Author's Note:

Thanks to all my reviewers, as always - TheGreatWhite, gallifrey calls now, MountainLord-92, Theta'sWorstNightmare, Lexy Summers, MayFairy, Weiryn, irishartemis, SawManiac211, EmmaMarie, Daughter of the Master, Lost Moon, Ahsilaa (x 3), JessieDear13 (x 2), yulicee, sailormajinmoon, silentnight, cometbop1, Aietradaea and Neapolitan Dreams. It was so great to see some of my old favourites back, as well as some lovely new reviewers.

To Lost Moon: Thanks, always great to hear from you! But you may need to wait a little bit longer to hear from Captain Hart, I'm afraid :(

To sailormajinmoon: Thanks so much for the review, you are terrific! I should probably have said, Tejana's reaction to Borusa's office was based on my short M-rated fic, 'Once Upon a Dream', just in case people didn't realise. And yes, you are correct, the invisible presence Koschei is sensing is the same as the one that pulled Tejana through the crack ;)

To silentnight: Hey, great to have you back! I do get pretty busy, but I've actually written the next two chapters, so hopefully my updates will be a bit more prompt for the next little while \O/ I agree, thank goodness Dr Who is back on TV, yayyy! Thanks,I really appreciate the feedback.

To cometbop1: Welcome back on board the 'Ship of Dreams', lovely to have you - and thanks so much for your positive comments!

Anyway, thanks for dropping by and here is the next chapter...oh, and there are some small sexual references in this one, so be warned - you no like, you no read, OK!

- Chapter Five -

"I want to love you, but I'd better not touch,

I want to hold you, but my senses tell me to stop,

I want to kiss you, but I want it too much,

I want to taste you, but your lips are venomous poison."

- 'Poison', Alice Cooper.

Theta lay on his back on his bed and looked up at the ceiling, his hands tucked under his tousled blonde head as he thought back over the events of the day. His interview with Prefector Zorac, the tutor in charge of detention, had gone much as expected. The man had merely rolled his eyes, sighed loudly and said, "Back again, Theta Sigma?", before reaching for his data tablet to enter Theta's details.

He couldn't help feeling a bit noble about it all. After all, this time he wasn't serving detention because of one of the many pranks he had pulled over the years. The last time he'd been forced to report to Zorac, it had been because he and Koschei had secretly built a pair of time flow analogues, which had successfully jammed every temporal experiment in the Academy buildings. Now that had been one hell of a row. This time, though, he would be suffering through detention because he was saving Kat's job, which made it all seem a lot more worthwhile.

The new servant's delicate oval face swam before his mind. He couldn't explain why he felt so drawn to her, even to himself. The moment he had first seen her, across the crowded Great Hall, it was as if he had known that she was going to be part of his life. He had given up on believing in fate and destiny a long time ago, but still...

And it wasn't because of any sort of physical attraction, either, no matter what Ushas chose to believe. Kat was pretty enough...even lovely, he supposed, although he didn't consider himself to be much of a judge in that department...but he didn't feel even the slightest spark of sexual desire for her. Even the thought of it felt wrong to him. His interest in her stemmed from something else altogether. He just couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was.

She was an enigma. Everything about her was odd. He thought back to the first moment he had seen her, staring out the enormous windows, towards Mount Cadon. That wasn't unusual. Many new servants froze when they first encountered the breathtaking magnificence of the Great Hall. Most of them came from the outlying provincial settlements of Gallifrey and very few of them had ever seen anything like the Great Hall before. But that hadn't been the impression he had received from the look on Kat's face. She'd looked like she was...soaking it in, somehow, basking in it, like a flower turning towards the sun...as if she had always belonged here and had at last returned home.

And her posture was not the common, self-effacing stoop of a servant, despite the dull, black uniform she had been wearing. As small as she was, she held herself like a princess, as proud and confident as any Time Lady in the room.

