Doctor Who Tales of the Before

By Jay Schmidt

Welcome back! Bienvenue à nouveau! Thank you for returning for the next installment of Tales of the Before. I am still trying to develop the separate stories that are happening at the same time but I do want to assure you lovely readers that they are connected and in fact all are important to each other. It seems like nothing much has happened but it is just getting started for the craziest adventure you have seen in the Doctor Who universe. Thank you for reading and I will keep posting as much as I can! Much Love!

Chapter Three

"Commander Talturner." A soldier member of the infamous Ardha unit of the darkest legends of the Galifrey military approached his commanding officer and provided his written report of the Senator that he was responsible. The hidden war room that could never be discovered in the secret underground systems underneath the Capitol. With the Senators safely returned from Arcadia the military unit had returned to their base of operations and began their hunt as ordered by the Lord President.

Night had consumed Galifrey and the orange ember fields beyond the glass dome of the Capitol were a dull brown. Lonely gusts of wind echoed through the expansive tracts of land and the bustling city was quiet due to the curfew that was put in place by the Lord President and the Council and was enforced by the conscripted military. The planetary guardsmen often had little to accomplish during the night shift because no one was stupid enough to leave their homes in defiance of the martial law.

The old Time Lord that served as Commander was anything but decrepit. He had regenerated only five times throughout his long life and he made every life count. By earth years he could count himself in his fifteen hundreds. In all honesty he no longer bothered counting the years of his life because he chose to dedicate every fiber of his being to leading his unit. These men and women were his family and he was fiercely loyal to protecting them.

Examining the electronic pad that his subordinate gave him, Talturner speed read the report of the Senators' conditions. Each one of their living quarters were monitored for any potential threat, allowing the Ardha unit to act within a matter of minutes. The night was looking quiet.

Talturner let out a hefty sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Are you okay, Tal?" the light voice of the second in command arrived to his side. The Time Lady that stood armor clad and hips cocked on one leg looked at him with her discerning bright eyes.

"S'nara, how many times have I told you…" Talturner began.

"To refer to you as 'Commander'." She sassed back as she finished his sentence. "I don't care about that and you should know that by now. What's wrong?" She ignored his lecture and pointed out his worrying fatigue.

"We have no leads." Talturner spoke candidly to her, a feat that the others of Ardha would not receive. "The Eye is still missing and so is he. If this continues on for much longer the Lord President is going to bring down the whole planet with his insanity."

"Do you really think that he'll be better with the Eye back?" S'nara spoke with venom whenever she discussed the Lord President. Politics were her bane and she despised anyone who would rather sit in dusty halls speaking rather than acting. She was a warrior through and through and she couldn't stand useless people.

"I don't know." Talturner turned to her. "The sooner we get this guy the better. Galifrey has had the stance of not interfering with any other times or places in the universe but this is a whole new level compared to what those renegades do in their free time."

"That's never stopped us before." S'nara brought up the times they were implanted on other worlds to influence the flow of time for sake of the universe. For better, or for worse.

"Those times weren't like this." Talturner said, his headache only growing worse. "This, this is something different. You-know-what is involved."

"I thought that was just a rumor." S'nara suddenly wore a face of deep concern and worry. Something sinister was moving in the shadows of these days and Ardha was being manipulated into something cruel that much was clear. It was purely circumstantial and there was no hard evidence to support the rumor floating between the two battle hardened Time Lords.

"If it isn't," Talturner said as he began to pace around the table that served as his desk in the center of the war room. "This will lead to war. War of unimaginable scale and destruction. I'm old S'nara. If war breaks out, I won't live to see the end of it."

"Don't say stuff like that." S'nara was beginning to feel chills run down the length of her spine. The two looked at each other and shared in the silence that had fallen between them. The war room was quiet and the squad was working diligently outside of their little bubble of conversation.

"Alright, men!" Talturner raised his voice and addressed the soldiers that were his responsibility. The attention of the unit was immediately centered upon him and S'nara donned a professional attitude and joined the rank and file.

"Things haven't been going as planned." Talturner began speaking. "The Council is expecting a lot from us and Ardha is going to deliver. A lot of you remember the Burning Flats campaign and the Astral Snakes, but this is something much bigger."

The soldiers didn't waver. They didn't swap worried or confused glances and no one spoke a word. These elites were awaiting their orders.

"We're going to see Cadeen." Talturner informed his unit of their orders and promptly dismissed them from the war room. They had a long and arduous operation ahead of them and they were going to need their rest.

"Ralmoora, eh?" S'nara spoke the name of the planet they were going to land on in the morning and she didn't like the way it tasted when she spoke. "Singing forests aren't really my thing."

"Many Time Ladies would be envious to be in your shoes to go see such a renowned world." Talturner said.

"I know but," She crossed her arms. "I'm not any old Time Lady."

"Are you worried?" Talturner asked and if anyone that didn't know him was listening they would begin to suspect that he was teasing his second in command. It was a serious question and he was never in the mood for playing around.

"Aw," S'nara said with a mocking fluttering of her eyelashes. "It sounds like you're worrying about me. I'm tougher than I look. You of all people know that."

