CHAPTER 11
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THE RETURN OF A LONG LOST FRIEND
Just as the Weeping Angel was moments away from touching her, Sally suddenly woke up out of a sound sleep and sat up in surprise as she saw him standing there at her bedside. Luckily she had instinctively felt a presence in the room and had been instantly awakened in response.
"Surprised? Did you really think that you could sneak up on me, Angel? That was never going to happen because despite my appearance I'm far from being just an ordinary human girl. I am a Rutan. I've had survival instincts that were honed by a lifetime of warfare where I was constantly under attack at any time in every place that I went. I've long since grown used to being woken in the middle of the night by someone coming to kill me so you never had a chance of surprising me," Sally said with a smug smile as she locked eyes with the Angel.
The Angel of course said nothing but the defiant look on his face spoke volumes.
"No, you knew who I was when you came in here, didn't you? You meant to kill me specifically. Why? I've never had anything to do with your kind. Have the Sontarans sunken so low that they would hire you to do their dirty work for them? I wouldn't put anything past those pathetic cowards," Sally said just as defiantly.
The Angel said nothing of course but she knew now that he was never going to give up until he had killed her. Somehow she had to save herself from him while she was still so weak that she couldn't even stand and with no powers to fall back on.
Not that she was about to let him know that.
"Did anyone ever tell you that you're an absolutely terrible conversationalist? I'd still rather speak to you any day over the Sontaran rabble though. Go ahead and stand there. I can stare at you without blinking for far longer than an ordinary human," Sally challenged him.
She could practically feel waves of hate radiating off of the unmoving figure before her along with an undeniable undercurrent of impatience. The evil thing before her simply could not wait to kill her and yet she still didn't understand why. She was an enemy to the Sontarans not their kind.
She decided that she would worry about the creature's reasons later though . . . after she had killed it.
"In fact, I can keep looking at you just long enough to do this," Sally suddenly said as she pulled a small device out of one of her pockets and aimed at the Angel.
She immediately pulled the trigger on the device and it began to glow as energy flowed from the Angel straight into it at a rapid pace. She began to smile as she saw cracks forming all over the creature's body as she watched it.
"Feeling a bit weak now? You should be. This device is a brilliant example of Rutan ingenuity in action. It's what we use to steal new sources of energy for our ships when they run out of power or have had their fuel cores damaged in some way. We can't go back home to refuel in the middle of battle after all. It's designed to drain any source of energy and make it compatible for use for our vessels . . . including the very temporal energy that you need to survive," Sally said in triumph as the cracks on the Angel began to lengthen and deepen.
Sally could swear that she heard the Angel scream just before it completely disintegrated and turned to dust on the floor.
As she put her newly refilled energy converter away, Sally felt an instant pang of guilt. She briefly wished that she could have found another way to stop the Angel without killing him.
"Where did that come from? Why should I care about whether this creature lived?" Sally said to herself in confusion.
She was beginning to wonder if living among these primitives for so long had made her start to think like them. Part of her wondered if that was such a bad thing if she was going to have to live there for what very well might be the rest of an extremely long life.
That thought scared her more than any Sontaran ever could.
It was at that moment that a youthful voice said, "How did you do that? Mother told me all about the Angels and how powerful that they were and yet you just killed that one like it was nothing."
Sally turned to see Josette standing there with an awed look on her face and not the slightest bit of fear. She now realized in horror that she had had no idea that the girl had even been watching her or how long she had been there.
"How much did you see?" Sally asked in a tense voice.
"Can you do that again? Mother's just gone off to fight a whole army of them. She could really use something like this," Josette said without answering her question as she raced to examine the energy converter in Sally's hand with a look of fascination on her face.
"No, it's a one-time only attack I'm afraid. It can only be emptied of the energy it contains by inserting it into a Rutan ship now, and unfortunately I don't have one of those handy. If I did, I wouldn't currently be trapped here on this backwards planet," Sally said with a sigh as she realized by the child's expression that she remembered everything.
Instead of looking at her with any kind of malice however, Josette gazed at her with a forlorn and clearly sympathetic expression instead as she said, "I'm sorry."