He supposed he had made his sudden interest a little too obvious, since it had provoked Ushas's jealousy yet again. From that point of view, what had happened had actually been his fault, which had been a good enough reason for him to take the blame. But that wasn't really why. As soon as he had spoken to Kat, he had felt...comfortable...as though he had known her forever, even though they'd just met. Somehow they just fit together, like pieces of a puzzle. He couldn't explain it at all, but he felt fiercely protective of her, every instinct telling him it was his duty to keep her from harm.

As he was tossing it curiously back and forth in his mind, he heard the door to his room suddenly slide open.

"Hello, Kos," he said, without even bothering to look. Koschei had never really concerned himself with common civilities such as knocking before he entered a room. "I suppose Ushas has been in your ear."

Sure enough, his best friend dropped into the chair across the room, crossed his arms and surveyed him quizzically. "If you're talking about this business with the new servant, I have heard about it, yeah. What's going on, Theta?"

Theta sighed and sat up cross-legged on his bed. "Nothing's going on. Ushas was giving her a bad time, I helped her out, that's all."

Koschei gave him a hard, sceptical look. "Are you sure about that?"

"Of course." He usually shared most things with Koschei - they were best friends, after all. But this was a little bit different. He knew if he tried to explain his odd reaction to the new servant girl, Koschei would merely tell him not to be an idiot. Koschei's family was one of the wealthiest and most powerful on Gallifrey. He didn't even acknowledge that servants existed, most of the time, let alone consort with them in any capacity. The idea that Theta had felt such a strange, instant connection to Kat would be a matter of ridicule for him.

"Well, good, because after that whole thing with the time jammers, I can't afford to get into any more trouble this semester," Koschei grumbled. "My father would kill me."

In Theta's honest opinion, Lord Oakdown was a monster on two legs, and nothing Koschei did would ever please him, but he knew better than to say so. All the same, it annoyed him a bit that his friend was making this all about him, as usual. Koschei wasn't involved in this at all. Whatever 'it' was, it was between Theta and Kat.

"What makes you think you'll get into trouble?" he snapped.

"Because I always do. I know what you're like when you're on one of your crusades, you can't help interfering, and I always end up being caught up in it all. When are you going to learn to leave well enough alone? If you really want to help this girl, you'd be better to stay right away from her."

"Why?"

"Because it's only going to lead to trouble, that's why," Koschei responded. "By singling her out, you're drawing attention to her. And we all know what happens when a servant girl attracts Anzor's attention, even if no-one will ever come out and say it."

"That won't happen to Kat," Theta said stubbornly. "I'll make sure it doesn't."

"Won't it? Anzor hates you more than anyone else. If he thinks she's important to you, she becomes an instant target." Koschei climbed to his feet and walked over to the door. "You can't save everyone, Theta. You can't make everyone in the Universe better, no matter how hard you try. Sometimes you only end up making things worse. I just wish you'd get that through your thick head. Now, it's dinner time – are you coming?"

Tejana's headache was finally receding by the time she sat down to the evening meal in the servant's hall, but she was very tired from scrubbing all the pots. She also suspected she was still slightly in shock from her trip through the crack.

She poked unenthusiastically at the food on her plate. It was a stew made from roasted grockleroot. Since being set free in the Universe with its wide and supremely-varied cuisine, she had forgotten how bland and uninspiring Gallifreyan food was. Oh, it was wholesome enough, and there was plenty of it, but as far as taste went, it was sadly lacking. Unexpectedly, she found herself thinking of the kraken-meat John Hart had served up to her on Mnemosyne, lush and bursting with flavour and as tempting as hell...especially eaten from the Master's fingers...

With an abrupt jerk, she pulled her mind away from the sensual memory, trying to distract herself with the conversation going on around her. The man opposite her was droning on in a monotonous tone about the minute biological differences between flutterwings found on the Isle of Meaning compared to those located at the more local Lake Abydos. Just listening to him almost sent Tejana to sleep, and it seemed she wasn't the only one, since everyone else seemed more than pleased to leave the table when the meal was over.

