The Saga of Theta Sigma 1 - Caretaker

by TimeTraveller-1900

Long before the First Doctor left Gallifrey with Susan, what if he had left Gallifrey and was kidnapped by the Caretaker in the 24th century? After being tossed aside, Theta has to make it back to Earth to recover the TARDIS. But others in the Delta Quadrant are now aware of him, seeing him as their best hope to get home themselves...

A New story idea featuring a younger version of the First Doctor in the same boat as the USS Voyager. I don't own either Star Trek or Doctor Who.

X

The Saga of Theta Sigma.

- A short story featuring the First Doctor -

Caretaker.

Theta opened the door of his TARDIS and he smiled as he took in the clean beauty of the city. He had been popping in and out of Earth's timeline, from the early 19th century to the current date in the 24th century. One of the things he enjoyed about time travelling was being able to see the changes as they happened all around. He smiled as he took in the air-cars and shuttles coming and going from space, and ever since he had started he had been visiting many planets.

Theta was a time traveller. He was also a Time Lord, a member of the ruling elite of the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterbrous. Ever since he had run away from the images he had seen within the Untempered Schism, Theta had longed to leave Gallifrey and go on and explore the universe, after he began reading of the exploits of Time Lords like the Corsair, and the Time Explorers, legendary Time Lords who had begun exploring the universe, but Theta didn't want to gain their knowledge secondhand. He wanted to go out and see it for himself.

Once he had been granted his Type 40 TARDIS, the same Type 40 TARDIS he had been serving on under Azmael, from the Kingmaker, a legendary figure in Gallifreyan culture who granted Time Lords with their time-ships, and the ultimate symbol of a Time Lord's seniority; something he hadn't expected would happen to him, especially after the Celestial Toymaker took Rallon and Millennia after that stupid decision to go looking for the Guardians of Time…

Theta shook off those horrible memories.

They were behind him now.

For so long since he had looked into the Untempered Schism, after he had found that he was a different Gallifreyan when he was away from Gallifrey, especially during that business with the Medusa Cascade when he was just 90 years old, and he had sealed off the rift when it had surged with temporal energy, and while his peers from the Academy and the Senior Time Lords piloting their TARDIS had been stumped on what was happening, Theta was the only one who had done anything. But he knew it wasn't the other's fault, the surges went off the Bocca charts, and when the Time Lords - students, teachers, and pilots alike - looked at the scanner, they had seen something that made them physically sick to their stomachs.

Countless and wrong things were bleeding through the Rift, tearing into the vortex like flesh-eating animals while scavengers nipped away at what was left. Every single thing in the Time Lord's bodies, every sense, every cell, was screaming in horror, and Theta felt the same way; the Time Lords had a close relationship with time, and the sight of whatever was happening was horrifying.

But where everyone else was panic-stricken, Theta had somehow mustered the will to set the dimensional stabilisers to seal the Medusa Cascade. He had won many commendations from the Academy and even a few from the High Council themselves.

But Theta had been hooked on the prospect of seeing other worlds. Other times. He had already wanted to leave Gallifrey, knowing it was not his place, and he had no place there. But out in the universe, wandering the stars, exploring…. That was different. At the same time, the anomaly's strange wrongness had fascinated him. He had been so fascinated that Theta had been in front of the Lord President himself, and asked the most powerful Time Lord on Gallifrey if it was possible to investigate what the strange phenomenon was, and why it was so wrong. The Lord President had listened and promised to send a TARDIS to investigate, but the Time Lords found nothing and unless they wanted to tear the rift open, and discover what was inside it, they weren't going to find anything.

The rift experience had only served to cement his desire to explore, and now he had left Gallifrey, he just wanted to focus on the opportunities the TARDIS was giving him, and now he was out. One night, Theta Sigma had left Gallifrey in the ready-primed TARDIS.

Already Theta had visited several planets; Earth in various points in history from the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods, the sands and the Pyramids of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome and Greece, he had shaken Horatio Nelson's hand before the Battle of Trafalgar, and he had visited the Battle of Waterloo and picked up a French cavalry sword and a Baker Rifle before he had travelled to the Victorian Age and bought Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations before he had bought a ticket for the first train from Liverpool and Manchester before going onto the Metropolitan Line.

Earth was not the only world he had visited. Theta had visited Dido, Arkhaten, the Gas Sculptures of Remmosica, the Glass Pyramid of Sankloon, Mira, Zanak, and Peladon.

Theta glanced back at the TARDIS. Thanks to the chameleon circuit, his ship had transformed into a tree after landing in a small park within the city, and although the humans and the Federation of this era had the knowledge and technology of scanning for time travel activity, if they got here they'd never find the TARDIS.

And even if they did, they couldn't get inside.

Patting the side of his TARDIS tenderly, feeling the fluctuating vibration of the chameleonic shielding - once again, Theta was struck by the sheer affection he and his TARDIS shared; the connection they both shared went far beyond the usual symbiotic bond, and he loved her already - Theta walked away from his time machine and straightened the messenger bag, which carried a camera and a notebook and pencil so he could write notes about what he saw.

The young Time Lord smiled as he saw the children running and laughing through the park, although it was tempered by the knowledge of what was going to happen in a short time - relatively speaking - with the Dominion War, but he remained quiet about it.

You couldn't change the future, not one line, and in any case, the Dominion War was a fixed event in the universe. Not only would the war have great consequences that would affect the Federation and the rest of the galaxy for centuries, but when it took place, other events were dependent on the war. It was terrible - war bred nothing but pain, grief, suffering, and turmoil.

