Dr Who and the Screaming Eagles

by T.J. McFadden

Snatched out of the time stream, the Doctor and Rose find their TARDIS trapped in a snowy wilderness, along with Captain Richard Winters and the men of Easy Company, themselves snatched away from the siege of Bastogne. They must work together to discover who took them and why or be at the mercy of a ruthless legend who will keep them for an eternity of violent death.

Dr Who and the Screaming Eagles

By

T.J. McFadden

Rose Tyler was exploring again.

The Doctor had long ago told her that the TARDIS was larger on the inside than the outside. What he forgot to mention was how large. In the months since she'd begun travelling with the Doctor, she'd explored nearly a hundred rooms.

Initially she'd been pacing herself- she was easily bored and the Doctor frequently got lost in one of his experiments or maintenance in the mechanical-y parts of the TARDIS, the parts that actually LOOKED like a time and space travelling machine. She'd found several of those. But she'd also found a room made up like a Turkish Harem- or at least what she thought a Turkish harem would look like. One room that seemed very much like a cave-man's lair, with a bed of animal pelts that was surprisingly warm and comfy. Rooms cluttered with unidentifiable, dusty gadgets she was afraid to look at too long, let along touch. One that looked like a Victorian Drawing room, complete with a tea set that looked perfectly normal- except the (really excellent) tea in the pot was always bubbling hot, the milk and lemon slices were chilled, the biscuits always fresh and the dishes always clean, even when she'd been called away by an emergency, had to leave it in a mess and hadn't gotten back to it for a week.

She had no idea who was cleaning it up. She suspected it was part of the TARDIS. She also suspected that the TARDIS was making up these rooms as she explored, to keep her entertained between times when the Doctor had landed them on some mad world to save the human race or something.

If that was the explanation, she really appreciated all the work the TARDIS put into it.

Which was why it shocked her when the library room she was exploring suddenly tilted completely sideway and the books all came flying off the shelves. She'd been snuggled in a corner reading some surprisingly clever novel about rabbits. When the TARDIS went sideways, she went flying as well. She was lucky to get nothing more than a few bumps. As she flew, she heard a fantastic variety of crashing and smashing noise that indicated the other rooms had been turned sideways too, as well as the –engine? - whatever drove the TARDIS practically screaming.

That was the most terrifying sound of all.

Then everything was normal again, other than the most unholy mess of assorted objects flung about and having settled in heaps. She pulled herself out of the mess and went looking for the Doctor.

He, of course, was in the control room, frantically jumping from one set of controls to another, looking even more disturbed and frantic than usual.

"Hello Doctor. Did we hit a bump in the road?"

His eyes never left the controls as he worked. "More like a bump in the road reached out and hit us. All this flinging about isn't supposed to happen. It's very messy."

"So this is new?" Rose put on the innocent expression that let her get away with asking any question at all. That still got her a raised eyebrow from the Doctor.

He stood back, hands on his hips. "It's only new in terms of never having happened in 800 years and I still have no idea how it occurred. So that's new. But someone has gotten very clever with their technology. To snatch a TARDIS out of the time stream and fully suspend it's functions is theoretically possible, if you have the most advanced technology known to Gallifrey. Possibly something the Daleks stole. Nothing that anyone alive today should have."

"And yet they do and did." Rose rubbed a sore spot on her leg that had hit a bulkhead during her tumble. "So where are we now?"

"I have no idea. But the external environment is very similar to earth. The northern regions. In winter. You'd better get a fur coat."

"Dressing me in furs and taking me to exotic locations, Doctor? You do know how to show a girl a good time. But a fur coat will be scandalous to my animal rights friends back home."

The Doctor nodded, leading her to another jumbled room and pulling out a long white fur coat that looked very nice. "Well, the animal that this fur came from is extremely nasty and enjoys killing all the smaller animals, so it got what was coming to it. Besides, it looks good on you."

Rose put the coat on and did a little twirl like a model. She looked for a mirror, but didn't find any. Ah well, needs must when the devil drives. "What about you? Won't you be cold?"

"Yes, I'd better get a scarf." Which was the only thing the Doctor added to his usual outfit. "Havent' worn this one in ages!"

At that, they went to the door of the TARDIS. The Doctor looked at one control and stopped. "Wait. This is interesting. The air outside is filled with nanocams."

"Nanocams?"

He pressed some buttons on the panel, then some on his sonic screwdriver. "Tiny floating cameras, the size of dust motes. None of them give too good a picture, but if you combine the feed from a few dozen, you can get a remarkably good three dimensional image. They use them for sporting events. I have no idea why they are here. Give me a second to hack their control. They can be made to ignore specific images. These nanocams simply won't see us. But whoever put them out there wants to see something."

That done, he opened the TARDIS door. Chill air poured in. They stepped out. Around them were small rocky hills, clumps of middle-sized pine and birch trees, patches of snow on dead grass and bare rock. The sky was crystal blue.

The Doctor suddenly froze. He sniffed the air, looking frantically around. He sniffed deeply, for all the world like a hound trying to catch a scent. "It's here! The actual thing! How can that be? It's been years!"

Well this was a day for firsts, Rose thought. "What's here?"

"The greatest delicacy that a Gallifreyan palate can imagine! It was only made for a few decades, on earth of all places! Quite a few Time Lords violated the codes to get some. When the Council found out that some had actually interfered with a local political process to continue it's production they time locked the entire period before real damage was done. How can it be here?"

Rose laughed. "What, you can't make it yourselves? Time Lords don't cook?"

"It was tried, hundreds of times. Something about the combination of the manufacturing methods, the containers, intangibles we could never seem to duplicate- we were just never able to make it that way ourselves! But it's here!"

The Doctor began stalking off into the woods, moving almost frantically.

After a moment, Rose Tyler followed, quickly realized she should have gotten a pair of snow boots in place of the tennis shoes she was wearing.

###

Captain Richard Winters gave one more stir to the contents of his metal canteen cup. The boiling hot water steamed in the cold air, thickened by three packets of sugar, two packets of instant coffee, two packets of hot cocoa and four packets of powdered creamer. Finally satisfied, he took a sip. Anywhere else, the hot, thick, sweet mess would have been cloying. Here, it was warmth and life itself, plunging down his throat into his chilled body. He could feel his body absorbing the heat as well as the sugar and caffeine, desperate after days of cold, short rations and sleepless nights. He could literally feel himself revitalizing.

Sighing, he leaned back against the pine tree, his lanky frame stretched out. For the first time in weeks, his boots and socks were dry, he'd been able to shave and the thin rays of the sun were shining down. He could actually feel the warmth through the dirty fatigue uniform he was wearing. And nobody was screaming in pain or terror. No explosions were tearing the air apart.

It was heaven.

He took another swallow of the hot drink, feeling the warmth spread out from his throat and stomach. He closed his eyes. Absolute heaven.

"Hey Dick, we're back from the recon."

And heaven was over.

He opened his eyes, looking up at Lieutenant Lewis Nixon. Lew was in his perpetual slouch, with the perpetual cigarette hanging from his perpetually unshaven face. "Hey Lew. So, what did you find? I was expecting you to be out all day."

Nixon nodded. "I was too. We actually only went a couple of miles when we hit a wall. And I mean literally hit. Walked into it. It's like a movie screen. I don't know what it's made of, but it isn't glass. Tougher than steel. Bullets bounced off it."

"You shot it?"

"At an angle. It seems flat, but it's actually curved, just really large. Hoobler fired his rifle almost parallel to the wall, but it skipped off the wall about a hundred yards away- then skipped again and again. For all I know, it's still skipping in a circle. We're in a globe. My college trig is a little rusty, but I'd guess it's about six miles across. And a perfect globe, firing up just sent another bullet skipping across the sky."

Winters, Nixon and seventy-two men of Easy Company, 506th regiment of the 101st "Screaming Eagles" had been in their foxholes in the woods around Bastogne. They'd been busy freezing and starving when they weren't fighting off attacks from the Wehrmacht army surrounding the Belgian town. Then an orange haze had swept over them. When it stopped, they'd found themselves in this wooded, wintry area. Which, Winters thought, was a damned strange looking - "Fishbowl. We're in a fishbowl."

"That was my thought. My grandmother kept goldfish in a fishbowl. Never thought that I'd be in one. Oh, and we're alone here. No tracks or sounds of anybody, Kraut, Belgian or Yank. Not even any squirrels or birds. Shifty noticed that. I think he was hoping he could hunt something to add to the C-rations."

Winters nodded and looked over at the pair of US Army two and a half-ton trucks- the eponymous "Deuce and a half" trucks that transported much of the US Army. "Well, at least whoever put us here bothered to feed us. But even two trucks loaded with C and K rations are only going to feed us for so long."

They'd found the trucks in a clearing shortly after the haze went away. Searching around, they'd also found a hill that had good fields of fire, overlooking a small pond of clean but very cold water. Winters had ordered the men to set up a perimeter, digging a ring of foxholes and putting out observation posts. The first night had been half the men on guard, half off, grabbing some sleep. The second day, Winters had allowed fires during the daylight and ordered one in every four soldiers to stand guard, rotating the duty between themselves. This third day, he'd allowed men to pitch their pup tents and sleep in relative warmth on beds of dead brush and pine branches, even during the day.

Now in the encampment, men were heating C-rations over small fires, cooking in the mess kits while boiling water in the steel shells of their helmets, washing and shaving or just relaxing. Still, one in four stood on guard, armed and in the foxholes.

"The boys are enjoying their vacation, but they're beginning to ask questions. What do we tell them?"

"What we know." Winters shook his head. "Some vacation. Eating canned food warmed over a fire and getting to sleep in pup tents in the snow is a vacation."