However, as exhausted as she was, her duties for the day still weren't done. She and several of the other maids, including Dyoni, were ordered upstairs to the Academy Refectory, where they were to clear tables under the strict supervision of Fionnula. This consisted of collecting and stacking the dirty plates and placing them in huge transmat cabinets, to be sent down to the sanitiser units below. The room was still packed full of students, eating, talking, laughing, flirting, playing jokes on one another. The servants drifted amongst them like shadows, being as unobtrusive as possible.

Tejana had always loved the Refectory. It was one of her favourite places in the Academy. It was also one of the oldest. No-one really knew exactly how long ago it had been built. Like the Great Hall, it had huge windows, looking out through the crystal dome of the Citadel, across the mountains towards the glacial waters of the River Lethe. Sometimes, on a clear day, you could see as far as the distant blue gleam of the Ocean of Bal Soon. Inside, the Refectory was made of beautiful golden stone. Even the long tables and benches were carved from stone, the seats polished smooth by the backsides of countless students, going further back than anybody could remember. In the early morning, when the twin suns rose in the south, the room would slowly fill with a tide of soft golden light that was almost magical. And in the evening, like now, hundreds of phosper lamps glowed from the high, vaulted ceiling, echoing the star-sprinkled night sky outside the windows.

In one of his rare confidences regarding his youth on Gallifrey, the Doctor had once told her that the Deca had always sat at the table nearest the doors, in case any of them ever had to make a quick exit. Even this far back in his history, he had always been ready to run, Tejana reflected sadly, and he had never really stopped. Sure enough, when she glanced up the room towards the carved wooden doors, there they were – ten of them, all seated together. Making sure she still appeared to be working, she studied them carefully, trying to use her knowledge of the Doctor's past to work out which of them was which.

Theta himself was easy, of course. He was gesturing with his fork in the air, his face alight with laughter, obviously in the middle of telling some tall tale.

On his left sat a young man with soft, dark hair and olive skin. Tejana couldn't really see anything of his face, since he was busy kissing the girl next to him. She was tall and slender with long, straight blue hair. Tejana's eyebrows quirked in surprise. And Theta thought MY hair was an unusual colour, she thought wryly. All the other members of the Deca were completely ignoring the couple's passionate display, as though it happened all the time and was therefore unremarkable. Rallon and Millennia. It had to be them. Watching them kissing, so obviously in love, Tejana felt a pang of sadness. Their story was a tragic one and not something the Doctor had ever liked to talk about. From what Tejana had been able to piece together, Rallon of the House of Dvora had been a bit of a trouble-maker – brave, proud, never willing to back down over something he had felt was right. Millennia was his chosen life-mate and they were planning to be married. She was from the House of Brightshore, known for its wealth and power rather than for its intellectual achievements - the same house, in fact, as the nemesis of Tejana's Academy days, Tabor. Millennia had been brilliant, both with computers and as a composer of music, but absent-minded in the extreme, often needing to be reminded to eat or sleep, especially when she was on a creative binge. In the end, the two of them had joined Theta when he stole a TARDIS and travelled to the realm of the Celestial Toymaker. What had meant to be a light-hearted adventure had ended in disaster, with Rallon absorbed as the Toymaker's new host body, and Millennia trapped as one of his living dolls, and Theta had been unable to save either of them. The fifth Doctor had eventually destroyed the Toymaker's realm, centuries later, finally releasing his tortured friends into death.

Tejana forced her eyes to move on. Sometimes foreknowledge of events just wasn't a comfortable thing to have. She recognised the next boy easily enough. It was Jelpax. He was one of the few members of the Deca who had not turned renegade. Instead, he had remained on Gallifrey to become a Co-ordinator of the Matrix. He had lost his life in the Time War, during the battle for the Ramah Phalanx.

The boy beside Jelpax was tall and dark, with saturnine features that were almost satanically handsome. He appeared to be listening to Theta talk, a patronising, perhaps even contemptuous expression on his face. Tejana's fists clenched involuntarily and she almost dropped a plate. This was Magnus, the leader of the Deca - Magnus, who had later become the War Chief. He was ambitious, cunning and filled with an overwhelming lust for power. His clash with the second Doctor had been the direct cause of her father being exiled to Earth for interference in the affairs of the Universe, with Tejana being taken from him and returned in disgrace to Gallifrey. Needless to say, Magnus was hardly her favourite person sitting at the Deca table.

