Author's Note: Yes, finally an update :) Thanks to all those people who kept the faith, you have inspired me to come back to this and try to finish it. Happy New Year to you all.

- Chapter 33 -

"The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me,

And I cannot, cannot go..."

-Emily Bronte

They had no sooner de-materialised the ancient Type-30 TARDIS when disaster struck.

At first everything seemed to go brilliantly well. Theta and Koschei moved in perfect synch, flipping switches and pulling levers like veterans, easily re-enacting the take-off sequence drummed into them during their long hours in the Academy flight simulators. The TARDIS responded immediately to their commands, and as soon as Koschei pulled the de-materialisation lever, it faded in and out and vanished, just before the security patrol marched past.

"Whew, that was too close," Theta remarked fervently, sagging against the console in a heartfelt sigh of relief.

Glancing over at Koschei, he saw that his friend's eyes were glittering with a hot mixture of excitement and triumph. "We're doing it, Theta. We're actually flying a TARDIS! You and me, together!" As he spoke, he was circling the console, his long-fingered hands lingering over the controls in an almost possessive fashion, checking on data read-outs and power levels.

Theta shook his head and turned to the navigation terminal, beginning to shuffle through the available co-ordinate settings.

"Flying her is the easy part," he responded grimly. "But I don't think landing her will be quite so simple. Temporally speaking, Borusa's study no longer exists in the space/time continuum. The TARDIS navigation system won't recognise those co-ordinates."

"Then we'll have to set her down as close as we can," Koschei said. "Kat's relying on us to come back for her as soon as possible. We can't let her down."

The words had no sooner left his lips when a sonorous clang rang through the control room of the stolen ship, echoing loudly.

Koschei stiffened and looked around him in alarm. "What the hell?"

"It's the cloister bell," Theta exclaimed, both his hearts turning cold as the ominous sound reverberated again. "The TARDIS warning system. It means..."

"...we're in grave danger. Yeah, I know the theory as well as you do, Lungbarrow!" Koschei snapped back, his eyes raking the controls. "The question is why?"

But Theta's attention had been caught by the data scrolling across the navigation terminal. Staring in horror, he saw the word 'Malfunction' flashing in glaring red text, over and over again. "Oh, sweet Rassilon!" he croaked.

"What?" Koschei demanded, hurrying around to join him.

"It's the helm!" Theta swallowed hard. "There's some sort of fault. That must be the reason this TARDIS was in dry dock in the first place."

The dark-haired boy went pale, seizing the terminal screen and swinging it around to face him. "Are you telling me you stole a TARDIS with a defective navigation system?"

"No, I'm saying WE stole a TARDIS with a defective navigation system, Kos!" Theta retorted. "And right now, I think we're being randomly tossed out into the Time Vortex."

"There has to be something we can do!" Wildly, Koschei began to work on the console. "If we tri-phase the auxiliary power relay and bypass the helmic regulator..."

Theta shook his head. "It won't help. You'll short out the thermo-buffer and fry the Zeiton crystals."

"Then we need to manually adjust the time-cone isometry and parallel-bus it through the Absolute Tesseractulator!"

"Even assuming that would work, we don't have time!"

Koschei's fists slammed down on the console in fury and frustration. "Then you suggest something, Theta. Because otherwise, the universe is going to end while we're twiddling our thumbs, stuck out in the middle of nowhere!"

The ship was beginning to shudder now, great wracking tremors, tearing through the control room and nearly throwing them off their feet. Both young Time Lords were forced to cling to the console like limpets, their eyes fixed desperately on the data screens. In the background, the cloister bell continued to toll dolefully, like a giant, fading heartbeat.

"It's worse that that, Kos, we're spinning out of control. If we don't do something soon, this TARDIS is going to be ripped to pieces by the Time Winds... and us with it!"

"Pull yourselves together, you two young idiots!"

