Victory of the Daleks - Part One
The rest I got on the TARDIS was some of the best rest I had gotten in years. It was the wake-up call that could've been better. From out of nowhere, the lights flashed on and a pillow collided with my head.
"Good morning!" the Doctor greeted, far too cheerful for my liking at the time; I made my position clear by throwing the pillow right back at him, hitting him square in the face, "Someone's obviously not a morning person, then. Anyways, get dressed. We've got a big day ahead of us." With that, the excitable Time Lord left the room, giving me the opportunity to rise from the bed and head straight to the bathroom. I forgot about the crying need I had for a shower last night.
Once I was no longer smelling like Star Whale breath, I was surprised to find a change of clothes already sitting on the bathroom counter, next to some makeup and a hairdryer. The outfit in question ended up being black skinny jeans, a white blouse with black buttons, a blue scarf, black boots similar to the Doctor's, and an overcoat that screamed, "BBC's Sherlock Holmes." This, paired with the blue scarf and the fact that my hair was loosely curled made me feel like a consulting detective, and I liked it.
I left the room and decided to start looking for the kitchen, which I found quite easily to be honest. From there, I poured a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast and thought over what would happen this adventure. It would be the London Blitz with Daleks, that much was certain. But which scenario should I enter? I could go up into that Dalek ship with the Doctor, but that would be highly unlikely considering the fact that he'd insist on me staying in London. But I am and always have been overpoweringly stubborn, so that asset might change the way things go.
My mind was set, my cereal had been eaten, and I was ready for some Science Fiction goodness, so I practically ran into the control room to find the Doctor and Amy nowhere to be seen.
"Anybody in here?" I called out. No answer. I walked toward the door, opened it cautiously and found myself in a Cabinet War Rooms filing closet. The Doctor, Amy, and Churchill were nowhere to be seen.
"Guys? You out here?" I called out again, then stepped out of the doorway. I walked up the stairs and into a bustling hallway, different workers walking briskly left and right carrying papers or bits of metal. I decided to blend in as best I could and walk in the direction I hoped the Doctor and Amy went down.
As it turns out, my blending in did not go exactly according to plan. Within five minutes, I had been met with the barrel of a rifle being pointed at me by a soldier, as well as plenty of people staring at me. My hands shot up into the air as I scrambled to find something to tell this soldier in order for him to point his gun elsewhere.
"I'm with the Doctor. We were called in by Prime Minister Churchill himself," I said in a hurry, "Now, if you please, stop pointing your gun at me. You're making me rather nervous."
"At ease, soldier. She's with me," the Doctor instructed, coming up from behind me. The soldier obeyed, apologized for his actions, and left. I then turned to the Doctor and Amy, who were currently flanking Winston Churchill himself.
"You left without me," I accused, waving a finger in the Time Lord's face, "And there has to be a better way to wake a person up."
"Well you were taking too long," he retorted, "By the way, where's the deerstalker, Sherlock?"
"Left it with the riding crop. I didn't want to wear that death frisbee out in public," I said, then turned back to Churchill, "Ginny Parks, by the way. It's an honor to meet you, Mr Churchill."
We shook hands, and Winston proceeded to lead us into an elevator which he sent upwards. He puffed a bit of smoke from his cigar, which the Doctor waved away from his face.
"We stand at a crossroads, Doctor, quite alone, with our backs to the wall. Invasion is expected daily. So I will grasp with both hands anything that will give us an advantage over the Nazi menace," Winston explained. The Doctor looked to Amy and me, then back to Winston.
"Such as?" he asked. The elevator stopped and we all got out.
"Follow me," the Prime Minister instructed.
We were led out onto the roof of the Cabinet War Rooms. Soldiers stood watch at different intervals along the roof, sandbags lined the edges along with two forts on a higher part of the roof. A man in a white lab coat was searching the skies for German bombers with a pair of binoculars.
"Doctor, this is Professor Edwin Bracewell. Head of our Ironsides Project," Churchill announced.
"How do you do?" Bracewell called down to us.
"Very well, thank you!" I replied. The three of us turned to face the view of London. In the distance, a bomb fell causing a loud bang and a flash of orange light. Barrage balloons tied down by ropes dotted the skies, causing me to recall "The Empty Child" when Rose was dangling from one of them.
"Oh, Doctor. Doctor, it's," Amy trailed off.
"History," he finished.
"Ready Bracewell?" Churchill asked.
"Aye aye, sir," he replied, "On my order, fire!" Right as Bracewell said "Fire!", a flurry of energy bolts flew from one of the sandbag forts, taking out a whole line of Nazi planes. If I didn't already know what was standing in that fort, I would've been impressed.
"What was that?" Amy asked, dumbfounded.
"That wasn't human. That was never human technology. That sounded like," the Doctor trailed off, too shocked to keep going on, "Show me. Show me! Show me what that was!" He took off up the ladder and towards the sandbag fortress.
"Advance," Bracewell instructed what was behind the fort.
"Our new secret weapon!" Churchill exclaimed, as an army green Dalek rolled out into the open, "What do you think? Quite something, eh?"
"Ginny, what is that?" Amy asked me. I took a deep breath and turned to face her.
"It's the Doctor's worst enemy," I said, "It's a Dalek."
"I am your soldier," the Dalek said, its voice loud enough for us to hear.
"What?" the Doctor asked it.