"What?" Sally said in surprise.
"I heard what you said before about just wanting to go home. I know exactly how that feels only the home that I want to go back to doesn't exist anymore. My family's gone now. I'm sorry that you're stuck here, Sally. I wish you could go home too," Josette said with such an earnest expression on her face that she actually touched a chord in the Rutan's heart.
"Is that why you didn't tell your mother the truth about me? Is it because you felt some kind of connection to me?" Sally asked curiously.
"Yes, that and . . . I don't think that you're as bad as you'd like to think that you are. If you were, you would have killed me as soon as you found me. You didn't though. You never even tried to do anything to hurt me. You didn't bother Amy either until she wouldn't go away. I hate lying to Mother this early in our relationship but I – I didn't want to see you taken away. That way you'd never get to go home for sure. At least if you stayed with us there would always be a chance. Mother's always coming across all kinds of aliens after all. Maybe one of them would have a ship that you could use," Josette said with a hopeful smile.
Sally couldn't help but smile at her as she said in a completely non-threatening tone, "Maybe. What makes you think that I'm trustworthy though? I did try to destroy your whole planet not too long ago after all."
"That's not who you really are though. I don't believe that. That's because of what your people did to you. They made you think that way by making you fight all of your life and telling you that was the way to solve all of your problems. Now that you haven't been fighting for a while though you're changing aren't you? You're learning that there's more to life than just killing everybody, right?" Josette said with a large smile.
Sally couldn't help but laugh at the child's naivety even as she appreciated what she had done for her. She wanted to help her to reclaim her life once again even after everything that she had done. That truly touched her.
She realized in that moment that she never wanted to do anything to make her regret that action.
Perhaps she had been wrong to want to destroy this planet. Maybe not all of these primitives were as worthless as she had been led to believe after all.
"I am right, aren't I?" Josette asked in an uncertain voice.
"I'm not sure which is odd actually since I used to be so sure about everything once. I was the perfect little soldier who always did as I was told and was so sure of the rightness of the Rutan cause. Then one day I woke up and realized that I was sick of the war, and I didn't want to fight anymore. I just wanted it to end either one way or another. All I really wanted at that point was to go home and live in peace. I was also once absolutely sure that all non-Rutans were unworthy of existence and deserved whatever we did to them in the line of duty. Now I'm beginning to think that I was wrong about that as well," Sally said in a tone filled with regret.
So does this mean that you actually have changed?" Josette asked with a growing smile.
Sally shrugged as she said, "I honestly don't know. I can say this though. I promise you on my word of honor, Josette, that I won't do anything to hurt you or your new family. If you do somehow convince the Marquise to let me stay, I'll either stay until I find a ship or I'll quietly leave one day once I finally give up hope of that happening."
"It will happen though. I know it will. As for how I'll get you to stay with us, I'll think of something. Don't you worry about that. I'm very good at talking people into doing things when I have to be," Josette assured her with a sly smile.
Sally chuckled as she said, "Yes, I can see that."
Then she looked at her with concern as she said, "Maybe you should stay with me until your mother comes back. There might be more of those Angels out there, and I'm the only one who knows how to fight them."
Josette smiled from ear to ear as she said, "See? You are changing. I was actually hoping that you'd offer anyway. That's why I came here. After Mother and Clara left, I started to feel nervous and out of place in that fancy room all by myself. Everyone here is either rich and from a noble family or works for a noble. I guess that I'm still half afraid that they'll throw me out while she's gone."
"So you decided to go and stay with the alien instead, huh? Talk about not belonging. Well, just let them try to throw you out if they come in here. I'm not sure what I can do exactly since I can't shape shift or even walk at the moment, but I can still give them a good stern talking to I suppose," Sally said with a reassuring smile.
"Thank you," Josette said with a look of relief as she sat down next to her on the bed.
"I'm sorry for kidnapping you. I wouldn't have hurt you," Sally apologized.
"I know. It's okay. You were scared just like you said in your story to Mother," Josette said without the smile once leaving her face.