"Well, I'm not missing the 2 a.m. bedchecks from those Wehrmacht 88's." Nixon squatted on the ground, adjusting his carbine. "Hey, you'd better finish your coffee before it gets cold. Those metal canteen cups don't hold the heat worth a damn."

Winters nodded and drank deeply again. Nixon was right, the drink was already starting to cool. "I'm just worried. My aunt Ethel had goldfish too. She also had a cat. That cat wound up eating those goldfish."

They were in the company command post, set up near one of the trucks. Both of them heard the field phone growl- they were set up with phone lines to the observation posts in the woods. "Easy Six, Easy Six, this is Easy green, over!"

Winters grabbed the phone, suddenly tense. "Easy Green this is Easy Six. Go ahead. "

Sergeant "Wild Bill" Guarniere's south Philly accent grew stronger when he was excited. "Sir, we got two civilians coming into the perimeter, a guy and a dame. Neither one of 'em's armed, but the guy seems real intent on finding somet'n."

Nixon and Winters both got up, picking up their weapons. "We're on our way, easy green. No shooting. All easy units, full alert. Watch your perimeter."

First Sergeant Garwood Lipton got out of the driver's seat of the truck, his own weapon ready. "Come with you sir?"

"Lip, you stay here, call me on the radio if they see anything else. I want everyone in their foxholes, watching their perimeter."

"Yes sir!" The First Sergeant started shouting. Soldiers abandoned what they had been doing and went straight to their fighting positions. They'd all seen the Germans pull some pretty crazy stunts. They weren't going to let this distract them. Nixon and Winters headed out.

###

Sgt "Bull" Randleman had felt a little guilty when he swiped the second C-ration. The Captain had passed clear orders- they didn't know when they'd get resupply, so they would only use 3 c-rations or K-rations a day. But Randleman was a big man and he'd been going hungry for a while in the siege. He'd stolen an extra C-ration meal unit when lunch was issued. And now he knew he was being punished for it.

C-rations contained a variety of dishes= stews, hash, spaghetti, nothing fancy, nothing too great but nothing too bad either. Except for one. The Ham and Lima bean c-ration. Which turned out to be the one he'd stolen. Even hot, they were dreadful, incredibly salty and even vile to look at, a green goop of lima beans with chunks of ham floating in it. They were even supposed to be bad luck.

If only he wasn't so hungry.

He was still struggling with that when a little fellow in a nice suit walked out of the woods, snatched the c-ration and spoon from Bull's hands and shovelled a big glop of the stuff into his mouth.

And smiled in bliss.

"MMMMM! It's even better than I remember!"

A VERY pretty blonde girl in a fur coat walked up behind him and smiled in an embarrassed way. "Sorry sir, he doesn't normally do this."

The inevitable jibe came out of Randleman by reflex. "I ain't a sir, Ma'am, I work for a living."

The little fellow- who had some kind of english accent- rolled his eyes in pleasure as he took a second spoonful. "It's even delicious when it's warm! But it's best when you serve it cold and congealed. The little drops of grease are like candy!"

"Hello? Sir? Ma'am?" A lanky redheaded soldier in a grubby uniform walked up to them. His face and rifle were the only parts of him that were clean. He had a face that Rose thought was normally open and smiling, but was now passing between confusion and suspicion. The shorter dark-haired officer next to him was just as dirty, more handsome but paying more attention to Rose. That didn't stop the rifle in his hands from being just a shade away from being pointed at them.

Around them, other soldiers were looking at them from foxholes, all in battered, grubby uniforms. Their faces showed the pinched look of hunger, sleep deprivation and a lot of terror. That said, most of them were looking at her. No surprise. Soldiers far from home could be easily distracted by a pretty girl. She'd had to use that a time or two.

"Get back in your foxholes! Watch your perimeter!" A third man called those orders to the men as they approached. This one dark and handsome- until you saw his eyes. They were cold, calculating, almost looking through you. The weapon he held, a tommy gun, was pointed directly at her.

The tall redhead spoke. "Lt Spiers, take two men and go back the way they came. Don't take any chances- come back if you see anything."

"Yessir! Luz, Hefron, on me! Move it!" The cold-eyed man moved it.

The Doctor tore himself away from his feast with a visible effort. "I'm so sorry. Introductions. I'm the Doctor. This young lady is Rose Tyler. And you gentlemen are?"

"Doctor who?"

"Exactly."

Rose giggled. "It's just 'the Doctor" Don't worry, we get that a lot. You're Americans?"

"And you're British." The dark haired one came forward, putting on his most charming smile. "I'm First Lieutenant Lewis Nixon, this tall drink of water is Captain Dick Winters. Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, at your service. Is he actually enjoying that thing? What is he, a martian or something?"

The Doctor grinned. "Martians are much less charming than I am, Lieutenant. I am from Gallifrey. Is there a place we can talk?"

###

Winters spoke little on the way back, mostly observing. Lew was talking enough for both of them, obviously distracted by the pretty girl- nothing new about that. The english guy, though- there was definitely something about him. He was trying to explain how he and the girl got there, but most of his words made no sense.

"So there was some form of distruption in the time stream that literally snatched us out and put us here. I believe it may have been accidental. How did you find yourselves here, Captain?"

"We were in our foxholes at Bastogne when some orange haze appeared around us. The next thing we knew, we were here."

That stopped the Doctor in his tracks. All traces of jollity vanished from face and voice. "Oh no. An orange haze. Did anyone feel dizzy or nauseous?"

"Yes. You recognize this?"

"Things are falling into place. Captain, I need to return to my TARDIS immediately."

"You used that word before- it's what you came in? Like an airplane? Can it get us back home?"

Rose had never seen the Doctor look confused before.

"I don't know. But I have instruments back in the TARDIS that can tell me. It's less than a mile away, back the way we came. It should only take a few hours to get you some answers."

"Doctor, I can't just let you walk out of this. I need to check your story."

"Captain, you and your men have been transported to this place! Can anything I say be less believable than what has already happened to you?"

"Dick, I think he may have something." Nixon spoke up. "This is like those stories from Amazing Science Fiction magazine. H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, that kind of stuff. "

Winters gave a wry smile. "Well, it can't get any wierder."

Rose Tyler spoke up. "Oh, it hasn't begun to get really weird yet."

Winters looked at them. "That's not very reassuring, Miss Tyler. Okay, Nix, you're my intel officer. Follow them back to this TARDIS and get me intelligence on this. Take one of the spamcans and call back when you know something."

Sergeant Malarkey came when called and gave one of the big portable radios- nicknamed "spamcans"- to Nixon. The Doctor finished the last of his c-ration, then quickly strode off. Rose and Nixon followed.

###

Rose observed the two men. The Doctor was in his focussed mode, striding rapidly through the brush. Lieutenant Nixon was struggling to keep up but Rose noticed that he was only giving her glances. Now that they were alone, he was watching where they went, his weapon ready. He was speaking through the cigarette held in his lips. "This TARDIS thing you have, how big is it? Is there anyone else with you?"

"It's larger on the inside than outside, Lieutenant. Fantastically advanced technology. Expect a lot of surprises."

"I don't suppose you could surprise me with some La Bat 69, could you?"

"STOP!" Rose barked out the command and stopped. The fur coat was warm, but it was heavy, and her feet were wet and freezing. Besides, the smoke from Nixon's cigarette was driving her mad. She cocked a hip and smiled at Nixon. "Give us a fag, love?"

Nixon grinned and tapped out a Chesterfield. Rose looked at it, grinning. "Unfiltered? Haven't had one of those since I was a Fresher! Oh, thank you!"

She put the cigarette in her lips and Nixon lit it for her with a lighter that, from the smell, was burning gasoline.

The Doctor looked aghast. "Rose! That thing is full of poisons! Carcinogenins, tar-"

"Nicotine, don't forget nicotine!" Rose took a light puff and coughed, then a deeper drag. Her eyes went wide. "Oh yes, that American tobacco. What a rush!"

The Doctor looked actually stunned. Well, thought Rose, that was a First! She coughed again and took another drag, her head briefly seeming to spin. "Woo. It has been a while!"

"I never knew you smoked!" The Doctor seemed actually confused!

"Oh, just one or two, when I'm out clubbing with my friends. I started sneaking them in Uni."

"You never talked about that before!"

Rose was beginning to dislike the Doctors tone. "Well it's always "We have to stop the Daleks!" or "We have to stop this sun from exploding!" with you, isn't it? It's never "Hey, let's nip over to the pub for a Baby Cham and a pack of crisps!"

Then the nicotine really hit her. "Oh lord, I shouldn't have said that. Now I'd positively kill for a baby cham!"

Nixon was clearly enjoying the exchange between the two, but he spoke up. "Doc, Rose, this is fun, but dont' we have to- Get down!"

Suddenly Nixon was behind a tree, clicking his rifle off safe.

The Doctor and Rose dropped a second later. They'd heard that tone before.

"What is it?" The Doctor was watching all around. He saw what had prompted Nixon as the man spoke in a whisper.

"It's a bunch of tin men, like from the wizard of Oz. I read a story once- robots?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Much worse. Cyber men. Metal bodies and human brains. And they are moving directly towards your Easy Company."

The precise ranks of humanoid metal shapes moved with an unearthly quiet a few hundred meters from them. They made no effort to hide, barely deviating from their path to go around trees or boulders. .

"Why can't I hear them? Metal like that should be making all sorts of clanking sounds."

"They're using a noise dampening field. Very handy when sneaking up on an enemy force. But it means they can't hear us either. They'll probably shut it off when they attack. If we don't stop them, it'll be a slaughter."

Nixon spoke up. "Doc, Easy company is no bunch of pushovers. We've seen some serious action. These guys don't look so bad."

