Chapter 15
In the main command centre of the Dalek battle fleet, the Central Command Dalek watched impassively, as several Daleks on the deck below him prepared the device. It was sat on a stainless steel table, the black box taking up much of the table's surface. One Dalek's metal arm had been fitted with a special attachment to make operating controls meant for five-digit humanoid hands, easier. As it tweaked a dial on the box, lights began flashing green and red like a deadly Christmas decoration. Their leader looked on while low humming noise began to emit from the weapon.
"Device activated and primed." One of the Daleks said, as it suction arm tweaked one of the dials. "It will now take nine hundred rels for the weapon to be fully charged and ready for deployment."
"The Doctor and his companions are dead. Today the people of Earth will be destroyed by their own past. The universe will be cleansed of the human race forever." The Central Command Dalek gloated. "Then we will put an end to all other life forms in existence. Only the pure Dalek will remain. The Dalek race will reign supreme!"
With those words, a hundred Dalek voices throughout the command deck chanted, "Daleks are supreme! Daleks are supreme! Daleks are supreme!
In the shadows of the corridor leading to the command deck, all was quiet. On the other side of the closed main doors, all was a beehive of activity. The rest of the ship seemed almost to be holding its breath in anticipation. A shadow detached itself from one of the corners. It was the Doctor. He was followed by River, Rory and Amy, as they cautiously moved forward, using every dark place and corner they could find for cover.
"See? I told you it would work." River whispered smugly. "Switching the sonic's setting to fifty-one, while simultaneously holding down the blue switch and the damper. Presto-change-o! Door open. You are so stubborn, sometimes."
"And obstinate. Yeah, I know." The Doctor whispered back. He was looking all around for any signs of Dalek activity or security devices. He was not in the best of moods, and River knew why. "That's why I'm still here, still fighting Daleks. Now, will you please stop talking? We got this far, and I'd find it seriously embarrassing to be caught now, because I was busy being lectured by some...overgrown know-it-all teenager."
River looked at Amy and Rory and raised her eyebrows. She shrugged as if she didn't care about the Doctor being so churlish to her. River knew that the he was being grouchy because she seemed to have a better knowledge of the workings of his own screwdriver, than he did. River nodded her head in agreement with the Doctor's next words;
"The Daleks hate party crashers, especially party crashers who bring more guests than the usual plus one. We'll have to find some other way in." The Doctor whispered very softly, as they paused opposite the entrance to the command deck.
Stealthily leading them past a closed door, the Doctor silently motioned to his friends to follow him down the corridor. All of the sudden, they heard a familiar whirring sound coming from around the corner behind them. Glancing over his shoulder, the Doctor saw the black shadow of a Dalek's eye stalk outlined on the wall of an adjacent hallway, slowly approaching. It would turn the corner any second and see them.
"Quickly, run!" He hissed, as the four of them made a mad dash for the next corner down the hallway. The Doctor was less worried now about the noise their running would make, than of what would happen if the were all caught out in the open.
They'd just about made it, when Dalek at the other end came around the corner. It paused, saw an empty corridor in front of it, then trundled on. Pressing a switch in the wall with it's sucker arm, a door slid open and it entered the command deck. The Doctor sighed with relief. The way was clear again. Beckoning to the o thers to follow him, he lead the way down another passageway, stopping in front of a wide set of doors.
"Oh no, not more of this! This definitely wasn't in the TARDIS travel brochure. I should ask for compensation." Amy murmured resentfully.
Rory stared disconsolately at the empty lift shaft, in full agreement with his wife. The Doctor explained that it was a utility lift which the Daleks used to bring equipment to the upper decks of the ship. Apparently teleportation required substantial amounts of power, so the Daleks used old fashioned lifts to conserve fuel. Already the Doctor had entered the shaft, followed by River.
Amy watched Rory's bottom, as he climbed the metal cable hanging down from the shaft. Smiling to herself, she decided that maybe she could get used to this, after all. Rory reached down his hand and helped Amy onto the cabling. He silently prayed that the lift wouldn't come down from the upper floor while they were still climbing.
