Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. I do not own anything, nor do I get paid for it.
A/N Thanks for the amazing response on the last chapter. This one contains mild torture and violence.
Happy Reading!
Chapter Seven
Previously
The doors sprang open as they reached them and Susan ushered everyone inside and slammed the doors shut behind her. She glanced around eagerly. "Grandfather! Oh, Grandfather! I knew you would come!" she said in relief.
Her relief slipped away when she saw the furious look on the Doctor's face. "They have her. The Daleks have Rose."
Susan's expression became guarded. "Who's Rose?" she asked.
"I should have checked before opening the doors right on the Dalek Time Controller's ship…" he stopped abruptly and looked up in shock. "Susan? What are you doing here?"
"I should ask you the same," said Susan, crossing her arms obstinately.
The Doctor walked up to her. "You are supposed to be on Earth," he said, barely concealed anger in his voice. "Not in the middle of this mess."
Susan swelled furiously at his admonishing tone, but Meria piped up before she could retort. "Wow, that's what you said to me, Mrs. Campbell," she said.
Susan glared at her. "Not now, Meria," she said and then looked at the five other members of their party who were looking around the TARDIS with ill-concealed disgust.
"You one of them then, Mrs. C?" asked Ciaran, sounding disappointed. "Are you one of the Time Lords?"
"No! Well, yes," said Susan, sounding frustrated. "It isn't like that."
"Oh, it is exactly like that," snapped Neil. "Did they send you to us in the first place?"
"No, no, no," said Susan immediately. "Nobody sent me, I swear to you! I came of my own accord."
"What I want to know is why, Susan," said the Doctor, still in that same admonishing tone. "Why would you leave the safety of Earth and come to this madness?"
"Safety? Safety, Grandfather?" she demanded incredulously. "Nothing and nowhere is really safe. Besides, it isn't as if I have anything left on Earth now."
The Doctor had the grace to drop the point. "Oh, Susan, I am…"
"Don't apologise, Grandfather," she said gently, her demeanour softening. "Earth was never really my home, you knew that. If it hadn't been for David, and later Alex, I would never have stayed there. And after the call came, I could hardly not answer."
"Oh, but you could have, Susan," said the Doctor, sounding distressed.
"Grandfather, I…"
"If I can just interrupt this family reunion or whatever it is," interrupted Neil. "We demand to be let out of this-this hideous contraption!"
"Let out?" demanded the Doctor, rounding on him. "I didn't even invite you. You lot just barged your way in. And if you want to be let out where there is a horde of Daleks just waiting to slaughter you, then go ahead. Leave!"
"Grandfather!" said Susan, outraged. "They are frightened, as is everyone else on this planet." She turned to Neil and the rest of the Vermillions who looked a little chastened too. "We all have a common enemy in the Daleks, and for everyone's sake, let's stop arguing over petty differences and focus on the real problem, shall we?"
The Doctor flicked a switch on the console and nodded. "Susan's right," he said. "I have put the TARDIS on invisible for now, but they will find a way to break through her barriers sooner or later. We need a plan, one to get Rose out of there, and to stop whatever the Dalek Time Controller has planned."
"The Dalek Time Controller?" asked Susan, her voice hardening. "What is that doing here?"
"Precisely what I mean to find out and I could use some help," said the Doctor, looking at the Vermillions. "Well?"
Neil looked around at his people and then nodded at the Doctor. "Fine," he said. "For now, anyway," he muttered under his breath.
Rose awoke with a gasp, and came to the immediate realisation that she was seated in a chair with her wrists and ankles bound. She was in a dark cell that smelled almost obsessively of disinfectant with an undercurrent of burnt flesh.
Her memory caught up to the mentions of Daleks and experiments and she began to struggle with her bonds, hoping to free herself.
"Stop doing that," she heard the Monk say as he opened her cell door and walked inside. "You'll end up hurting yourself."
"Stay away from me," snarled Rose, hoping that anger would conceal her fear. This scenario was entirely too familiar and she had no wish to see history repeat itself.
The Monk halted in his steps and held up his hands. "I do not mean you harm," he said calmly. "But you really ought to stop before the Daleks use...alternative means to subdue you."