"But other people don't know you." Talturner had crossed his arms covering the Ardha insignia over his breast. There rested a secret between these two veterans. A hidden covert sliver of information that was hidden from the rest of the unit.

"I'll be fine, Tal." S'nara wanted to assure her hard-nosed commander. He had the knack for worry in the most emotionally unhealthy way possible. He could do something reckless if anyone of his squad was were threatened. The war room was silent and the two soldiers prepared themselves for their trip to Ralmoora.

The scene inside the dorm room was awkward and that was putting it mildly. The three silent people sat at the thin table in the kitchen nook of the dorm. Sitting around the table, the Mentor, Roux, and Laura said nothing to each other. Laura disguised a smile while the Time Lord and the human woman hid their uncomfortable grimaces.

Pourquoi est-ce qui se passe? Roux, despite all of her begging to help the Mentor, he ended up coming back to the dormitory to spend the night while his unusual device that he manufactured breaks into a simple gardening shed. Everything this man did was confusing and she was no closer to understanding any of it.

How did this end of happening? The Mentor thought as he politely smiled back at Laura who was already knee deep in getting the wrong idea of the both of them. He simply didn't want to spend the night out in the cold while his quantum de-entangler rewrote the logic pathways that made up the locking mechanism to the TARDIS. The TARDIS that he stole and ran away with. Nothing about this day was going well for him.

What is even going on here? Laura politely sat across from them and leaned on her elbows and rested her chin on the top of the back of her hand. All three of these people had nothing to say. With the sun set and the artificial lights from the kitchen nook illuminating them in a warm glow of florescence.

"So," Laura began, trying to break the ice as delicately as she could. Unfortunately she appeared to be equipped with only a sledge hammer. "How did you get the nickname of 'Mentor'?"

"Uh, well, it was because at my work…" the Mentor struggled to explain himself. "I was always stuck with teaching the new employees, so I essentially became the teacher of everyone coming through."

"Oh, what do you do for work?" Laura was steadily melting through this block of uncomfortable ice. Roux gave a curious look to the Mentor.

"I work in a garage." The Mentor only lied by omission. While he did work as a mechanic for a living the vehicles that he worked on were not the kinds that these girls were thinking of. This was the sort of evening that the Mentor didn't exactly enjoy. The Mentor never had a joyous home life and he was becoming uncomfortable staying in the dormitory. He was soon regretting asking Roux for a place to spend the night.

"So you work on cars?" Laura seemed excited and was wanting to learn more about her roommate's new friend. She found the sleek man with the strong chin line mysterious and with a name like Mentor she was only more intrigued.

"Sometimes." The Mentor shrugged trying to play along with her. "I don't get that much work these days. My boss might be closing the shop soon."

"That's terrible! Isn't it, Roux?" Laura turned to Roux who was clearly disinterested because she knew that the Mentor was lying to her roommate.

"Yeah, it is unfortunate." Roux feigned interest in the conversation that her roommate persisted in. Another wall. This silent corner of the world was soon disturbed knocking from the door of the dorm. Roux gently rose to her feet and glided gloomily with her face sunken, she opened the door. In the doorway stood the familiar silhouette of the university housing department's Mr. Merch.

"Ms. Roux." Mr. Merch said when he saw she had answered the door. From his place just beyond the door he could not sense the presence of the Mentor or Laura. They chose to remain undetected unless they were needed. Laura hovered over the sitting Mentor with her hands on his shoulders while Roux spoke with Mr. Merch.

"Monsieur Merch?" Roux was unsteady at the sudden reappearance of the university's housing department. The sleek man's hair was ruffled and frayed at the ends. He had looked as if he had been in some altercation. "Are you okay? You don't look very well."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Mr. Merch began running a correcting pair of hands over himself rearranging his hair and his wrinkled clothes into cleaner looking position. He was unprepared and he was sweating. "I accidently fell asleep in my office." The embarrassed Mr. Merch smiled coly as he explained. "I received a call today. A call from your father confirming that he was coming to pick you up for your move later this month."

Roux stood wide eyed for a brief moment before her brain could register what Mr. Merch had just told her. In the modern age of man you'd expect a lot of warm feelings and joyous expressions to arise in the eager daughter desiring to see her father. That would be the case undoubtedly if it weren't for the simple fact that Roux, since the tender age of 4, was an orphan.

Mr. Merch was relaying information of a mysterious figure in Roux's life that he was oblivious to. He had no clue to the nature of this message and he didn't seem to notice the resignation in Roux's voice when she responded.

"I understand, Monsieur Merch." She tilted to a slight bow and asked if there was anything else he needed to say. When he told her that was everything that he was there for they said their farewells and Roux closed the door once Jonathan Merch had left. The quietly distressed Roux returned to the sight of Laura and the Mentor where they had hidden out of sight of Mr. Merch. She saw that Laura was resting her hands on his shoulders and a twitch of jealousy twang somewhere deep inside her but she was too overwhelmed by the news of this terrible revelation clouded any judgment she could have focused on.

Sitting back down at the table the Mentor reached out a friendly hand towards her. "Is everything okay?" Roux looked at him from behind near catatonic eyes.