Rose spoke in a whisper anyways. "Doctor, Captain Winters and his men are armed to the teeth. I don't see very many cybermen."

"You've seen first-generation Cybermen. Experimental models, or worker drones. Mostly made with twentieth century earth technology." The Doctor was studying them intently. "Those are assault troopers of one of the dedicated cyber legions. Advanced technology. Probably a full maniple of ten, deployed off an assault pod. Two of them have railguns, two have bomb lobbers. The rest have heavy blaster rifles. They probably deployed some scouting drones too, outside the noise suppression field. Captain Winters and his men don't have a chance!"

Nixon put the spamcan close to his face, only to have it snatched away by the Doctor. "They won't hear you, but they'll pick up transmissions from that in a second. Then lob explosives at you the second after that. But if I can get back to the TARDIS, I may be able to tap into the frequencies on their assault pod and send out a recall signal."

Nixon nodded and put down the radio. "You do that. I'm going to try to cut ahead of them and get back to easy company before they do. Maybe we can stall these guys and withdraw!"

The Doctor nodded. "Look out for their scouting drones. They're about the size of dinner plates, with reflective surfaces. Good luck, leftenant."

Nixon grinned, then tossed his pack of cigarettes to Rose. "Here, keep these for me, willya? Catch you later!" Then he was off, running through the woods.

Rose felt a sudden jolt of fear. Then she shucked her fur coat. "It's slowing me down, Doctor. We have to hurry!"

"Indeed we do!" said the Doctor. Then the two of them began running through the woods, as if lives depended on them being fast. Because they did.

###

Winters had just returned to the command post when the first call came in over the sound-powered phones. "Easy Six, this is Easy Red; we got tin men coming in on the perimeter. I think they got some kind of-"

There was a sudden squeal, then silence on the phone.

Winters could already hear gunfire from that part of the perimeter. All over the encampment men jumped into their foxholes, grabbed their weapons and prepared to fight. Winters jumped down into the command dugout and keyed the radio. "This is easy six, easy six, I need a contact report! Easy red, what is your situation? Over!"

First Sergeant Lipton was on the sound powered phones, trying to contact any easy units adjacent to third platoon, which was Easy Red. He looked up to see Lieutenant Harry Welsh indicating the direction of Easy Red, with the ready squad still strapping on their weapons and gear, ready to follow him.

Winters could not have known he faced an enemy that could detect his radio transmissions and target them for the bomb lobber. He didn't even have time to be surprised when four seeker warheads, targeting the radio transmissions, hit the command post. The blasts instantly killed everyone in the command dugout.

###

Back at Camp Toccoa, when the 101st was formed, Lt. Lew Nixon had frequently run five or more miles a day in the brutal training to be a paratrooper. But that was two years ago. Now, moving back towards Easy as fast as he could go, he could feel pain in his lungs for every one of the several thousand cigarettes he'd smoked since then as well as every physical training session he'd skipped out on. He ignored the pain, pushing on, even when he heard the first gunshots ahead.

That was when he saw the first Recon Drone.

It was hovering right in front of him, it's mirrored surface acting as camouflage.

"I'll be damned- it does look like a dinner plate." Nixon muttered as his hands moved by reflex, aiming and firing his carbine. The hail of .30 caliber bullets caught the hovering drone, flipped it, then shattered it. Nixon grinned. That had been easy enough. Now to-

A stream of railgun projectiles tore explosively through trees, earth, and the body of Lewis Nixon. Wood and blood both burst into flame from the heat of their passing.

###

The men of Easy had faced metal terror. It came in the form of Tiger tanks and panzers. Huge thundering machines as big as houses, that shook the ground and fired weapons with deafening blasts and blinding flashes. At their first sight of these new attackers, the men of Easy company initially felt more amusement than fear. The Cybermen looked almost comical with their high-stepping walk and odd metal shapes. The bolts of energy they fired were not nearly as frightening as gunshots. Then the paratroopers noticed that anyone hit by the bolts of energy died instantly. Trees exploded when hit. The bombs dropped by the bomb lobber went straight into the foxholes from above, while the railgun fired streams of particles, superheated by the speed of their passage through the air, that shattered anything they touched.

The surviving paratroopers also noticed that their bullets were bouncing off the cybermen

For their part, the Cybermen, linked in their neural network, know exactly who and what was attacking them. When a bazooka round blew one cyberman into flaming scrap, all the Cybermen focused their fire on the point where the bazooka had been fired from. No one survived.

The surviving paratroopers kept firing.

###

Lieutenant Ronald Spiers gritted his teeth in frustration as he watched a full magazine from his Thompson bounce harmlessly off one of the metal men. He threw himself into a foxhole seconds before a hail of blaster bolts hit in return. Like the human killing machine it was, his mind was already formulating a plan. He crawled across the snowy ground to the nearest machine gun nest, hugging the ground like a snake. Once in the foxhole where the machine gun had been, he shoved aside the dead body of the machine gunner and loader, looking through the boxes of ammunition until he found what he was looking for. He yanked off the top of the ammunition can he wanted, pulling out a long belt of black-tipped armor piercing rounds. The steel-cored bullets would only scratch a tank, but they could tear up armored cars, haltracks- and perhaps metal men.

He slapped the belt into the Browning machine gun, just as one of the metal men looked down into the foxhole. Spiers gave it the nastiest smile he could. "Just hold that pose, willya?"

The heavy Browning roared out a stream of steel tipped bullets, knocking the metal man back, then back some more. Sparks flew as space age alloy was dented, then torn. Other bullets tore into the flexible joints and hands, the Cyberman's voice box howling in shock. It fell back, a smoking wreck as Spiers came out of the foxhole. He had half a belt of armor piercing .30 caliber left and a killing grin on his face. He looked around for his next victim.

Two of the projectiles from the bomb lobber impacted at his feet, killing him instantly.

###

"They're killing them all! Doctor, you have to do something!"

The Doctor had tapped into the nanocams to see what was happening outside. Multiple views showed on the screens of the Tardis. Now, Rose watched them all, tears streaming down her face as she watched all those cold, tired young men being slaughtered.

For his part, the Doctor was fuming in total frustration, going from console to console. "I'm trying Rose! I should have located the beacon from their assault pod by now-"

He made a strangled note of frustration, smacking his own forehead in sudden realization.

"-unless they got here the same way we did, brought in by the time seine!"

"The what?" Rose tore her gaze away from the screens, the helplessness she felt making it impossible to watch any more.

"The Time Seine. One of the devices that was commissioned for the Time War. It's a way to scoop into alternate realities, low-probability timelines that normally can't be sustained outside their line. When Captain Winters talked about an orange mist, that clued me in. That would mean the survival of-No! No, all of Gallifrey condemned to the void and HE survived?"

"Who is he?"

"I have to be sure." The Doctor went to a different control panel and began pressing switches. "I think I can use those nanocams to tap into their feed, make them show me what they're broadcasting to. They're so simple, the signal goes both ways, and…"

A screen came on, then another, showing the doctor where the nanocams were broadcasting to. Bright lights. Alien faces. The more that the Doctor saw, the more disgusted his expression became. "I thought someone was collecting soldiers from across the galaxy, building an army. Taking these soldiers to die in some alien war. But this is much worse."

Rose looked at the screens, tears still on her face. "What do you mean worse?"

"They're dying as entertainment."

###

"Magnificent! Nothing but primitive chemical-fuelled weapons and they've still managed to destroy two Class XIV Cybertroopers! I told you they'd give you your best show!" Senior General Grikes of the Sontaran Military Academy (retired) slammed his swagger stick down on the table in joy. "I want to see them fight Sontarans next! Not modern Sontarans, of course, but Sontarans from an age of equivalent technology!"

"Most impressive, I agree." He spoke, His words seeming to be spoken in several voices at one. His body shimmered from form to form continuously, only seeming to stop shifting where He touched something solid. Otherwise, His face was a constant changing stream of faces, like each other yet unlike. Each face watched the views as battle turned into slaughter. "You'll have to wait your turn, however. I've had four battles reserved just since this fight started. The next one will be against a horde of terror worms from Brellikon IV. A human reserved that, surprisingly enough. You'd think they'd feel some empathy for their fellow humans."

"Oh, watching their fellow humans being slaughtered is one of the oldest human forms of entertainment!" Grikes smiled. "I should know. I taught human studies at the Sontaran Imperial Academy. Researched their history and psychology extensively. That's where I came across the book where those particular human soldiers were mentioned. It was entitled "Band of Brothers". The original text included the words of some of the actual soldiers in that unit."

"I'm pleased you are satisfied with the results, General."

"Not just pleased. Rich! You'd be amazed how many people were willing to bet those primitives couldn't stop a single Cyberman!"

"Well, it's almost over now." The Could-have-been King glided over to the controls of the Entropy bubble.

###

The men of Easy Company had rarely fled a battle before, but this wasn't a normal battle. "Skip" Muck, Joe Liebgott and "Shifty" Powers had bugged out when they saw the metal men walking through a hail of bullets, slaughtering their way through most of the perimeter. Even now, "Skip" Muck, the eternal jokester of the company, couldn't refrain from cracking a joke. "I'm telling you, if those are the tin woodsman, I do not want to stick around to see the scarecrow and the lion. Or the wicked witch!"

Joe Liebgott couldn't resist. "I dunno, that wicked witch in the movie didn't look so bad. My favorite color is green."

Then there was a roaring sound in the sky above them. They looked up to see three of the Cybermen, rocket blasts coming out of their boots, flying high above them.

"Ah jeez, they can fly too?" Leibgott stopped walking, his arms hanging down in shock.

"Shifty" Powers quiet voice was suddenly very tired as he aimed upwards. "No sense in runnin', fellahs. We'll only die tired."

