Lieutenant Adventures Series 17, episode 7, 9 August 2023. The Cloned Lieutenant: A Time Lord's Test of Friendship.

16th Lieutenant: Ah, hello again! How are we all doing?

It's me again, as you can see! Silly old me!

Today I introduce you to my seventh incarnation. This incarnation was a first for me, in many ways.

This was the first incarnation in which I repeated a face. I did not mean to, but I must have been thinking about this past life of mine when I was regenerating and my new incarnation had the same face I'd worn in my fourth incarnation.

This was the first incarnation in which I started to consider the possibility of controlling my regenerations to influence any outcome I wanted.

This was the first time, too, wearing this face, that I had a chance to live and explore the Universe without the burden of the Time War hanging over me.

This was the first incarnation in which I made friends from planets away from Gallifrey.

I had a great urge to have adventures in this incarnation, and to try new things.

In this incarnation, I wondered if anyone would notice me missing if someone almost identical took my place. It turns out that they would not.

7th Lieutenant: The Lieutenant and her companions, Jessica, Amelia-Grace and Ocean, stood around the console, working the controls.

The Lieutenant looked to all of them in turn. 'Now, careful, we're flying her the way she was intended to be flown, you must be very precise, on my signal!' she exclaimed, checking, once more that everyone was in position.

Ocean's grip was slipping. 'Lieutenant!' exclaimed Ocean.

The Lieutenant saw the issue at the last moment. 'No!' she exclaimed but it was too late.

The TARDIS console erupted in sparks and shuddered, sending the Lieutenant, Jessica, Amelia-Grace and Ocean flying across the floor. There was silence for a moment and then the Lieutenant started to laugh, followed slowly by her companions.

The Lieutenant heaved herself up. 'I cannot tell you how many times I have done something like that. We were so close! Come on, back in position, let's try again,' she said.

Later, the Lieutenant was working the console solo and her companions were enjoying the depths of the TARDIS. There were endless rooms out there, who knows what they would find? She just hoped they did not get lost.

The Lieutenant set the TARDIS to cruise and put on the blue stabilisers and then, herself, went off in search of the laboratory. She wondered if she would be missed if she wasn't around and she wanted to test how well her companions knew her or, rather, knew when she was not there.

The Lieutenant made her way over to a large, white basin, large enough to fit a person lying down, in the lab. It was empty. She turned on one of the taps at its head. It was not a water tap, it contained living substance. She had rigged the lab recently, upon discovering it, to suit her.

Once the basin was full, the Lieutenant turned off the tap and stood looking down at the substance for a moment. Then she placed her hand barely on the surface of the substance so it made contact with her. After a few moments, she pulled her hand away and took a step back.

The substance in the basin began forming into a shape until eventually a being with the Lieutenant's exact look lay in the basin. For a moment, she did not move, then she blinked, as if waking from unconsciousness. She looked around her.

The Lieutenant stepped forward and helped her out of the basin. She was a bit unsteady on her feet at first. 'Easy does it,' said the Lieutenant gently. 'I know you are not me but you and I have the same memories, the only difference is that I have lived them,' she said, wrapping her in a towel. 'You are my clone, almost an exact copy,' she said.

The cloned Lieutenant wobbled a bit, getting used to her body. She had, after all, just been born! 'I feel like I lived your memories,' she said.

'I know you do, but you and I both know you did not so do not kid yourself into thinking you did,' said the Lieutenant. 'I am going to give you a few tests just to see if you can really pull off being me and then I am going to sneak you down to the wardrobe to dress exactly like me and then it's all yours,' she said.

The Lieutenant took two steps back, not taking her eyes off the Clone. 'Where was I born?' she asked.

'You weren't born, you were loomed on Gallifrey during the Time War,' said the Clone.

'Good. What was mum's name?' asked the Lieutenant.

'The Magus,' said the Clone.

'Hmm,' said the Lieutenant. 'Do I have any siblings?' she asked.

'Nope, you're all alone,' said the Clone.

The Lieutenant nodded. 'Very good, you'll make a very good me,' she said, leading the clone down to the wardrobe. She then found an outfit identical to hers and dressed the Clone in her clothes.

The Lieutenant looked the Clone up and down. 'You look great,' said the Lieutenant.

'Thanks,' said the Clone.

'Enjoy being me whilst I relax hanging around my TARDIS,' said the Lieutenant, leaving the Clone alone and disappearing into the depths of the TARDIS.

The Clone made her way to the console room and examined the instruments and was about to set the co-ordinates when she noticed someone was hijacking the TARDIS remotely. She decided not to fight it and see where she ended up.

The TARDIS materialised.

Jessica, Amelia-Grace and Ocean returned to the console room.

'Where are we?' asked Ocean.

The Clone looked up and grinned. 'I don't know,' she said.

'If you don't know, what chance have we got here?' Amelia-Grace almost spat.

The Clone laughed. 'When have I let you down before? Trust me,' she said.

'You honestly don't know what's outside that door?' asked Jessica.