The four of them climbed, hand over hand, to the second level. The climb was hampered by the fact that the metal cabling had patches of some sort of grease on it. There were steel support girders running horizontally around the four walls of the lift shaft. Rory groaned when the Doctor told them they would have to jump on to the steel beans, then make their way along them, until they got to the opposite wall...where there was yet another ventilation duct waiting for them to craw through.
Going first, the Doctor braced himself, and reaching out as far as he could with his right leg, jumped from the cable the half-meter to the beam. He braced both hands against the wall, as his other leg found purchase on the narrow beam. Putting his back to the wall, the Doctor held out his hand to River. She'd ripped her dress up the side, so she wouldn't be hampered by it.
"Well, there goes the manicure." River said blithely, looking at her dirty hands. She'd shed her gloves back in the storage area, after killing the Dalek there. By now. Besides the rip in her gown, her hair was rumpled and there was a smudge of grease on her left cheek. "Are you sure you know where we're going, Doctor? I'd hate it if I messed up my posh couture for nothing."
The Doctor merely gave her a look, like a long-suffering parent dealing with a persistently nettlesome child. Rory was next to jump over. He did it quite handily, without assistance. Though Rory didn't say so, Amy could see that her husband was rather chuffed about it.
Amy had had difficulty getting from the cable to the wall. With the Doctor and Rory assisting her, she'd made it. She was now standing alongside the Doctor, her back pressed against the wall, cringing at the thought of walking along a steel beam that was not much wider than her own forearm.
"You've got to be kidding me. I've gotta' get across that?" she told him.
"Look, if all you're going to do is stand there and whinge and make smartarse comments, I'm going to make you clean the TARDIS loos when we get back. That should take you all of about three months, cos' they haven't been cleaned in at least a century." The Doctor groused. "Now, would you rather do that, or get across this lift shaft so we can escape from the Daleks, stop them from using that weapon, and get you all back home to your nice...erm—fried chicken?" He finished lamely.
"Um—lift shaft please." Rory volunteered, raising his hand. Amy said she went along with that.
"Good choice! I'd take Daleks over scrubbing toilets any day. And forget about changing the litter box. Bleurgh! I'd take Daleks and Cyberman both!" The Doctor shuttered.
"I thought the TARDIS loos were self-cleaning, sweetie." River said dryly.
"Oh, never mind about that. What're you going on about the loos for, when we're trapped in a ship full of Daleks?" The Doctor said dismissively. "Now, come on. And be careful! Keep your eyes open for any security monitors.".
The girders were only wide enough for them to flatten themselves against the wall, moving in a shuffling side step. They were inching their way around the walls, when Amy's foot slipped on a patch of grease. With a stifled cry, she fell. The Doctor's hand shot out and he caught her. She heard Rory cry out her name, but then she didn't have time for anything else. It wasn't a long drop, but that kind of fall on the hard concrete floor below would certainly break something, possibly even her neck.
"Hang on, Amy! I've got you!" The Doctor told her. She reached with her free hand and grabbed on to the waistband on the side of his trousers. The Doctor was trying not to unbalance himself. If he fell, he'd take Amy with him. Gratefully, the Doctor felt River grab on to his shoulder to help steady him. Then, his other hand grasped onto hers, and pulling her up by both hands, assisted by River, he managed to drag her back onto the steel beam.
"Amy, are you alright?" Rory asked anxiously.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She gasped, straightening up and flattening herself against the wall again. "Thanks Doctor. You too, River."
The four of them made it without any more incidents to the opening in the far wall. Doctor crawled on his stomach through the air shaft. The gas in the lab and its adjoining air ducts hadn't penetrated this close to the main command deck. As quietly as possible, he made his way to an opening in the ceiling. The Doctor smiled when he saw what was below him. His TARDIS!
Unfortunately, the door to his ship was flanked by two guards.
"How are we going to get to the TARDIS?" Rory whispered.
