crews to configure the Warri for scientific examination and send it to you. But it could be several hours."
"I'll be here waiting to see if Cat reappears," Angel said. She killed the line without saying anything else.
Julia felt sick to her stomach. There was no telling what might have happened to Cat. Maybe she was just being hidden in a stealth field. Or maybe she'd been instantly vaporized by something.
Either way, Julia knew what it meant for Angel as well. Angel would be driving herself mad with fear and guilt before long. And if something had happened, even if there was nothing she could have done… Angel would always blame herself, would hate herself, for Cat dying.
So Julia got to work immediately to get Angel that help. Then she sent a message to UNIT asking for their input as well. They might at least confirm whether or not Cat could still be alive.
Nearly a half century in the past, Cat was sitting in a small flat the Doctor and Martha were using for housing without the TARDIS around. She waited for everyone to get situated before she started explaining what the problem was. "These dreams have been getting worse for months," she said. "I mean, it was just a thing once and awhile, and I'd be alone on a dark ship. But now it seems like I have it every week and it's me on the wreck of the Aurora with everyone dead and… and me being attacked. And now I'm seeing your face… and the telepathic psychiatrist is saying there's a block more powerful than anything she's seen in my mind."
As she spoke the Doctor's expression became more dour. A frown formed on his lips. It was Martha who replied, "You think he…" She glanced at the Doctor. "Did you?"
Cat didn't need a reply from the Doctor to know. She saw it in his face. "You… blocked my mind," she said.
"I did," he admitted.
"Why?"
"I had no choice. You saw something… terrible," the Doctor said. "I had to block it from your mind to make you functional again."
"I hope you're not doing that to me," Martha said, frowning. "Doesn't that strike you as wrong, Doctor? To just go into someone's mind and take their memories?"
"It's not something I did lightly," he replied. "At the time I had no choice. What you saw, Cat… it crippled you mentally. You were so overcome I had to block it."
Cat nodded slowly. "Okay. I understand, really. We were still trying to find a way to reach Rose in Pete's World." Seeing Martha's curious look she added, "An alternate 5th dimensional location to this one. I'm from a 6th dimensional alternate Earth."
Martha seemed bewildered by that. "It's a complicated thing," the Doctor said to her. "5th Dimensional difference means the same time. 6th Dimensional is a different cluster formed by a different pulse of what you call the Big Bang. Different timeframe there. It's more complicated than that really, but only Cat would be interested in the full explanation."
"Right. Well, it wouldn't be the first complicated thing I've seen while journeying with you, Doctor," Martha remarked. She sipped at a cup of tea she'd made for herself in the small kitchen at the side of the living area.
Cat giggled. "It's always like that, I guess. He showed me some insane things I never thought could exist. And I was used to discovering new things, I mean, ever since my sister's sometimes-boyfriend found an alien base under his Kansas family farm."
"Now that sounds like a story," Martha said.
"It is. Maybe we can talk about it later." Cat turned her attention back to the Doctor. "The psychiatrist on the Aurora said she can't remove the block. Can you?" she asked.
His reply was immediate and unwavering. "No," said the Doctor. "No I will not."
With another change in the watch, Karen Derbely was released from her duty as Chief Engineer of the Koenig. After finishing the change of watch by briefing Ana on everything she needed to know, Derbely headed to the mess hall and replicated a personal favorite she'd installed in the system: a big greasy Latian hamburger, made from the meat of a bovine-like quadruped native to the planet Lata, one of the member worlds of the Colonial Confederation of Universe D3R1. Her home, the space habitat and asteroid mining center Littlefield Station, was in the same government. Now a member of the United Alliance of System, the "Colonials" - as they were proud to call themselves - had long run a free market-orientated, private interest economy based off of North American libertarianism.
It was not always an easy system to live in, especially for those with jobs that didn't pay as well, but Derbely grew up enjoying her life on Littlefield Station with her father Jack, the pilot of an ore hauler. Eating Latian-made hamburgers reminded her of her childhood of joining Jack Derbely in his long haul trips to Jury Station and its ore refineries. Every trip there, he'd take her to the same greasy spoon diner in the habitat sector and spend the per diem of his unloading day buying the both of them the biggest, juiciest (and greasiest) burgers on the station, loaded with toppings and joined by French-cut seasoned potato fries…
"Your mind is back on Jury Station, isn't it?"
Derbely looked up from her half-eaten hamburger to face Lieutenant Commander Creighton Apley. The ship's Executive Officer and Navigation Officer - on a ship this size, the XO would always have a second role in the command crew - was a handsome man from the North American Midwest. His brown hair was a few shades darker than hers and cut to professional perfection. Apley had a plate of waffle-cut fries and a grilled chicken sandwich fresh from the replicator. "So it was," Derbely replied.
