The Split Initiative - Part 1

Featuring the Alternate 4th Doctor, Ellie Finch and Susan

Gallifrey, sometime in the distant past...

Commander Vornig sprinted back to his TARDIS, ready to undertake his mission to find the fugitive only known as 'the Zero Man'. Vornig was, in his seventh incarnation, a young man with extremely short black hair, a rough face and a scar under his left eye.
"Commander," Cardinal Heevos asked via the comms unit in his left pocket, "we've detected temporal anomalies surrounding Gallifrey. If you attempt to dematerialise, then your TARDIS will be caught in a time storm so powerful that it could catapult entire planets into new timelines."
"I understand, Cardinal. But this mission is important. I must get to the Zero Man and defeat him before it's too late." Vornig replied, entering his TARDIS and taking off. But that would prove to be his biggest mistake: alarms began to blare and red lights began to flash all over the console. The ominous clang of the cloister bell was drowned out by everything else and Vornig was thrown across the console room, as large explosions occurred all around him.
The doors flew open and the walls then began to slowly collapse. Vornig's body simply drifted out, into the Time Vortex.

Another TARDIS was also flying through the Time Vortex, but thankfully wasn't affected by the time storm. This TARDIS took the form of a tall blue police box and contained three passengers: the Doctor, a Time Lord from another universe; Susan, another Time Lord from another universe and Ellie Finch, a human from this universe. They had just been to Petrakis, a planet which exported carrots to the Vylax Empire, but they had exploited the fact that the carrots contained a drug that turned the population into large pools of gunk.
"Now that's odd," the Doctor remarked, "the TARDIS has detected something in the Vortex."
"What is it? Is it another TARDIS?" Susan wondered, joining her grandfather at the console.
"No, it appears to be a Time Lord, floating through the Vortex."
He walked round the console, adjusting the controls and strapping a strange harness onto himself.
"Doctor, are you sure? That harness doesn't look safe." Ellie commented, standing at the console with Susan, whilst the Doctor walked over to the doors, a strap leading from the console to his harness.
"Don't worry, I once used this harness to go swimming in a vortex whale." the Doctor confidently responded, opening the doors and diving outside the TARDIS, reaching to grab the hand of the Time Lord that was so very close. He grabbed his hand and swam back into the TARDIS, shutting the doors behind him.
"I never expected that to work," the Doctor said, beaming, "so now we've got him, who is he?"

A few minutes later, the Time Lord reawoke and glanced around him, amazed at the interior of the Doctor's ship.
"Where am I?" he asked, sounding quite dizzy.
"Hi, you're in my ship, the TARDIS." the Doctor explained, "I'm the Doctor, this is Susan and this is Ellie."
"You're the Doctor?"
"Yes. Who are you? And what were you doing in the Time Vortex?"
"My TARDIS got damaged and threw me out. It must have drifted through time and landed somewhere. I'm Commander Vornig, by the way."
"I see."
"Here, this has my TARDIS's biological trace on it."
Vornig chucked a small metal sphere at the Doctor and then the Doctor inserted it into the console, making a set of co-ordinates pop-up. These co-ordinates made the Doctor feel very afraid.
"They're bad co-ordinates, aren't they?" Ellie deduced.
"Oh, you have no idea." the Doctor replied, before saying to Vornig, "Your TARDIS is on Earth in the early twenty-first century. But there's something wrong with it."
"What do you mean, Doctor? What's gone wrong?"
"Vornig's TARDIS, Ellie, is also showing up in the twentieth century on Earth. One object can't simultaneously exist in two different centuries. Well, not a TARDIS."
"Are you sure that somebody didn't steal it and travel back in time?"
"Certain."
The Doctor pulled out two small brown vortex manipulators from beneath the console and gave them to Vornig and Ellie.
"You two, go back to the past TARDIS and have a poke about. I'll sent you the co-ordinates and I'll pick you up if things get ugly." he explained, zapping the two devices with the sonic screwdriver and waving them off. Ellie and Vornig then vanished with a blue flash, leaving the Doctor and Susan alone in the TARDIS.
"Grandfather, will we explore the future TARDIS?" Susan asked.
"Exactly Susan. Exactly."