But the war brought with it incredible positive things; in the case of the Federation, and the worlds that would become embroiled by the War, technology would become more advanced. To take what was there, improve it and make it far better. Medicine, holography, weapons, shields, material science, and more advanced ship designs which would be under construction in a few years during the war and long after it, after the Federation realised the best way to go about spaceship construction was to design smaller, more compact starships. And when the USS Voyager returned from their journey in the Delta Quadrant - a starship that would survive, all by itself for several years (Theta knew the timelines were in flux where the USS Voyager was concerned, he had seen enough of that during his time travels to this era), in a distant part of the Milky Way, long before hyperspace technology became available, and indeed it was thanks to the Voyager crew, so many technologies of the future and discoveries grew the Federation, and had profound impacts on life throughout the galaxy for centuries to come.

Theta walked away from the TARDIS, mentally shuffling through his mind what he would be doing for the next few days when suddenly the young Time Lord stopped when his senses went haywire before he suddenly cried as he was between Earth and a strange holographic environment he could see…

X

Thousands of light years away from Earth, located on the other side of the galaxy was a space station really close to a G-type star system without many remarkable planets, although the station was firing bursts of radiant energy towards the fifth planet of the system. The space station was unlike any other in that part of space. It was composed of materials and powered by technologies unknown to the races in that part of the galaxy. Onboard the space station was perhaps the most powerful being in that area of space.

The entity had been scanning the galaxy with methods beyond the comprehension of even the most advanced races from the Voth and the Borg, desperately aware that its condition was worsening. Indeed each time it had brought a ship here, it had lost its energy and it had long since given up on finding her.

The aliens the entity had brought to the space station had mostly all died off, although a few of them had survived and gone on their way, bitter at being made to go the long way around in this hostile corner of space without help. The entity was unconcerned about what happened to them, as the entity was concerned they were no longer of any use. But the entity was more concerned by how much life and energy it had left, for each displacement cost dearly. The Array was tied with it. When it used the displacement wave, it lost a lot more of its life expectancy. But it was desperate.

So far the recent test subjects were just as disappointing as the last ones. Some of them were members of the same bipedal race as the starship which had been brought here months ago, but the entity calmly accepted the fact it had made a mistake and continued looking sweeping the galaxy for any race which was compatible and had what it needed.

And it thought it had the best candidate. The scanning sweeps the entity ran had detected someone the entity had not expected, a member of a species the entity knew but had never encountered.

A Time Lord.

The entity knew of the Time Lords, the ancient and powerful race of time travellers who were so powerful they were reclusive. The entity reviewed what it knew of the Time Lords, but decided it didn't know anything about their biology except they had the power to regenerate their bodies and were virtually immortal.

But the entity was excited in many other ways because what it did know was they were highly evolved and this Time Lord could possess what the entity needed. Summoning up the reserves, the entity concentrated. It didn't need to bother with displacement waves as it did for ships. The Time Lord was on the surface of a distant planet, and it would need to teleport it right here. This Time Lord was transported directly to the station, but the entity knew it would need to be cautious.

Time Lords were cunning creatures, highly intelligent; this one would likely see through whatever illusion the entity could draw up to put previous test subjects at ease, so it would need to begin fast.

For the next several weeks, the entity, referred to by the Ocampa, the race the entity had sworn to protect and care for them, Caretaker subjected the unconscious Time Lord to a bevvy of unpleasant and gruelling tests.

One of the first things that confused the entity was that he had assumed that he had heard Time Lords possessed two hearts, but this one had just one single heart in his body, but his genetic structure was clearly Time Lord. The entity conducted much the same experiments it had on others like the Time Lord, in search of the biomolecular pattern it would need to procreate to continue the work in caring for the Ocampa, and while the entity gained a great deal of knowledge of Time Lord biology and studied their DNA, it found the DNA far too complex to make use of in such a short span of time.

However he discovered the Time Lord's DNA had many traits which made him attractive for procreation, however, the entity also discovered that while the cells of the Time Lord's body were miracles in themselves, they didn't have what they needed. The entity's desperation nearly drove the Time Lord to die several times over, but after weeks of study, while it was awed by the capacities of the brain, the Caretaker was forced to accept facts.

The Time Lord didn't have what it needed.

It had also failed to understand the mystery of Time Lord regeneration. Perhaps it was a myth after all?

By that time the entity had lost so much time and energy in focusing the teleportation beam on the Time Lord and bringing him light-years across space, and in that time its situation became increasingly desperate. So much energy was wasted studying the Time Lord, and now it was running out of time; when it died, the Ocampa's enemies would be able to overrun the defence barrier erected to prevent them from reaching the city underground and to the only sources of water on the planet. It had another problem; its examination of the Time Lord's body had left him with a very dangerous enemy.

The Caretaker could have killed the Time Lord, but the entity had heard it say Time Lords had some kind of immortality that made them virtually impossible to kill, and while the Caretaker hadn't seen any hint of this fabled regenerative ability, it had no desire to underestimate the Time Lord; there was a chance his own people would come looking for him, and should they find the entity had killed one of their own…

The Nacenes and the Time Lords had always had a peaceful relationship, but both were aware of each other's power, and the Nacene entity knew even with its power, it could not hold off the Time Lords when they were enraged.

Angry and desperate over the loss of so much valuable time, the Caretaker panicked, and transported the Time Lord several hundred light years away, knowing if the Time Lord was just simply sent to the Ocampa, then he would learn enough to know what was going on and likely find a way to punish the entity, who knew that the Time Lord would succeed.

As it resumed its search, the Caretaker failed to realise it had made several mistakes. Firstly, it hadn't just asked the Time Lord for some form of aid; the entity knew of the Time Lord's intellect, but it failed to make use of it when it could have answered several of the entity's problems. Secondly, it had shortened its own life span even more by bringing the Time Lord through the teleportation beam and then throwing him away. Thirdly, the entity was now dooming itself by making the same mistakes again. It believed its own problems were beyond the intellects of the people it brought to the Array.

Lastly, in throwing the Time Lord away, the entity had failed in finding a way it could regenerate itself.