He nodded. "I still remember the sector blowout they had there in… what was it?"
She frowned. "2455," she answered, referring to D3R1's calendar. Their home universe was not quite two centuries "younger" than the L2M1 universe that was used for the Alliance Standard Calendar, given the UAS capital was located on its Earth. "Dad and I had just left a day before the incident. I was thirteen. I remembered a lot of whispering about how the place was an accident waiting to happen."
"Insufficient safety inspections by the new managers of the station," Apley remarked. "Back home a lot of people saw it as another sign of how badly off people were in your Confederation."
"I'm sure they did." Derbely smiled thinly. In D3R1 the Earth and surrounding star systems were under the Sol System Republic, an interstellar state with democratic-socialist economics that were at odds with the Confederation's philosophy. And they too were members of the Allied Systems; unsurprising since neither could stomach the thought of the other with an apparent advantage. "But we handled it our way."
"The residents of Jury Station voted to remove the station operating contract from the people responsible for the safety violations," Apley recalled. "And the replacement contractor made Jury Station the safest place in D3R1."
"That's how the system works. You screw up, people stop working with you."
"Not unless you have something they need, then you can force them to stomach it," Apley remarked. "And given our safety laws, the blowout never would've happened on a Sol station. Not like that."
Derbely finished chewing a bite of hamburger and smiled. "Because the wise, all-knowing Sol government never, ever had someone screw up."
Apley didn't answer that, since he knew the answer was no. He merely grinned and ate a fry.
"I'm up for another round of arguing about economic systems if you really want," Derbely said, "but I get the feeling you were just baiting me for fun."
"I suppose it was for old time's sake," Apley admitted. "A last chance to tweak your sensibilities."
Derbely looked at him curiously. "What are you saying?"
"I just got the word from Personnel," Apley said. "I'm being promoted." When Derbely replied with surprise but nothing further, he continued, "They're giving me command of a new Flight III Trigger-class attacker, the Reichert. After we get back, I'm off to report for her shakedown cruise."
"Wow," Derbely said. "That's… good news. Taking anyone with you?"
"U'ruhn's earned a shot at being Ops," Apley replied. "And if Ana wasn't getting that shiny new Enterprise-class ship I might've asked her to come along."
"U'ruhn has earned it, yeah." Derbely considered one of her last fries. "So… congratulations on your new command."
"Thanks. I don't know where we'll end up for our first assignment, whether we get assigned to a cruiser or a fleet unit, or an attack squadron. Either way…" Apley smiled sadly. "I'm going to miss you. All of you." He chuckled. "I think I'll miss being called 'Ap', and Commander Carrey used to make me grimace whenever he called me that on duty."
"You always were the straight-laced officer type," Derbely noted. "I guess it's a bit of a surprise that you came around to Carrey's command style in the end."
"He proved himself over time. So did his friends." Apley let out a little sigh. "I think I'm going to miss it all. Being on the Aurora, always getting pulled in whatever crisis they wound up in the middle of…"
"Hargert's cooking," Derbely pointed out.
"Oh yeah. I'll definitely miss that. Hopefully there are other good cooks out there working with the service."
They chuckled at that. It let Derbely hide the small sense of hurt she felt. Just as it seemed we were getting everyone back together, things are still going to be different, she thought before returning to her meal.
In the months since she accepted the position of First Officer, Meridina had long adjusted to the paperwork load her new position required. The needs of her position were, if anything, a fresh challenge compared to what she was used to before, a challenge that she did not so much relish meeting as consider a worthy obstacle to overcome. There was, perhaps, a faint bit of amusement at the fact she had never considered she might be doing something like this while she was training hard to become a swevyra'se of the Order of Swenya.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the computer terminal in her office bringing up an incoming communication over the interuniversal comm network. Meridina tapped a key and put in her passcode to accept the call. To her interest, the face that appeared was that of Gina Inviere. The blond-haired woman was biologically near-Human, created as one of a number of infiltrator models for the Cylons. They'd first met when Gina was preparing to kill herself to destroy the Colonial Refugee ship Cloud 9. Meridina successfully convinced her to relent and offered her asylum on Gersal due to her suffering at the hands of some of the Colonials. Gina's decision to join the Order had been a pleasant surprise.
"Meridina, how are you?" Gina asked. There was a clear concern in her voice.
"I am well. But you seem not to be," Meridina observed.
"It is… I am worried. About Mastrash Ledosh."
Meridina nodded once. Ledosh was Gina's mentor and teacher in the Order, just as he had been for Meridina. "What is wrong?" she asked.
"He's… I don't know. He's been spending so much time with that book…"
Meridina blinked. "What book?"