He took careful aim with his rifle, leading the target like he was shooting at ducks. He inhaled, exhaled and squeezed the trigger. The shot came as a surprise, the way it was when you did it right. He'd spotted some kind of box on one of the metal men, one shooting a different weapon that sounded like a lightning bolt. He squeezed off all eight rounds in his rifle clip as fast as he could pull the trigger.

One of the bullets must have hit the box. The metal man vanished in a flash of light, a powerful blast rocking the air. Seconds later, return fire from the other two Cybermen killed the three men.

###

Rose finally stopped watching, unable to bear the sights and sounds. The Doctor, as always, could not look away. Until the noise from the monitors changed. As it did so, the Tardis started making a familiar sound, the sound it made just before it began preparing for a time jump. Rose jumped up, wiped the tears from her eyes. "Are we leaving? We can't just leave them here!"

"Leaving is not an option. If we jumped out of here, we'd show up on the sensors the Time Seine uses. But the time stream around us just reversed. This habitat, whatever it is, is a giant entropy bubble. More Gallifreyan technology. You'll want to see this."

"Doctor, I've seen quite enough slaughter for today, thank you."

"But have you seen anyone get un-slaughtered yet?"

Confused, Rose looked at the screens now. Everything was running in reverse. "Why are you re-winding what we saw?"

"I'm not re-winding. Time is actually running in reverse. We're inside a contained entropy field. It's controller can run time backwards and forwards, like you would run a video tape. The Tardis protects us from the field, but everything else within this bubble is affected."

Rose smiled. "You mean- could that bring those soldiers back to life?"

"Make it so they were never killed. But not out of any kindness or mercy, I assure you. The fellow controlling this bubble laughs at kindness and mercy. To him, we're all toys to be played with. I don't think he considers any of us real. Sometimes I wonder if he considers himself to be real."

Sarah watched the screens, fascinated. Seeing the dead standing up again, wounds closing, bodies coming back together at a fantastic pace. She couldn't help but giggle when she saw the Cybermen with their high-stepping walk going backwards into the woods in fast motion. "Who is 'He'? Who is doing this?"

The Doctor scowled. "The Could've been King."

###

Larrisson Cordalias, The Could've been King, looked out from the balcony of his office over the floor of the entertainment complex. Among all the thousands of sentient species in the Galaxy, one thing seemed to unite almost all. They liked to gather to eat, to drink and to play games. Games of mock warfare, or games of chance. Better still, both combined. How tawdry. How common and universal.

How useful.

When Rassilon revealed his plans for Gallifrey, Larrison had cheered their brilliance. Because even he was not invulnerable to the powers that particular madman commanded. He had catered to that madness for centuries, feeding it and profiting off of it, but He never deceived Himself. Rassilon was the means to an end, first enabling the experiments that made Him into the Could've been King, merging his soul with a Tardis to create the Time Seine. Then using it to sweep through the timelines, collecting his army of Almost were's and Never was's, monstrosities from a hundred different horrific timelines to be enslaved for Gallifrey and used in the Time War. Picking out the truly special ones for His Horde of Travesties, His elite horrors. Used to terrify both Daleks and Gallifreyans.

Using His Time Seine, He had fled Gallifrey, moments before Rassilon's mad plan reached fruition. He had only been able to take a handful of his Travesties. Then He had needed that most tawdry of things- wealth. To build a world where he would be, not a king, but a God. This entertainment complex was the next step which would generate that wealth. He could be patient. He had all eternity. All eternities. For now, he could settle for catering to the low tastes of low races.

"My lord?" The voice of Kred, his head technician. The Kahler looked harried, as always. Even for one of the most technologically adept races in the galaxy, keeping Gallifreyan technology running was a challenge. "My lord, the bubble is locked up."

The Could've been King sighed. No surprise there. Even on Gallifrey, entropy bubbles had been tricky. "Were you able to reset the soldiers within the bubble?"

"Yes, my lord. But we cannot freeze them in place or slide the entropy back and forth until we get this fixed. I believe it is a software problem."

"So Captain Winters and his men get to rest a few more days. The next scheduled match isn't for two days yet. Inform me as soon as the entropy bubble is back online. "

"Yes M'lord"

###

"Good, it's working. They think it's a software glitch. It could have been very inconvenient if the King froze us in time before we could talk to Captain Winters."

Rose was happily watching the screens, like she had been ever since the time flow outside went back to normal. From what she could tell, Easy Company was doing exactly what it had been doing when she and the Doctor first met them. "So we can go warn them now?"

"Oh yes." The Doctor finished adjusting his controls and pointed to a very large blue button on one console. "I have a plan, if I can talk Captain Winters into it. And once I hit that blue button, the Tardis and everything inside will go to the middle of the casino, right under the nose of the Could've been king. Now we just need to reintroduce ourselves. Lets hurry up!"

They went out the door into the sun and snow again.

Rose suddenly had a thought. "Doctor, are you just in a hurry to get some more of those Ham and Lima bean thingies?"

"That too!" The Doctor grinned. "Hopefully cold this time!"

###

Captain Winters had been about to send Lt Nixon out on his scouting mission when the pretty girl and the English Doctor came out of the woods and introduced themselves. Everyone had been surprised when the pretty girl practically leapt at Nixon and wrapped her arms around him like a long-lost sister, crying.

Now they were all sitting in the command dugout, the Doctor cheerfully finishing off a cold can of Ham and Lima beans, as he told them a fantastic story. Winters was trying to wrap his mind around the whole situation but so much of it was utterly strange. The only reason he believed it for a second was that the last three days had been a complete mystery to him. The Doctor might be giving deranged, unbelievable answers- but at least they were answers. Nixon was helpful at figuring out what the Doctor said. So was private Webster, who'd been a student at Yale before the war and had ambitions to be a writer.

"So we're like gladiators. Kept here to fight to amuse the crowds." Said Winters. "But how do the crowds see us?"

"It's like that visual radio they're experimenting with in New York Sir." Websters eyes were alight with all the new ideas. "They call it television, I think. Cameras that transmit a picture the same way that radio transmits a voice, to a receiver."

Nixon looked around. "I don't see any cameras."

The Doctor grinned. "They're tiny cameras, leftenant. The size of dust motes. Speaking of which-" He pulled out some kind of pen-thingy and played with the controls. "There. I've shut the cameras off. The Could've been King will be blind now to everything we do."

Winters could understand that-kind of. "So now, can you get us out of here? In your, uh, Tardis? You said it was big enough inside for us all."

"The king would just use the Time Seine to pull us back, even in the Tardis. You need to disable that thing, permanently, if you're to escape. Once it's disabled, I can transport you and your men back to where you came from."

"Doc, what happens if we don't get out of here?" Nixon had been listening intently and talking not at all. Winters smiled to himself. That was one of the traits that made Nix a good intel officer.

"Please Leftenant Winters, it is Doctor. Not Doc. "Doc" is one of the seven dwarves." The Doctor actually seemed a bit annoyed. "I've seen this done before. It was illegal on Gallifrey, but that didn't always stop people. You will fight for the amusement of the paying customers at the entertainment complex. After every battle, they will reverse time to before the fight, so that you can fight again. Monsters, robots, aliens, mutants- anything. You won't remember it, but you'll die over and over again as well. When your audience appeal starts to slip, they'll start taking you as individuals. For lone combat. Or sport. You'll be nothing more than assets, to be sold and traded back and forth, until it's no longer profitable to heal you. Then you'll be discarded. None of you will ever see your homes again."

Winters was beginning to see the picture. "And I'm assuming this King isn't going to let us waltz in and destroy his machine. What kind of protection does he have? Will our weapons even affect him? Or his guards?"

"Most of his guards, yes. He'll have security bots." That stopped the Doctor for a moment. How to explain programmed droids to men from this pre-computer, pre-cybernetic time? "Those are machines that act like armed guards, without anyone operating them. They have instructions typed into them. They won't neccessarily look like guards, but they will have weapons on them, weapons they'll use. There will be non-human guards as well. The truly dangerous ones will be will be the Horde of Travesties. The King's elite killers. You can expect creatures straight from your worst nightmares. I will help all I can, Captain Winters, but it will not be easy. "

Nixon spoke up, with a resigned air. "Par for the course, Doc. There are no easy days in Easy Company."

###

"Once we were the horde of travesties. We struck fear into the galaxies. Now we are reduced to this."

The German General with the long fangs and glowing red eyes looked out from the shadows of the alcove. His companions shifted uneasily.

One darker shadow than the rest took the form of a frail older woman in a nun's habit and shawl. "Our master prized us above all else. Consider that. And once this den of iniquities is prospering, we become a horde again."

"And we shall bring terror and death to the Heretics!" boomed out the chest speakers of the hulking form, like a man fused with boiler pipers, steam lines and guns. A wide brimmed hat, flamboyant with a feather, topped his form, only slightly less incongruous than his wide- buckled shoes.

"I notice our Master seems to have kept his travesties from earth when he left all the others behind." The tall form of the other general surveyed the room, swagger stick under one arm, chromed revolvers and helmet gleaming. Four gleaming black iron crosses were above the brim of the helmet. "Most of the customers here are descendants of earth humans. It gives me hope that he may let me cleanse their America of this timeline, as our Fuehrer cleansed my own."

Field Marshal George S. Patton buffed the swastika pins on his uniform.

"So long as we wear these collars, we cleanse nothing our master does not want cleansed." Vampire Rommel idly fingered the obedience collar placed around his neck. "Still, it is preferable than flashing into nothingness. And perhaps I shall get to taste some of the blood of these Americans. It has been so long…."

Then they felt it. The signal through the collars that linked them to their master. A summons.