The Doctor dug into his jacket pocket and rummaged around. He pulled something out, holding it in his open palm for Rory to see.
You're gonna' distract the Daleks with that?" Rory said doubtfully. Then, he thought about it. "Yeah, you probably are."
The two Dalek guards believed their leader when he told them that the Doctor and his companions were dead. Still, the Doctor's ship was a powerful weapon, and must be closely guarded. The tall blue box stood parked, dark and silent, in the back of the room. One Dalek stood with its vision trained on the TARDIS doors, the other stood watching the ship's perimeter. Around them, the other Daleks were all focused on the black box on the table in the centre of the room.
"Device will be ready for deployment in sixty rels." A Dalek standing near the weapon announced.
Just then, the Dalek watching the TARDIS doors heard a strange noise. It looked. A small round piece of colourful glass rolled across the floor. Then, another dropped down from the ceiling, gave a slight bounce, and rolled across the floor. Then another, and another dropped, bounced and rolled. The other Dalek had noticed this as well.
"What are those objects? What is happening?" It asked its partner.
"I do not know. I will investigate." The other Dalek replied.
The moment both Daleks turned their eyestalks away from the TARDIS, following the glass marbles which the Doctor had dropped from the ceiling, River, Amy and Rory, crashed through the ceiling, right next to the TARDIS doors. Even as the Daleks turned, River already had the TARDIS door's open. As the Dalek nearest them turned to fire its weapon, River had already slammed the door shut. The Dalek ray bounced harmlessly off the TARDIS door.
What is happening? Report! Report!" screamed the Central Command Dalek.
The other Dalek looked up at the ceiling and saw the Doctor. He grinned and waved at it.
"Hello! I'd stay and chat but I'm a very busy man I'm afraid. See ya'!" The Doctor told it, before scrambling out of the way of the beam of it's death ray. He ducked as the beam slightly ricocheted off the metal of the air duct. Then, he was gone. Seconds later, the ship's lights came on, its ancient engines groaned, as the TARDIS dematerialized.
"What about the Doctor?" Amy cried out, as River ran about piloting the ship
"Stand by that door, Amy, and get ready to open it fast, when I tell you to. Don't you dare open it until I say so." River ordered, as she stood by the console. She was frantically moving between flipping switches and twisting dials, and glancing at the ship's monitor.
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The Doctor had scrambled out of the air ducts and back into the lift shaft. As he emerged from the duct, and worked his way on to the steel girders lining the shaft, the doors below him opened. Three Daleks came gliding in. Their eyestalks and guns both raised upward, ready to blast the Doctor out of existence.
"Oh." The Doctor said simply, looking down for the first time. "OK, Maybe not the best timing in the world, Doctor."
Just then, the shaft was filled with a groaning noise, as the TARDIS materialized practically right in front of the Doctor's nose. The Daleks fired at him, but the three blasts bounced harmlessly off of ship's outer force field, as it protected the Doctor. "Here comes my lift fellas', which means you're getting the shaft. Adiós, amigos! Or should I say, "buenos TARDIS!" The Doctor waved to the Daleks, as Amy threw open the TARDIS door, allowing the him to jump inside.
Amy and Rory watched the Doctor sprint up onto the console deck, taking over from River. He frantically pawed at the controls.
"We've got to get out of here, now!" He called over to River. "Press down the anomolytic crystallizer, push the nano-nuclear air-foil switch, and jiggle that fluorescent thing-a-ma-bob next to the visual heads-up display. And, be quick about it!" Without looking up, River nodded and got busy.
"What about the weapon, Doctor?" Amy called over to him, as she and Rory braced themselves against the the jump seat on the console deck.
"Well, that's why we're getting out of here, you see. I changed the device to only act on anything within the area taken up by the Dalek battle fleet, which is a mere twenty thousand miles. The fleet's sitting ten million miles above the Earth, so that shouldn't experience any affects from the weapon. Well, except for some rainy weather, perhaps. I'm afraid these Daleks are doomed to live their past," The Doctor said, almost regretfully, "any second now. Pity they won't live through it. Maybe they'd learn something."
