Scavenger
88888
The Doctor coughed as the piping steamed a green exhaust. He waved his hand in front of his face trying to dispel the horrible gas. He reached into the breast pocket of his vest and pulled out a dirty, satin handkerchief and coughed into it and then held it there with one hand.
He'd slipped onto the world after the fleets had left. Mountains of broken ships, machines and assorted detritus covered the ground. Here and there a body was found burnt and mangled beyond recognition. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell of decomposition. He shuffled forward looking carefully at the shards of metal and broken frames of machinery. It won't be long now before the others showed up, the Shansheeth were probably already in orbit, and not far behind would be the other scavengers that hung out on the fringes of the engagement zone hoping to find a prized piece of technology or trophies or something else they may be able to hold for ransom.
He found a promising pile of what looked like a crashed Bowship. He took out his sonic screwdriver and slowly proceeded to work on what he concluded was the seam of a bulkhead door. He needed a set of mercury fluid links, and some Zeiton 7, and some bits and bobs he needed to reconstruct the helmic regulator. The bulkhead hissed loudly in response to his sonic screwdriver. He slipped his screwdriver into his jacket pocket and then grabbed the edges of the door and heaved, straining against the warped frame. The metal growled as it ground against the frame but he was able to shift it enough to slip inside. The air inside was cold, or colder than the outside. It was dark, too, only the flashing of small sparks showed brief half-formed scenes. The Doctor fished into his satchel and pulled out a small torch, turned it on and swept the beam of light across the expanse in front of him. The vessel was massive on the inside, which was to say something, as the bowship was enormous on the outside as well.
"This must be a fighter bay." The Doctor murmured to himself as he waded through the destruction. He saw remnants of War-TARDISes crumpled under their own dimensional sheer. He looked around and found a bar code on a far wall. He scrambled towards it. The Doctor put the torch between his teeth and looked into his satchel and pulled out a small tablet. The screen flickered to life shining an unseemly organic green. He lifted the tablet up to the bar code, it beeped and then a map morphed in three dimensions onto the screen. "If I'm here, then the engine room should be…" The Doctor held the tablet in one hand and pulled the torch from his mouth with his other and then swept the light around, "this way."
It had taken him hours to get through the large blast doors. He crept through half-smashed corridors. The Time Lords had gotten cold lately, the last few times he'd had to do this he'd found not quite dead Time Lord soldiers. He shuddered silently to himself as he thought about it. At first he tried to help them. However, over time he'd come to find that most were so far gone they were beyond help. They simply regenerated further and further becoming more horrific with each burst of light, only to eventually die as their bodies degraded beyond any saving. He turned a corner and heard something rustle in the dark.
He swept his flashlight around. There was a tangle of beams balled up in the corridor ahead. The Doctor winced involuntarily and looked away.
"Help me…" A whisper wafted up from the dark.
The Doctor swallowed hard. It was the worst when they were still conscious. He turned the light back towards the source of the whisper. The soldier was caught underneath the metal pylons. There was blood everywhere, the Doctor couldn't see much past the man's waist. He ran over to the soldier.
"I'm here." The Doctor said as he looked down at the soldier, he couldn't be too old, possibly only a century at most. "Hold still."
"I…I…can't…feel my legs." The soldier groaned as he looked up at the Doctor. His eyes were brown like his hair; his skin was pale, probably due to blood loss. "Who are you? You aren't one of the crew."
"Now's not the time, soldier." The Doctor said gruffly. He scanned the man with the tablet he kept in his satchel. The red suit with white frillings had a sash across his chest, filled with bits of tools. "This pylon is bisecting you at the waist." The Doctor took a deep breath, there was no way he was going to move that pylon on his own. "Have you regenerated yet?"
The soldier shook his head and coughed, speckles of blood flung from his lips onto the floor. "Where's my crew?"
"The bowship crashed, the crew likely transported out or are dead. I haven't seen anyone else," The Doctor said looking around for a lever of some sort, "but I'm here, so, it could be worse. Just try not to regenerate; I've got to get you free first or you're just going to burn out." The Doctor looked at his tablet. The bowship's schematic was glowing in front of him. Something caught his eyes; he smiled. "Bingo!"
"What?" The soldier looked up at the Doctor, wincing.
"I'll be right back, if you're lucky I can get you out of here." The Doctor said smiling and turned and ran. Around the corner there was a junction box on the floor. In the box were two spheres. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver. He removed the spheres and turned and ran back to where the soldier was. The soldier's eyes were closed his face was soft his chest wasn't moving. The Doctor reached down and opened one of the soldier's eyes, the pupils didn't respond to the flashlight. "No, not now, hold on!"
The Doctor scrambled to jam the spheres under the pylon. He looked back to the soldier and grimaced. He saw the glow beginning; the miracle was burning to get out. The Doctor reached down and touched the soldier's forehead. He winced as he felt the pain ripping through is fingers up his arms and through his spine across his entire body.
"You can't…now…" The Doctor growled fighting the young man's biological responses. "Just enough to make him conscious…come on…pull it back…you can do it, they taught you how to do this in field training!"