X

Theta was unsure how much time had passed when he woke up. He found himself lying on his stomach. His body was so stiff as if he hadn't moved any part of it for some time. But what surprised him the most was the number of stinging pains which seemed to throb throughout his body. Theta gathered his concentration and rolled gently onto his back and looked upwards.

It was night but as he looked upwards he could tell that while he was still in the same time period, he was in a different part of the galaxy. Time Lord's minds were enormously advanced in their capacity to understand time.

He knew that not so long ago, this planet hadn't been populated by anybody, but had fairly recently become colonised by a large group of Talaxians, a species native to the Northern half of the Milky Way galaxy who had a rich heritage and culture….until they were conquered by the Haakonian Order and now many of their race were scattering themselves throughout this part of the galaxy.

He knew that in the next 77 years, this planet would have its own wink of galactic notoriety when it would become a vital part of the Talaxian's move to join the United Federation of Planets when Captain Kathryn Janeway returned to the other side of the galaxy and gave Starfleet the means of getting across the galaxy and revitalising their urge to explore. Such breakthroughs in propulsion technology, such as the work carried out in the field of Quantum Slipstream drive would soon open the serendipitous moment when the hyperdrive was invented, but right now those events were a long way away because Theta noticed something that confused and worried him greatly.

A lot of time had passed since his arrival this year.

He had been here for several weeks, and he had been unconscious at that time. Theta knew he hadn't been weirdly transported through time and simply left unconscious in this place; he knew teleportation technologies didn't work that way. And his senses made it clear he hadn't moved an inch through the use of time technology. No, he had simply been unconscious. For a moment he wondered if he had been teleported here by simple chance, and he had simply been knocked unconscious while his body sustained him, but that didn't make any sense either.

Theta took a deep breath. He could feel the TARDIS at the back of his mind, but he knew he was nowhere near her. But her presence in his mind was reassuring to him. Her presence gave him the strength to begin wriggling his toes before the constant stings and aches in his body drew his attention to his arms. Weakly he lifted his right arm, wincing at the almost rigour-like feeling in his body. Pushing through it, Theta raised his left arm and slowly rolled down the sleeves of his jacket, and he stared.

In the dim light, he caught sight of several strange growths. Theta stared at them and he gently ran his fingers over them, wincing at the pain. Now desperate to get up, Theta wriggled his toes and experimented with bending his legs. He knew of a technique that would heal his body, by summoning regeneration energy and using it to re-energise his limbs, but he didn't want to do that until he had no choice. Finally, his efforts paid off and he was able to stand, leaning and gasping against a tree on quivering legs that hadn't taken his weight in days.

As he leaned against his tree, Theta gently performed a few basic exercises designed to warm the body up. When he stopped he pulled out his palm computer after making sure he still had his devices - his computer, his TARDIS key, his TARDIS detector magnet, his book on life in his galaxy, and his camera - and took a reading. The device was a simple piece of Time Lord technology, containing many star charts of both normal space, subspace corridors and whatever temporal rifts there were on this world. It told him what he knew already, he was on the other side of the galaxy, 70,000 light years away from the TARDIS.

Where any other race would be driven by despair even if they had the technology that could give them a fighting chance despite the insane distance as it would take decades just to cross it, Theta just accepted it. He had known he was on the other side of the galaxy anyway, and he had the reassurance of the TARDIS in his mind as he considered ways of reuniting with her and leaving this galaxy and time period for a bit.

But Theta was running a biodata and biological checkup on his body. There were signs he had been subjected to some kind of invasive genetic testing and there were cancerous-like lumps all over his body. As he studied the readings, Theta ran a check through the palm computer to check which species used such techniques and he was surprised by the answer.

Nacene.

Theta checked his memory for the species before he checked the palm computer. A race of explorers a few galaxies to the left of this one. Highly advanced technologically with the capacity of meshing their technology with themselves until neither could live without the other in a symbiotic arrangement. Sporocystian, both physical and non-corporeal. But neither the Time Lords nor the Nacenes's had ever been aggressive to the other, so why was he suddenly kidnapped?

Theta pushed the question out of his mind when he felt another ache of pain coming from the growths. Desperately he scanned them and discovered they were just cancerous growths, easily healed with regeneration energy.

With a sigh, Theta took a deep breath as he focused his mind on his regeneration energy. He performed a few star jumps, shaking his hands to rouse the energy which made his hands and body glow for a moment, healing his body within a moment. Keeping out of his mind the thought he might have lost some height in his next incarnation, he shook the energy away before a full regeneration took place, Theta checked the palm computer again and saw that he was reasonably close to the Talaxian colony. He calculated if he just walked there, he would arrive there in a few hours, but Theta realised if could get there quickly then he could find a ship and get away from here. He had to return to the TARDIS. Now. This wasn't the time to waste.

Memorising the map to the Talaxian settlement, Theta began to run. Time Lords possessed dozens of powers, especially those who hadn't yet regenerated. Time itself began warping around Theta as he raced until the surrounding forest merged together in a corridor of warped space and time. The blurred trees flashed past Theta as he shortened the journey, mentally folding and twisting time so the distance between himself and the settlement was closer now than ever. The Time Lords frowned upon this use as it played hell with the symbiotic nuclei, but he had been playing this sort of game for decades now.

X

The Talaxian settlement was a large one. There were numerous buildings being constructed and as he kept to the back streets since he wasn't sure how they would react to his presence, Theta had enough time to think.

If he stole a ship, then he might be able to modify it so it could shorten the journey time he would need to return to Earth, and even if he couldn't modify the ship, he could still steal more, and he could even find the maze of subspace corridors that looped throughout the universe and make use of them, and he could travel around this part of the galaxy and collect whatever he needed to build maybe a transmat portal or a vortex manipulator, or maybe he could rebuild one of the continuum warp drives and reconfigure it into something a little less primitive, like a hyperdrive.