On the main command deck, all Daleks were focused on the weapon. The big projection image above the Central Command Dalek showed flashing images of Earth's major cities in real time: London, Amsterdam, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Mexico City, Sydney, Johannesburg, Cairo, Bangladesh, Moscow, Shanghai.
"Device deploying in five rels." One of the Daleks operating the weapon announced. "Five...four...three...two...one."
All Dalek eyes waited expectantly, to see modern Earth cities changed by wars and plagues and disasters of their past. See the forerunners of the human race, the very apes which would one day become human, be displaced to the future and wiped out by events there. The Central Command Daleks felt all-powerful, to be the cause of billions of humans winking out of existence, as their ancestors all died.
Instead, the Daleks on the ship suddenly found themselves face to face with dozens of raggedly dressed Kaled soldiers from the Dalek homeworld of Skaro. Men and women from the time just before the Daleks were first created. The soldiers were armed with an odd assortment of old and new battle dress and weapons. The moment they appeared, the soldiers fired, and a handful of Daleks died.
"Weapon malfunctioning!" The Dalek at the device's controls called out in warning.
"You have failed in your duty, you will be exterminated!" The Central Command Dalek struck down the Dalek. Then it shouted, "Kill the soldiers! Exterminate them! Exterminate!"
Before the Daleks could fire back, the Kaled soldiers vanished. Instead, the Daleks found their ships suddenly surrounded with thousands of battle TARDIS'. The Galifreyan battle fleet of the Time War were back from the past, amassing all their firepower against the Daleks.
"This is the Doctor's doing!' The Central Command Dalek raged, "Prepare to engage the enemy! Fire all weapons!"
It was too late. As one, gleaming gold and silver in the reflection of the distant sun, the cylinder-shaped battle TARDIS' focused all of their weapons on the Dalek fleet. The darkness of space was filled with bright white light, as the main Dalek ship and all the surrounding ships, blew up in a shattering explosion. As the light faded, the place where the ships had been was empty of all but a few nearby stars.
In a charming, pleasantly shaded park somewhere in London, the TARDIS noisily materialized beneath a tall and stately chestnut tree. The Doctor emerged, followed by River, Amy and Rory. The Doctor informed them that it was a beautiful spring day in 2011. River told him it was autumn. Before that line of conversation could develop into a childish spat, Rory interrupted them.
"Well..." Rory said blandly, gazing around, "This is...nice. Very peaceful after spending the day running away from another alien menace, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I suppose, but two of us aren't here to enjoy it." Amy said, trying to remember that, despite their current slyvan surroundings, not all of them had made it safely back to Earth. She somehow felt like there was something more they could do, or could have done. "Why are we here, Doctor?" Amy asked him.
"Thought you might like some proper food, Amy." The Doctor shrugged. He was trying not to feel the terrible loss of his friend, Malcolm. And though he hadn't liked the major very well, the Doctor was genuinely sorry he'd died. Ignoring the pain inside him for the time being, the Doctor smiled and said, "None of that corporate mass produced nonsense you had before. Lovely British restaurant just down the road, serves the most gorgeous piri-piri chicken and chips you've ever tasted."
"You mean Nandos, don't you?" River asked sarcasstically.
"Of course, where else?" The Doctor said, as he thrust his hand in his pocket. He pulled out a mixture of pound notes, euros, pesos, Canadian dollars and Verellian gatschmaltz's. "Here," he said, handing them to River, "show the kids how to have a good time, ey? Erm—legally and non-violently if you please, River. I'll pick you up sometime tomorrow morning, right here."
With that, the Doctor turned and headed back into the TARDIS.
"Oi! Hang on, where're you going, Doctor?" Amy shouted.
"I'm going off somewhere to find myself. If you see me before I get back, do me a favour and tell me where I went." The Doctor replied, waving them off without turning around, and shutting the TARDIS door behind him.
End