"I wish I were half as forgiving as you," Sally admitted with a look of admiration.
"Stick around me long enough and maybe one day you will be," Josette said with a chuckle.
Sally couldn't help but wonder if she might actually take her up on that offer or not.
Meanwhile Reinette and Clara had just arrived at the ruins via coach. Along the way Reinette had signed a document the King had given her that allowed her to formally adopt Josette and name Clara as her legal guardian if something should happen to her. The coachman immediately took it with him back to Versailles just as fast as he could as soon as he dropped the two women off because he wasn't about to spend one more moment there. The legend of the Angels and what they could do had already spread throughout the entire city after all.
Reinette and Clara then walked a short distance to the part of the ruins where the statues had been discovered. They arrived just in time to see a massive army of Angels standing in front of a lone (and very terrified looking) Musketeer.
"What's been happening here? Captain Le Fevre told me that there was an entire corps of Musketeers guarding this place," Reinette asked even as a sudden dread seized her heart.
"I'd say that was pretty obvious. Wouldn't you, Jeanne?" Clara said as she eyed the Angels warily and didn't even dare to blink.
"T – The others all disappeared, Marquise. It started with one man at first and that led to the others starting to shoot at them. All of their attacks were useless against them though. We tried to do what you said and keep staring at them, but there are so many of them with some of them being hidden from view behind the others that we couldn't possibly keep track of them all. The statues just slowly touched them one by one whenever someone wasn't looking at one of them during the fight and they vanished. I've managed to move to just the right spot where I can see them all at once, but I can't stare forever though," The Musketeer said in a weary voice.
"You won't have to now that we're here. I'll do all the staring for you. I'm not taking my eyes off of these boys for a minute. Believe me," Clara said with a shudder as she stood next to him.
"That still doesn't solve the problem for us does it though, Clara? The three of us can take turns watching them, but none of us can do it for long, can we? We'll all grow tired sooner or later," Reinette said in a worried tone.
"So what's your plan to stop them then? I know that you wouldn't come out here without one. You'd better not have any way or I'll never speak to you again. Mostly because I'll be too busy trying to get used to my new home in wherever and whenever I wind up," Clara said with a small smile.
"I'm glad that you can still joke about this, Clara, because I don't mind admitting to you that I'm completely terrified. I do have a plan in mind but even despite that I don't think much of our chances at succeeding without the other Musketeers here to back us up. If both of you want to go now, I won't think any less of either of you," Reinette said in an anxious tone.
"I'm not going anywhere," Clara said without hesitation.
"Neither am I, Marquise. I would never leave either of you alone and at the mercy of these monsters," The Musketeer said despite his obvious fear.
"Thank you, Clara, and you too, Monsieur," Reinette said as she looked at both of them with pride.
"It's Marcel, Marquise. Marcel Dumont. I know it's not that important right now, but I just wanted someone to tell my family that I died with honor," The Musketeer said.
"You'll be the one telling them that yourself, Marcel," Reinette reassured him.
"Yes, Marquise. I certainly hope so," Marcel said with an uncertain expression.
"So what's the plan, Jeanne? Don't keep us in suspense," Clara said impatiently.
"This," Reinette said as she pulled out the two stasers that she had collected during their fight with the Monk and aimed them both at the nearest Angel.*
"Ah. I wondered when you'd use those. Now's definitely as good a time as any," Clara said with a relieved smile.
"We've already tried our guns on them, Marquise. They did nothing to them," Marcel said.
Reinette nodded as she said, "True but these are no ordinary guns, Marcel. These are from another world and have the power to even kill a Time Lord in one shot with no possibility of regeneration. If they can do that to them, then I'm sure that they can do just as much damage to an Angel."
"Well, it's better than nothing anyway. Give it a shot, Jeanne. Literally," Clara said with a nervous laugh.
Neither of them knew for sure what effect that the guns may or may not have on the Angels after all. Not even the Doctor had known that for sure based on what memories of his that Reinette had. Without any further hesitation, Reinette fired both guns at once into the head of the nearest Angel.
Nothing happened.
