CHAPTER 4

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THE HOUR OF THE WRECKER

Reinette briefly looked in on Josette to see that she was still sleeping and smiled as she quietly closed the door. Her young friend had been asleep for at least ten hours now which showed just how worn out that she was from her long journey to get help from her.

"Do you want me to wake her, Marquise?" One of the palace servants asked.

"No, just let her rest," Reinette said in a soft tone.

"She's using your bed though and you need some sleep yourself. You look tired," The servant said.

Then she caught herself knowing that she was speaking out of place here since she was not a member of the aristocracy even if she did regard Reinette as a friend and said, "I'm sorry. I . . ."

"It's alright. You were just worrying about me, Gabrielle, and I appreciate it. I'm fine though. I've had nights where I haven't slept before so I'm already used to it,' Reinette said in a sad voice.

Gabrielle nodded knowing that she was referring to all of those nights that she had been terrorized by the mechanical men. No one else had believed her about them when she had been growing up but she always had. She had believed her because she had seen them herself once. She had just been terrified to admit it to anyone else but the young Jeanne.

The two of them had bonded over that and had been friends ever since then with Gabrielle always constantly looking out for her as she watched her grow from a terrorized child into one of the most powerful people in France.

She couldn't help but think that the mechanical men had had something to do with that and that Reinette had become so powerful in order to make sure that no one else could ever make her feel that helpless again. Perhaps that was also why she tried to help others so much so that no one else ever had to feel that way either.

In a way those traumatic events had made her who she was and had helped define her even as they left a series of hidden scars on her psyche.

"Let her sleep as long as she wants and then make sure that she's well fed when she wakes up. Don't let her go home no matter how much she complains. Not until the Musketeers tell me that it's safe there," Reinette ordered.

Gabrielle nodded and then bowed as Clara and Amy came into the room. Clara frowned while Amy looked uncomfortable in more ways than one.

"Gaby, how many times do I have to tell you that you don't have to do that when it's just me and Jeanne? Amy, will you stop scratching and tugging at your dress? It's annoying," Clara said.

"Stop it, Clara. You sound like a teacher disciplining her students. Gabrielle and Amy are both our friends," Reinette said.

"Of course they are but that doesn't mean that I can't tease them does it?" Clara said with a smile.

"For your information, Shorty, this dress is extremely itchy and is way too tight plus I can't even see my feet. I just keep bumping into things. How did you people ever stand to wear these things? It's just like being inside of a Dalek," Amy complained.

"No wonder you can't see your feet. You're about twenty feet tall. I'm surprised that you even remember what they look like," Clara joked.

"If you weren't a Baroness . . ." Amy said with a scowl.

"Don't let that stop you. Finish that sentence for us, Giant Girl," Clara said with a mocking smile.

Gabrielle started to laugh despite herself and probably would have continued to do so for several minutes if Captain Lefevre hadn't suddenly entered the room in the very next moment. Lefevre rushed straight towards Reinette in a hurry which instantly told her that he had just found out something very, very important.

"Marquise, we have captured one of the potato heads alive which was much harder than you would think since they refused to surrender no matter how outnumbered they were," Lefevre said in an out of breath voice.

"I understand, Captain. That's because the Sontarans consider it cowardly to surrender," Reinette said as she gestured for him to continue.

"The one that we did capture finally told us why he and his brothers are here. They're after another set of monsters who can disguise themselves as human beings just like the mechanical men. They know that they're here somewhere, but they don't know where yet. I came to warn you as soon as I heard the potato head's story. They could be after the King," Lefevre said.

"So the Rutans are here too then. They've brought their horrible war to Earth," Reinette said with a sigh.

"How do you know about that? Did the Doctor tell you?" Amy asked in surprise.

"In a way. I have many of his memories since I explored his mind," Reinette said.

"It wouldn't be the first time that the Rutans have tried to interfere in Earth's history. The Doctor and I came across them in England once, and they were a part of the Gunpowder Plot against the English King. Maybe they're up to their old tricks again," Amy said.

"I should warn the king," Lefevre said in alarm after hearing this.

"Yes, you should but do it in private. There's no need to cause a panic just yet. Could you have the Sontaran brought here in secret? I'd like to question him myself," Reinette said.

Lefevre's face fell as he said, "The potato head managed to get free after he told us about his enemies, and he tried to kill several of our men. We had no choice but to . . ."

Reinette nodded and interrupted him as she said, "I understand. It's their way, Captain. They would lose honor if they didn't die in battle. It's not your fault. So is the village cleared of them now?"

