Title: Half Sick of Shadows (Epilogue)
Author: E.A. Week
E-mail: eaweek at hotmail-dot-COM
Date of publication: May 2012.
Summary: The barren planet Gossan holds a powerful secret, one that is somehow connected to River Song's release from prison. Can River and the Eleventh Doctor defeat the Papal Mainframe, or will they become its prisoners for all eternity?
Category: Doctor Who. Eleven/ River.
Distribution: Feel free to link to this story from another web page, but please drop me at least a brief e-mail and let me know you've done this.
Feedback: Letters of comment are always welcome! Loved it? Hated it? Send me an email and let me know why!
Disclaimer: Copyrights to all characters in this story belong to their respective creators, production companies, and studios. I'm just borrowing them, honest!
The story title is shamelessly stolen from the ballad "The Lady of Shalott," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Datclaimer: This story is rated M for sex, language, and mild gore/ violence.
Continuity (PLEASE read this): This story follows after the events of Doctor Who, season six. I assume that this story will be rendered apocryphal/ alt-universe/ moot/ irrelevant once Steven Moffat decides to continue telling the story of the Silence. This is my version of how events might play out.
Epilogue
The small, sleek starliner touched down inside the vast hangar. A few moments later, the engines powered down, and a team of technicians rushed out to tend to the craft.
A disembarkation module lowered from the ship's belly, descending to the floor of the hangar. The doors of the capsule whooshed apart, and out strode Madame Kovarian, flanked by clerics. More clerics waited for her with an internal transit vehicle, a jeep-like machine used for getting around the base. Without a word, Madame Kovarian climbed into the front passenger seat, and the clerics drove her across the hangar, into one of the subterranean passageways that honeycombed the mountain fortress.
Their destination was at the heart of the mountain. In an outer chamber, Madame Kovarian allowed a security robot to read her handprint and retina. The 'bot permitted her entry to an inner room, where more clerics scanned her for concealed weapons—the order was most vigilant about betrayal from within.
How strange it felt to travel through the base and see no Headless Monks, not even one.
Once Madame Kovarian had been cleared, she was given access to a lift that took her to the Inner Sanctum, a heavily fortified area to which only the most high-ranking members of the order were permitted. Her heart pounded, her mouth was dry, and rage beat its own pulse in her temple. She was unused to feeling afraid, and it infuriated her to feel this way now.
A pair of Silents guarded the topmost level of the fortress. When Madame Kovarian exited the lift, they gazed at her, inscrutable, chittering low in their throats, nodding her into the Inner Sanctum.
Pontifex Artaxiad stood with his back to the door, gazing through blastproof windows down over the base. The Citidel normally buzzed with purposeful activity; today, its usual rhythms had been upended, personnel scurrying to and fro, anxious and agitated. Even from this distance, Madame Kovarian could sense their fear, their uncertainty.
She waited: Pontifex Artaxiad knew she was there, but he chose not to acknowledge her, making her wait, making her squirm. He was very tall, his spindly frame draped in robes of deep burgundy and purple, embroidered in gold thread with the emblem of the Silence.
At last he turned, his face composed in its usual haughty, unreadable mask. Like all members of the inner circle, he wore an external hard drive over one eye. Madame Kovarian bowed deeply.
"Your Holiness," she said, though she knew full well groveling wouldn't save her life.
"Madame Kovarian," he said. "I trust your latest mission went well?"
"Yes, Your Holiness," she said.
"You have, no doubt, heard the news?"
"Most distressing, Your Holiness."
"Yes. Somehow, the Papal Mainframe was breached. Ordinarily; the Mainframe was fully capable of destroying interlopers in Her own way. But these were no ordinary intruders. They were almost impervious to the Mainframe's power; they somehow blew the entire motherboard and triggered the self-destruct mechanism. The planet ripped apart. The animating force that controls the Headless Monks is obliterated, and they've all collapsed. The bishops and cardinals can no longer channel the Mainframe's influence and use it to persuade and intimidate the weak. Many of our strongholds throughout the universe are now in a state of chaos, servants revolting against their masters. Everywhere, our position, our authority, is being usurped. I'm sure you understand the implications of all this, Madame Kovarian."
"Yes, Your Holiness."
"And now, we've had news that Dr. River Song has been granted a universal pardon by the Shadow Proclamation. The only reason such a pardon would be granted is if the crime were never committed. The Doctor was never murdered. The assassination attempt failed. I trust you have some explanation for this, Madame Kovarian?"
"Your Holiness, there were Silents at Lake Silencio who confirmed that the Doctor was struck down with an energy blast to each heart. He was shot again in mid-regeneration. His body was burned. His companions grieved. The Silents would have known if any of that was a sham. The body was recovered by the Judoon, and a DNA sample confirmed the Doctor's identity."
"And yet, he somehow eluded death."
"Your Holiness, it's impossible for him to have done that without disrupting Time itself."
"Somehow, despite all your elaborate machinations and clever precautions, the Doctor survived without disrupting Time. We prepared you long and well for this assignment, Madame Kovarian. You had every resource of the Silence at your disposal. And you failed in every aspect. The asset, Melody Pond, proved both unstable and treacherous, a complete waste of our time and efforts. And yet you persisted in trying to use her as the trigger woman for the mission. Clearly, she conspired with the Doctor to help him elude death. They're both at large, still working against the Silence, and now they've struck us a potentially crippling blow." Pontifex Artaxiad's tone of voice had barely changed as he spoke. "And all this is because of your failure, Madame Kovarian. Your failure to complete your assigned mission."
"Your Holiness," she said, fighting to keep from trembling, "Your Holiness, I can make this right—please allow me to prove I can still—"
"No," said the pontiff. "No, you're quite done, Madame Kovarian. Oh, the Silence will still put an end to the Doctor, have no doubt. But it will no longer require your services."
With that, Pontifex Artaxiad touched a small device on his wrist, causing thousands of volts of electricity to burst out of Madame Kovarian's eye drive. She let out one brief, piercing shriek, her entire body convulsing, then she dropped with a heavy thud to the floor, where she lay, motionless.
Without blinking, Pontifex Artaxiad touched another button on his wrist, summoning a pair of highly-ranking clerics to the Inner Sanctum.
"Dispose of that," he said, nodding once toward Madame Kovarian's body. They knew better than to show any reaction on their faces.
"Yes, Your Holiness," they chorused, hefting the body and dragging it from the chamber. The pontiff returned to the observation window, all his thoughts bent toward the future, to the Fields of Trenzalore, to the now-inevitable the confrontation with the Doctor. This time, he vowed, the Time Lord would fall. No more agents, no more warriors, no more assassins. This time, Pontifex Artaxiad would strike the death blow himself.
Using the communications device on his desk, he summoned the surviving members of the inner circle. "Come at once," he ordered. "We have much to discuss."
The End