The possibilities were endless. He wasn't beaten yet. And he had a lifespan that meant the time it would take to return to the TARDIS would be minuscule.

Theta addressed the plan in his mind again. He would steal the fastest ship he could find and try to shorten the distance from there while he looked for opportunities and even time travel technology since it would solve several problems for him further down the line. But once away, he would look for another ship, and then another and another.

The biggest problem Theta had was he was limited to what he could actually do; in this era where continuum warp engines created bubbles which warped normal space for a ship to surf at faster-than-light speeds, there was only so much he could do, even then it wasn't a problem. There were those subspace corridors to bear in mind.

The spaceport was separated from the rest of the settlement by a distance of a mile, connected and joined by maglev tracks. That made sense; if there was some kind of disaster then the Talaxians would be able to put some distance between their spaceport and their people and still have the means of dealing with it. Using the palm computer, he found entertainment centres and cantinas where pilots could meet and take refreshments.

As he approached the port, he found a number of small shuttles and ships. He ignored the smaller intersystem shuttles which would be used by the Talaxians for travel to the mining stations in this system in favour of the interstellar capable cargo hauliers and shuttles and defence vessels. Earth was a long way from here, and he would need a ship that was resilient and speedy enough to cut down the distance before he needed to find a new one.

Using his palm computer to shield himself from the Talaxian's sensors and security net, Theta found the ship he wanted after an hour. It was a relatively new model, capable of a continuum warping speed of warp 7.

Theta shrugged. He could still make some modifications to the computer of the ship and fold space more effectively and shorten the journey by decades or months.

Scanning the ship, Theta found it was empty. Additional scans showed that the ship was ready for launch; it was fully fuelled and powered for a trip, and once he hacked into the settlement's spaceport traffic control system, he saw that the ship would be sent on a 7-month long patrol. It had been locked down by the captain, who had taken the actuator key. For a moment Theta wondered how he could bypass it if he should wait and stowaway and then….

No.

He wouldn't strand them somewhere, and while he could see the attraction behind overpowering the crew here, there were too many risks.

Using the palm computer again, Theta saw that the actuator key was relatively simple to bypass. Once he was sure, he programmed the ship's warp engines to start warming up. It would take half an hour for the engines to be fully powered. Reaching the ship's docking hatch, Theta closed the airlock and reached the cockpit. For the next ten minutes as the engines warmed up, Theta began hacking into the ship, using the palm computer to help him bypass the actuator key.

Success. Once he was finished he began making preparations to leave. Hands dancing over the controls, Theta shut off the communication relays to stop the Talaxians from getting into contact and he powered up the impulse drive before he blasted his way out of the atmosphere. As he rose in his stolen ship, Theta listened to the sensor alarm and he saw that the Talaxians were chasing after him, and word had been sent to several ships in orbit above the planet. They were about to hem him in.

Thinking quickly, Theta accessed the ship's computer so he could get to the navigational deflector. The deflector wasn't fully charged yet, but there was more than enough power in it to give Theta what he wanted. Fingers danced all over the controls as his mind made speedy calculations, Theta's work paid off when a streak of white light speared the sky as he neared the edge of the planet's atmosphere into space. Ignoring the Talaxian's repeated hails as they urgently sped towards him, knowing something was happening, Theta took his ship through the spatial flexure he had just created.

X

When the ship emerged from the flexure, Theta quickly took a navigational check and while he waited for the computer to recalibrate and give him his new fix, he turned the ship around and reconfigured the deflector to seal the flexure to stop the Talaxians from chasing after him. Once the flexure was closed and sealed, Theta checked the computer. It wasn't what he had hoped, he realised with some disappointment, but a jump of 40 light years was better than nothing.

Now all he had to do was simply wait for the warp engines to fully warm up, and then he could resume his course towards Earth. In the meantime, he began reprogramming the computer to look for anything natural which could shorten his journey, while he looked for entrance points to the subspace corridor network.

X - Three weeks later…

Captain Kathryn Janeway side-eyed Chakotay as they approached the old man playing mournfully on the Banjo together. It was surreal seeing and hearing him playing the instrument so mournfully, when before when he had been a part of the holographic facade he had been happy and having fun. But the old man was the best lead they had in discovering what had happened to their missing people, and how they could get home.

When she had received word from Starfleet Command about the loss of Tuvok, she had not suspected some alien entity or technology could have dragged the Maquis ship led by Chakotay, a once highly noted and regarded Starfleet officer himself before he left for the Maquis, to the Delta Quadrant, and would later drag her own ship here.

But Janeway reflected on her temporary alliance for a moment; from what she had heard of him, Chakotay was a highly intelligent man, and it was clear that was true since he had seen the value in working with them for the time being.

As the Starfleet officers and Maquis surrounded the seeming old man warily knowing if he was the one responsible for bringing them all here, then he was very dangerous, they waited for him to realise they were there. He stopped playing and groaned when he saw them. "Oh, why have you come back? You don't have what I need."

Janeway felt anger flaring inside of her, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chakotay wasn't looking too interested in pursuing diplomacy either. She'd even had a good speech in her mind, too. "I don't know what you need and frankly I don't care," she snapped, "I just want our people back and I want us all to be sent home."

The old man laughed contemptuously. "Oh, well now. Aren't you contentious for a minor bipedal species?"

Janeway stiffened. An alien was one thing, but what type of alien was this? "This minor bipedal species doesn't take kindly to being abducted."

"Oh, it was necessary," the alien replied.

Chakotay tried a different approach, "Where are our people?" He asked.

"They are no longer here," the alien replied simply as if the matter was of no consequence to it.

"What have you done to them?" Janeway demanded suspiciously.

"You don't have what I need. They might," the alien said before adding dismissively, "No, you'll have to leave them."

Chakotay shook his head. "We won't do that." For the first time frustration was bleeding into his patient demeanour.