"The Life of Reshan," Gina said. "He's been translating it over the last several months. And it's like that's all that matters to him now. He is becoming distant. Distracted. He often leaves the Great Temple for the family cottage in the foothills to study and meditate. He speaks with no one outside of Council meetings and barely observes my training. Many on the Council are starting to voice concerns about him."
As Gina explained what was going on, Meridina thought on the book she mentioned. She knew Ledosh was trying to learn more about the Darkness and the Prophecy of the Dawn. The book clearly held some importance to his research. Once Gina mentioned the Council Meridina started to openly frown. "Have you spoken to him about his concerns for the Council?"
"I have. He assures me that it is fine and he is explaining matters to them frequently. But I am still worried for him, Meridina. It's clear that there is something weighing down his mind and swevyra. He's not the only one to feel there is something wrong around here. It's setting people on edge."
"I see." Meridina drew in a little sigh. Her visit home after the fall of the Reich had included a visit with Ledosh, but he seemed no more than a little perturbed, and she already knew him to be. Especially around her, as deep down he blamed himself for not persuading the Council against the order for her to leave the Aurora, the order that led to her departing the Order of Swenya instead.
The wound of leaving behind everything she believed in was mostly healed by this point, but recalling it did bring a small ache to Meridina's heart. She pushed it aside to consider the problem. Why hadn't she realized how bad things were for Ledosh? Had he hidden his concerns from her?
Yes. It was quite possible he had.
"Thank you for speaking to me, Gina," Meridina said. "I will contact Mastrash Ledosh as soon as I am able. Hopefully he will speak of his worries with me."
"Thank you, Meridina," said Gina. "Mi rake sa swevyra iso."
"Mi rake sa swevyra iso," Meridina replied, after which she ended the call. She found herself in quiet contemplation for the moment. Ledosh, what is wrong? Why will you not confide in your students? she thought quietly, until she finally resolved to ask him that directly.
Even if it meant going to Gersal herself.
The silence in the flat was a stubborn one, replete with tension. Cat kept glancing at the Doctor with a combination of frustration and disbelief. Sitting to the side in a ragged chair, Martha looked to them both with her own growing irritation.
"It's my mind," Cat finally said. "Doesn't that give me the right to decide?"
"If your sister wanted to plunge her head into an active plasma stream, would you let her?" the Doctor asked pointedly. "Or would you stop her?"
"That's not the same thing."
"It is," he insisted. "You're asking me to risk your sanity, Caterina. I sealed those memories away for a reason."
"Your seal isn't perfect though," Cat replied. "I'm getting nightmares from whatever happened! Over and over! And now that I know they're repressed memories, it makes it even worse!"
"I could reinforce the block," the Doctor offered. "Clear your memories of the nightmares."
"Right," Cat scoffed. "Repeat the same thing you did before. And it's not like Doctor Tusana isn't going to notice I suddenly forgot about them!"
"You could tell her it was your choice."
"But it isn't! And don't you dare say you can make me think it was, because we both know that's no better than just compelling me to agree with you!"
"I don't want to compel you to do anything, but I don't want you going mad either!" the Doctor shouted back. "What happened was... " A frustrated look crossed his face. "I should have said no. I should have told you no, that I could handle finding Rose myself, and sent you on your way with your friends."
"Really?!" demanded Cat. "After everything we accomplished together, you can say that?"
It was clear he made the remark without truly meaning it. More to the point, Cat noticed the discomfort on his face. The hollow look forming in his eyes. A thought came to her. "You were hurt by what we saw too," she said.
He gave her a level look. Though he tried, the Doctor couldn't hide the pain in his eyes. Martha noticed it as well.
"I get it," Cat said. "You… you want to protect me. You don't want me to hurt. I understand. But it's my mind, Doctor. My memories. And whatever you want, something in my head is fighting through the block. Even if you rebuilt it, you'd really just be delaying the inevitable. Whatever this memory is, it's refusing to stay in the block."
"You have no idea what you're asking for, Caterina," the Doctor warned. "You'll wish I'd left the block in place."
"Maybe she will," Martha said, joining the conversation. Her eyes met the Doctor's. "But it's her mind. Her choice. Not your's, Doctor. Never your's."
The Doctor gave Martha a quick look before returning his eyes to meet Cat's. She met the hardness of his look with her own. If he was going to be stubborn, so was she.
"Please don't do this, Cat," he pleaded. "You're asking me to hurt you."
"Maybe," Cat said. "But I won't have any peace until I know."
Again silence filled the flat. It stretched on and on while the Doctor and Cat kept their eyes locked, an unspoken battle of will between them.
Martha sat back, again locked out of the conversation, and wondered who would win in the end.