The next person currently didn't rate very highly either. It was Ushas, a haughty expression on her face as she sipped elegantly from her water glass. She was chatting desultorily with someone else Tejana recognised. This was Vansell, who had ended up becoming the Co-ordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency, a covert arm of the High Council formed to protect the interests of Gallifrey by selectively breaking the policy of non-intervention where required. The Doctor hadn't known it at this point, but Vansell had already been working for the CIA even while a member of the Deca, reporting back to his superiors on the actions of his friends in return for a promise of a secure future within the secret organisation. Loyal to Gallifrey to the end, he had been vaporised during Romana's term as Lady President, by the temporal reactors of a Time Station while on an ill-fated expedition to find and retrieve what he had believed were the remains of Rassilon.

Tejana's didn't know the chubby, ferret-faced boy who sat beside Vansell, but by a process of elimination, she supposed it had to be Mortimus, the Time Lord who had eventually become known as the Meddling Monk. He was an amoral individual, who enjoyed twisting and playing with Time to suit his own ends, no matter who got hurt in the process. He had also clashed with the Doctor several times after leaving Gallifrey, but Tejana had no idea what had ended up happening to him and she didn't particularly care.

Her gaze moved on again and her hearts clenched tight with sorrow as she saw a thin-faced boy busily constructing an intricate tower out of cutlery. Drax. Funny, friendly, likeable Drax. A brilliant mechanic, but essentially unambitious, never bothering to plan his life more than a week in advance, and only then if he absolutely had to. All he had ever wanted to do was to travel the Universe and fix things. But he too had died in the Time War, in the battle of the Ramah Phalanx, foolishly trying to defend Tejana's battle-TARDIS from the Horde of Travesties. I'm sorry, Drax...I'm so, so sorry...

She stared at their faces, so young and carefree, laughing and talking with their friends, so unaware of what was to happen to them. So many of their stories ending in tragedy and waste and death. It was like reading the roll-call of the damned.

And then there was the tenth member, the one she had been trying not to think about ever since she realised what era she had ended up in. The handsome, dark-haired boy, just as she remembered him in the portrait she had found centuries from now, hanging in the dusty, abandoned Deca common room. Koschei of the House of Oakdown, sitting at Theta's right hand, the two of them always together, always inseparable. Her Koschei. Her Master. The father of her child. He had his head down, his navy-blue eyes concentrating on a paper napkin he was methodically shredding on to the table, his movements automatic, as though he was deep in thought.

But as her gaze fell on him, he looked up abruptly and their eyes locked across the room. In that one, long instant, it was forcefully brought home to her that he was no longer a picture in a portrait. He was very, very real. For him, this wasn't some long-gone past to regret and grieve over. This was his here and now. And she had just become part of it. Shaken, she managed to avert her eyes, breaking the connection, knowing that she would give herself away if she wasn't very careful. Every instinct warned her that this young version of the Master was even more dangerous to her than Borusa had been.

"Don't waste your time, girl," a tart voice said in her ear.

Tejana gave a small start and turned around, only to see Fionnula standing there, her hands on her angular hips.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said, don't waste your time," Fionnula repeated. "I saw you ogling young Lord Koschei. Don't think you're the first. All the new girls do it, because he's so handsome."

Tejana glared at her. "I wasn't ogling anyone!" she said icily.

"Just as well," Fionnula sniffed. "He's the heir of Oakdown, a descendant of one of the Great Houses of Gallifrey. He wouldn't touch a servant with a ten foot pole, especially a lowlife Shabogan like you. Now, get on with your work."

For a few seconds, Tejana struggled with the mad temptation to throw her heavy armload of plates in the woman's face. She too was a descendant of one of the Great Houses of Gallifrey. She didn't have to tolerate being spoken to like this by a...a nobody! But somehow, with a supreme effort, she managed to control herself.