Rose stopped struggling but glared venomously at the Monk. "And you don't want that I suppose?" she spat.
"I do not, as a matter of fact," he said, still in that infuriatingly calm voice. "I need your help."
Rose stared at him incredulously. "Help? You want me to help you, which means helping the Daleks? Did the Daleks take away your common sense along with your integrity?"
His calm demeanour slipped for an instant. "Do not presume to know of my motivations for associating myself with the Daleks, child," he snapped.
She continued to goad him, realising that he was letting a lot more slip when he got angry."Associating? Is that what they call treachery and genocide these days, I wonder?" she mocked.
He roared at her in anger and drew his hand back to strike her. Rose stared at him unflinchingly, her face twisted in a snarl. "Go ahead," she hissed. "Try it! But I must warn you that things did not end up well for the last people who had me in shackles."
The Monk stared at her, fury blazing in his eyes, before he lowered his hand. "You do not know anything about me," he said, his voice shaking.
"I know you are working for the Daleks, even after you saw what helping them once before did," said Rose.
"That is precisely why I am doing this!" he spat angrily. "They...used me. They broke their promise. An-and they killed Tamsin!"
"You're telling me you are working with the Daleks for revenge?" asked Rose, sceptically.
"Sshh," he hissed and then glanced around skittishly. "Yes," he said in a low voice. "The Dalek Time Controller sought me out. How, I don't know. But I decided to take them up on their offer, because it is often easy to dismantle an enterprise from within."
Rose was still sceptical, but unless the Monk was a spectacularly good actor, she doubted he was lying to her. "Fine, say I believe you," she said, raising her eyebrow. "What exactly have the Daleks been doing on Vermillion?"
"It hit the south first," said Susan. "Radiation burns and then we lost touch with them."
The Doctor stroked his chin thoughtfully. "The Monk said something about needing our help for experiments. It's how I know Rose will still be alive," he said.
Susan was keenly aware of the Vermillions close by, but they were currently catching up on sleep in the corner of the console room. She lowered her voice just in case. "Who is she, Grandfather? I can't imagine you bringing a companion into this madness," she said.
"She isn't my companion," he said immediately. "I don't know what she is, but she is from the future and that makes her dangerous to all concerned. The Time Lords are aware of her already, and if the Daleks discover what she knows, then we might as well be doomed now."
"She's from the future?" asked Susan incredulously. "How did she even get here?"
The Doctor nodded to the vortex manipulator sitting near the rotor. "The glowing bits on that space hopper is TARDIS coral, Susan," he said.
Susan looked between the vortex manipulator and the Doctor. "Your TARDIS, Grandfather?" she asked warily.
"Yes," he said quietly. "It pulled her across the void, the familiar coral seeking out the source. That's how she bypassed sealed universes and a time lock."
"And she survived that?" asked Susan, her eyes wide.
"I was as surprised as you are," said the Doctor quietly. "Her DNA proclaims her to be human, yet the Artron and Huon energy in her physiognomy are off the charts."
Susan looked at the monitor he swung towards her and read the results quickly. "How is she even alive?" she wondered out loud. "Forget the Artron readings, the Huon particles alone should have been fatal."
"She said that it was prolonged exposure to the vortex and Morbius thought it was consistent with the effects of exposure to the heart of a TARDIS," he said, partly to think out loud and partly to get a second opinion about Rose.
"Bu-but, that is horrible!" said Susan. "Pure vortex energy is dangerous enough to Time Lords from what I remember. No wonder her physiognomy has suffered so much. I doubt anyone has experimented with the effects of the vortex on humans before."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you think someone experimented on her?" he asked stoically.
Susan's brow furrowed. "You don't think so?" she asked, surprised.
The Doctor looked away and stared at the console. "Morbius, and I assume most Time Lords, are under the impression that it was my future self that experimented on her and sent her back."
"That is ridiculous," snapped Susan at once. "You would never do such a thing."
He closed his eyes. "I can't be sure of that," he said.
"And you haven't asked her this because you are afraid that it might be true," guessed Susan. "Oh, Grandfather, you are positively dense sometimes."