She increased the power output and fired once again. Still nothing happened.
"Great," Clara said in a troubled voice.
"Don't give up hope just yet. I haven't put it on the maximum setting," Reinette said.
"I have a feeling that it won't matter much even if you do," Clara admitted.
"Maybe it will if I add something extra to it. Clara, use the sonic pen on the Angel at the same time that I shoot it. Use the maximum setting. The one that I've used to shatter stones with it before," Reinette said.
Clara grinned as she said, "Yeah, they are basically just stone aren't they? Let's see them survive this."
The two women then prepared a coordinated attack while Marcel kept an eye on all of the Angels for them. Reinette fired both stasers on their maximum setting at once at the same Angel as before while Clara used the sonic pen on its maximum setting.
This time it actually started to do the trick as the Angel actually started cracking and shattering before them.
"That's it. Keep it up, Clara. Don't let up for a moment," Reinette ordered.
The two of them continued to pour all of their weapons' power into the Angel until it finally shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. Then those pieces shattered as well and turned into dust before them.
"We did it!" Clara shouted as she laughed with joy.
"Not quite, Baroness," Marcel said as he pointed to the pile of dust on the ground.
It was already starting to slowly reform and become larger and larger chunks of rock as they watched. The Angel was returning back to life!
Reinette sighed as she said, "Of course. I should have known. They weren't exhausted of all of their temporal energy just yet. As long as they have that, they'll just keep reforming again forever no matter how many times that we destroy them."
They all heard a terrible screeching noise then that Reinette somehow instinctively knew was the sound of the Angels laughing at them. They were so sure that they had won and were about to overrun all of Paris.
Not while she was still alive they wouldn't.
"So what now? Any other ideas? Please tell me that you had a Plan B," Clara said in a voice that was filling with fear for the first time now.
"I did actually. Another group of Musketeers is already on the way here with some of the mirrors from Versailles. They're so large however that it's taking time to deliver them slowly so that they don't break on the way here. Hopefully we won't have to wait on them much longer," Reinette said with a reassuring smile.
"I hope that it works. There are so many of these Angels that I'm not sure that we have enough mirrors to go around for them all," Clara admitted.
"You won't need to, Mistress. Now that I've finally been freed, I can do the job for you," A mechanical voice said from where a new section of the ruins had just been revealed after Reinette and Clara's attack had unexpectedly uncovered it.
"It's another mechanical monster," Marcel said in terror as a robotic metal dog suddenly flew out of this area and started moving directly towards them.
Reinette winced for a moment as the dog briefly reminded her of the Clockwork androids that had plagued her for so long, and then she smiled after she finally recognized it. This robot looked different from the one that the Doctor had known before, but it was still obvious who it was.
"Hello, K-9. I'm Jeanne Poisson but you might know me better as . . ." Reinette said with a warm smile.
"Madame de Pompadour. Yes, my memory banks have quite an extensive bit of knowledge about you. You are one of the most important and influential women in history. You were born in . . ." K-9 started to say.
"That will be enough, K-9. No one needs to know my age," Reinette said with a mischievous smile.
"Please. As if I don't already know since I grew up right alongside you, and I'm sure that Marcel here doesn't care. All he's worried about is living through the next hour. So you know Metal Boy here, Jeanne?" Clara asked.
"Oh, yes. This is the Doctor's dog, K-9," Reinette said with a pleased smile.
"No, he's not. He looks somewhat like him but that's definitely not the one that I know," Clara protested.
"The one you know is just the latest model. This K-9 is the original. The Doctor thought that he had been lost in the Time War but apparently he was wrong. I see that the Doctor's regeneration module for you worked just fine after all," Reinette said with a pleased smile.
"Doctor? I don't know of any Doctor. Is he my maker? I have long wondered about this. I lost most of my memories of my original self when I regenerated the first time, and I've regenerated once more since then losing even more memories of that original self in the process. I have no idea where I came from or who made me. Do you know?" K-9 said in what might almost be a sad tone.
"I'm so sorry, K-9. Yes, I can tell you everything that you need to know. If we survive our current situation that is," Reinette said as she pointed to the Angels.
