Through the Wormholes.

A billion years ago, the inhabitants of an ancient, warring race solved the mysteries of space travel when they discovered 4 wormholes in their solar system. Their science and knowledge had advanced to the point where they understood the mechanics of wormholes.

Only these were not conventional wormholes.

They were the entrances to a maze of wormholes looped not only through their home galaxy but to others, giving them quick and rapid travel.

This alien race left their world, discovered the network and they began exploring their home galaxy before they began exploring others. They discovered the wormholes, eventually discovering that the wormholes were a part of a reef that covered 18 galaxies and even had one wormhole linking one more, that was a million light years away.

This race quickly explored the galaxies, and originally they traded with the few races advanced enough to work with them. But then one regime replaced another, and they began conquering other races, many of them too primitive to fight back. They were wiped out, but the wormhole reef remained and it became a pivotal part of galactic trade, many empires came and went over the years, while other regimes were more benevolent.

Xxxxx

Theta checked the chameleon circuit one more time. He was getting very worried about the chameleon circuit since he'd noticed more than a few fluctuations in some of the disguises the circuit had chosen for the TARDIS. It was minor, little things at first. It was so minor and minute that Theta had barely even noticed it or cared about it.

"Looks like you didn't get any maintenance to your camouflage circuit, old girl," he whispered before he snorted at his words. He was hardly any better since he hadn't bothered to look at the circuit much, either. More happy to travel than actually take a look at the systems until his worry made him look.

The chameleon circuit's fluctuations were worrying. More than once, some of the colours from one disguise would remain and appear off with the next disguise.

The TARDIS seemed to know something was wrong as well and the chameleon circuit seemed to pick out simpler forms. Even the spaceship form he'd programmed for the TARDIS so they could fly through space for the last few months had shown this fluctuating pattern. Theta had visited 21st-century Earth some time ago, right in the middle of their second big space age, at the time humans had developed renewable safe and reliable space flight for interplanetary travel. Theta had trained as an astronaut and he'd spent a decade travelling around the solar system. He'd done it so he could see a new, unfolding culture before humans left the solar system, using generational ships that were slower than light before they broke the light barrier.

Theta had jumped forward in time by a few centuries - well, dozens of centuries beyond the days when Susie Fontana Brooke left the solar system and broke the light barrier in Earth's first light-speed ship, the Jupiter ship's disappearance in another galaxy, the Dalek invasion of Earth, the Citadel wars, the First Great Breakout, the Starship Voyager's disappearance on the other side of the Milky Way and its 17 years trying to return which ushered in great growth, the Universe explorer mission ship which saw a ship lost in space like the Jupiter's disappearance before vanishing for good before being found 50,000 years later and was the founding stone of hundreds of worlds and different cultures being created from that single ship, the Human-Covenant war.

This period was a time of relative peace as far as the Time Lord knew, and he had spent that time travelling to dozens of worlds with his TARDIS disguised as a spaceship. And a part of him was regretting it since he had to pay for parking his ship at a spaceport or in an orbit space. The only thing that made it worth it in the end was the prospect of visiting numerous worlds and places, but more than once the TARDIS had fallen through wormholes that weren't in the TARDIS's chart books.

Theta didn't care. He was exploring whole new worlds. He had seen dozens of worlds so far. On a trip to Earth's 21st century he had picked up a collection of scrapbooks journals, and albums and he'd begun filling them with photographs, holos, and sketches of the places he had visited. The TARDIS was becoming filled with the souvenirs he'd picked up, and he'd added them to the collection of junk he'd found in the depths of the time machine.

After examining the circuit for another few minutes, Theta rubbed his eyes. The chameleon circuit was most definitely faulty, and the longer he kept the circuit disguised as a spaceship, the greater the chances it would just get stuck in the form until he had it overhauled.

Oh well, today was the last day he'd keep it in the form of a spaceship.

After this, Theta was going to reset the circuit and program it for something else, hoping it would not freeze. Theta's hands flew over the console and flew towards the giant spherical shape of the mouth of the wormhole. Whenever he saw a wormhole like this, Theta was reminded of a raindrop since he could see reflected back at him, the sights of the numerous places this wormhole was linked to thanks to the reef. Theta didn't really care where the TARDIS ended up as it was carried along by the space/time ripples waving through the network.

The TARDIS flew into the wormhole before it broke through the radial wall. The console room shook a little, but the stabilisers kicked in as he took in the beautiful sight on the scanner, seeing dozens more 'raindrop' mouths linked in with this wormhole tunnel; the waves rippling through the wormhole conduit stopped his naked eyes from seeing them all, but the TARDIS was recording all of them; when he looked back later, he would wish he could visit dozens of the galaxies, but he knew he could do it later on.

The TARDIS console gave out an alarm. Theta jumped towards it, startled before he realised he was approaching a highway route, a wormhole looped through the galaxies like a loop line in a busy metro system. There were dozens of spaceships, but the TARDIS nearly crashed into one of them.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Unbidden the scanner switched to the interior of another spaceship, with a human girl looking back at him, but Theta quickly realised she was not human. She had long blonde hair and she wore a green shirt under a black leather jacket. But to Theta's amazement, there was something…familiar about her.

Behind the girl was a young man with brown hair.

"I'm sorry," Theta said instantly before he checked the console and he realised the TARDIS had very nearly crashed into her ship. "I really am sorry for that; I was passing through the wormhole too fast without taking precautions. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, but be careful; I thought I'd crashed into a ship once, but it turned out the little toad person I'd crashed into was conning space travellers. Oh, I'm Jenny, by the way, and this is Noah. We're travellers," the blonde girl smiled.

Charmed by her smile even if he was curious about who she was, Theta was about to speak when the young man scoffed. "Travellers? Yeah right."

"Shut up, Noah," Jenny retorted. "Okay, so we have fun. We go around saving planets, meeting civilisations, rescuing people, and there's an awful lot of running to do."

"Oh, my, it sounds like you lead an incredible life, my dear," Theta said, wondering if he could lead a life like that before deciding it would be fun trying it out.

The console chirped and he then saw the TARDIS was about to go through another wormhole. "It seems that the TARDIS has decided to go through a different route; this is where we have to say goodbye, my dear."

"TARDIS?" Jenny was jolted, and Noah was just as stunned. "You mean you're a-..."

"A what, sorry?" Theta asked but the scanner had shut off. But he didn't have time to do more than shrug his shoulders and dismiss it as the TARDIS went through one wormhole and then proceeded down three more.

Xxxxx

"….a Time Lord. Urggh, he's gone!" Jenny threw her hands up in frustration.

"We could always go after him," Noah suggested, knowing how fascinated she was by her father's people.

Jenny checked the navi-comp. "No, it's too late, he's gone and according to the map we got off the wormhole network-."

"Half a map," Noah interrupted with a fond scoff as he stared at her. "You only got a part of it so then you could find it, but you didn't give a damn where we ended up."

"Oh, shut up, Noah," Jenny rolled her eyes. "What does it matter? Look, we've got a wormhole reef to explore, dozens of worlds to save, hundreds of civilisations to meet. Besides that guy's probably already gone by now."

"But do you think he was a Time Lord, Jenny, after what we heard about them being lost? How is it possible to see them?" Noah pressed.

Jenny bit her lip. Noah wished she wouldn't since he wanted to kiss her. "I think, well I know, other timelines are surrounding us like the tracks on a CD like the ones we saw when we got that new vortex manipulator, and the Time Lords can move through the tracks. Maybe he was a Time Lord, but there was something about him…"

"What?" Noah asked, seeing the almost lost, hopeful look on her face.

"I dunno, but there was something familiar about him…"