Janeway nodded in agreement. "We are their commanding officers," she explained angrily, "We are entrusted with their safety. They are our responsibility. That may be a concept you don't understand."

The alien then surprised the entire group. "Oh, no, I do understand, but I have no choice," it said gravely, the holographic facade of the old human man looking like he was about to break down and cry, he added, "There just is not enough time left."

Janeway caught the eye of Chakotay, Tuvok and Paris, wondering what he was talking about. "Left for what?"

But the alien seemed to be lost in a world of its own. "I must honour a debt that can never be repaid, but my search has not been going well," the alien suddenly let out a mournful wail, "and now it's over. I wasted all that time examining that Time Lord, wasting all of that energy when I brought him from your world after he had materialised in this era and then sent him away several light years…. I only had enough power to bring your ships here to continue my search…"

Janeway's eyes widened. "What's a Time Lord?" Paris demanded the implication its reach could extend so far was terrifying...

The alien didn't hear him.

Chakotay was focused on something else. "You kidnapped somebody from our own planet? You can do that?"

But the alien was still not saying anything.

Janeway sat down next to the alien on the holographic bench, deciding to try another tack. "Tell us what you're looking for. Maybe we can help you find it," she offered.

That caught the alien's attention. "You?" It laughed arrogantly and contemptuously. "I've searched the galaxy with methods beyond your comprehension. I even kidnapped a Time Lord, a being of great power and intelligence, who has the power to manipulate time and space and matter as if it were nothing, a member of a species who created the Time Vortex, a warp tunnel in hyperspace and became the lords of time, a being who is virtually immortal, and yet he didn't have what I needed either, and yet you think you can help me?! No, there's nothing you can do."

Janeway did her best to keep her voice calm although she had made a mental note to discover if the Federation database had anything on these 'Time Lords' but first she had to try to get through to the alien, "You've taken us seventy thousand light years from our home. We have no way back unless you send us, and we won't leave without the others."

The alien leaned forward. "But sending you back is terribly complicated. Don't you understand?" He snapped before he added, "I don't have time. Not enough time!"

The alien punctuated his point with a wave of his arm and the group found themselves sent back to the Bridge. After she had pushed aside the momentary nausea of unprepared transport, Janeway walked to the bridge rail and leaned on it, staring malevolently at the Array. It fired its pulses, and for a moment she thought it was mocking her.

Janeway knew that alien beings had the power to get them all home, and yet try as she might, she was just not capable of ridding herself of the alien called a Time Lord…

She had research to do.

X

Owls hooted and dogs barked while Tuvok and Janeway once more transported to the Array. It had been a busy two days since they had arrived in the Delta Quadrant. After confronting the so-called 'Caretaker', Janeway and Chakotay had both focused on repairing their ships and then they headed towards the world where the Array was directing those energy pulses, and while the help they had received from Neelix had been dubious, he had indirectly helped them make contact with the Kazon, who despite their hostility and greedy arrogance, had told them about the Ocampa, and how their city was located two miles beneath the surface of their planet.

Janeway, with the help of an Ocampan prisoner, Kes, had taken a team to the city, where they discovered Kim and Torres had both escaped and were trying to head up to the surface. The Array had begun opening fire on the planet, to seal the energy conduits the Caretaker was filling with energy.

Tuvok had come up with the hypothesis the Caretaker was dying. He wasn't leaving, not after providing the Ocampa with protection and comfort for a millennium, but he knew his death was imminent.

But Janeway was left with some very disturbing questions.

Why had the Caretaker, if he had been caring about the Ocampa, been so focused on kidnapping aliens and ships from around the galaxy?

Where were the aliens now? Were some of them dead, or had they been sent home?

If the Caretaker died now, how would Voyager and the Val-Jean return home?

But, strangely, Janeway's mind was also focused on this Time Lord; she had checked Federation records, and she had learnt there were mentions of an almighty race of time travellers out there, but the reports on them dated back as far as the 20th century, to an organisation known as UNIT, but so many records had long since been lost, but there was enough there to tell Janeway these Time Lords held knowledge and technology greater than anything in the Federation.

"The data processing system is behind this wall, Captain," Tuvok snapped her out of her thoughts, as he gestured to the wall.

Janeway nodded and she was about to give Tuvok an order, but before she did a familiar sound caught their attention; a plaintive banjo started to twang. It was a melancholic, sad sound. The Caretaker. Janeway turned to Tuvok, her mind made up, "You know what to do."

After sending her a look telling her to be careful Tuvok left her to begin his task. Slowly Janeway followed the sound of the banjo, tapping her com badge in such a way that it would record everything that would be said, and found the Caretaker sitting in front of the holographic fire; a part of her wondered why he was still maintaining this pretence of maintaining the old banjo player form, but something told her that the alien entity actually liked the activity and regretted not having the time to learn more about it, but she pushed that aside.

The Caretaker noticed her as she approached softly. He didn't seem surprised or bothered to see her. "Well, you're nothing if not persistent," he said, putting the banjo away.

"We need you to send us back where we came from," Janeway said, taking his words as a compliment.

"That isn't possible. I've barely enough strength to complete my work."

Janeway frowned as she remembered the brutal attack on the Ocampan city. She'd get back to the matter of getting them home in a bit. "You're sealing the conduits before you die."

The Caretaker's holographic face looked at her plaintively, "If I don't, the Kazon will steal the water. But in a few years, when the Ocampa's energy runs out, it won't matter," he looked away, looking heartbroken as he added, "They'll be forced to come to the surface and they won't be able to survive." Janeway knew the Caretaker was telling the truth.

She had seen her fair share of barren wastelands, but the Ocampa's planet was something else. "Something you did turned their planet into a desert, didn't it?" Janeway had known the moment she had discovered the lack of nucleonic particles in the atmosphere of the planet had to be down to the Caretaker, but some of the jigsaw still didn't make sense. "That was the debt that could never be repaid. What happened? What did you do?"