Mother Theresa of Kali flashed into a dark, grey spectral cloud, her lined, grandmotherly face turning into a horrific fanged mask as she flew away from them.

###

After several hours, the Doctor had decided three things. First, given a target, Captain Winters mind was a machine. The fresh-faced young man methodically analyzed the situation and planned with every detail in mind. Second, Winters' men had absolute trust in him. If he told them they'd be assaulting the gates of hell, they'd shrug, check their ammo loads, fill their canteens and see if they could scare up some Holy Water. Third-

Third was that he, in a million billion years, was never going to be able to get the men of Easy Company to stop calling him "Doc".

Except for Winters. Winters was calling him Doctor.

"We all have to get through one door when we exit this 'Tardis' thing." Winters had drawn a diagram and was giving the final plan to his officers and senior sergeants. "We'll be going into the main hall, according to the doctor it's huge. If we jam up at the door, they'll cut us to ribbons. So do NOT jam up. Hit 'em fast and hard. I'll take first platoon straight in. Spiers, you'll take second platoon and break left. Compton, take third platoon, break right. Go in a maximum of a hundred yards on each side. Nix, you set up a base of fire around the Tardis with the .30 calibers and the bazooka. Leave the mortars behind, they won't be any use inside. The Tardis is our only door out if things go bad, so keep it open. Once the Doctor finds this machine we have to destroy, Spiers, you take second platoon and all the TNT and follow him. Questions?"

"Actually, I have a request." The Doctor spoke up. He looked at the dirty, tired, nervous faces around him, men clutching the weapons that had kept them alive this past few months. "I know you've been through a lot. I was a soldier once myself, in a war as terrible as any of you can imagine. I know you've lost friends and it's tempting to shoot first and ask questions later. But most of the people in this complex- even the ones that don't look like people- they are just people there to gamble and eat and have a good time. Some of the most harmless ones may look like monsters to you. Some of them who look harmless may be the most deadly. But don't just go in and blast everything."

Spiers spoke up, a wicked grin on his face. "Doc, aren't a lot of the creatures we see things that came here to watch us die in their staged fights? Why shouldn't we let them see what it's like to be in the fight?"

The Doctor nodded his head. "That's oh so tempting, I know. But many of those creatures are waiters or servants or just random customers. You want to get out of this alive, I understand. But even if you get out alive, these memories will stick with you. If you kill innocents, those memories will go home with you. You'll be seeing their faces for a long time. It's bad enough to see the faces of the people you had to kill. The faces of the innocents you killed are so much worse. Believe me, I know."

The Doctors face, normally so animated, seemed almost grey. Haunted. Seeing too many memories. Too many faces. From the expressions on the faces of the paratroopers, many of them had their own memories haunting them.

There was a solemn, silent moment.

Then Lt "Buck" Compton spoke up, the big mans' smile a sudden relief. "We can scare the hell out of 'em though, right Doc?"

"Oh scare the hell out of them, Leftenant Compton. They so truly have it coming to them!"

That actually got a few chuckles.

Then they heard a blast of machine gun fire.

The sound powered phones snarled. Nixon picked it up, the panicked voice on the other end loud enough to be clearly heard. "Easy six, this is Easy Green, we just had something go by the O.P., no damn idea what the hell it was! Big, the size of a man, but up in the trees, like a squirrel. Some kind of grey shadow!"

The group suddenly bristled with guns, the soldiers reflexively forming a perimeter with guns pointing outward. The Doctor pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver, checking the scans on it as he ran out of the circle. "Don't bother with guns gentlemen, this is not something they will effect."

"Hope you don't mind If we give it the old college try anyways, Doctor!" Winters was trying to look in every direction at once as he spoke into his phone.

"Wait for me, doctor!" Rose was trying to push out of the circle, but the soldiers closed in, blocking her gently, but firmly. More than one looked at her and shook his head, the ancient impulse to protect the female felt even here.

The Doctor ran towards the woods. "Stay with them, Rose! Don't forget what I showed you! Get these men to the Tardis! I slipped a spare key into your pocket!"

A grey spectral form dropped out of the trees, a few yards from the Doctor. Half a dozen soldiers fired, the bullets passing through the form with no effect. Then it coalesced into a woman barely five feet tall, in a white nuns habit and robes. That stopped all the shooting.

The Doctor grinned. "Ah, there you are. Mother Theresa of Kali I presume?"

She smiled sweetly. "And I remember you. You were in a different form then, slayer of worlds. Do these men know of your sins?"

Then she exploded into a grey, ghostly hag, her form swelling as arms came out of her body, some holding knifes, scimitars and instruments of torture, others wrapping themselves around the Doctor. Before anyone could react, her grey form enveloped him.

Then they vanished.

"Doctor!" Rose's voice cracked in fear and shock. The soldiers of Easy company made a few low noises of surprise or disbelief. Mostly they were just shocked into silence. The silence became total. No one had anything to say.

Until Rose spoke. "Captain Winters, we need to go. Now. I don't know how much time we'll have, but we'll be the next ones to be attacked!"

Winters nodded his head, still shocked. He'd ordered the men to be ready to move an hour ago. "Okay Easy company, lets move! Lipton, bring the trucks with us as far as they'll go. If they can't go any farther, I want men to carry those C rations. No telling when we'll get any more rations. Miss Tyler, if you'll lead the way, I'll follow."

The long column of men followed Rose in silence, the soldiers staying a few feet from each other, not bunching up. In combat, bunching up was a good way to get killed. The trucks, designed to handle rough terrain and bad roads, managed to make the trip to the TARDIS. Winters, close behind Rose, stopped when he saw it. "It's a phone box. Rose, how could we all possibly- Guarniere, check that out!"

"Wild Bill" Guarniere walked past Winters grinning. Rose and Guarniere went to the door of the TARDIS and Rose threw the door open. Guarniere stepped in- then stepped back out again to call to Winters. "Hey Captain Winters! Ever seen the clown car at the zoo? You're about to see how the clowns do it! C'mon you clowns!" He went back into the TARDIS.

Rose stood by the door, waving them in. "Come on gentlemen. There's plenty of room but don't touch anything! Hurry up!"

###

The Doctor felt the spectral arms gripping him go more solid as a rainbow of light poured over them. Then it was done, Mother Theresa and her prisoner emerging from a Sontaran teleport pod, the grey form of his captor becoming almost insubstantial again, but strong enough to hold him.

"A trans-dimensional being going through a trans-dimensional gate! That must be challenging!" The Doctor looked around as they came back into reality. Half a dozen guards- four droids and two armed humans- waited there, along with a familiar form.

The Doctor gave his brightest smile. "Why your majesty! The Could-have-been-King himself! I'm feeling so honored! Larrisson, really, I love what you've done with the place!"

"Disrespectful as always, eh Doctor?" Larrisson's shifting faces all looked displeased. "I told you to stay out of my way back on Gallifrey, Doctor. Rassillon isn't around to stop me from dealing with you anymore."

"Let me have him, my lord!" Mother Theresa hissed, hunger in her voice. "Not since I devoured the soul of this silly nun girl have I sensed so rich a life force! Let your servant feast on a Gallifreyan soul!"

The King's arm swept out in a casual strike, materializing as it struck the horrific creature's face. "Release him, you foul thing! He is still a Gallifreyan! A low creature like You are not worthy to devour a being so high above you! Release him now! And begone!"

Stung by the blow, Mother Theresa of Kali released the Doctor, then fled down a passageway. The Doctor picked himself up again, checking for wounds. "You still have a real talent for dealing with the hired help, Larrisson."

The Could-have-been-King looked down on the Doctor in regal disdain. "None of your disrespect, Doctor. If you didn't have a TARDIS, I'd have killed you already. But if you keep a civil tongue in your head, I may allow you to trade it to me for your life."

He turned and strode off, calling orders back to his guards. "Come along quietly Doctor, or I may decide I can find your TARDIS without your help. Guards, watch him closely and follow me to my office."

They stroke briskly through the hear of the casino. As they did, the Doctor's hands went to his pockets, unobtrusively dropping half a dozen penny-sized transparent disks on the floor.

A few seconds after they hit the floor, they floated off of it, sliding along the floor until they could fly into the gambling machines.

The King's office was a large space, with wall-to-wall monitors of the casino, which turned out to be an enormous, multi-species entertainment complex. There was a throne, which the King immediately occupied and dismissed the security bots. No other place to sit in the entire room. In the corner, a shut-down teleportation pod was pushed against a large piece of electronic gear, the only other piece of furniture in the office, blinking in unison with the lights on the screens. The Doctor immediately sat on it, making himself comfortable.

"Get off that!" snapped the King. "Guards, take him off that!"

The two guards grabbed the Doctor together, flinging him off the machinery and onto the floor.

The Doctor picked himself up off the floor, dusting himself off. "Nobody sits in your throne room but you, eh Larrisson? Very wall-street-ish of you."

"How very arrogant of you, "doctor"!" The King smiled, all of his faces taking on a smug grin as they flashed past. "Just as you disrespected me back on Gallifrey. But I am far above such petty concerns. To me, the "Doctor" is nothing more than "the annoyance who possesses a TARDIS". That, alone, is why I have not destroyed you yet. For a working TARDIS, I could forgive even your arrogance. I can even send you into a glorious exile. I know of millions of alternate realities. I can leave you at any of them. A world where you are worshipped as a God. A world where you ARE a God! Or a world where they consider removing every shred of your skin to be an art form. You regenerating there would only provide them with more amusement. The choice is yours, Doctor. Give me the TARDIS or suffer."

"Sitting through your speech is suffering enough, thank you." The Doctor looked around the office, at the two guards, at everything except the Could-have-been-king. "You know I always wondered, does your name mean that you could have been a King, or that you are the King of Could-have-beens?"