"Yes, for the moment. I'm not sure if that was all of them or not though. There could easily be others roaming about the countryside," Lefevre said.

"I agree so continue to look for them and let me know if you find any more of them. Until then, I'll just have to be on the lookout for anyone acting strangely here," Reinette said.

"Maybe I should leave a pair of Musketeers here to guard you," Lefevre offered.

"No, I'll be fine. You need all of the men that you can get. Besides that, I already have Clara and Amy with me. No Rutan would dare to come near me with them constantly squabbling with one another nearby at all times. They'd be too afraid," Reinette said with a mischievous smile.

"Very funny," Clara said with a frown.

Lefevre nodded even though his expression told Reinette that he was still unsure about leaving her there undefended. Then he swiftly left to go warn the king.

"The Rutans could be posing as anyone and they could already be here in the palace right now. This is just wonderful. No Doctor, no Rory, but still plenty of aliens around. I just can't get away from murderous aliens out to kill me no matter how hard I try," Amy said in disbelief.

"It's going to be alright, Amy. We'll find them and then we'll quickly put an end to whatever they're up to on this planet. I will not have this war brought to France," Reinette said in a stern voice.

Amy smiled at her as she said, "You know when you say it like that I almost believe it."

"You should. She usually winds up doing exactly what she says that she will no matter how mad it might sound at the time," Clara said.

"I never sound mad, Clara," Reinette said indignantly.

"Sure you don't," Clara said with a smile.

"You two are so sisters," Amy said with a grin.

"I wish," Clara said meaning it which earned her a warm smile from Reinette.

Suddenly they were interrupted by a woman with a veil who knocked and then walked inside of Reinette's room without even waiting for her to give her permission to enter. Reinette couldn't help but smile as she could already see from the look on Clara's face that she was going to give her a piece of her mind for that.

"What's the hurry, Lady Swift? I'm sure that it must be something very important for you to forget your manners," Clara said.

Lady Swift, one of the King's inner circle, glared at Clara for a moment before smiling at Reinette as she said, "Marquise, is something wrong?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Why? What did you think was happening?" Reinette said refusing to tell the woman anything as she was a well-known troublemaker.

"Well, I saw the captain of the Musketeers come walking out of here in a very worried state, Marquise. He then went straight to the king and they both went into the king's quarters to talk. I assumed that meant something. Another one of your monster attacks, perhaps?" Lady Swift asked.

"No, it's nothing of the kind. The Captain had just heard some rumors of a possible war with Spain once again that he wished to tell to the King. I'm sure that the rumors are groundless of course. You know how rumors are. Most of the time they're completely untrue," Reinette said as she tried to get the woman to go away.

"Yes, of course. I quite agree with you on that, Marquise," Lady Swift said.

She then turned to leave but suddenly stopped as she said, "It's just that I heard the Captain whisper something to the king about monsters in the palace, and I just had this very strange thought."

"And what strange thought was that?" Reinette asked as something about Lady Swift's manner immediately started to set off alarm bells in her mind and made her reach into her pocket for her sonic pen.

"I thought that maybe the Captain was warning both you and the King about shape changing monsters in the palace. It's a silly idea I know," Lady Swift said without turning around again.

"Yes, it's quite silly I assure you. Don't worry about it, Lady Swift. Just go on about your day. If we find a Rutan here, I'll let you be the first one to know," Reinette said.

"I never said anything about a Rutan," Lady Swift said in a cold voice.

"I know but you certainly know what one is, don't you?" Reinette said.

"And apparently so do you!" Lady Swift shouted as she whirled around with a Rutan gun in her hand.

Before she could even pull the trigger on it though, Reinette immediately activated her sonic pen from inside of her dress pocket. She quickly used it to overload the alien gun and caused it to explode in Lady Swift's hand!

Lady Swift screamed in agony as she cradled a broken, battered hand. She briefly switched forms from human to Rutan before reassuming her human form once more with the hand now fully healed again. She probably would have attacked the others instantly if Reinette wasn't aiming her sonic pen at her.

Reinette of course had no idea how to use it to injure the Rutan or even if she could. The Rutan certainly didn't have to know that though.

She practically hissed in anger now as she said, "You won't stop us no matter how much you know, human."

"Others have told me that before but they were quickly proven to be wrong and so will you. I will find out what you're up to, and then I will save my home from you," Reinette promised.

