CHAPTER 26

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With the waters only feet away, Lily's TARDIS materialized around them. Lily ran to the controls as she quickly tried to dematerialize before it was too late. She also spoke quickly to someone on the TARDIS monitor and switched it off before any of them could see who it was.

"What just happened?" Allison asked her in bewilderment.

Lily held out a small device for half a second in her hand by way of an explanation while she worked at the controls on her console.

"It's a Stattenheim Remote Control. No TARDIS should be without one," Lily said with a grin.

"If you had that, why didn't you just use it earlier?" Allison asked in a bad mood.

"When did I have the time? They just kept coming," Lily protested.

"I think you just liked the running," Allison complained.

Lily chuckled but said nothing. She had just started to dematerialize when the waters hit the TARDIS, and they were all thrown across the console room by the impact.

Lily managed to hold on to the console and completed the dematerialization process. They entered the Vortex, and everyone sighed in relief. Her TARDIS rematerialized immediately right next to the Sphinx again.

"I hit the Fast Return Switch. It quickly takes you back to the last location that you were in," Lily said.

"Won't the Vespiforms still be out there?" Isabella asked.

"No. They all followed us. They've all been drowned by now I'm sure," Lily said sadly.

"You had to save Cleo. It wasn't right for her to be put on trial for something that wasn't her fault," Isabella comforted her.

"That doesn't make me feel any better about it," Lily said.

"It shouldn't. You caused more deaths. I was going to go with them," Cleo shouted angrily as she woke up listening to them speak.

"You didn't do anything. Why should you have to die? I just got you back recently. I'm not losing you again," Lily protested.

"So it's so much better to cause the needless loss of lives?" Cleo asked in pain.

"None of them died," said a voice from the TARDIS monitor.

They turned to see Skaren the Zygon watching them with a smile on his face.

"So it worked. You saved them!" Lily said relieved.

"Yes, I did but just barely. That was very foolhardy, Lily. I had to do a mass transmat within seconds to get them all on my ship in time. It's a good thing for you that I'm good with a transmat!" Skaren said with a twinkle in his eye.

"So it was him that you were talking to," Ron said with a knowing look on his face. He knew that his mother would never cause a senseless loss of life without trying to stop it first.

Lily nodded at Ron as Allison asked, "How did he get here so quickly? Shouldn't he be in the far future anyway?"

"I gave him a Time Ring that tied him into my TARDIS that he wired into his ship and that gave him the ability to follow us to wherever we were through time and space if we ever needed him. I wanted to have a back-up plan in place you see. I decided to do that after all of you were trapped on the TARDIS with no help when I was taken by the Animus. I was going to tell you about it, but I never got the chance to after Cleo's troubles came up," Lily explained.

Time Lords used Time Rings to travel through time like humans did with Vortex Manipulators. They didn't give you that sickening feeling using them that you had after using the Vortex Manipulator either. Most of them could take the users anywhere that a TARDIS could. This particular one that Lily had given to Skaren only worked to take him somewhere nearby to her TARDIS wherever or whenever it happened to be.

"Good thinking my lady. Then help is never far away if we need it," Robin said as he smiled proudly at her.

"I'm always thinking ahead," Lily said with a grin.

"Attention, Persephone of Gallifrey. We hereby are arresting you for aiding and abetting a fugitive from Vespiform justice. If you do not turn yourself and Queen Cleopatra in immediately, we will arrest your Zygon friend here and try him for your crimes instead," the voice of the Vespiform leader said from Skaren's ship.

Lily turned to her monitor to see that the Vespiform leader had several of his troops holding Skaren and had handcuffs on his hands already. They had taken over his ship and captured him. Yeah, I really think ahead alright! She thought to herself with a groan.

"Surrender, Persephone. If you do not, the Zygon will get whatever sentence Cleopatra would have gotten. That will most likely be death," the leader threatened.

"I will surrender but leave Skaren and Persephone alone. Take me by myself. I'm the one you really want. They were only helping because I made them. I held their families hostage," Cleo lied.

"That's not true!" Lily and Skaren both said at once.

"Yes, it is. I even hypnotized them to make them believe that they were my friends and helping me of their own free will," Cleo lied some more.

"Yes, I can believe that. The dreaded Cleopatra would do such a thing very easily. Your reputation precedes you. We will take you only then, Cleopatra. The others are hereby absolved of all charges. I will enter on your record that you told the truth to save them. The judge may regard you with a little more sympathy that way. Not much though," the leader said.

"I thank you. I will give myself up immediately," Cleo said with her head bowed.

Cleo moved to Lily's TARDIS controls and landed her ship onboard Skarren's. She left the TARDIS and went in to be taken by the Vespiforms.

As the Vespiforms took Cleo and left, Lily just sat in her Captain's chair in a severe depression. She had failed her friend. She couldn't save her no matter how hard she had tried.

Next: Lily decides that she isn't giving up yet. The plan to save Cleo continues!