He opened his eyes and glared at her. "It has all happened rather quickly and we are in the middle of a war. Now is hardly the time to wonder what my future self might have done," he snapped. "Tell me more about this new plague."
Susan ignored his obvious attempt to change the subject. "Do you think it is possible that she might have done it voluntarily?" she asked delicately.
He stared at her like she was mad. "Why would anyone do that?" he asked incredulously.
"Several reasons, and you ought to know most of them already, Grandfather," said Susan.
He sighed and shook his head. "It doesn't matter now," he said. "I have to get her out of there, and apart from taking on the Dalek Time Controller and a ship full of Daleks with five Vermillions and primitive weaponry, I am out of options."
"Mrs. Campbell?"
Susan gave an exasperated sigh and turned around. "What is it now, Meria?" she asked in a tired voice.
Meria's lips trembled and she held out her arms in front of Susan. They were covered in red rashes. "I think I have the new plague."
"The Dalek numbers are diminishing rapidly. The Time Lords have built several successful delta waves intended to target them," said the Monk in a low voice.
"Yeah, know what a delta wave does," said Rose, suppressing a shiver. "But I know the Daleks can always make more of them, can't they?"
"Usually they can, yes," said the Monk. "But the delta waves are calibrated to target the specific Dalek genetics, so that the survivors or other beings do not die in the crossfire. Even if they make more Daleks, they will end up dying from the delta waves."
"And being Daleks they wouldn't really want to modify their genetics," said Rose, remembering the Dalek in Van Statten's bunker who considered any sort of mutation to be a sickness instead.
"Precisely," said the Monk. "But they need foot soldiers to fight in this war. Something that will be able to sustain the Time Lords' delta waves while the Daleks improve their genetics enough to fight the waves themselves."
"So that's what you've been doing? Helping them create new soldiers?" asked Rose.
"I would use the word help rather loosely, if I were you," he said. "I have been sabotaging the experiments regularly, ensuring that these so-called Skaro Degradations are nothing better than weak soldiers who would go down with a simple phaser blast."
Rose stared at him questioningly, rather aware that he was avoiding her gaze. "Something's gone wrong, hasn't it?" she asked.
The Monk looked chagrined. "I didn't know they'd use Thals. The common Skarosian gene that the Daleks and Thals share was dormant and I thought it harmless," he said.
"Monk, what has happened?" asked Rose, feeling a sense of dread.
"It has worked," he said. "These...Skaro Degradations, they are very, very powerful. More than I anticipated them being. I haven't told the Daleks yet and I need your help destroying them before…"
"MONK!"
Rose jumped violently and saw a group of Daleks with the Dalek Supreme in the lead standing outside her cell. The Monk looked terrified as he faced them.
"D-Dalek Supreme, is something wrong?" he asked, his voice trembling.
"YOU HAVE BETRAYED THE DALEKS! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
"No! No, I haven't betrayed you!" shouted the Monk, but to no avail as the Dalek Supreme's gun shot him straight in the chest, and he fell to the ground at Rose's feet.
"Well?" asked Susan anxiously.
"They're radiation burns but I can't isolate the specific kind of radiation," said the Doctor as he stared at the results on the screen in the infirmary.
"What's going on?" demanded Neil as he and the other Vermillions walked into the infirmary and found the Doctor and Susan scanning Meria, who was trembling with fear. "What are you doing to her?"
"Neil, look at her arms," said Ciaran and Neil followed his gaze.
"Is she infected?" asked Neil and readied his weapon.
The Doctor turned around and glared at him. "Put that away. You can't fire guns inside the TARDIS," he snapped.
"Don't need a gun to kill her then," said Neil as he put his gun away and started to walk towards Meria who squeaked with fear.
"That's enough, Neil!" snapped Susan, standing in front of Meria protectively. "We have no proof that the radiation burns have anything to do with what happened in the south."
"Isn't that the whole reason we set out from our camps?" demanded Neil.
"That was before we knew the Daleks were already here," countered Susan furiously. "What's to say that the Daleks have been taking or killing the survivors instead of these burns, whatever they are?"