The King was not amused. "Go ahead and waste my time with your blather, Doctor. We have all the time in the Univer-"

The door to the office opened, a Kahler technician looking frantic. "My King, the coin gamblers are all malfunctioning! They've spewed fifty thousand credits worth of tokens in the last minute and it's getting worse!"

The Doctor gave the King a shocked glance. "You actually make them call you "my King"?""

Larrisson Cordalias rose from his throne in angry majesty, a sudden haze of improbability around him before he glared at the Doctor. "It's a cheap casino gamblers trick. Diskbots, set to scramble the randomizers in the machines. Doctor, I knew you have low tastes, but I am shocked. Sadly, they are advanced enough that I'll need to attend to them."

He looked at the two guards. "Use whatever force is necessary. Inflict a few minor wounds, I should think. That should show the doctor what happens to minor nuisances!" Then He stormed out of the office with the Kahler.

The Doctor backed away from the guards, both of whom were half again as big as he was. "Show? As in show and tell? Will there be visual aids?"

The bigger of the two guards, the hulking one with a scar over one eye, gave a wicked grin and cracked his knuckles.

###

Rose and Captain Winters were the last two people in the TARDIS. Rose had expected to see a mob scene, but the Sergeants and officers had organized the men and found room for the separate platoons to form up in. Sara looked in one of them- a long, empty room that looked like the waiting room at a train station, perfect for twenty heavily armed men to stand in with their gear. She was pretty sure she'd never seen that room. Trust the TARDIS.

Winters, Nixon and Spiers were clustered by the monitors, carefully not touching any of the controls. Winters looked at the screens, amazed. "I see what you mean about radio with pictures. This is amazing. Is this place where we are going?"

"And do they have a bar?" Nixon was grinning as he looked at the screens.

Spiers' face was expressionless. "How do we get there? Does this thing fly?"

"It just- goes. Like magic, except it's not magic, it's some kind of super science. I hit the blue button and we just, just appear there."

Winters looked around and nodded. His expression was that of someone who was totally lost and just trying to hang on to what he knew in the middle of all the confusion. "I'll take your word for that. Give us a minute, then hit that button. Let us know the second we can go out the door. Nix, Spiers, get to your men. Remember, hit 'em hard and fast. Don't give them time to react. Don't just kill everything you see, but don't take chances."

They went to their units in grim silence. Looking at their nervous faces, Rose suddenly realized again how young they were, young men who had seen death and killing on a scale she could only imagine. Many of them younger than her. So young. She felt a sudden sense of possession. They were her boys.

Captain Winters gave her a thumbs-up. "We're ready!"

###

The Could-have-been-King returned to his office in a foul mood. The first thing he saw were his two guards, unconscious on the floor with a few new bruises. Then he saw the Doctor, hands in his pockets, watching the screen. He didn't know which sight infuriated him more.

The Doctor glanced at Him as he came in, then looked back at the screen he was studying with his normal. "There's the Time Seine! Funny, it looked bigger back on Gallifrey."

"Enough!" The King reared back, his anger making the haze of probability around him grow. "I've destroyed your pathetic distractions, Doctor! I suppose you're proud of having disabled my guards. You always made so much of that Venusian Karate you knew. It does you no good against me! I don't need them to destroy you. Did you truly believe I wouldn't be able to spot your hack of my nanocams, or the entropy sphere? Despite all your efforts, you are my prisoner!"

That got the Doctors full attention.

"Despite all my efforts? Because of all my efforts, you mean! Of course I disabled your nanocams, and the entropy bubble. Great Skarro, I was about to start jumping up and down, waving my arms saying "Capture me, capture me! I needed to be here, oh mighty king!"

The sound of a TARDIS materializing came up through the speakers. The Doctor grinned, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. "That's the problem with you being able to sense probabilities. The most obvious ones get lost in the shuffle. You really should have trained your security to do a decent pat-down search, oh king. They're good enough to throw out rowdy drunks and cheaters, but-"

"The Tardis is here!" The Could-have-been-King gasped, practically shrieking out the words. "You taught one of those hairless monkeys to operate a TARDIS?!"

"Oh but they are such clever hairless monkeys!" The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to get a close up view of the TARDIS on his monitor. It had barely stopped when Captain Winters and his soldiers rushed out of the TARDIS door, shouting and firing their weapons into the ceiling.

"You fool! You've brought it right to me. You've made a gift of it! My security will slaughter those fools. I have my guards, automated security systems, obedience collars on some of the most vicious creatures in the galaxy. All you have is your ridiculous toy! What can you do with that?"

The Doctor shrugged and grinned. "I can shut down the controls for your automated security systems and your obedience collars!"

The Could-have-been-King suddenly realized the access panel to his central processor, the only obvious machine in the room, was now lying on the floor. Sparks and smoke were leaking out of the metal box.

A grey, spectral form came through the wall, materializing as a tiny nun in white robes. Her voice was dripping with venom. "You dare strike Mother Teresa of Kali? Die, arrogant fool!I I shall eat both your hearts!"

She suddenly exploded into her spectral form, her face a hideous fanged mask, her arms holding knives, flails and instruments of torture. Her ghostly form leapt on the Could-have-been-King, her spectral form easily phasing in time to touch and tear at his body.

Outside the office a shoulder-mounted-cannon boomed, as Steampunk Cromwell, freed of his collar, roared out. "Die you filthy heretics!"

###

The men of Easy company charged through the casino, firing bursts from their weapons, shouting battle cries and generally having a pretty good time. Blasting the shiny, blinking machines into scrap was a release. Told that the moving machines might be security robots, they blasted any machine that moved, including dozens of innocent bartender and assistance robots. The security bots might have been more effective- but they were programmed to use non-lethal force at first and with the central control unit gone, they couldn't pass the warning of enemies with lethal force. They started with electrical shocks and tear gas. One got as far as anasthetic darts. None lasted long enough to use their lasers and stun grenades.

The Could-have-been-King had located his casino in the third millenia after mankind went to the stars. In three thousand years, most of the sentient races of the galaxy had learned an important lesson: When a group of humans showed up and started blasting everything in sight, it was a good idea to flee. Guards and customers alike bolted for the teleport pods or the hangars where the ships that had brought them waited.

###

Steampunk Cromwell blasted his volley gun at the green-uniformed heretics, laughing as they ducked behind casino machines. Then he felt the jolt as his shoulder cannon loaded and slid up his back and onto his shoulder. Let those heretics hide from that! The heathens fired their weapons, sprays of bullets glancing off his armor. None struck fear into him. "Die you papist heretics!"

Lieutenant "Buck" Compton, hiding behind some kind of gambling machine, flinched when a cannonball punched through the machine next to him. The "BOOM!" of the cannon echoed down from the ceiling.

"Skip" Muck dared a quick glance through the hole the cannonball had punched. "Man, this guy sure hates us Catholics!"

Compton took a grenade, pulling the pin but holding the spoon down. "I wouldn't know. I'm Episcopalean! That guy still standing by the stairs?"

"Yep. That damn cannon is reloading, but he has his volley gun ready."

"Right!" Compton released the spoon on the grenade, starting the four second fuse. At least he hoped it was four seconds. It was supposed to be four seconds, but every soldier got cold sweats over the chance that the fuse cutter at the factory might have gotten drunk with her 4F boyfriend the day she cut these fuses.

Two seconds.

Compton was the star pitcher for his college baseball team back home. He popped up and threw his patented fastball pitch with the grenade, straight into the hulking figure that was already leaking steam from a dozen hits.

One second.

Drop back behind the counter as Steampunk Cromwell ponderously aimed the 8-barrelled volley gun mounted on his right arm.

BAM!

The grenade went off inches from the face of the steam-powered cyborg, throwing him back as shrapnel tore into his body. The blast alone shattered some of Steampunk Cromwells' steam lines. As internal pressure dropped, he slowed.

"Nice arm, Buck!" called one man. "How are you at football?"

As Steampunk Cromwell staggered, an Easy Company trooper lunged out to slap a greasy sock filled with some odd lumps and a burning fuse on his back. Then rolled away to between another row.

Steampunk Cromwell gave a savage grin as he spun around, venting steam. "Come to my judgement, Sinner!"

The Sticky Bomb, several lumps of TNT in a sock, covered with axle grease so it would stick, exploded. It was an improvised antitank weapon but it worked just dandy against the armor of the steamborg. Steampunk Cromwell disintegrated in a spectacular wreck his central boiler blasted open. Live steam and boiling water sprayed everywhere.

Drenched in hot water from the explosion, Sgt Hoobler stood up from where he'd taken cover, his hands still greasy from the sticky bomb. Dripping, he kicked the still steaming wreck.

Skip Muck called to him from behind cover. "Hoobler, you okay?"

"What the hell, I needed a shower."

###

Lt. Spiers staggered down the empty corridor, gasping for air and struggling not to rub his eyes. Some robot had gone charging through his platoon spewing noxious gas. Every Easy Company trooper had been issued a gas mask and filter long ago, the latest design. They'd all thrown them away long ago too, getting rid of the useless weight once they realized even the Germans weren't crazy enough to use poison gas. Hit by surprise, the platoon had scattered. From what little he could see through his burning eyes, he was alone.

Spiers leaned back against a wall, pulling out his canteen and pouring water over his eyes to clear them. Then he rinsed out his mouth and spat, trying to get rid of the chemical taste of the gas.

"Ronald Spiers! Just the human scum I wanted to see!"

What the hell is going on? thought Spiers. No one was ever that happy to see him. Through his clearing eyes, he saw a small, human-like form with a sword in one hand and a stick in the other. The creatures' head looked kind of like a boiled potato.