"As you wish," she responded curtly, before setting her pile of plates down inside the nearest transmat cabinet with a resounding clack.

Then she turned and, with a defiant look at Fionnula, marched straight past her across the room, heading right for the Deca table.

"Master!" the Doctor exclaimed in shock, pulling futilely at the plastic hands of the Roman soldiers that held him.

The Master stepped forward further into the torchlight, smiling widely. "Oh, come on now, Doctor, don't sound so surprised. All your other enemies are here. Did you really think I wouldn't be?"

"I don't understand!" the Doctor yelled. "You lot, all working together in an alliance...how is that possible?"

"The cracks in the skin of the Universe," the Master said. "Haven't you noticed them? Dear me, where do you keep your head? Buried in the sand?"

"All of re-al-ity is threatened!" the white Dalek barked out.

"All Universes will be deleted!" added the Cyber Leader.

"You see?" the Master smirked, spreading his arms in mock helplessness, as if none of this was down to him.

The Doctor shook his head in bewilderment, still not following what was going on. "What? And you've come to me for help?"

Somehow, going by the gloating expression on the Master's face, he doubted that was the answer. But he honestly couldn't see where else this was all leading.

The other Time Lord's eyes blazed with fury. "No!" he spat. "You've heard the legend of the Pandorica, haven't you? How the good wizard tricks the terrible, nameless creature into the box, to be imprisoned for all eternity? And I know you...you've been waiting here, watching it open, imagining that you're the good wizard in this fairy tale, just like you've been in so many others. But here's the kicker, Doctor, the best joke of all, because you're not. This time I'm the good wizard. Hilarious, isn't it?"

With that, he nodded to the Nestene soldiers, who remorselessly began to drag the Doctor towards the Pandorica and the waiting chair. The Doctor fought with all his strength, scrabbling his feet on the ground, trying to gain some purchase, but it was useless.

"We will save the Universe from you," the Sontaran informed him coldly, as he was forced to sit on the chair and metal clamps were placed around his wrists and ankles. A large yoke came down over his shoulders, holding his head in place.

"From me?"

The Cyber-Leader stepped forward. "All projections correlate. All evidence concurs. The Doctor will destroy the Universe."

"No!" the Doctor shouted. "No, no, no, you've got it all wrong!"

"On the contrary, Doctor, they have it precisely right," the Master sneered. "Because I've made sure of it. Who do you think provided them with Amelia Pond's details, so that they could devise a scenario from her memories? You're so predictable, I knew you wouldn't be able to resist! And the Pandorica itself...built to my specifications, down to the very last detail. The perfect prison for a Time Lord. This time there will be no escape for you."

"Why are you doing this, Master?"

The Master moved closer, lowering his voice to a poisonous hiss. "Why do you think? Where is she, Doctor?"

The Doctor blinked incredulously at his old enemy, wondering if the Master had finally lost the last fragile remnant of his sanity. "Who are you talking about?"

"Tejana!" the Master bit out, his brown eyes narrow with anger. "I know she came here to see you. Tell me where she is!"

Koschei sat at the Deca table, allowing the conversation of his friends to flow around him like a river. Theta was enthusiastically explaining the results of his latest experiments with plant/animal hybrids to anybody who would listen, which meant that his audience was currently few and far between, since most of his friends were busy doing something else. Rallon and Millennia were kissing (now that was a surprise); Drax, who could never sit still for two minutes, was constructing a wobbly tower out of knives and forks; Ushas was flirting with Vansell, while pointedly ignoring Theta; and Jelpax was lost in a daydream of his own. Which, aside from Koschei himself, left only Magnus and Mortimus to listen to Theta. And since Magnus regularly disagreed with everything Theta said, as a matter of course, and Mortimus preferred to obsequiously agree with anything anyone said, Koschei soon tired of the conversation and allowed his own mind to wander.

Suddenly he felt a gaze resting on him, as soft and light as a physical caress. Glancing up sharply, he found himself looking across the room at a girl he had never seen before. She was small and delicately-built, dressed in a servant's uniform, with a wealth of fiery hair braided and tightly knotted behind her head. Their eyes caught and held and a charge of electricity seemed to crackle between them.

