It was never meant to be this complicated. Once he had it all planned out. He was going to rise through the military of Elysium, make sure his family was seen to, and maybe run for President one day.
And then the Time War came along, completely shredding the future for millions of lives.
Loki followed the guide line to the end of the tether. He was clad in a hard black exoskeleton moulded to his body, life support system built into the shell. He checked the heads-up display in his helmet before clearing the guide line and switching on his independent guidance systems.
Once he had been a pilot, a decorated soldier that had led the Gates of Elysium offensive against the Nightmare Child, that had destroyed Davros and half the Dalek fleet at the same time. He had fought in Arcadia at the beginning and tried in vain to save the Gelth homeworld, and now here he was, a common thief.
Carefully steering himself around the scout ships, he approached the glowing gravity lift that led down to the planet's surface, ferrying supplies to the army below.
"Breaking through the grav beam."
"Roger that." Lilith said.
Loki reached out a gauntleted hand toward the gravity lift.
The moment his fingertips grazed the beam, Loki was sucked in, tumbling head over head. Engaging his thrusters, the captain steadied his erratic fall.
"There's six guards at the bottom of the lift." The voice over the comms was the brash Earther woman, Donna Noble. The Earth-Gallifrey Metacrisis. Another complication in his life that he didn't need.
"Aye." Loki said gruffly.
"Don't get killed." The woman said warily.
He just laughed dryly.
Boots slammed into the packed dirt beneath the gravity lift, and he crouched on his haunches for a moment, getting his bearings. The readouts momentarily crackled as they processed his new surroundings.
He straightened cautiously. The gravity lift's landing port was ringed by Cybermen, all with their backs to him. Loki let out a steady breath. Perhaps his day was going to finally turn around.
"Unauthorised transport detected."
Perhaps not.
His mind screamed at him to fight, but Loki kept still, ordinary, unthreatening. Cyber. As one, all the Cybermen turned to him. The captain was dimly aware of a trickle of sweat running down his temple underneath his helmet.
"Explain your presence."
The suit's overhead display informed Loki that he was being scanned, and for the first time a note of worry flashed through his head as he hoped Zaphod's hypothesis was correct. The Cybermen scanned his biomechanical limbs and artificial organs, the wiring holding his spine and skull together.
"Explain." It demanded again.
"Preparing info link." Roger said in his ear.
"Reinforcing supplies to the facility." Loki said.
"Info link uploading." Said Roger. A long line of code flashed past his overhead display and into the waiting Cyberman's wireless network.
The lead Cyberman stepped forward.
"Roger," Loki growled.
"Give it a minute." Roger growled back. "My code will work."
Slowly the Cyberman reached out a metal hand. Loki gritted his teeth.
"My code will work!"
After an interminable minute, the Cyberman's hand stopped, a hair's width from Loki's throat.
As one, they all stepped back.
"Authorisation accepted."
A modicum of tension left his frame. The captain strode through the Cybermen.
"Smooth." The Earth woman said sarcastically.
"Shh." Roger hissed.
"The Wall is dead ahead." Zaphod said. The Cyberman conversion facility. Loki didn't reply, never breaking his stride. Having accepted him as cyber, none of the cyber drones registered that anything was different about him.
He took a step into the Wall, the massive processing farm for this sector.
And his communications dropped out.
"Damn." It wasn't unexpected, but it was annoying. He had worked blind before, and he had hoped those days were over. "Here we go."
Various maintenance tunnels led into the main complex. Loki passed rows of cells, each one marked with a number. The soldier in him wished to release all the occupants of the cells, but he was only here for one person. This time.
A light flashed on his overhead display, and the captain stopped in front of one of the cells.
He was here.
Donna's eyes were glued to the unresponsive screens as Roger frantically tried to restore communications with the captain.
"Well, he'll be okay. He's only got to go in, get the Jewel, and get out. What's the worst that can happen?"
I can't believe I just said that. I've just jinxed everything.
Roger stopped what he was doing and shot a bemused look at Zaphod. The diminutive doctor frowned, looking at her.
"Noble."
"Yeah?"
"Just so you are aware, the Jewel... is not an actual jewel."
"What?"
"Unlike the majority of civilised planets going back to the Dark Times, Verdai still has a reigning monarchy." Zaphod said. "The current royal family itself dates back many thousands of years, and they have maintained their superiority through a... unique set of skills that are holdovers from the Dark Times."
Donna's eyes narrowed.