The soldier screamed, jerking up from his waist. He grabbed the Doctor's head and stared at him upside down.
"You're him!" The soldier shouted.
"Yes, shh, now." The Doctor whispered, as he gently lowered the soldier's back to the ground and extracted himself from the soldier's grip. "Just hold still, in a few seconds this should be all over." He flicked his screwdriver at the spheres he'd stuck under the pylons. "You're lucky; a pair of emergency gravity spheres survived the crash. I've reversed the polarity in them, should be enough to get this off of you."
The spheres pulsed and hummed and slowly the pylon lifted up, shrapnel and debris rained down on the Doctor and the soldier. The Doctor hovered over the soldier, shielding him from the falling material. The scene beneath the pylon was worse than he'd thought. He was surprised that the soldier had survived at all, never mind held back the regeneration and stayed conscious. Gently, the Doctor slowly extracted the soldier from under the pylon, pulling him free. Seconds later the gravity spheres overheated and exploded bringing the pylon crashing back to the ground. The Doctor lifted his arm shielding himself and the soldier from the fallout.
The soldier looked at the Doctor. "Shouldn't I be…" The soldier coughed violently, blood and sputum splashing forward. His eyes were becoming wild and confused. The soldier looked around feverishly. "What did you do!?"
"Hold still!" The Doctor shouted, as he scanned him with the tablet. He took a deep breath as he saw the results on the screen. "It went too far…the regeneration is stalling out." He swallowed. "You've never done this before have you?"
"What's happening, what do you mean stalling out!?" The soldier half screamed half cried.
"Have you regenerated ever before?" The Doctor responded sternly. The soldier's body started to convulse, his eyes started to wander about randomly under no conscious control. The Doctor reached forward and held the young man's face in his hands gently yet firmly. "Take some breaths, I know it's hard, but take some breaths look at me, stay with me. You've stopped the regeneration, in mid-cycle."
The soldier grabbed control of his body and stared at the Doctor. The soldier's face was racked with terror. "Am I going to die?"
The Doctor looked away from the soldier. He was thinking a thousand thoughts. You could hold back regeneration, you could slow it down but you could never full-on stop it. Time Lord physiology never was built to stop regeneration once it was started. The shock would kill. He looked back to the soldier, whose face was scrunched up; he was trying to hold back the pain of it.
"Listen to me." The Doctor leaned in close to the soldier. "You aren't dying today. Not now." The Doctor caressed the soldier's cheek. "Now look at me, and concentrate. I'm going to try and restart your regeneration cycle. You need to follow my lead, I'll give it a little push and then the process will begin. You need to let it happen, don't hold back, when you feel it coming just relax and let your body take over. I don't know if you could survive it if you stopped it a second time."
The Doctor sat up, and leaned back and crossed his legs. He had never been very good at regenerating himself. He'd shot for ginger seven times and never hit his mark, never came close. Half the time he came out of it in such a mental fog he couldn't remember who he was or what was going on and hallucinated for several minutes or hours before finally being right in the head. However, he knew he needed to do this. He'd seen it done a long time ago, he'd been the subject of this kind of procedure once before.
He took a deep breath and put his hands together. He closed his eyes and concentrated, remembering the feelings he had the other times he'd regenerated. He could feel the warmth of the energy building in his palms. He opened his eyes and looked down at the soldier. The young man looked terrified but was holding still, military training undoubtedly. The Doctor slowly opened his hands and slowly placed them on the young man's torso. He felt the transference, the flow of energy. He felt the kick as the boy's body jolted. The Doctor immediately kicked himself away from the soldier as the boy's body started to tremble and shake and the regeneration began.
The fire of the miracle exploded into the corridor. The soldier screamed. The Doctor knew that scream, the primal rage of death and pain and loss. The brain trying to comprehend itself as the entirety of it was tore down and rebuilt, new neurons latching onto other new neurons, none of which could quite comprehend what was going on. It never was pleasant; at least he'd never experienced a pleasant regeneration.
The fires dimmed, the light faded, and the soldier's body fell limp from its contortions. The new body was shorter, still slight of frame. The hair was blonde, the skin was tan or olive, the lighting wasn't the best. He was whole though, the legs were shifting beneath his new trim waist. The Doctor sat back against the bulkhead wall and sighed in relief. It had worked.
The Doctor slowly moved towards the soldier. "Everything will be alright now. The worst is over. Give yourself a few minutes, and then use that time ring you have on your sash. It should be programmed to send you to the nearest Time Lord base. You'll be fine."
The Doctor stood up, slowly and started to walk away. He was going to look for parts elsewhere. Somehow it felt, wrong. He got to the end of the corridor when he heard the whine of energy. He stopped and turned around.
"I'm sorry, sir." The soldier was standing. The Doctor could make out the soldier's silhouette from the glow of the staser pistol. The Doctor hadn't seen the holster on his left hip; it had been obstructed, he hadn't noticed it when he pulled the soldier free, he'd been focused elsewhere. "Please, stay where you are."
The Doctor straightened up and lifted his hands slowly. "There's no need for this. I'm just going to go on my way. You never even have to acknowledge that I was here."
