Chapter 3

Alliance Vortex Monitoring Outpost 37

3.4 Light Years from Sol

Throughout the Alliance, a string of outposts existed for one purpose only, to monitor the Vortex, and look for any kind of anomalies lurking within the turbulent tunnel of time.

Outpost 37 was special, it was concerned with only one planet. And that planet was Earth.

For reasons not entirely understood by the Alliance Science Ministry, Earth was a hotbed of temporal activity. It's Artron Count was one of the highest in the Galaxy.

Right now Outpost 37 was quiet. That was going to change very soon.

It was late in the 'day' and most of its crew were either resting, socializing with friends or a few alternative activities.

All expect for Lieutenant Defid.

It was Defids turn to do the overnight shift in the Control Centre. It wasn't mandatory for there to be such a shift, but Professor Telsen was keen for there to be someone to keep an eyestalk on what was going on. Defid was happy to oblige. After all, it would give him time to do some reading.

Defid was an avid history buff, and it was an interest he shared with the Professor. The Professor had left a pile of books on Defids desk, much to his excitement. Not datacards, but actual books! Defid was acutely aware that they were precious to the Professor, and therefore should be treated with the reverence and love they most certainly deserved.

The book Defid was currently reading was a collection of Kaled stories for children, written decades before the War, which was why books like this were so valued. There were so few of them left.

He turned the page gently, making sure not to so much as leave the slightest smear from his small, thin tentacle. The current tale, The Thal Who Came Home, was a personal favourite. The Professor had once said that this was probably the last Kaled story written where a Thal was shown in a positive light. But, even at the point when this story was written, the rot had already began to set in.

Defid yawned. His small, round mouth opening wide and emitting a quiet, content yawn. The gums were toothless. Oh, small dentures were available, but there wasn't really much point. It's not like they could ingest solid food.

Not that Defid was ungrateful, far from it. Their Nursery Group had had the mutation that plagued their kind reversed to such an extent that they were able to take food in liquid form, they even needed to sleep. But, best of all, it allowed them to survive outside of their protective shell.

Defid gave silent thanks to Alpha and Beta that they, no that he, could live the life he did.

Gender was something that had only been reintroduced a few dozen Groups before his. There wasn't a law to say you had to stick to that gender, that wasn't the Dalek way, but he liked to. He thought it was what helped make him, well, him.

Dalek society was built around the importance of the individual, a far cry from the Dark Days. Now there was a part of history that Defid stayed away from. He'd had his fill of the Time of Davros whilst he was at the Science Academy. It depressed him deeply thinking about his ancestors, and their abhorrent lust for power and conquest. The Dalek Alliance, from it's inception, believed that history had an important part to play in their fledgling society. To show those who came after the truth about their past. Every dark, evil part of it.

Defid yawned again, he was getting tired. Not a promising start to the night shift. He was sure he'd get his second wind in the small hours of the morning.

As he turned another page, a discreet beeping noise emanated from the main Monitoring Station.

Defid sighed as he looked over at the console. What now? He thought, a tingle of excitement helped shake off the mental cobwebs.

He gently closed the book.

"Return." He said, in a small, quiet voice.

His control chair began to move quietly back into the shell of his Travel Machine. As he moved back inside, he replaced the headset over the small nub of a ear to the left of his eye.

At first glance, Defid would not look too dissimilar to his ancestors. He was, and this never failed to make him chuckle, a glorified blob with bits.

His one large eye was a dark brown, his skin was a pleasant light blue. His 6 tentacles allowed him to manipulate objects, and even move around outside his Machine.

And, best of all, they allowed him to swim!

Swimming had become one of the biggest pastimes on Skaro these days. Everyone swam. He'd even competed in a few swimming competitions in his Academy days.

The casing sealed with a series of soft clicks. Unlike the early Daleks, Defid and his kind were not 'hard wired' into the Travel Machine. They controlled it in the same way a biped would control a vehicle. And they treated them as such.

Defid hummed to himself as he brought his Machines systems online. A series of small screens lit up in front of him, showing him a wide range of information. Everything from the current status of the Outpost, to personal communications.

He listened keenly to the voices over the open channel on his headset. Another cherished pastime of the Daleks was bickering. Good natured, extensive bickering. It was, after all, the creed of the Alliance to question everything. Within reason of course.

The current discussion on the open channel was in relation to current situation on Traken. Both the Alliance and Time Lords had offered their services as mediators in the civil war. The discussion was should they apply a small amount of pressure to their requests. This was seemingly universally rejected.

Defid gave the debate half an ear as he maneuvered his Machine to the beeping console. Once he saw what the cause of the alert was, he shut off the debate feed and gave the computer his full, undivided attention.

This was bad, he thought. Very bad.

Earth's Artron count had just spiked well and truly into the red.

Defid activated the internal comms system.

"This is Lieutenant Defid. I'm enacting an Ultra One Emergency. Repeat, Ultra One. Professor Telson to the Command Centre, please."

Throughout the station, sirens began to shout out the alert. Red and purple lights began to flash on every corridor, in every room.

In the pool, Professor Telsen hurried to his Machine, and set it moving at a high speed, not even waiting for the Machine to seal.

He charged down the corridor, repeating 'sorry, my fault' as he nearly collided with other crew members who were hurrying to their own posts.

As he headed towards the door to the Command Centre, he saw the Outpost Commander almost flying down the corridor towards him.

The OC's eyestalk was moving up and down frantically, the triangular eyepiece at the end span just as frantically. He was obviously more than a little concerned.

They met at the door to the Command Centre, the OC gave a silent nod of his eyestalk to indicate Telsen should enter first.

With a quick word of thanks, Telsen swept through the doors.

"Well, Defid. What have you got to show me?"

Without taking his eyestalk from the display, Defid began to tell the Professor what he'd seen.

The Professor listened, and waited for Defid to finish before speaking.

"Earth's Artron Count is actually higher than normal?"

Defid nodded his eyestalk. "Yes. I didn't think that would even be possible?"

"Nor me." Added the OC as he joined them at the console.

The Professor thought for a moment. "Dafid, would you mind if I..?"

Defid moved away from the console. "Not at all, Professor."

The Professor moved into the space just vacated by Defid, and began to manipulate the controls with the two three-pronged manipulators at the front of his Machine.

As he typed, data flew across the screen. Lines and lines of numbers, notation, and other symbols.

It was these other symbols that got his attention.

"Commander. Have we got any ships nearby?"

The OC thought for a second. "Yes. Captain Skargols not long left us after a resupply run."

"Good. Please inform the Captain he is to set course for Earth. But he's not to make planetfall until I know a bit more."

"A bit more? About what?"

Telsen indicated the strange symbols on the readout. "About why they're all going to Earth."

Defid understood. The reason for Earth's Artron Count going haywire was because, for some reason a large group of Time Lords were heading there, or were already there.

Why? He had no idea.

But he did know it meant things were about to get very complicated indeed.

He wouldn't have got any comfort from knowing that he was 100% right.