"Yeah, is there anything that you can do to help out in that area, Metal Boy?" Clara asked hopefully.
"I'd say that he probably can since judging from the looks of him he seems to have also been buried beneath these ruins for some time now. We must have accidentally freed and reawakened him when we shattered the rocks around him during our attack, Clara. You had something to do with the Angels being here, didn't you, K-9?" Reinette reasoned.
"Yes, Mistress. These Angels appeared to attack the future Earth that I found myself on after I was destroyed in my first life, and I volunteered to lead them into a trap in order to defend it. The trap involved using several recovered Sontaran osmic projectors to send the entire army of Angels back into the past at a time and place where it was known were several long buried and forgotten ruins. It was the hope of my masters back in that time that they would stay buried here forever and completely cut off from any source of energy. I was unfortunately caught in the projectors' path and sent with them. I was more than willing to die to save my adopted home however," K-9 said in a voice filled with unmistakable pride.
Reinette smiled finding herself liking the metal dog already as she said, "And then we uncovered the Angels and just undid all of that for you. You said that you had a plan to stop them? What was it?"
"I too have an osmic projector installed in my systems that I never had the opportunity to use. Fortunately it remains fully functional," K-9 said as he flew towards the Angels.
"Keep staring at them," Reinette ordered Clara and Marcel as K-9 got into position.
Then as the others watched them to make sure that they didn't move K-9 slowly fired the osmic projector at each and every one of the Angels until he had sent them all to another time. Once he had finished, he gently landed directly in front of Reinette who smiled at him appreciatively as she patted his head.
"Good job. So where did you send them this time? To the distant past once more?" Reinette wondered.
"Negative. I sent them to the far future to the heat death of the universe. Even they won't be able to survive there with no one left to feed on. Unfortunately to send them that far, I've used a great deal of . . . energy. It . . . doesn't matter though. I finally . . . did what I started to do. Good bye," K-9 said in a weakening voice as the lights on his body started to dim.
"Oh, no," Reinette said as she realized that he was shutting down and there was no way for them to help him since they didn't have anywhere near the level of technology necessary.
"Is he . . . dying?" Clara asked in a sad tone.
"He might as well be. He's exhausted all of his power at once, and there won't be any more for him available to take. Not in this time," Reinette said sadly.
"Isn't there anything that we can do to help such a noble little soldier?" Marcel asked as he too felt badly for the metal dog now.
Reinette smiled at how quickly that he had taken to K-9 after he had showed what he was made of up against the Angels.
"No, but maybe the original Clara can. Clara, can you contact her?" Reinette asked Clara as Marcel looked at her in confusion since he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
Clara frowned as she said, "No, I can't get through to her. She must be busy with something really big of her own right now or she'd at least say something. Sorry. I'll keep trying though."
"Let's take him with us then until then. Maybe I'll eventually come across something to help him. Can you hear me, K-9? We're going to try to help you," Reinette said as she picked the metal dog up.
"Thank . . . you, Mistress," K-9 said in a tinny voice.
Then he suddenly switched off completely and all of the lights on his body went completely dead. Reinette looked at him with sorrow as she realized that unless they contacted Clara that they were going to remain that way forever.
After such a noble sacrifice, the poor machine deserved so much more than that. She swore to herself that someway somehow she was going to make sure that he was brought back to life no matter what she had to do in order to accomplish it.
Then she suddenly thought of a place that was sure to be able to help him even in this era.
"Come along, Clara. We're going to pay a little visit to see Monsieur Nemo at the home base of the Order of the Sun Queen. I'm sure that in all of their mysterious dealings that they've come across something that can help K-9. They will help restore him to life once again or I'll know the reason why," Reinette said in a determined voice.
*I bet you thought that I forgot all about them. Nope. I was just waiting until the time was right to bring them back again. I always observe the rule of Chekhov's Gun sooner or later.
Next: Reinette pays the Order a visit and she's not taking no for an answer. Will they be as helpful as she hopes though? Plus how does Josette plan on convincing Reinette to keep Sally around and will it work?