The scathing voice cut through the clamour like an ice-cold knife. Both boys whirled around simultaneously, almost forgetting to keep hold of the console in their shock. Behind them, there was a shimmer, just like a heat-haze, which slowly resolved into the outline of a figure. It was a man, dressed in strange clothes of shabby black, all except for the single band of blood-red at his waist. His hair was platinum-blonde, tousled and rough-cut, and he had a thin face, with heavily stubbled cheeks. A pair of whiskey-coloured eyes glared at them, barely leashed fury written in every line of his body.

Theta blinked, realising he could see right through the apparition, to the roundelled wall beyond. "It's the TARDIS voice interface. Did you activate it?"

"Not me," Koschei shook his head, staring in confusion at the ghostly, rippling avatar. "It must be part of the malfunction."

"I am the Master," the hologram announced. "I'm using this voice interface to communicate with you. You will obey my every command. We're running out of time."

"Obey you?" Theta fought to keep his balance, as the TARDIS gave another particularly violent lurch. "Why should we?"

The image rippled, shredded by a wave of static, then reformed. "Because I'm the only one that can tell you how to fix this old crate and save your worthless skins, that's why!"

"We've never seen you before in our lives," Koschei snarled. "Why should we trust you?"

The hologram smiled. A mirthless, dangerous smile that sent a shiver up Theta's spine. There was something about this man, something oddly familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He couldn't shake the feeling that he should recognise him. Not his face. No, it was the arrogant way he held himself, the compelling look in his eyes, that chilling smile...

"You have no choice. This ship is heading for disaster and it's taking you with it. Now, do what I say. You need to deactivate the temporal stabiliser and then immediately pull down the transitional element control rod."

Koschei's breath hissed through his teeth, his expression incredulous. "Are you insane? If we do that, we'll exit the interstitial continuum at the perihelion of a temporal ellipse."

"It's the only way to induce buffering in the ship's harmonic wave packet transference."

"It's also the best way to inadvertently sever the fluid links!"

Silently, Theta watched them argue, his best friend and the mysterious hologram, his head going back and forth like a spectator in a human tennis match. Stunned realisation was beginning to dawn in the back of his mind. The more he saw of the image being used by the voice interface, the clearer the revelation became, despite the fact that he knew it to be impossible.

"Koschei..." he breathed.

But the other boy wasn't listening. His attention was solely consumed by the ghostly avatar facing him. "Forget it!" His raised voice was fairly vibrating with anger. "There's too much riding on this. I can figure it out myself!"

"Koschei!" Theta tried again, just as the TARDIS pitched sharply to the left. The whole room was shaking wildly now, the cloister bell sounding more and more urgent.

"No! I've got this, Thete!" Stubborn to the end, Koschei's hands moved frenziedly over the controls, flicking switches and typing in commands. "I can do it. Kat's relying on me! I know I can save her!"

Anger and frustration blazed in the eyes of the flickering hologram. "Don't be a fool! They're going to kill her! They're going to kill my wife!"

The young Time Lord's head jerked up, his jaw set like steel. "Your wife? How can she be your wife? Who are you?"

Clinging to the edges of the juddering console, Theta inched his way around to grasp his friend's arm. Somehow he had to stop him. Somehow he had to make him understand. "Koschei, look at him! Properly, just look! Don't you see? He's... you!"

"Me? What in the seven hells are you - "

Slowly, the words died in Koschei's throat. Standing side by side, the two young Time Lords stared at the hologram of the Master, looking down the long corridor of time, seeing the distant future. "Oh gods...!"

"That's right," the Master confirmed, his brown gaze bitter. "Many centuries ago, I was known as Koschei Oakdown. You're what I once was. And I'm what you will become. The Master - the greatest temporal engineer Gallifrey has ever known. But not unless you do as I say. Because if you don't, you'll die here, right here, right now. And so will she."

The dark-haired boy swallowed hard, trying to get his head around the enormity of the fact that he was facing an older version of himself, in contravention of every law he'd ever been taught. But then his face hardened and he turned to Theta.

"You deactivate the temporal stabiliser. I'll take the transitional control rod. Let's do this."