Figuring that even Winters couldn't object to him shooting someone attacking him with a sword, he levelled his Thompson and blasted off a long burst of fire. The spray of .45 slugs bounced off what seemed to be armor. A few lucky hits caught the things hand and knocked the sword out of his grip.

"Ha! You think a General of the Sontaran Empire needs a sword to kill you!" The weird little guy was suddenly next to him and hit his left hand with his stick. That hand was holding the foregrip of his Thompson. Suddenly that arm was paralyzed. Panicked, Spiers desperately fell back, trying to re-aim his weapon with his one good hand. His attacker shoved aside the barrel, smacking Spiers right leg with the stick and paralyzing that as well.

"A paralysis function on my swagger stick will be quite enough, human scum! Than I shall strangle you with my bare hands, for the glory of the Sontaran Empire!"

Spiers fell, desperately using his paralyzed arm and the weapon it held as a shield, twisting to try to get the weapon aimed at his attacker until his good hand could fire it. Seeing an opening as his attacker closed in, Spiers kicked at one of the thing's legs, tumbling the top-heavy little creature on his side, rolling over on him to pin it's hand with the paralyzing stick under his paralyzed arm and the weight of his body. Then he realized the creature was amazingly strong and was pushing him off, even with bad leverage. "Nice try, Human scum! I shall record that you fought to the last!"

Spiers suddenly noticed a gap in the thing's armor, under one arm. He released the grip on his useless gun with his good hand and pulled out his sidearm, the .45 automatic he'd carried since Normandy. He jammed it into the gap in the creatures armor, shoved it deep and fired three times.

The gunshots were muffled by the plates, but the creatures' sudden shudder and grunts of pain told Spiers he'd hit something. Then the pistol jammed, trapped between the plates of armor.

Both of them lay back on the floor. The little human form spoke, his voice weakening. "Magnificent! Human scum, you have defeated Senior General Grikes of the Sontaran Military Academy! You were described as Easy companies greatest warrior, and you did not disappoint!"

Spiers felt an unaccustomed empathy with the malformed little man. What the hell. "You did pretty well yourself, you little runt."

"Runt!" The Sontaran's voice was weakening steadily, internal bleeding taking its toll. "Sir, I shall have you know that I am the tallest member of my clone brood by almost half a centimeter!"

His voice faded to a whisper. Then he stopped moving.

Spiers was starting to get some feeling back in his paralyzed arm now. Pistol in hand, he waited for feeling to come back into his limbs. Or for some other weird monster to show up, whatever.

###

Nazi Patton held himself against the wall as he heard the thunder of gunshots echo through the complex. He'd always thought the King relied too much on automated systems. He had told the King so, over and over.

Well, no matter. Americans were wrecking the complex, he'd caught a glimpse of the king fighting Mother Theresa of Kali in her spectral form, Vampire Rommel had disappeared and that great lumbering maniac they called Steampunk Cromwell was blasting away. As for him, he had no intention of shooting it out with a bunch of fellow americans- mongrel untermenschen that they were.

He smelled them coming before he saw them, the unwashed body smell of troops just in from the field. Holstering his pistol, he stepped around the corner, hands out in friendship.

"Greetings, fellow Ame-"

The hail of bullets threw him back.

###

"Malarkey! What the hell are you doing?" Joe Toye shouted in outrage. "Winters said don't just go blasting!"

Malarkey stopped shooting, his eyes wide open. "Sorry, I just saw the swastikas on his uniform and opened up! Hey, he looks kind of familiar, don't he?"

They both examined the corpse in confusion. Joe Toye spoke first. "Holy cow! Malark, you just shot General Patton!"

Malarkey crowded forward to look closer. "You sure? How do you know?"

"I've seen his picture. He wasn't wearing swastikas on his uniform then- maybe this ain't the real general Patton?"

"He's got a luger! I promised my kid brother I'd fetch hitch him a luger!" The Luger, a pistol type popular with German officers, was a prized war trophy. Malarkey pulled it from the holster and looked at it happily.

Joe Toye grinned. "Yes. That's a nice one too. But, uh, when we get back to the guys, don't tell anybody we shot General Patton, okay?"

Malarkey nodded eagerly. "Mum's the word!"

###

Vampire Rommel roamed the halls of the complex, avoiding mobs, looking. Looking. When his Obedience Collar had shut off, he had been freed from that slavery but a much older slavery had returned. His need for blood. Warm, rich red human blood.

His nose twitched, his sense of smell far more sensitive than a cats, found the scent of a pure-blood human being, even one from his time. Moving like a shadow, he slipped ever closer until he was coming up behind one of the American soldiers. The smell of blood grew stronger, driving him deep into the feeding and killing frenzy that was the center of life for the undead.

###

Sergeant "Wild Bill" Guarniere had survived a year of combat not least because of his hunches. They saved him this time. He was running down a hallway when he suddenly spun around and blasted off a full clip of .45 bullets.

The bullets would have torn a human being apart. They passed through the German officer in front of him. The German's pale face smiled as he reached out and grabbed Wild Bill by the throat. Wild Bill grabbed for that hand and both their hands met at his throat, where half a dozen rosaries, St Christopher medals, crucifixes and medallions tangled their fingers.

Looking into those red, glowing eyes, the fervent Catholicism of his mother and the teachings of the nuns in his school all came pouring back. He gasped in sudden fear and faith. "Holy Mary, pierced with sorrows!"

Tangled with the fingers of the catholic and the vampire, the bits of metal were infused with his faith, burning in fire and light only they could see. The mere sight of them, the flashing of light off the Holy Symbols, burned vampire Rommel's eyes as his fingers smoked from holy flame. He threw the American back, threw himself away from him, his hand giving off smoke and the stench of burning, rotted flesh.

For the first time in- so many years, so long a time- Rommel looked on the world with human eyes. Even his hunger was gone. For a moment.

The hunger would return. He could feel it returning. But for a few moments, the shock had let him become Erwin Rommel again.

He looked at the stunned American and smiled sadly. For his part, "Wild Bill" wasn't in the habit of feeling sorry for Germans, but he saw a face suddenly aged beyond it's years, with long suffering set deep in that face.

"Sergeant" Rommel moved closer and pointed to one of the grenades the soldier had clipped to his uniform. "Is that a thermite grenade?"

"Yeah." Guarniere tried to figure out what was going on.

"Give it to me, please." He extended the tiniest bit of his ability to compel humans. Even that brought back more of his vampire nature. But he still had a few seconds.

Guarniere gave the cold metal grenade to Rommel, barely realizing he had done it.

"Thank you. Now, you had better run."

"Wild Bill" didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled on the smooth floor until he could get his legs under him, as he watched the -german? Vampire? Pull the pin on the Thermite grenade and hold it to his chest. A second later, the human face was gone, the vampire's hideous mask replacing it.

The grenade went off, the thermite burning hotter than the surface of the sun, hot enough to melt steel, so hot it ignited the undead flesh in hideous fire and stench.

Guarniere had seen many hideous things in the last year, but he would go to his grave with that as the most hideous. Except for the vampires face, just before the flames consumed it, suddenly becoming human and peaceful, calm with its release.

###

Charging as always to the sound of battle, Captain Winters, "Bull" Randelman and Joe Liebgott pounded up the stairs to the office overlooking the casino and kicked in the door. There, they saw the Could have been King locked in combat with Mother Teresa of Kali, a haze of claws, knives and furious howls of anger and hatred coming out. All three of the soldiers fired, the bullets passing through the insubstantial forms harmlessly.

"That won't do you any good, Captain!" The Doctor called over to them. "But I have a plan that will!"

"I'm all ears, Doctor!"

The Doctor waved at them from the controls of the the Teleport pod as he hit a final switch. "I need your muscles! Get behind this thing and push it at them!"

The four men all threw themselves behind the teleport pod and began pushing it towards the two combatants. Winters gave the Doctor a questioning look. "Mind telling me what we're doing?"

"If you can't get Moses to the mountain, Captain, then get the mountain to Moses!"

The gaping mouth of the teleport pod suddenly swallowed the two combatants, their nature shorting out the controls even as space warped around them.

Sudden silence. There weren't even many gunshots in the distance.

"Did that thing destroy 'em?" asked Liebgott.

The Doctor dusted off his hands, grinning. "Nahh. I set it to teleport them to an uninhabited planet where they can work out their differences, Nobody ever visits there so they can fight it out without anyone else getting involved. I'm sure they'll eventually become good friends!"

"Well don't invite me to the wedding!" Rose poked her head in the doorway, looking around the office. Including the wall that had been torn up when Winters and his men had been trying to shoot the King. Their bullets had shattered paintings, knickknacks and the king's large, ornate throne. "Doctor, Captain Winters, Nixon said to tell you everyone's scarpered. We have the place to ourselves."

Winters spoke up. "Any casualties? Are any of my men hurt?"

"Nix said you'd ask that question. We're still counting but so far, everyone is okay."

Now Winters smiled. "Okay Doctor, any idea where that Time Seine is?"

The Doctor looked at charts on the walls and nodded. "Yes. I can handle that myself. Captain, why don't you assemble your men while I get the Time Seine set up. I'll send you and your men back, then destroy the whole thing. Rose, can you come with me please? Oh, and congratulations of your first time flying the TARDIS!"

"Do I get a learners permit now?"

Everyone headed out.

The Doctor returned with Rose an hour later. The men of Easy Company had assembled. Some had found a couple of the snack and drink dispensing robots that had not been shot up and had rapidly emptied them. Most of the men had lain down on the bare carpet and gone to sleep. Even though it was only thin carpet, it was clean and warm. That was enough.

"Sorry I took so long, Captain. It was hard to set a self-destruct on it. Typical Gallifreyan technology, safety interlocks on top of safety interlocks, but I figured it out. I can send you and your men home and a mere twelve hours later, poof! It's gone!"