"I am your soldier," it repeated.
"Stop this. Stop now," he ordered, "Now you know who I am. You always know."
"Perhaps I can clarify things here," Bracewell said, "This is one of my Ironsides."
"Your what?" the Time Lord asked.
"You will help the Allied cause in any way that you can," Bracewell said to the Dalek, as if it had been rehearsed.
"Yes," it replied.
"Until the Germans have been utterly smashed," he said.
"Yes," it repeated.
"And what is your ultimate aim?" he asked.
"To win the war!" it exclaimed.
The elevator ride back into the war rooms was host to a very awkward and almost shocked silence. The Doctor just leaned against the elevator with this sort of look of look that said, "I knew they'd arrive at some point, but I didn't think it would be here." Neither I nor Amy said a word, which was very unlike us. Well, not unlike me; I'm a quiet person by nature. It wasn't until we reached Churchill's office and saw the blueprints and possible propaganda posters for the Daleks we started talking again.
"They're Daleks. They're called Daleks," the Doctor said, flipping through some blueprints.
"They are Bracewell's Ironsides, Doctor. Look. Blueprints, statistics, field tests, photographs. He invented them," Winston corrected.
"Invented them?" the Doctor asked, almost sounding amused by the thought, "Oh, no, no, no."
"Yes. He approached one of our brass hats a few months ago. Fellow's a genius," Winston said.
"A Scottish genius too," Amy added, throwing her opinion into the hex, "Maybe you should listen to..." She would've continued if the Doctor hadn't shushed her.
"He didn't invent them," he said, "They're alien."
"Alien?" Winston repeated, as if he wasn't familiar with the concept. Right on cue as it would seem, one of the Daleks rolled down the hallway, allowing us to see it through the open doorway.
"And totally hostile," the Doctor finished once it was out of sight.
"Precisely. They will win me the war," Winston replied, revealing a propaganda poster with a Dalek and the words, "To Victory!" written across the top.
We were now walking back towards the main part of the War Rooms rather quickly. I could barely keep up on simply walking, so I found myself moving in a semi-jogging fashion.
"Why won't you listen to me? Why did you call me in if you won't listen to me?" the Doctor asked.
"When I rang you a month ago, I must admit I had my doubts," Churchill responded, "The Ironsides seemed too good to be true."
"Yes. Right. So destroy them. Exterminate them," the Doctor suggested earnestly.
"That's rich coming from you, of all people," I commented.
"Not really the right time for jokes," he said. I raised my hands in a defensive position.
"Sorry, but I'm just trying to get my opinion in," I said, "I didn't mean to strike a nerve."
"But imagine what I could do with a hundred. A thousand," Churchill proposed.
"We are imagining," the Doctor and I said simultaneously. Winston went into the main room and left us in the hallway.
"Do you two practice that?" Amy asked us.
"No," we said together, then looked at each other weirdly, and then looked back to Amy.
"It just sort of happens," I admitted.
"Would one of you tell him?" the Doctor asked.
"Tell him what?" Amy asked in return.
"About the Daleks," he replied.
"What would I know about the Daleks?" she asked.
"Everything. They invaded your world, remember? Planets in the sky. You don't forget that," he said, "Amy, tell me you remember the Daleks."
"No, sorry," Amy said after a moment's hesitation. The Doctor looked at her for a minute.
"That's not possible," he finally said before going into the main room himself. Amy and I followed the Doctor until we stopped and leaned against a wall.
"So they're up to something. But what is it? What are they after?" the Doctor asked, thinking aloud.
"Well, let's just ask, shall we?" Amy suggested, approaching a nearby Ironside.
"Amy. Amelia!" he called before she tapped on its shoulder, or wherever a shoulder would be if it had one. The Ironside turned and angled its eyestalk up to her.
"Can I be of assistance?" it asked.
"Oh. Yes, yes. See, my friend reckons you're dangerous," she told it, "That you're an alien. Is it true?"
"I am your soldier," it replied.
"Yeah. Got that bit. Love a squaddie. What else, though?" Amy asked.
"Please excuse me. I have duties to preform," the Ironside said, turning and wheeling in the opposite direction. The Doctor stood and walked over to Churchill just as Amy rejoined me at the wall.
"You know, whether their genocidal alien monsters or not, you'd think that the Daleks would be less rude," I mused.
"No kidding," she replied, laughing a bit before sobering again, "What did the Doctor mean when he said it wasn't possible for me to forget the Daleks?"
"The Doctor's probably gonna kill me for telling you this, but here goes nothing," I started, "So, in 2008, the Daleks stole the Earth along with twenty-six other planets and took most of the human race as prisoners. The leader of the Daleks, Davros, was going to use the twenty-seven planets as some way to power up a Reality Bomb. This would've destroyed all reality in all the known universes, but luckily the Doctor managed to stop Davros."
"Wow, that's pretty bad. Wonder why I don't remember it," she said. The All Clear sounded to everyone's pleasure, which signaled Amy and me to get off the wall and walk over to the Doctor.
"Doctor, it's the All Clear," Amy told him, "You okay?"
"What does hate look like, you two?" he asked us, clutching someone's hat.
"Hate?" Amy asked in reply.
"It looks like a Dalek. And I'm going to prove it," he said, slamming the hat down on a desk before striding past an Ironside and down the hallway, the two of us following far behind.