Lady Swift laughed as she said, "You don't even know what it is you're up against do you? Even if you did, you couldn't stop it. Your primitive ape brain couldn't even begin to comprehend how to stop our weapon now even if you did find it."

"A weapon? Is that what this is all about? Yet another weapon to be used in your terrible war?" Reinette asked in disgust.

"The last time that I met them it was about a lot more than that, Reinette. They were trying to create something to finally end the war once and for all," Amy said.

Lady Swift nodded as she said, "Yes, and now we've finally done exactly that. We have created the ultimate weapon to use against the Sontarans. Soon we will use it to finally destroy the hated clones and smash their army into pieces once and for all."

"That's why they came here then. They were looking for it," Amy realized.

"They were looking for something but they didn't know exactly what it was. Thankfully your men did a very thorough job of keeping them from finding it by getting rid of all of them for us. Thank you so much for that. They were the only ones on this planet that could have prevented it from going off on time. Now there will be no one to save you. I want you to know that before you kill me, Madame de Pompadour. You won't be able to stop it now. Soon this entire planet will be completely destroyed when the weapon goes off, and the human race will join Sontar in oblivion. No one in the universe will miss you I assure you," Lady Swift said with an evil laugh.

"Where is this weapon?" Reinette said in a horrified voice.

"There's no use in asking because I'm not about to tell you. Go ahead and do whatever you want to me. I'll never tell. Soon the war will finally be over with at last. That's easily worth my life to have finally brought about a complete and total victory for my people at long last after tens of thousands of years of constant endless warfare," Lady Swift said with a huge smile on her face.

"You'll also be completely destroying the entire human race in the process. Are you really willing to do that?" Reinette said in disbelief.

"In a heartbeat. What do I care about your pathetic race of worthless backwards apes?" Lady Swift said with a smirk.

"Where is the weapon? Tell me or I'll use this on you. I can use it in many creative ways that will make you wish that you were dead," Reinette threatened.

Lady Swift shook her head as she said, "No, I don't think you will. Your eyes are too kind. You won't kill unnecessarily. Don't try to bluff a true warrior, Marquise. It won't work."

Suddenly to Reinette's complete and utter surprise, Clara grabbed the pen from her hand and used it to create a massive sonic assault that immediately had Lady Swift grabbing her ears in agony. Clara then switched off the attack and stood there with a fierce look in her eyes as she stared down the shaking Rutan with an angry stare on her face.

"You're right. She's far too kind to needlessly hurt you, monster, but I will. I'll do anything to protect her. Understood? Do I make myself clear?" Clara asked in a voice filled with darkness.

"Clara?" Reinette asked in disbelief.

She had never seen this side of her before in her life. It frightened even her to see her normally sweet and kind friend like this. It was almost as if she were an entirely different person somehow in the blink of an eye.

"You don't frighten me. Go ahead. Do what you will to me. I'll never tell you where the weapon is no matter how much you hurt me," Lady Swift said.

"Would you care to make a wager on that?" Clara asked as she moved closer to the Rutan with the sonic pen.

"Clara, what are you doing?" Reinette asked in shock.

"Losing her mind apparently," Amy said.

"Go ahead. Do your worst," Lady Swift said with a smirk.

As Clara moved to a spot where she was just beyond the Rutan's reach, she once again pointed the pen at her and said, "Now let's pick up where we left off, hmm?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Lady Swift said as she attacked Clara with a massive burst of electricity from her hands.

Clara screamed as the Rutan continuously electrocuted her making her drop the pen to the floor instantly. She would have continued to attack Clara until she was dead if she hadn't had a bucket of water dumped on her head by Gabrielle who had been cleaning the floor earlier.

The Rutan instantly died without a single word as the combination of electricity and water immediately proved to be a deadly one for her. She fell to the floor with a massive thud as she returned to her original form that looked like a galactic jellyfish.

Clara immediately fell over and Amy caught her before she could hit her head on the floor. She smiled weakly at Gabrielle as she said, "Thank you. I honestly thought that it was the end there for a moment."

"What were you doing?" Reinette said in anger.

"What do you think, Jeanne? I was trying to find out where the weapon was so that I could save our world. I learned how to use the pen from the original Clara's memories, that kind of information swap works both ways apparently, and decided why not use it? It would have worked too if I had just stayed away from her. Now I've lost our only way of finding out where the weapon is," Clara said in a disgusted voice.

"I think what she was really asking you was why were you going all psycho on her a minute ago, Shorty. You didn't exactly act like you were playing with a full deck for a minute there," Amy said.

"I have no idea what you just said," Clara said with a frown.