"We're explorers from another galaxy," the Caretaker explained, "We had no idea that our technology would be so destructive to their atmosphere. Two of us were chosen to stay behind and care for them."

Explorers from another galaxy was one thing, although she was willing to bet the Caretaker's idea of exploration was different from Janeway's. But she was more surprised by the implication of the added statement. "There's another like you here?"

The Caretaker sighed. "Not anymore. No, no. She went off to look for more interesting places."

Janeway wondered if there was more to her departure than met the eye. But right now she had another matter to work out. "Why were you bringing ships here, infecting people with a fatal illness?" She demanded.

"Oh, they didn't die of an illness. They died because they were incompatible."

"Incompatible?"

"I've been searching the galaxy for a compatible biomolecular pattern," the Caretaker explained plaintively and desperately. "Now, in some individuals, I found cellular structures that were similar, but I-."

Suddenly the jigsaw puzzle slotted together. Suddenly she knew what the Caretaker had been trying to do, and it was so unbelievable that she almost found herself not believing it. "You've been trying to procreate?"

The Caretaker looked up desperately at her. "I needed someone to replace me. Someone who'd understand the enormous responsibility of caring for the Ocampa. Only my offspring could do that."

Janeway couldn't believe it. She had expected something different, but not this.

She was suddenly hit by a wave of compassion that bordered on annoyance towards the Caretaker. While she could understand what he wanted now, she could see the flaws in the plan. Even if he could have examined every being in the galaxy, something told her the Caretaker wouldn't have gotten what he wanted.

The Caretaker was a being of different energy and matter, totally different to everything else, and he hadn't worked that out in his desperation. He had used all his energy to begin his search and it had turned out to be pointless.

But even if he had found an alien to mate with, how long would it have been before his offspring could take over?

Would they even want to?

Would they care about the Ocampa?

Children rarely did what their parents wanted, after all. But what Janeway did not understand was why the Caretaker hadn't bothered looking for his female counterpart. She could have easily taken over, but she had a suspicion about why she'd left, and now she was going to put that question to rest; she had spent enough time being near the Caretaker to know what made him tick, gotten a sense of his attitude, but now it was time to get the answer to a question she'd had on her mind since she had learnt what the Caretaker was doing.

She sat back down and stared pointedly at the Caretaker. "Did you ever consider allowing the Ocampa to care for themselves?" She asked.

She wasn't surprised by the Caretaker's reply. "They're children."

Janeway raised a brow. "Children have to grow up," she pointed out to the dying entity; she had to make him understand everything, about the harm he had caused to the Ocampa. "We're explorers too," she went on, "Most of the species we've encountered have overcome all kinds of adversity without a Caretaker. I think that's why your female counterpart left. She had seen you holding the Ocampa back as well as coddling them and believing them to be too stupid to understand what you believed was in their best interests. Did you know, when we went to their city, they haven't spoken to you? You hadn't spoken to them, so they form a view of what they believe you want them to do? They have spent centuries under the ground, but they have lost so many of their abilities because they have stopped using them. As I said, most species have survived without a Caretaker, and they have grown, and flourished. It's the challenge of surviving on their own that helps them to evolve. Maybe your children will do better than you think."

While the Caretaker was looking back at her with an expression that Janeway would have taken to be a thoughtful one had he been human, but she wasn't going to take back her words, they were right, her combadge beeped urgently, and her new operations manager came on the line.

"Voyager to Janeway," Kim said; Janeway instantly knew it was not going to be good, she might not know Kim that well, but she could hear the panic in his voice.

"Go ahead," she said.

"We've got problems here. The Kazon just got some backup," Janeway flinched as she heard the sound of impact damage and explosions on her bridge.

"We need more time. Can you hold them off for another few minutes?" Janeway asked, hoping and praying that Kim and her ship could hold out. Voyager had been very badly damaged by the wave that brought them to the Delta Quadrant, and they'd barely managed to get the ship back together only to be attacked by the Kazon, and they still didn't know what the Kazon could do. "We'll do our best. Kim out."

The Caretaker gathered his energy and rose unsteadily. Janeway followed him up. "You are right, I have held the Ocampa back. Suspiria was right as well," he added with a sad chuckle. "She said that my stance on the Ocampa's care was a mistake, but I refused to listen. And then she left."

"Suspiria? Your female counterpart?" Janeway caught on quickly.

The Caretaker nodded. "Yes. My mate. While I was focused on maintaining the status quo and caring for the Ocampa, she actively felt we should be helping them explore their mental capabilities. We argued frequently. And then she left, taking a large group with her. I tried to find her when I realised I was dying," he added, "but I couldn't find her."

"And then you began taking ships?"

"Yes," the Caretaker nodded and he closed his eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"I am transmitting my knowledge to the Ocampa, and an apology for holding them back and that they should learn to grow without me," the Caretaker replied, keeping his 'eyes' closed. When he reopened them again he looked even older and wearier. "It's done."

Janeway was about to ask him if he could send them all back home again, but something wouldn't stop leaving her mind. "Tell me more about this Time Lord. Who are they? I've looked them up and there are references to a Time Lord who helped defend Earth a few centuries ago."

"Defend? Oh, well, there are likely exceptions, especially if they hold onto that non-interference policy," the Caretaker noted to himself before he gave all his attention to her. "My people have only encountered them several times in the past. They are considered to be a near myth or legend among the higher species, although some like the Q definitely know about them, but know better than to manipulate or meddle in their affairs. They are time travellers. Some consider them to be the first time-travelling species in the universe. They are the ruling elite of their society, and without a doubt, they are one of the oldest races in creation."

Janeway listened to this with interest, and she was pleased she had switched on her com badge to record this. "Go on," she urged.