So this is Theta's Kat, he found himself thinking in shock. The description he had been given by Ushas hardly did her justice. Small she might be, but not scrawny, or built like a little kid. Her curves were not opulent, but from what he could see in the tight black dress, they were more than satisfactory. And as for the carrotty hair...well, he had never seen a carrot the colour of pure, dark, molten copper.

As he stared, fascinated, she ducked her head and pulled her eyes away from his with what felt like a physical wrench. Another woman, also dressed as a servant, spoke to her sharply, evidently reprimanding her. Koschei saw her stiffen in anger. She dumped the pile of dirty plates she was holding and then she was weaving determinedly through the crowded room, stalking towards the Deca table. He had never seen any servant move like that before – her small, slender body both graceful and arrogant, her head held up proudly. And, in that moment, Koschei Oakdown realised he had a real problem.

He wanted her.

It was a problem because he knew he couldn't have her. Firstly, because she was a servant, and servants were less worthy of the attention of the heir of Oakdown than the bugs crawling on the ground. And secondly...secondly, because Theta had seen her first. Something cold and hard tightened in his stomach at the thought.

Still avoiding his eyes, she arrived at their table, by-passing several others in the process, and began to efficiently clear away the debris of their recent meal. Koschei felt a twinge of amusement. When it came to being circumspect and self-effacing like the other servants, she had no idea whatsoever. Her entire bearing implied that she was doing them the favour by cleaning up their mess.

As soon as Theta became aware of her, he broke off what he was saying and his face lit up in a happy grin. "Kat! There you are!"

She inclined her head towards him. "Good evening, my Lord."

"Theta," he corrected. "Is everything all right? The dragon lady didn't punish you down in the kitchen, did she?"

She took the plate from in front of him and added it to the pile balanced on her hip. "No, my Lord. Thanks to you, everything's fine now."

Then she turned to take Koschei's plate, but he was too quick for her, reaching it first and handing it to her.

"This is my best friend, Koschei of the House of Oakdown," Theta said, with the air of someone suddenly remembering his manners.

"My Lord Koschei," she responded, her voice carefully subservient, her eyes looking everywhere else except into his. Big green eyes, just as Ushas had said. But what she hadn't said was how they glowed with a warm, emerald fire – a fire he suddenly wanted to see burning just for him.

He didn't respond to her greeting. But as he gave her the plate, he made sure that his fingers intimately grazed hers. He was rewarded by the feeling of her hand twitching against his, as if her double pulse had just involuntarily leapt. Her skin was so soft, ridiculously soft for a servant, as if she had never done any manual labour before in her life. It made him wonder how soft the rest of her was, under that drab, black dress. A tantalising image rose before him of her slender form naked beneath him on a bed; of staring into those big green eyes and watching her face as he slid slowly inside her.

Dimly, he realised Theta was introducing her to the other members of the Deca. They had all stopped what they were doing to stare curiously at her. Even Rallon and Millennia had managed to break apart for long enough to take in what was going on. Drax, who had no pretensions whatsoever, and in Koschei's opinion, not enough common sense to fill a teaspoon, gave her a cheeky, welcoming grin, before going back to constructing his cutlery tower, which was starting to wobble alarmingly by now. Millennia, who probably wasn't quite sure what day of the week it was, managed to say a vague hello. But none of the others said a word, merely pinning Kat with a cold, blank, collective stare. Ushas stifled a spiteful giggle.

A humiliated flush crept up Kat's neck to her pale cheeks. "I'm just a servant, Lord Theta," she murmured softly, her voice a gentle reproach. "You shouldn't acknowledge me in public like this."

Theta scowled, his jaw set obdurately. "I don't care about that sort of thing!"

"Then perhaps you should," she said. Gathering the remaining plates together, she walked away, losing herself in the shouting, laughing crowd of students.

Theta jumped to his feet, his blue eyes unusually bright with anger as he looked around the table. "You know, sometimes you lot make me really sick!"

