Disclaimer: I don't in any way own the series Doctor Who. Those are the sole property of the BBC.
Return to Satellite 5 AU: "Bad Wolf", "The Parting of the Ways" and "Born Again".
Chapter Fourteen: Apart But Not Separate
As soon as the Time Lord appeared out of the blue box, the Dalek's began firing. "Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!" Their screams echoed in a cacophony of sound.
The Doctor smiled as the bolts of energy were deflected off the extrapolator's force field. The Time Lord could feel his companions in the doorway of the TARDIS anguish and disturbed by his mocking attitude toward the dangerous beings. He even raised his arms as if to give them an easier target. After couple of seconds the single minded Dalek's stopped.
"Are you done? Pathetic! Lose turn." The Doctor loudly mocked the Daleks, who were still pointing the their weapons at him. The Time Lord ignored the immediate danger just beyond the force field, as he went back to his companions and nonchalantly leaned against the TARDIS.
"Oh, come on you lot. Their not going to hurt you. Nothing can get past that force field." The Doctor proclaimed confidently.
Lynda hesitated still at the TARDIS doorway. "Really, it can hold back all of them?"
Rose couldn't help the annoyance she felt at the other woman's question even if she was a little skeptical herself of the Doctor's claim. The former shop girl took a small breath letting the negative emotion go. Now was not the time to let such attitudes to be in control.
"Yeah, not quite everything." The Captain said a bit louder than he intended.
The Doctor turned glaring, ice blue eyes on Jack. "Yes. Info that I wasn't going to give out. Ta." He was glad that at the same moment Rose's feelings stopped fluctuating. He needed to concentrate as there was more at stake than just the Game Station and Earth being in danger.
Jack looked sheepishly at the Doctor. The adrenaline had gotten the better of his tongue. He'd forgotten one of the rules of engaging the enemy, that of not give out important information. "Sorry."
The silence after was almost deafening as both sides watched the other. The Doctor broke the stand-off. "Do you remember the ancient legends of Dalek Home world? The name that they had bestowed on me... The Oncoming Storm. Yeah, the name still has the power to cause the one emotion that your creator couldn't remove. Oh, you hide it behind loud cries but you still feel... fear." The Doctor stepped forward taunting them with each word.
The Dalek's eye-stalks and plunger arms shifted restlessly. Their metal bodies even seemed to quiver at the Doctor's declaration.
"It's got to chafe for you to have to face me now? All right... The Time War how did you escape?"
"Because of me. They escaped your final weapon because of me." The loud voice that had early cautioned the Dalek's watching and waiting for the Doctor to come out. The wavering slightly metallic voice sent a chill down the three humans standing just outside of the TARDIS doors.
The Doctor had also felt that same chill but it was colder and filled with more than just fear. Anger and sadness were mixed into the volatile mix. He turned to face an enemy that had plagued him for centuries. The Dalek Emperor was position in the middle of the large vaulted room large sections of metal frame work held the glass apparatus, filled with liquid, which the one-eyed, tentacle being resided in.
The Doctor stepped towards the monstrosity not quite believing his eyes. His voice when it came out was more subdued, "Rose... Jack... Lynda met the Dalek's Emperor."
"Yes Doctor we escaped your inferno of death. You destroyed all in your path except for my ship. It survived crippled and falling through space and time, but alive." The Emperor imparted calmly loud enough for all to hear.
The Doctor nodded as he understood just how that could have happened. "Yes, I get it."
"Do not interrupt!" It started with just one Dalek, spreading to two, three and then the whole lot were chanting the same three words over and over.
The sound of thousands of Daleks repeating the same words echoed deafeningly. Rose, Jack and Lynda covered their ears at the discordant racket. Lynda stepped closer to Jack for protection.
Rose stayed next to Jack even as she wanted to run to the Doctor's side. She longed to take the Time Lord's hand for both safety and morale support as the blonde woman knew just how much pain the alien man was going through. One Dalek had brought out a side of the Time Lord that Rose didn't want to see again... it was frightening.
The Doctor was keeping it together admirable as he projected only annoyance and confident anger at being interrupted and the Daleks attempting to put him in his place. He turned on the eager metal soldiers. "Oi, forgotten already. I'm the Doctor. I'm all about talking quite good at it actually, me. In knowing about five billion different languages, you lot would be hard press to be able to stop me. I'm only going to say this once shut up! Now me and the Emperor are going to have a chat."
The Daleks closest to the alien man skidder back. The hated fear they had of the Doctor was marked still by the small apparent threat the Time Lord had implied.
The Doctor turned back all false brightness as if he'd hadn't just intimidated a mass of gold metal pepper potts. "And where'd we leave off. Oh, yes falling through time and space."
"Yes Doctor. We fell until ending here in the darkness. Beyond humanities reach, rebuilding, planning and centuries of integrating into all of Earth's endeavors, guiding them towards their inevitable end. It took time to cultivate the need material from those that came first. We took all refining, purifying extracting from the remains." The Emperor spoke with exalted pride at the Dalek's ingenuity to recreate life from so little.