Theta nodded his agreement. Reaching out, he positioned his hand over the necessary switch. The lights were flickering madly now, the silent scream of the TARDIS ripping through their minds as they tumbled helplessly through the Time Vortex. Koschei wrapped his fingers around the transitional control rod and his eyes came up to meet Theta's. This too, like everything else, they would do together. In the background, the silvery hologram rippled with tension, the shadow-Master unable to do anything but watch.

"Three, two, one... NOW!"

The Panopticon was crowded to capacity with Time Lords. As Tejana was dragged out on to the central platform, she realised she was surrounded by a sea of faces, tier after tier of them, rising high all the way to the magnificently vaulted roof.

"You don't do anything by halves, do you?" she muttered to Lord Oakdown, her voice low and disdainful.

"What do you expect, my dear? I am an Oakdown," he replied mockingly. "Our people are here to see the execution of a traitor... and that is what they shall have."

He nodded maliciously towards the large transparent cylinder that had been set up in the centre of the platform. Despite her best efforts, a stab of fear shot through Tejana's hearts. She didn't have to be told what it was. A dispersal chamber. The device used to execute Gallifrey's most heinous criminals. Once it was activated, she and her baby would be atomised and scattered to the nine corners of the universe. The pain was said to be excruciating.

A cold sweat broke out on her brow and her hands clenched involuntarily into fists at her sides. But at the same time, her chin came up proudly. She was the Heiress of Lungbarrow. If she had to die, then she would do it with dignity. She would never give Lord Oakdown the satisfaction of seeing her cringe.

He strode forward, his robes sweeping the ground majestically, and raised his arms to the waiting crowd, asking for silence.

"Citizens of Gallifrey!" His voice boomed out, smooth and mesmerising, the perfect acoustics of the Panopticon chamber requiring no augmentation. "You have been summoned here today as witnesses, to a just and lawful punishment."

The two guards shuffled Tejana forward, keeping her pinned between them, displaying her like a trophy to the assembled Time Lords. In comparison to their bulk, she looked tiny and helpless, like a small fragile doll. But there was no pity for her here, no mercy. Wherever she looked, she saw faces filled with condemnation.

"This woman has broken one of the most fundamental Laws of Time. She has travelled back on her own time line, transgressing the Protocols of Linearity. Worse, she has meddled with the history of Gallifrey itself, causing temporal fractures which we are even now still attempting to repair, and which threaten the stability of the entire causal nexus. According to our ancient and most honourable laws, there is only one possible punishment for crimes of such severity."

"Death." A single word, soaring in reply, emanating from a thousand mouths. "Death. Death. Death. Death."

The chant rose like a prayer, echoing to the vaulted ceiling, the volume overwhelming, like a mighty river. Tejana heard a roaring in her ears and her legs would have folded beneath her, if the guards hadn't held her upright. Was this how it was all destined to end? She'd survived so much, lived through the horrors of the Time War, only to be executed by her own people for a crime she hadn't committed.

Her eyes dropped down to her belly, blurred by stinging tears.

I'm sorry, my son. I would have saved you, if I could. I would have given anything to see your face, just once. Just to see you smile...

Lord Oakdown raised his hands for silence again, his body radiating smugness.

"In accordance with the penal code of Gallifrey, a Time Lord found guilty by the High Council of crimes against the peoples of the Universe shall be executed forthwith, without formal trial." He stood straight and tall, his bearing authoritative and commanding, with every appearance of a man doing nothing but his duty. "Following a most regrettable accident to our most beloved President, Lord Drall, I now speak with the authority of the High Council, and Acting President Umbast. I hereby sentence this woman to death, with the execution to be carried out immediately, witnessed by the General Assembly of Time Lords, as proscribed by the law."

A murmur of approval rippled through the gathering. Vainly, Tejana searched the hostile faces for Koschei and Theta, to no avail. They weren't there. They weren't coming... and she was alone.

"Officers, escort the prisoner to the dispersal chamber."

Numbly, she stood on the silver disc within the transparent cylinder, as the two guards secured her wrists in the waiting shackles. Then, they retreated outside, sealing the capsule, and with it, her fate.

Tejana closed her eyes, screening out the crowd, and waited to die.