"I'm sorry, sir, but under Rassilonian edict 307, you are a Class A-1 fugitive of the Time Lord High President, I have to bring you in and impound your TT-capsule, sir." The soldier said. His voice was thread-like and wavering. His new vocal cords and his brain's memory centers were still trying to agree as to what he should sound like. "I appreciate that you saved my life, sir, but you have to know that I can't just let you walk away. You have vital materials that could help us win the war. If I let you go, what's to stop what happened to me from happening to someone else? My brethren, my fellow soldiers, are dying out there and you have what we need to win the war."
"I won't go." The Doctor replied sternly. "You will have to kill me, I won't return to Gallifrey under these conditions. I'm working on a solution. I need more time!"
"More time!?" The soldier walked forward, the staser pointed at the Doctor, he walked into a shard of light that had appeared when Doctor had freed him and the pylon had crashed back down. His face was contorted in anger and tears. He glared at the Doctor with brilliant green eyes. "This war has been going on for centuries now. The universe is falling apart! The Daleks have taken so many of my comrades' lives. My friends, my family have died, and died and died in this war!" The soldier took a deep breath and looked away ashamed and then looked pleadingly at the Doctor. "I have been forced to do things, for the sake of survival and for the sake of our mission. I have killed innocent people, Doctor. I have launched attacks on neutral worlds to change the timelines in our favor. Rassilon says he can end the war if you are brought back to Gallifrey."
"Rassilon lies." The Doctor said pursing his lips. He looked stealthily down at his jacket pocket and tried to calculate if he could get the sonic screwdriver out before the soldier could shoot and decided that would only exasperate the situation. He looked back to the soldier. The soldier was slightly shaking, holding the pistol with both hands. The Doctor took a step forward, the soldier took a step back but never lowered the weapon. "You said you had to do horrible things, don't you see that Rassilon is as much a monster as…"
"Don't you finish that sentence!" The soldier growled, and retook his position moving closer to the Doctor. "Rassilon saved Gallifrey. When the Daleks started their bombardment of the citadel it was Rassilon who rallied the court guard. It was Rassilon who fortified the Eastern mountain defenses. It was Rassilon who led the forces that repelled the Supreme Dalek's elite brigade across the foothills of Mount Solace! Where were you?"
"I was cleaning up Rassilon's mess; I was trying to stop this war!" The Doctor growled. He didn't care anymore he started to stalk forward. The soldier flustered in the face of the Doctor, backing away but trying to maintain control of the situation pointing the staser; but he didn't fire. "I may not have been on the battlefields of Gallifrey but I was out in the universe trying to find a way avert this hell that we live in! I talked the Navarinos into launching the Fifth Campaign at the Gates of Elysium! I tried to capture Davros before the Nightmare Child consumed his battle saucer!" He continued to stomp forward five more feet, four more. The soldier staggered back but hit the bulkhead. "I stopped the Dalek's usage of the block transfer matrix at Arcadia…Don't dare imply I haven't seen my share of horrors, haven't seen the monstrosities out there!" He was within arms' reach. He lashed out and grabbed the staser. The soldier fought him, as he struggled for control. The Doctor wrested the pistol from the soldier's hands. The Doctor looked at the pistol and then looked at the soldier. He said more gently. "You shouldn't point a gun at someone unless you're going to use it."
"You're wanted alive." The soldier glared back at the Doctor and then clenched his fists and pivoted forward.
"Don't!" The Doctor said, swinging the pistol up and pointing it at the soldier, and the soldier froze. The Doctor caught the look in the eyes of the soldier, and then twisted the pistol back at himself. The Doctor took a step back. "If you make another move like that, I'll shoot myself. At this range the staser bolt will kill me before the regeneration cycle can begin." With his free hand the Doctor reached into his jacket and pulled a fob watch from his vest. "This is a bio-monitor. If I die, it sends a message to my TARDIS that will initiate a program that sets a randomizer and activates the dematerialization circuit. She'll disappear into the chaos and shutdown; you'll never find her. If I die all those secrets Rassilon wanted will disappear forever! Now, activate your time ring, forget that I was here. If anyone asks, just make something up."
The soldier stared at the Doctor for a few minutes. The Doctor held firm the staser pistol pressed against his temple, staring straight back at the soldier. The soldier put his hands on his sash and pulled the ring from the clasps. He grasped the ring and the jewels started to glow and he disappeared in a fuzzy haze of light.
The Doctor took a deep breath and fell back against the bulkhead and slid down to the ground. He stared at the pistol in his hands. He was lucky the soldier was a rookie. A more experienced soldier would've called his bluff. He wondered if he could've gone through with it. He looked at the sharp framed weapon. He knew the answer, the truth underneath all of his bluster. His jaw tightened as he narrowed his eyes and then flung the gun into the shadows of the wreckage. He slowly got himself back onto his feet, there was a light beeping noise coming from his satchel, the tablet announcing that ships were breaching the planet's atmosphere. He slowly weaved his way towards the exit, and slipped out of the bowship as the first Shansheeth vessel burned towards some safe landing ground. He'd have to go somewhere else to find the parts he needed.