Ellie and Vornig arrived outside a dull grey house, but Ellie soon noticed that the windows looked odd.
"I think that that's your TARDIS." she deduced, pointing at the house.
"Are you sure? Doesn't feel like my TARDIS." Vornig replied, taking out a scanner and pointing it at the house. It bleeped wildly and a green light flashed: it was his TARDIS. He smiled at Ellie and they walked up to the door. Vornig then produced a set of emergency skeleton keys, inserted one of them in and entered the house.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Susan had arrived in London, 2020, and were slowly making their way round the streets, trying to find Vornig's TARDIS.
"Grandfather, why did you want me back?" she asked him, as he was wandering around with his sonic screwdriver held in front of him.
"Oh Susan." he replied with a smile, stopping and turning to face her, "I couldn't live without you. Ever since I originally lost you, I always wanted to go back and
save you. I've lost too many friends recently and I got given an opportunity to get a friend back, so I couldn't opt out."
She hugged him, a tear dribbling down her cheek, before noticing a kiosk that looked very unusual: it was closed and yet it looked very much like it was open. There was a small door at the back of the kiosk, which clearly seemed to Susan like the entrance to a TARDIS.
"Grandfather, I think that's the TARDIS we're looking for. It seems like it doesn't belong here." Susan deduced.
"Perhaps it has a faulty perception filter, which makes me rather worried. Ask me why."
"Why?"
"Because perception filters don't break that easily."
The Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at the door and activated it, making the brown door slide wide open. The two travellers then saw what appeared to be the inside of a TARDIS, except it looked as if there was some dimensional damage.
The Doctor smiled excitedly at Susan and the pair of them walked inside.

Ellie and Vornig were now standing inside the house and discovered that the console room had just vanished. The inside of Vornig's TARDIS was just a house.
"This cannot be possible." Vornig remarked, "This is my ship. My home. Yet it's been damaged so much. How did this happen?"
"I don't know. But we'll get answers. I promise." Ellie promised, "That's what the Doctor would do."
There then was a thud. Then another. And another. Ellie glanced around in fear, rushing to the door to see what was outside. Vornig examined a small scanner in his hand, his eyes looking more worried by the minute. Ellie opened the door and looked outside.
There was complete and utter blackness.
The TARDIS was in an empty void.

Inside the future TARDIS, the Doctor noticed something odd: the doors were open and yet they led into another control room. The same control room.
"Now this is odd." he remarked, stepping from one control room to another, "The dimensional engineering has been damaged more than I expected."
"Grandfather, why would someone want to target a Time Lord's TARDIS? Surely that's what we should be worrying about." Susan asked, making the Doctor smile.
"And that's why I take you with me, Susan! Because you're right. I should have been wondering about Vornig. Who is he? Actually, hold that thought."
He rushed over to the console, investigating the TARDIS database. After a few moments, he gazed at the small screen embedded in the console and stared at it in shock.
"Grandfather? What's wrong?"
"The Zero Man. A figure from Gallifreyan myth."
"The Zero Man. But what could a Time Lord have discovered about the Zero Man?"
"I think I know."
"Why don't you say it then?"
"Because the answer terrifies me."

Ellie and Vornig decided to step out of the TARDIS into the void and found that the ground was, unusually, solid. They were on a planet.
"This is very odd," Vornig said, jumping up and ground, "why would somebody want to keep a planet secret?"
"Dunno. Something's wrong though. Vornig, can you think of any reason that someone would want to attack you in any way?"
"Well, there was the Zero Man."
This was a new surprise.
"Who's the Zero Man?"
"A figure from Gallifreyan legend. He apparently came from hell, only that he came to Gallifrey in a TARDIS."
"There was a TARDIS in hell?"
"Exactly. Nobody knows how that TARDIS got there, or whose TARDIS it originally was. But I managed to discover the true identity of the Zero Man, because the Zero Man is just what Rassilon called him, a long time ago."
"Him? Who?"

The Doctor and Susan held on for their lives, as the TARDIS began to take off. The time rotor rose and fell, but red lights were flashing all over the console. The usual calm wheeze of the time ship was replaced by a harsh whinny, like an innocent horse in pain.
"Hold on, Susan, hold on!" the Doctor cried, as a black haired man, dressed in a black suit, white shirt, black waistcoat, trousers and tie, suddenly appeared, brandishing a powerful-looking laser blaster.
"Don't worry, Doc, I'll take it from here." he casually said, firing the blaster at the console and making the TARDIS unleash one final cry of pain before ultimately dying. The Doctor and Susan then collapsed to the floor, looking up at him shortly afterwards.
"Who are you?" the Doctor asked.
"Don't you recognise me? Oh, sorry. New face. Let me take it from the beginning then. I'm the Zero Man and I've come with a message from home."
"What's the message?"
He aimed his blaster at the Doctor's head.
"Save your universe, or die."

TO BE CONTINUED...