"The Time Lords see themselves as lords of time. They ruthlessly control all knowledge of time travel in the cosmos and while they refuse to interfere in the affairs of others, my people know they will involve themselves if they have no choice. They evolved with a special relationship with time, and not only have they mastered several technologies beyond that of many in the universe, but they also created a vast warp tunnel in hyperspace and they sent one part of it into the future, and created a corridor of time, running from the time the tunnel was activated to the end of the universe after discovering a way of slipping back further in time close to the beginning of the universe," the Caretaker said, pausing as he waited for her to absorb that fact. "They then created the first TARDISes, time capsules that existed outside normal space/time, and with those technologies, they began writing the universe's events to spread order to the universe. They became the lords of time."

Janeway was awed by the tale of a super race who had mastered space and time in such a way. "But how did you find one? You said he was on Earth when you kidnapped him?"

The Caretaker nodded. "Yes," he whispered, and Janeway realised he didn't have long left to live. "His TARDIS had arrived on your homeworld but I detected its presence. I transmatted him on the Array and kept him unconscious for weeks while I genetically studied his body. I found some of his physiology close to what I needed, but I soon realised it was pointless. So I had to send him away."

"Send him away?"

"I transported him to a different part of his region," the Caretaker clarified.

"So he's still here?" At the Caretaker's nod, Janeway had to ask, "Why not just send him to the Ocampa?"

"He would have found a way of leaving, and if he had done that, he would have caused untold damage to my work. Time Lords are cunning. The worst Time Lord is an angry Time Lord. When they are enraged, they don't lash out. They strategise and make a plan. I was afraid he would be a danger, and so I sent him away."

"When was this?"

"About one of your months ago. He's probably on the move right now," the Caretaker replied.

Janeway realised something. "If his ship could travel through time and space, and it's on Earth, then he won't be able to travel far. He would need to rely on conventional ships and technology. What can he do?"

The Caretaker sighed. He seemed to be getting wearier of this entire conversation. "Time Lords have a greater understanding of space, hyperspace, subspace, and time. He would likely be able to find a way of transmatting himself back to his TARDIS."

While Janeway was left reeling from the implications of how this Time Lord could potentially help them if the Caretaker was unable to, Tuvok came over and closed his tricorder. "Captain, I can access the system to send us back to Federation space, but it will take several hours to activate," he reported.

Janeway turned to the Caretaker. "Unless you help us…." The Caretaker looked close to tears if he could indeed cry.

"Oh, I wish I could but I have very little time left, so I have initiated a self-destruct programme."

Janeway's inside chilled. "If you destroy the Array, we'll have no way to get home," she pointed out.

"The Ocampa's enemies can not be allowed to control this installation. In minutes, it'll be destroyed. You have to go. Go now," the Caretaker urged them, and Janeway stood up while her mind whirled as she tried to think of a way beyond this when the whole room shook violently sending Janeway and Tuvok to the ground. Once they got back up on their feet, the holographic barn flickered as the holographic generators shut down, and the illusion transformed into a brightly lit control room.

Janeway gasped when she caught sight of a brightly coloured ball of energy. It was mostly purple, but there were other lights dancing slowly around it. "The Caretaker?" Tuvok asked. Janeway didn't reply. She had guessed the Caretaker's human guise hid its true appearance, and this was the proof. She tapped her com badge to get an idea of what was going on. "Voyager, report."

Paris's voice came over the com line. "Kazon vessel just collided with the array, Captain. Are you all right?"

Janeway turned to Tuvok, understanding what the impact was now, but what it had done to the Array, she did not know. "Affirmative. Stand by," she added as she and Tuvok came to a stop in front of the Caretaker.

"The self-destruct programme has been damaged. Now this installation will not be destroyed. But it must be. The Kazon must not be allowed to gain control of it. They will annihilate the Ocampa."

As the Caretaker had been speaking, his body had begun shrinking as though each word had accelerated his death until his last words left him as a hand-sized rock. Janeway slowly walked to the rock and gently picked it up and rolled it around in her hands, unable to believe that the Caretaker was now gone.

"Shall I activate the programme to get us back?"

Janeway sighed. "And what happens to the Ocampa after we're gone?"

Sensing rather than seeing Tuvok kneeling down next to her as they took in the Caretaker's remains, Tuvok said, "Captain, any action we take to protect the Ocampa would affect the balance of power in this system. The Prime Directive would seem to apply."

Janeway scowled at the thought of the Prime Directive. She knew he was right. But at the same time, she was faced with the grim reality that had haunted her ever since they'd arrived here. If they acted then there would be grave repercussions, but at the same time, she didn't see much choice.

The Kazon were pounding both the Val-Jean and Voyager, and they would not just stand by and let them get the Array to send them away. And it was looking increasingly likely they wouldn't be getting home with the Array.

"Would it? We never asked to be involved, Tuvok, but we are. We are." She looked down as she felt the weight on her shoulders, of what she and her crew were destined to become….

X

Voyager was still taking weapons fire, as Janeway and Tuvok returned to the bridge. "Mr Tuvok, ready the tricobalt devices," Janeway ordered Tuvok, who rapidly retook his station.

"Aye, Captain," Tuvok replied.

Janeway envied the Vulcans' self-control, and she wondered how he felt about the plan she had come up with to end this now. Janeway came to stand by Chakotay - she wondered what happened, but she had a good idea what had happened to his ship - before she came to a stop before the viewer. "Open a channel to the Kazon."

"Channel open."

On the viewscreen, Jabin's unattractive face leered savagely. "Be advised, Captain. I have called for additional ships."

Janeway wondered for a second if Voyager could outrun the Kazon; they might need to. "I'm calling to warn you to move your vessels to a safe distance. I intend to destroy the Array."