"You acted like you had lost your mind, Clara. What happened?" Reinette translated.

"She was threatening to destroy our world, Jeanne. I wasn't about to let that happen without at least trying to stop her," Clara said.

"Yeah, well you did a really great job of it didn't you? Now we have no clue what is going on and no way of finding out," Amy said.

"Just . . . shut up, Red. Just shut up," Clara said in an upset voice.

"I'm sorry," Amy said apologetically.

"I know. Don't worry about it," Clara said with tears in her eyes.

"Marquise, I think I may know of something that might just help you," Gabrielle said.

"Jeanne, Gabrielle. Please call me Jeanne. You practically helped raise me so surely you have the right to call me that if anyone does," Reinette said in irritation.

"Who cares? Just tell us what you know," Amy said impatiently.

Gabrielle laughed liking Amy already as she said, "Well, no one notices me. I'm only a part of the staff after all."

"I notice you," Reinette said.

"Yes, but you're definitely not like the others here. They never pay me any attention. In fact, they often forget that I'm here entirely just like Lady Swift did a moment ago. She was watching the three of you but didn't even notice me directly behind her. This isn't the only time that she didn't notice me though. She also didn't notice me all of the times that I saw her talking with Madame de Sparrow," Gabrielle said with a sly smile.

"The wife of one of the King's oldest friends has been replaced by a Rutan?" Clara said in amazement.

"I thought that she had been acting extremely odd lately," Reinette said.

"How could you tell? She always acted odd to me. The Rutan couldn't have picked a better person to replace because no one would notice if she acted any stranger," Clara said.

"I really could care less who she is. I don't know about the two of you, but I don't want the planet to get blown up two hundred years before I'm even born. Please tell me that you overheard something useful that we can use to save it, Gaby," Amy said hopefully.

Gabrielle looked at her in amusement as she said, "Alright, I can confirm that for you. I did learn something useful in their conversations together that only makes sense now that I know the truth about the two of them. I heard them talking once about the 'hiding place'. Madame de Sparrow said that it was a place where no one would ever be able to find her. I thought that it was a very strange thing to say at the time. Now I can't help but wonder if it was a clue to where this weapon of hers might be."

"Where is it though? Did she say anything that might help us to find it?" Reinette asked.

"She said that it was somewhere on the inside of Notre Dame," Gabrielle said.

"Notre Dame Cathedral?" Amy said in disbelief.

"Of course. No one would ever think to find a weapon in that grand old church. We have to go there as fast as possible. Let's just hope that we're not already too late," Reinette said.

The three of them immediately ran out of the room together as fast as they could as Gabrielle silently wished them all well. She had faith that if anyone could save them all that Reinette could.

It was at that very moment that Josette finally left the bedroom as she asked Gabrielle, "I just can't get a wink of sleep around here what with all of the aliens attacking and all. It's always so busy in this place. It's like a madhouse. Is there ever a day when the Marquise isn't involved in one life or death crisis after another?"

"Not since the day that I met her. Come on. Let's get you something to eat," Gabrielle said with an amused grin.

At that very moment even as Reinette, Clara, and Amy raced to Notre Dame in a carriage, Madame de Sparrow looked at the bio-weapon that the Rutan were calling the Wrecker as it slowly made its way through the very walls of the old cathedral in the form of vines that wrapped around it. Soon it would become a part of the very structure of the building itself and then sink its roots all the way into the molten core of the planet.

Once it was complete, it would tap into the geomagnetic power of that core and turn the energy of this entire world into a weapon for the Rutan Host.

In less than an hour now, the weapon would finally be ready, and then the power of this world would be used to completely annihilate the planet Sontar destroying both worlds at once in the process. The Sontarans would never think of the final strike in the war as coming from a backwater world like the Earth. They would never suspect anything it was far, far too late.

"Soon now. Very soon I will be the one who will go down in history as having finally ended the Great War forever," Madame de Sparrow said with a triumphant smile.

Meanwhile back at Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors, a small crack in time and space opened that would have gone unnoticed by anyone else but Amy because it was on the wall. Only Amy Pond would have even thought of a crack on a wall as having any significance to it after all. Amy Pond finally had her way to get back to Rory at last.

If only she had been there to use it.

Next: Reinette, Clara, and Amy race to stop Madame de Sparrow from destroying two worlds at once. Will they make it in time or will all of human history be wiped out forever? Even if they win, will Amy still lose? Can she possibly make it back to Versailles in time to see the rift before it closes once again?