Neil fell silent at that. "She has a point," allowed Ciaran. "In any case, we shouldn't start killing each other. The Daleks are the real enemies here."
"Good man," said the Doctor approvingly. "As far as I can say, there is definitely Skarosian radiation mixed in with several other kinds of radiation in there. It's like…" he stopped and looked at Meria sternly. "Were you captured by the Daleks?" he asked.
Meria stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. "No, of course not," she said a little too quickly.
"Meria, tell the truth," said Susan sternly.
Meria's trembling got worse. "I don't know what happened. One minute I was following you, and then the Daleks found me. I thought they would kill me, but then I must have passed out. I woke up on the beach when you found me," she blurted out quickly. "I'm sorry, I should have said."
"Did the Daleks do something to her? Is she a spy for them?" asked Neil, reaching for his weapon again.
"No," said the Doctor shortly. "The Daleks must have taken her to their ship. You have been bombarded with a combination of radiation."
"They experimented on me?" asked Meria, feeling sickened.
"I'm sorry," said the Doctor. "There isn't anything I can do for you, Meria. The radiation is eating through your metabolism."
"Is she contagious?" asked Neil warily.
"Oh, do shut up!" snapped Susan, glaring at him. "Grandfather, isn't there any sort of treatment that will work?" she asked the Doctor pleadingly.
The Doctor shook his head sadly. "Nothing that will stop it," he said. "That combination of radiation is fatal to anyone who is exposed to it, aliens and Time Lords alike. The only ones who might survive it…" he trailed off.
"Well?" asked Susan.
"Would have to be Skarosian," he finished, horrified.
Rose felt a raw scream erupt from her throat as red welts began to rise on her body. The radiation bombardment stopped, and then the red welts died down again, leaving her skin unmarked like before. She nearly sobbed with frustration. It had been the sixth time that the Daleks had done that. No matter how much she told them that it wouldn't affect her like other humanoids, they seemed determined to see it for themselves.
She tried to control her breathing, focusing on anything that she could apart from the heat she could feel crawling behind her eyes. She wouldn't let it overwhelm her again, not after what happened the last time. She squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for the pain.
And surely it came, more painful than before. The Daleks had been incrementally increasing the bombardment of radiation on her body, determined to see how far they could push the radiation until she couldn't heal the burns on her body. Rose nearly bloodied her lip trying not to blurt out that it would do no good. If she lost control again…
She screamed loudly again, her nails digging into her palms and drawing blood. The bombardment stopped again and she closed her eyes as the red burns left her body again. The cell door depressurised and Rose sat up when she saw the Dalek Time Controller enter her cell.
"YOU ARE IMMUNE."
Rose could hardly feel her tongue as she answered. "I would have told you that if you'd asked nicely," she said, wincing at how sore her throat was.
"WHY ARE YOU IMMUNE?"
"I-I don't know," she said. If they got even the slightest hint that she came from the future…
"YOU ARE AN ASSOCIATE OF THE DOCTOR?"
"Associate might-might be pushing it," she gasped out. "We only met yesterday." Had it only been a day? Felt so much longer… "Where's the Monk?" she asked instead. "I saw that he was starting to regenerate, so where is he?"
The Dalek Time Controller turned its eyestalk towards the door and the Dalek Supreme pushed in a man in the Monk's robes, who fell to his knees in his weakened state. This new man had a younger face than before, and he had barely looked up at Rose when the Dalek Time Controller shot him. He screamed in pain as he died yet again.
Rose glared venomously at the Dalek Time Controller, who turned back to her. "YOU WILL CO-OPERATE OR HIS NEXT REGENERATION SHALL BE HIS LAST!"
The Monk started to regenerate again and the Dalek Time Controller pointed its gun at him. "Fine!" shouted Rose. "What do you want?"
Instead of answering, the bonds holding her to the chair sprang open. Rose looked up in surprise at the Dalek Time Controller. "YOU ARE THE ABOMINATION. YOU SHALL HELP THE SKARO DEGRADATIONS."
A/N End of Chapter Seven. So, what did you think?
The next chapter will be up soon. See you then!