Winters looked worried. "Thank you Doctor. Even though you're returning us to all be court martialled. Or worse. We've been gone for four days, and things were pretty desperate in Bastogne when we left. There's no telling what happened since."

The Doctor grinned. "This is a machine for travelling space and time, Captain. I can send you back ten seconds after you were taken! They'll never know you were gone!"

Winters and several of the officers and men looked relieved at that. "Thanks Doc" said Nixon. "We were worried about that, but we thought we couldn't do anything about it. Now we just have to survive the German Army!"

"You can to better than that!" Rose spoke up. "We don't have to drop you off in the middle of a war! We can drop you off in Trafalgar Square, the day the war ends! Grandfather says there was a huge party! You all get to survive!"

Then she stopped. The expressions on their faces stopped her. A few had smiled, briefly. But most of them- their expressions were sick, or sad, or shocked- as if she had said a bad word. Some of them looked at each other, embarrassed. Captain Winters looked- he looked almost angry! And on his normally cheerful face, that anger was terrifying. She looked at " Doctor. He looked embarrassed!

Nixon spoke first. "Rose, we can't do that. Ask the Doc, he was a soldier once. He can explain."

"But if you go back, you could be killed!"

First Sergeant Lipton spoke up, his mild voice sounding embarrassed. He sounded embarrassed. "If we're killed, well, that's what soldiers do. Ma'am, I can see you mean well, but people are counting on us to be there. We leave that kind of gap in the lines, when everybody's already stretched thin, the Germans could just pour through. We could lose the whole battle."

Guarniere lit a cigarette and grinned, glancing left and right to his buddies. "It ain't that I love those dogfaces from G company, lady, but I don't wanna see 'em die 'cuz I ain't there to do my job."

The gaunt, dirty, tired faces had brightened with the easy victory in the casino, the fun of winning a battle without loss and getting some casual vandalism in to boot. But now those faces showed the dread of what they had to go back into. Dread and a stubborn anger ran away from Winters face as quickly as it had come. He spoke now, in a firm voice that could not quite conceal the exhaustion underneath. "We're grateful Rose, really. But we need to get back. Believe me, I wish we didn't have to."

Rose was almost in tears- but that stopped with a sudden thought. "Doctor, didn't you say it will take twelve hours for the self destruct to take place? And this casino place- every casino I ever heard of has hotel rooms and a restaurant!"

The Doctors face brightened with sudden realization. "Rose! You're a genius!"

The Doctor looked around and walked quickly to a platform where clerks had been standing by monitor screens to receive guests. They had fled with everyone else, leaving the screen blank and stacks of small golden tablets near their stations. The Doctor picked up one and tapped wit with the sonic screwdriver. All the pads lit up. "I'm in! Captain Winters, I can't make you take Trafalgar Square at VE day, but how does eleven hours of rest and recreation sound?"

The battered paratroopers perked up at that. Winters was as cheerful as the rest with sudden realization. "So if we leave eleven hours from now, you can still put us back only a few minutes after we left?"

The Doctor grinned at Rose who could now grin back. "Rose just reminded me! We're in a casino and entertainment complex designed to cater to dozens of different races, including humans! Have each of your men take one of those golden tablets and it will guide each of them to a human-compatible overnight room with soft beds and hot showers! They even have an automated one hour laundry service!"

The soldiers eagerly pushed forward, First Seargent Lipton getting in front, arms waving. "Line up boys! Everybody gets a tablet! Don't push! Sergeants, keep your men in line! Let's do this all orderly."

To Rose's shock, that was exactly what they did.

Sergeant Randleman walked up to the Doctor. "Sir, you said this place had a restaurant?"

"Right you are, Sergeant Randleman! Follow me. Anyone who's hungry, allons! Allons zi!"

Down a short hallway and they were in another room, lined by banks of gleaming metal counters. One each counter, gleaming metal half-globes, like inverted bowls, stuck out of the counter. The rest of the room was filled with projections and objects that would serve as chairs and tables for many different races. More than half of the furniture was compatible with humans. At the door were racks and boxes that contained plates, cups, and a variety of small objects, ranging from ordinary knives, forks and spoons to hammers, chopsticks and what could have passed for sophisticated instruments of torture.

The Doctor read from the pad. "Welcome to the Multispecies Buffet, catering to the tastes of customers from a hundred different worlds! Let's see, human, human cuisine- here we go! Enjoy our human section in the red quarter, with over 300 dishes spanning the history of the pre-spaceflight human race! What do they have- whichitty grubs? No, too spicy for you lot. Oh, they have roast mastodon! It's really excellent if they remembered to remove all the hair! And- Beanie-Weenies? What are those?"

Randleman looked over the room. The Doctor noted he had already grabbed a large plate and was holding his issued messkit spoon. "Doc, there's a lot more than 300 trays. And how do we open them?"

"I'll show you!" Rose ran in, holding one of the golden pads and held it near one metal half-globe. Nothing happened.

"The Doctor and I went to a place like this, oh, it must have been weeks ago." Rose grinned. "Just stand near the tray and if the food is compatible- if it won't poison you- the cover opens up and a hologram tells you what it is."

She held the pad near a different half-globe and it split open. A steaming mass of rice filled the space, with a hologram above it spelling out "Rice! Boiled earth seeds grown in swamps! A staple carbohydrate key to many earth cuisines!"

Rose pulled the pad away and the half-globe closed again. Then she handed the pad to Sergeant Randleman. "After that, Sergeant, you are on your own!"

That was all they needed. The soldiers following Randleman had chosen food over sleep and they swarmed into the buffet.

###

The soldiers who gathered eleven hours later looked very different. Everyone had grabbed at least a few hours of sleep, had the automated laundry service wash their clothes, showered and had a hot meal. The marks of deeper exhaustion and hunger were still on their faces but now they looked more like a group of boys barely out of high school. Which is what most of them actually were. Lieutenant Nixon had figured out how to get the bar dispensers to work and was snoring blissfully in a miasma of alcohol fumes. Quite a few of the other soldiers had been drinking as well, but Winters had kept it mostly under control.

Now, smiling, he faced the Doctor and Rose. "Doctor, thank you for everything. Do we all get back in that magic box of yours?"

"Oh no." The Doctor keyed the sonic screwdriver and pointed it at a hallway. A luminescent orange mist began to form. "The TARDIS can only travel in Time and Space. Your lot are actually from an alternate timeline and the TARDIS can't cross those dimensional barriers. So you'll have to go back the way you came, through the Time Siene."

Winters gave a slightly confused look, then shook his head. "Doctor, of everything you said, the only thing I understand is we go back the way we came. And since that orange mist looks familiar, I'm guessing that's the way we came."

"Indeed Captain. You're a quick study. It has been an honor."

"Likewise here, Doctor. Thank you for everything. You too, Miss Tyler. You were remarkable."

Rose blushed. "Oh, you know how to talk to a pretty girl after all."

Winters grinned and suddenly looked ten years younger. "You are so much more than that. Time to go."

Then he turned to Easy Company. "First Sergeant Lipton, move 'em out! Into that mist!"

Lipton called out. "Okay people, guns up! We're going back to the war. We could be facing krauts the second we step out of this stuff, so be ready!"

They moved out, weapons going back into their hands, the sound of bolts closing and safeties going off a merciless, mechanical sound. Their faces were already scanning ahead for enemies. Most of them. More than a few spared a longing glance at the casino they were leaving.

Then there was Sergeant Randleman.

Rifle over his back, the big Sergeant was holding one of the wooden crates the C-rations came in. (Rose noted that all the other crates were being taken by the soldiers.

"Doc, we got a present for you." Randleman set down the crate with a groan of relief. It was heavy, with the dark green c-ration cans tumbled in it. "We went through our crates of c-rations and dug out all the Ham and Lima Beans for you. They're all there."

"Why Sergeant Randleman, how thoughtful! Thank you very much! I shall treasure each and every one!"

Randleman smiled, shrugged, then unslinging his rifle went jogging down the hallway after the rest of Easy Company. They had made little noise and even that faded quickly. Then the orange mist faded.

"My brave boys." Rose sniffed. "Will they be alright, Doctor?"

"They're very capable men. And they have a good leader. That counts for a lot, in any war." The Doctor was unusually silent for a moment, his eyes looking into times and places unimaginably far away. Remembering.

Rose's voice grew soft. Quiet. "You knew men like them, didn't you?"

"Never enough. Far too many." His voice was almost a whisper. "All gone now."

Then he snapped out of it. "Oh, and I have something for you, Rose Tyler!"

He produced a small waxed paper sack and presented it to her.

Rose squeaked with joy. "Crisps!"

Suddenly greedy, she snatched it out of his hand, ripped it open and pulled out a crisp, crunching down on the salty, greasy deliciousness. "Where did you get those?"

The Doctor picked up the crate of C-rations easily, grinning, and began walking towards the TARDIS. "A charming little place called New Albion. A colony was founded there by a group of cos-players who wanted to re-create "Swinging Sixties London". It's been a hundred years, they've taken some rather odd turns, but they have pubs, crisps" Pause for dramatic effect- "..and 52 varieties of Baby Cham!".

Rose giggled. "I'll have to try them all!"

Then she stopped, suspicion on her face. "Wait, they aren't being attacked by the Vogons or Daleks or anything, are they?"

The Doctor laughed, carefully stowing away his treasured gift. "No, not at all!"

"Good! I could use some time on a planet that's not about to blow up!" She poured the last crumbs from the bag of crisps into her mouth, the reached to shut the door of the TARDIS.

"They ARE having a spot of bother with some cybernetic voles tho…"

The TARDIS shut.

###

"