Out of the corner of her eye, Janeway was aware of the shock reverberating around the bridge, but she ignored it. She knew what she was doing was condemning them to a crazy and insane journey that would take years. But if they left the Array would be taken by the Kazon, and while some Starfleet captains wouldn't care about the Ocampa, she knew enough of the Caretaker's technology to know if it got into the Kazon's hands, they wouldn't get home anyway. On the viewscreen, Jabin's face seemed to pale in shock. "You can't do that!" He protested.

When she had first met Jabin, Janeway had known that the Kazon leader was highly intelligent and desperate to claim advantages. He had ruled his sect by governing the water supply; if he could get them to the Ocampa and the Caretaker's technology, they would gain a great advantage. His status as leader would be cemented.

Too bad Janeway had no intention of obliging him. Lifting her head high, Janeway smirked without any humour, knowing it would antagonise the Kazon. It seemed to work with the way he ground his teeth back at her.

"I can and I will. End transmission."

The ship shook harder than before. "They're increasing fire, Captain," Kim reported. "Shields are holding."

Janeway nodded "Move us four hundred kilometres from the Array, Mr Paris."

"Yes, ma'am."

"What do you think you're doing?!" An angry voice demanded, and Janeway turned to find a woman wearing the rugged clothes of a Maquis glaring at her heatedly (Janeway recognised her as B'elanna Torres, Chakotay's half-Klingon engineer, although cranial ridges were a giveaway to somebody with Klingon heritage) "That Array is the only way we have to get back home."

Janeway nodded. "I'm aware everyone has families and loved ones at homes they want to get back to. So do I," Janeway wished she had the nerve to say more, but time was growing shorter and shorter as she got involved in this pointless debate. "But I'm not willing to trade the lives of the Ocampa for our convenience. We'll have to find another way home."

Janeway sensed Torres chasing after her. "What other way home is there?" To her relief, she was stopped by Chakotay. "Who is she to be making these decisions for all of us?" Torres demanded angrily.

"She's the Captain," Chakotay said quietly; Janeway knew he most definitely had problems with her decision as well, but he had more than enough awareness to know what was allowed on the bridge of a ship.

"The tricobalt devices are ready," Tuvok reported.

"We're in position," Paris added.

Janeway paused before she gave the order to fire. She had been dreading this, being stranded in the Delta Quadrant, but she hadn't expected it to turn out like this. She had assumed the Caretaker would either throw them away and die in peace, or he would refuse outright.

She hadn't expected to be the reason they would turn out to be stranded. Licking her dry lips, Janeway said clearly in one rush otherwise the order would not come, "Fire." Two blue torpedoes streamed out of Voyager's forward launchers and struck the Array. The torpedoes detonated in a fiery explosion that destroyed the Array, splitting it into bits.

Silence reigned on the bridge as they took in the new reality they were suddenly thrust in. "The lead Kazon ship is hailing us," Kim reported in a shaky voice.

"On screen."

Jabin appeared on the viewscreen. His expression was dire and furious, but Janeway wondered how much of that anger was political. "You have made an enemy today," he threatened.

Oh, great. "They are withdrawing, Captain," Tuvok reported from his console.

X

Hours later, Janeway walked around the bridge. Much of the battle damage with the Kazon had been cleared up and now the ship was waiting for her command to leave this system.

But that was the scariest part.

Aside from the Borg, the Cybermen, Ice Warriors, Raxacoricofallapatorians, and the Rutans and Sontarans, the Federation had very little idea of the dangers in this part of the galaxy.

And it was scary and thrilling at the same time. "We're alone in an uncharted part of the galaxy. We have already made some friends here, and some enemies," Janeway said, looking towards Kes and Neelix- while she was dubious about Neelix's attraction to Kes, she was glad the elfin alien girl was smart enough to not even think about it, "We have no idea of the dangers we're going to face, but one thing is clear." She came to a stop before the Operations console, where Kim and one of the Maquis were standing. The Maquis, a big silent man was wearing a uniform, like Chakotay. Janeway was more than aware of how reluctant Chakotay was about her offer and the agreement that stated they would be one crew, a Starfleet crew. She pushed that aside as she went on, "Both crews are going to have to work together if we're to survive."

Janeway walked over to where Chakotay was standing. He looked good in the red command uniform. "That's why Commander Chakotay and I have agreed that this should be one crew. A Starfleet crew. And as the only Starfleet vessel assigned to the Delta Quadrant, we'll continue to follow our directive to seek out new worlds and explore space. But our primary goal is clear. Even at maximum speeds, it would take 75 years to reach the Federation, but I'm not willing to settle for that," she smiled. She paused for a moment as she worked out the rest of her speech. "There's another entity like the Caretaker out there somewhere who has the ability to get us there a lot faster. We'll be looking for her, and we'll be looking for wormholes, spatial rifts, or new technologies to help us."

Janeway took a deep breath as she came to the part of the speech she would need to make clear. "When we were on the Array, the Caretaker said he had kidnapped an alien known as a Time Lord. The Caretaker teleported him straight from Earth itself and threw him away when he found the Time Lord could not help him procreate. I've done some searching, and these Time Lords are time travellers, with great knowledge of technology, and this individual he might have a plan all ready to return to his own ship. They have great knowledge and the one who is here, and while he might be a great distance from here, we will be watching out for him, and with luck, he might be able to help us get back to our part of the galaxy. Somewhere along this journey, we'll find a way back. Mr Paris set a course for home."

"Aye, Captain."

As Chakotay came to stand by her side as Voyager broke the warp barrier and the stars streaked past as the ship entered the warp bubble, Janeway turned her mind to the Time Lord, and the journey ahead. She wasn't sure if they could find this Time Lord, but if they could then she was hopeful he would help them.

But for now, they would concentrate on finding other ways of getting home.

They had to.

A/N - Before anyone says anything, in some media, some Time Lords who haven't regenerated yet have one heart, so Theta has the one heart. But what did you think?