Rose held a hand over her mouth as the thought of what these Daleks had done in order to create more of themselves. It quite literally turned her stomach.
The Emperor Dalek looked down at the Doctor it's one eye gleaming with much more than triumph at besting the Time Lord but a long lived madness. "Oh, you're Human Race Doctor it took so many for they are corrupt. Out of billions only one cell could be transformed into the perfect Dalek Race."
The Doctor stood disbelief and disgust on his face, "The dead. Dead Humans are how you created your army of Daleks." The alien man stated
"That's horrible." Lynda sobbed as she hid her face into the side Jack's upper arm.
The Captain didn't have any words. He had taken in the words of the squishy looking alien and knew that they were all true the Daleks and slaughtered billions in an effort to rebuild so as to continue to kill even more. To him it really wasn't that shocking, they were just doing really what they seemed built to do destroy all living things.
Rose certainly agreed with Lynda that what these Daleks had done was horrible, but her curiosity got the better and stepped closer to the Doctor. "But Doctor doesn't that... well mean their half human?" She asked in a quiet voice.
Rose hadn't been quiet enough as the Emperor Dalek heard her words, he shouted out stridently, "Your words are heresy!"
"Hersey! Do not speak heresy!" Once again a Dalek took up his master's vehement declaration. The other's followed, chant grew from there until it seemed that the entire fleet was heralding the same cries.
They only went quiet when the Emperor spoke, "The Human element was stripped. I divined there would only be true perfect Dalek."
The Doctor looked around at metal soldiers, then back to the Emperor of Daleks. It was disturbing to hear such theological ideas being spouted by beings that had forsaken all in there need to be superior. Oh not good, thought the Doctor as he had to ask for clarity on the matter. "And tell me when did the Daleks take up the ideology of heresy?"
The Emperor stared hard at the Doctor almost puffing with self importance it cried out. "I am not only the Daleks Emperor but their God! I am their creator from nothing I created new life!"
"Revere him! Worship him! Revere him! Worship him!" Thousands of Daleks shouted out the Emperor's dogma.
The Doctor stepped back between Rose and Jack with Lynda still standing, seeking protection from, the 51st century man. "They've gone insane! Everyone of them they were driven mad... all those years silently hiding and so close to humans."
"Oh, then combining their flesh with humanity it literally drove them completely barking!" The Doctor felt complied forward, gazing at the golden metallic Dalek's sympathetically. He'd been alone, but never so long, if he had it would have finished the job propelling him into madness that each progressive regeneration already increased.
The Time Lord shook his head the steps the Daleks had taken to preserve their existence, in the end they not only hated those different from themselves but now they hated their continued life apart of that which they despised. "You loath you very being. Your even more deadly for it." Looking back at the insane Emperor of Daleks one last time the Doctor gestured for the three, back towards the TARDIS. "Well it's been fun, but we're off."
"You are order to stay!" The Emperor's command was futile as the four dashed back to the TARDIS. One after the other they filed through the door, into the relative safety of the blue police box.
"Halt! You are not allowed to leave!"
The Daleks watched uselessly as the group escaped into the time-space ship. The metal pepper potts quivered as the Doctor turned back grinning broadly and gave a jaunty wave before closing the door.
The alien man's last mocking departure renewed the Daleks need to destroy the insolent Time Lord. The army screamed out, "Exterminate!" and began firing as though shear force of the weapons and insist demands would crumble the force field, so they could reach their true target.
The Doctor could hear the shouts and lasers clashing against the force field. He hadn't a clue as what to do next. The alien man rest both hands and forehead against the cool surface of the TARDIS's door. He swallowed hard as he let the noise of battles cries he'd hope never have heard again washed over him. It seemed to punctate the utter waste it was in fighting back, the Daleks seemed to never stop haunting him.
The Doctor felt Rose before she slid a hand over his back. The warmth of her touch snapped the Time Lord out of his pity party. He didn't have time to wallow in the past. The future was in flux and any chance for them to make it out alive was in his hands. He had quite a bit personal to lose and the fate of the Earth weighed heavy on his shoulders. They were all counting on him to save the day. Rose, his lovely Rose she would stand by him no matter what; Jack had turned out to be more loyal than any con-artist the Doctor had ever met... and he'd met more than his fair share and Lynda with a 'y' so not ready for such adventures but willing trusted a strange mad man when he'd offer a hand.
These were people to fight for and to push back his own insecurities to get the job done. The Doctor just hoped that when it was over they would all still be alive, and if they were he was going to have some explaining to do. The thought of the a Tyler slap in his near future almost had him wincing.
"Well, we don't want to stay around here." The Doctor said pushing away from the doors. He took Rose's hand and pulled her after him up to the console. He gave the young blonde woman's hand a squeeze of appreciate before letting go to pilot the TARDIS back to the Game Station.
TBC...