"Each member of the family is born with what they call a Talent. A mutation, if you will, providing the bearer with a form of sixth sense. Verdai's current king himself is a high range empath. He can detect and control other's emotions."
Donna cocked her head to the side. Well, it was probably a good gift to have to avoid those pesky civil wars and bloody rebellions.
"You doubt me."
"No." She said a little too quickly. "It just seems a little too fantasy and not enough scifi."
Zaphod shrugged. "The closer you get to the centre of the universe, the more elemental the people become."
Donna's lips pressed together. "Not really answering my question. What is the Jewel?"
Roger huffed. "Goddess, Doc, it's always exposition with you." He looked at Donna with those big yellow eyes. "The Jewel is the crowned heir of the people of Verdai."
Her eyes widened. "Why would the Cybermen kidnap this heir?"
"The current heir is said to have precognition."
"He sees the future?"
"That is what's said."
"But why? Why would the Cybermen want that kid?"
"The Cybermen are creatures of pure logic." Zaphod said. "They take what advantages present themselves. To the Cyber Controller, it would be an opportunity not to be missed to have a foolproof method to not make any of the mistakes of their forebears."
"Oh, lord."
A dark frown creased Zaphod's brow. "Regardless of the contract, there was no way that we were ever going to leave the Jewel with the Cybermen. We are still primarily soldiers fighting for the good of the universe. It would bring about a new Cyber plague, with the Controller knowing all their mistakes and correcting them before they were even made."
"God."
Roger looked sour. "Cybermen, bad. Jewel, good. Cybermen + Jewel, double bad. I think we have worked that out by now, despite racial handicaps."
Zaphod and Donna threw him annoyed looks. The lizard shrugged and resumed working.
"Everyone." It was Lily. "I think we might have a problem."
Donna frowned. The little doctor slipped from the bench and opened another monitor. This monitor showed the display of what Lily was seeing on the bridge.
"Oh dear." Zaphod breathed. Understatement of the friggin' century, Doc.
Slowly the huge lumbering scout ships were turning like one toward the captain's little cloaked ship.
"Crap." Donna breathed.
In the end, the Cybermen's obvious reliance on computers was what enabled Captain Skytreader to easily bypass their systems. If you knew what to expect, it was easy enough to loop video feeds and trick computerised locks.
Finally he found the prize.
The youth was suspended in a stasis chamber, frozen in place while his eyes darted around in abject terror. In a moment his eyes locked on the new figure in the black exoskeleton, the helmet as expressionless as the Cybermen guarding him.
Loki strode past the cyber guards. Roger's fake codes were holding, but the captain wasn't willing to bet on how long. He stopped in front of the stasis chamber.
Help me, the youth's eyes implored. Help me.
Loki touched the access panel.
That was all it took.
All the Cybermen in the room turned to him as one.
"Identify yourself." Every guard in the room intoned.
"Certainly." Loki said, and hit a button on his suit. The next moment he was encased in an electromagnetic sphere as the pulse punched outwards, momentarily disabling the guards and the complex.
Emergency protocols engaged, opening the stasis chamber and ejecting its cargo. The youth dropped lightly to the ground, feral eyes staring up at Loki from beneath a shock of brilliant white hair.
The captain's faceplate and helmet folded away, neatly slotting into the suit's reinforced collar. The boy's expression eased slightly upon seeing Loki's face.
"Who are you?" He demanded, with the haughty tone of one raised in a palace, but Loki knew that the attitude was a mantle the youth pulled around himself to mask the fear.
"Captain Skytreader of the Elysium fleet." Loki said. "Your father has sent me for you."
"How can I trust you?"
Beside Loki, one of the Cybermen's fingers began twitching. The EM pulse was already beginning to wear off. "I hardly think this is the place for a conversation, little prince."
The youth's face twisted sourly, but he didn't disagree. Together the two of them made their way back toward the gravity lift, slipping past the waking Cybermen.
As he passed out of the complex, the captain's earpiece crackled to life.
"-evasive manoeuvres!"
"-compromised-"
"-insane! I'm a bloody temp from Chiswick. What the hell am I doing here?"
"Buck up, Earth girl. We're going for a ride."
His crew's communications cut out, and another voice came over the comms. Deep, menacing, electronic.
"Captain Skytreader." Said the voice. "Captain Loki Skytreader, this is the Cyber Controller of this sector."
The youth just looked at him.
"Your perseverance is admirable." The Controller said. "But your run has been terminated. You will present yourself to me and return the Jewel, or your crew will be deleted."
Loki's eyes narrowed.
Time to move into phase 2.