"Mentor…" Roux said with her fingers interlocked worryingly about her situation. "In the morning when your device has completed what you made it for, what do you plan on doing?" she looked at him hoping for an answer that would deliver something reassuring for her.

"I'm leaving her for wherever I can go." The Mentor explained. "I can't stay here for too long and I should have the means to depart tomorrow." The downcast Roux held her face low. Her fingers scratched the soft of her palms underneath the table and she abashedly asked the Mentor.

"Please," the forefront of petite tears appeared at the corner of her eyes. "take me with you?"

Mr. Merch, once having returned to his office on the first floor of the dorm, sat at his desk and wiped his forehead free of sweat. The dull glow of his work computer spread out in a soft blue that sprawled out over him and his desk. Papers strewn about around his work area the sense of dread and guilt was eating away at Mr. Merch. Sitting there alone and consumed in fear the phone on his desk shocked him back to reality.

"Jonathan Merch." Mr. Merch announced as he picked up the receiver.

"Monsieur Merch." The familiar cadence of the soft spoken French flowed from the speaker of the phone. Mr. Merch straightened his back to full attention as if the owner of the voice was standing before him in the room.

"You."

"Avez-vous livrer le message?" the voice asked for a report from the university housing department official.

"I told her." Mr. Merch rubbed his forehead as he spoke.

"Very good, Monsieur Merch." The voice spoke calmly and with a subtle layer of confidence that was carried alone covertly in the way he spoke down to Mr. Merch. "You watch her and make sure she stays where she is. If she is not there when my associate arrives, let me just say, Il sera désagréable."

"I understand." Mr. Merch submitted himself to this mysterious commander of his. Without another word the voice on the other end of the phone disconnected and the line went dead. Mr. Merch returned the receiver to its cradle and leaned forward, resting his face in the palms of his hands. He was in deep with someone that would not accept failure as a result.

Mr. Merch was no longer the ruler of his own life. He was in the inescapable hellish service to the closest thing this planet has to a monster.

"Rematerialization in approximately two mintues." The robotic voice announced to the crew of the TARDIS called Endeavor. A TARDIS cruiser with the capacity (like any TARDIS before and after) to change its exterior appearance to the most needed for the moment. Commander of the Ardha unit, Talturner sat in the captain's chair at the center of the bridge as the members of his unit worked diligently at their stations.

"Sir, we're receiving a signal from the planet's surface." A lieutenant spoke from his listening station. "It's the same signal from the Eye. I would wager that the Leaves of Time are too far off either sir."

"Can you confirm that it's the Eye?" Talturner rotated his chair to face the lieutenant.

"Artron energy readings are a match." The lieutenant confirmed. "Unless there's another TARDIS down there with a massive core breach that the Energy Capacitor is kicking out more than normal. I'm betting we've found the right planet."

"Very good, lieutenant." Talturner spun his chair back to its forward position and spoke loudly so the bridge crew would hear. "Alright everyone! It looks like there's a good chance that the Eye is on Ralmoora. We'll need to have survey teams to scan for the Artron signature. But you all know what that means. Boots on the grounds. No relying on orbital scans."

The crew remained still and focused as their commander gave them their orders.

"S'nara will lead the ground team." Talturner spoke. "Any and all commands are to be followed like normal. And remember everyone." He took a solid breath before continuing. "If this is in fact the Eye that the Lord President is looking for, then the local inhabitants will have been affected by its presence. That much Artron energy seeping into the locals is bound to make a few of them go beyond help. Use your best judgment out there."

The crew of the TARDIS Endeavor rose simultaneously and proceeded to leave the bridge to prepare for departure once the ship had materialized on Ralmoora's surface. S'nara waited for the other members to leave before her and when she was last one behind she spoke to Talturner.

"I've set up the communications link with the Council." She said once she was sure they were alone. "They're wanting a mission update as soon as we get any results. The Lord President really wants his hands on this eye thing."

"You still don't understand, S'nara." Talturner spoke calmly and clearly to her without facing her. "The Eye is more than just some artifact that was stolen. It's ripping through the layers of reality wherever it touches."

"I don't understand all of the science spiel, Tal. You know that." S'nara was getting frustrated was about to leave before Talturner spoke once more.

"How could you?" Talturner said, with spite steadily rising in his voice. His frustration with her ignorance was becoming too noticeable and he tried to compose himself more respectfully. "Only Time Lords know what the Eye is capable of doing."

Back on Galifrey in the jails of Arcadia beneath the glass dome that encased the city's spires from outside exposure there was a man singing to himself in his cell. His tiny prison of steel bars and bloody scratches covering the walls were all he knew. But he also kept inside of him a terrible secret. The poetic lyrics of a song that never repeated in chorus passed his dry lips as he lay rocking back and forth on the cold floor.

"She feels the world beneath her turn. Knowing not what the feet on this green earth churns. This scar and knife take sleep and life she runs and runs and runs and runs. Forever fleeing from her home. She never was again alone." This man rambled onwards and never once ceasing. It was in these words, in the lyrics written by no one that a puzzle lay hidden, a fear for a president, a key to someone's freedom, and the start of a war.