With that, he strode over to the nearby doors and left the room.

"Oooooh," Ushas sneered. "Touchy! What does he expect? She's a servant, for Rassilon's sake!"

But Koschei had also had enough for one day. He didn't know exactly how he felt about what had just happened – his ingrained belief that servants should be kept in their place warring with the heated sensations Kat had so inexplicably aroused in him. But he did know he didn't want to listen to Ushas going on about it. "Why don't you do us all a favour and shut the hell up, Ushas?" he snapped, already rising to his feet.

"Go on then, follow him like a little puppy dog, just like you always do!" she called after him, her face ugly with malice. "You're pathetic, Koschei. You'll always be pathetic!"

Koschei just kept walking. At first he couldn't see Theta in the wide, dim passageway outside the Refectory doors. But then, as his eyes adjusted to the lower light, he saw some movement in the shadows against one of the walls. Someone had hauled Theta up against the wall and was holding him by the throat – someone tall and bulky and strong.

"Hello, Theta Sigma," the figure was growling, his face aggressively only inches from Theta's own. "Off for a walk on our own, are we? That's very brave of you."

Theta was coughing and spluttering, desperately trying to fight off the ham-like hand that was crushing his wind-pipe. Koschei had no problem recognising Anzor, the son of the recently inaugurated Lord President Drall. Anzor was a sadist and a bully, who did whatever he felt like, whenever he felt like it, and because of his family connections, nobody ever tried to stop him, even Lord Borusa. Theta and Koschei had first met him when they were eight years old and new to the Academy. He had been much older and bigger, but had only been a few years ahead of them, because he was stupid and found it difficult to pass any of his courses. For some reason, he had taken a violent dislike to Theta and had persecuted him mercilessly, physically tormenting him and regularly forcing him to do his navigational homework for him. He had been bad enough back then, but as the years passed and no-one checked his psychopathic tendencies, he had grown worse and worse, until the sick, twisted individual looking out from behind the little pig-like eyes had no limits to his vileness at all. Ever since the Deca had formed, he had been more wary about coming after Theta. However, now it appeared he had grown tired of waiting.

"He's not on his own!" Koschei said, stepping forward and trying to appear threatening, even though he knew Anzor could probably rip both him and Theta in half without even raising a sweat.

"Back off, Oakdown," Anzor snarled, tightening his grip on Theta's neck even further. "This is none of your concern."

"If it concerns Theta, then it concerns me," Koschei answered flatly. "Let him go."

Anzor laughed in derision. "And who's going to make me? You?"

"And me," another voice spoke up.

Koschei felt Rallon take up a position to his left, his considerable muscles tensed in readiness.

"Count me in," Drax added, suddenly appearing on Koschei's right. He was dancing on his feet and taking playful swipes at the air like a boxer. But his eyes were deadly serious, black with purpose.

Koschei could feel the rest of the Deca moving up behind him, all of them ready to fight, even Ushas. No matter how much they squabbled amongst themselves, a threat to one was a threat to them all. Confident in his back up, a menacing smile spread across his face. "You were saying?" he asked Anzor coldly. "Now, I said, let him go!"

Anzor glared at the small army facing him, his tiny eyes flickering back and forth, obviously calculating his odds. But then he unclenched his hand and allowed Theta to collapse gasping to the floor. Even Anzor wasn't stupid enough to challenge the entire Deca at once.

"Think you're a big man, don't you, Theta Sigma, now you've got all your little friends to protect you? Think I can't touch you?" he blustered. "Well, you think wrong. I can shred you, any time I want!"

Whirling around, he stomped furiously off down the hall. Then he paused and turned back, a sly, triumphant expression on his meaty face. "Saw you talking to that pretty little servant girl. She's quite tasty, isn't she? Very tasty, indeed."

Theta sat bolt upright in alarm. "Leave her alone!" he rasped.

Anzor smirked, knowing he had hit a nerve. "Maybe I will...and maybe I won't..." he taunted, before disappearing up the passageway.