'Shall we find out?' asked the Clone, activating the door control. She strode to the door, closely followed by Ocean, Ameila-Grace and Jessica and closed the TARDIS door behind them. She turned around and froze. She signalled to her friends to stay quiet.

There was some sort of strange, large monster asleep on the ground in front of them.

'What happens if it wakes up?' mouthed Ocean.

'Let's not find out,' mouthed the Clone. 'Go that way,' she mouthed, jabbing her finger towards a door on the other side of the room, 'as slowly and quietly as you can.'

The Clone, Amelia-Grace, Jessica and Ocean started moving as quietly and slowly towards the door as they could.

The Clone held up a hand to stop. The monster was stirring.

'We're not going to reach the door,' mouthed the Clone.

'What do we do then?' asked Ocean.

The Clone placed her fingers on her temples, closed her eyes and imagined a door.

Jessica gave the Clone a dig in the side, trying to get her to open her eyes, she did not.

Amelia-Grace tapped Ocean and Jessica and pointed in front of the Clone. 'See that?' she mouthed. 'She's imagining our way out into existence.'

'How?' mouthed Ocean.

'Who knows?' mouthed Jessica. 'Just be glad it works.'

The door in front of the Clone faded into existence and when she opened her eyes, the door flung open. 'Quickly, get in,' mouthed the Clone.

Ocean entered first, followed by Jessica, followed by Amelia-Grace, followed by the Clone. Once they got through the door, it snapped out of existence.

'You have see that before, Lieutenant, what was it?' asked Ocean.

'That was a dragon. I have not seen it before, I have certainly heard about it, I thought it was a legend. That particular one is extremely powerful and ancient and waking it is a mistake,' said the Clone.

'How did you imagine the door into existence?' asked Jessica.

'I didn't, I'm telepathic, I'm not a magician. I imagined it into existence, yes, but I did some from the image of a memory, where I had already seen this door before, it still had to exist for me to imagine it into existence, if it did not, that would have been game over,' said the Clone. 'We're on the TARDIS.'

The Clone and the Lieutenant's friends had failed to realise that, even though they were back on the TARDIS yet not in the console room, the library, they were not alone in the room. The Lieutenant was also in here and she was being very quiet so as to not be heard or seen.

The Clone looked troubled.

'Lieutenant, everything OK?' asked Amelia-Grace.

'Yes, I think so, I just cannot shake off the feeling that something's not quite right,' said the Clone.

'Eevrything's fine, don't worry, I get that feeling but you're not forgetting anything, everything's fine,' said the Lieutenant from the shadows.

Ocean shot a look at the Clone. 'How did you did you do that without moving?' he asked, confused.

Jessica looked into the shadows. 'No,' she said, 'that definitely was her voice but it wasn't her, it came from that way.'

The Lieutenant stood up and stepped out of the shadows and walked up to them, grinning.

The Clone grinned too.

Amelia-Grace's jaw dropped. 'What is going on?' she asked.

'There's two of you!' exclaimed Ocean.

The Lieutenant and the Clone laughed and high-fived.

'There's not two of us, there's one of me, that's not the Lieutenant,' said the Lieutenant. 'I wondered if you really did know me, the three of you, and if you would notice if a clone replaced me...you didn't,' she said.

'Does the result upset you?' asked the Clone.

'No, not really, that's what I set out to find out and now I know,' said the Lieutenant, 'and I became a parent as I did it.'

'What do you mean parent?' asked Amelia-Grace.

'I did have to create a clone for this experiment, one with my biological imprint. Meet my daughter,' said the Lieutenant.

'Why?' asked Jessica, looking a bit upset.

The Lieutenant stopped grinning. 'Don't be sad, I am an alien to the three of you, that very fact creates a certain amount of distance between us and I was kidding myself into thinking we didn't have that distance as friends anymore, so I wanted to know how far I had fooled myself,' she said.

'So what now?' asked the Clone.

'Onwards and upwards,' said the Lieutenant, smiling. 'I have three friends to open up to and a new daughter onboard, business as usual and, as always, we'll see where we end up,' she said, strolling towards them, past them, out of the library and up the corridor towards the control room.

The Clone, Amelia-Grace, Jessica and Ocean grinned and together they followed the Lieutenant back to the control room.

NEXT TIME

So, at this point, I had been travelling through time and space for centuries. I knew that as a Time Lord, I had a limited number of regenerations, and I had already lived through many of them. This is the story of my 8th incarnation. Straightening back up, the newly-regenerated Lieutenant seemed briefly dazed and then collapsed to the floor, not fully unconscious, clutching his stomach and breathed out golden regeneration energy.

The Lieutenant

Liam Hickey

Melody Droptone

The Clone

Melody Droptone

Ocean

Paul Dano

Amelia-Grace

Sheila Vand

Jessica

Adria Arjona

Dragon

Anya Chalotra

Director

Darwin Meads

Writer

Liam Hickey

Producer

Caitlin Parker

Executive Producers

Darwin Meads

Liam Hickey

M/S 2023