War
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This was Sontar, the center of a massive space empire of stout warriors whose only desire was to fight in a glorious war. The world was dense, with approximately six times Earth's gravitational force but having only the diameter of Earth. Half the universe believed these facts explained the belligerence of Sontar's denizens, after all the gravity forced the Sontarans to be dwarfish, trollsome, and everyone knows the kind of chip on the shoulder that can be created when you are forced to look up at every ambassador you meet. This war-like nature eventually resulted in the need to replace the constant fatal casualties far quicker than consenting adults could, and quickly and unilaterally the entire society became constructed from clones.
At the center of this world, in the center of this society, there was an imperator, there always was. This imperator was always a general, because a war world needs its general. However, the imperators quickly found out that the position came with far more paperwork than shooting and commanding. General Sontar: Grand Imperator of the Sontaran Empire, Prime Consul of the Grand Strategic Council, Warrior Supreme, Clone King of a Million Star Systems, sat at his desk. He of course wasn't the first General Sontar, he was around the billionth, being from a clone race meant that when the Imperator died, either of old age, or some other reason the Grand Strategic Council simply plugged in a new batch of gene material, printed out and force-grew a new Imperator and gave him the same name as the one prior, no one noticed, and the war went onward. The general grumbled as he signed appropriation requests for the Fiftieth Sontaran Advanced Guard for the construction of a hundred new war wheels for the taking of Havarah arm of the Colcept Galaxy. The Grand Strategic Council believed a Rutan scouting party's activities in the area warranted a full-scale occupation of the region. Just another day for the General as he looked over status reports and troop movements and after action debriefing; or rather he thought it was, that is until the sirens went off.
"What is the meaning of this!?" The general leaned back to look up at the flashing mauve lights in his office. "If Colonel Stivix is having another damned emergency drill…I'll have him on medical detail so fast he'll wish…"
History doesn't know what Colonel Stivix would've wished for, as the door to General Sontar's office flew open and a man strode through the entrance, slamming the door shut behind him. The man flicked his right arm, slipped a metal rod from his sleeve into his hand and the device whirred as the door's locking mechanism clunked loudly. He was tall, though admittedly everyone was tall by Sontaran standards, let's for brevity's sake just say the man was on the far side of five foot and nearing six foot. He had shortly cut, thin but curly hair. The man wore a green jacket and a blood-red vest, and simple trousers. Admittedly none of that was noticed by the general, Sontarans in generally have no sense of hair or fashion, but historians have pieced that this is what the man looked like in general.
General Sontar jumped to action, or rather slid off of his chair and grabbed the rheon carbine rod that always leaned against his desk. He pointed the rod at the intruder, but the intruder simply flicked his wrist and pointed the metal device in his hand at the rod. The device whirred and before the general could activate the charged particle emitter the rheon carbine rod burst into flame. General Sontar roared, throwing his weapon to the ground (it never got be used in the field even) and scrambled onto his desk before launching himself across the room at the man. The intruder stepped to one side of the projectile imperator as he sailed past, and whilst doing so the intruder smashed his fist into the general's probic vent.
"Imagine that…General Sontar keeps cookies in the top shelf of his desk, bah, coconut." A voice wafted into the general's auricle as he slowly awoke.
The general was woozy. He'd never been hit in the probic vent before. He grunted as he tried to lift his hand to the vent to check for damage. This action is what properly woke him up, his arms were constrained. He struggled and looked down to find his arms tied to a chair from his office. He looked up. The intruder was looking at a holographic projection that hovered over his desk. The general narrowed his eyes as best he could and growled.
"What is the meaning of this!?" The general struggled further twisting as best he could, but found himself incapable of freeing himself. "Do you know who I AM!?"
"General Sontar: Grand Imperator of the Sontaran Empire, Prime Consul of the Grand Strategic Council, Warrior Supreme, Clone King of a Million Star Systems." Replied the man nonchalantly as he pressed a button on the general's desk and dispelled the hologram. The man looked up at the general. "You may need to change that warrior supreme bit though, since I bested you in single combat in what I believe was one minute thirty seconds."
"I am not yet defeated!" Roared the Sontaran as he struggled violently in his bonds, and then the chair fell over on its side. "As soon as I free myself from these cowardly bonds I shall shred you into strips of Balfoosian bacon and consume your remains!"
"Very much doubt that." Said the man calmly. "Those 'cowardly bonds' are constructed of white-dwarf alloy, picked them up at the port, when I got on world. You aren't getting out them until I let you out."
General Sontar heard the man walking towards him and then felt the chair right itself. The man was now standing in front of him.
The general sneered in annoyance. "My security forces will…"
"Nope." The man said, as he took a few steps back and leaned against the general's desk. "As we speak the vast majority of your personal guard is asleep. Fed a bit of a Sontaran sleeping agent into the conduits, the others are chasing their tails trying to find a Rutan landing party that doesn't exist. You see, I came to speak to you."
"HA! Interrogate me all you want, Rutan spy, I will never break!" The Sontaran felt smug about this, it was the first time he'd been in a position to talk defiantly to an enemy in person. He felt it went well.
"I'm not a Rutan spy." The man said, folding his arms over his chest. "Good thing, too, you have a laughably easy to crack password system." The man was quiet a second and then stood up. "Do you know who I am?"
"It doesn't matter who you are!" The Sontaran growled. "All I know is that you are a coward, who ties me up, denying me the glory of defeating an enemy, and then talks. If you are an assassin, kill me, so I don't have to endure this prattle; if a spy, torture me to gain information so I can gloriously deny you."
"I am the Doctor." Said the man quietly.
The Sontaran didn't say anything. He growled menacingly. "You are the face changer that has been a thorn in our side for centuries!"
"I do what I can." The man said shrugging. "Admittedly, I've been a thorn in the lateral membranes of the Rutan Host's queen for as long. I don't tend to take sides in these things, as long as you are only hurting each other, who is it for me to get in the way."
"Typical Time Lord weakness, unwilling to fight, only talk!" The general snarled.
"And yet…" The man took a deep breath and reached back, pressing a button on the desk. A hologram flickered into life displaying maps and explosions and armies. "I believe you're familiar."
"My council has been monitoring the situation." General Sontar said. "We're looking for a point to launch our own fleet into the fray."
"Don't." The man replied, flashing a glare back to the general.
"Ha! How could we ignore the greatest military campaign in the history of the universe!" The general retorted straining against his chains. "And you're appearance here will cement our entrance, when my generals see through your tricks, we will capture you, and confiscate your TARDIS and use it to launch a magnificent strike at both Daleks and Time Lords, opening a third front in the conflict!"
"Capturing me won't help you, I've been out of the loop and the Time Lords and Daleks equally want me removed from action." The man said, he walked around the general circling him like some kind of large aquatic predator. "And my TARDIS isn't here; I snuck onto the planet via one of the ships you've been contracting for supply transport, and trust me, you won't find it, not even the Time Lords could find my TARDIS."
"Then we'll take what we can from your flesh." The general said sitting back in the chair. "The technology we could gain simply from your biology would give us at least an advantage against our hated enemy."
"It all comes back to that, doesn't it?" The man said, standing in front of the general, he turned his back on the general leaned forward and pressed a button on the desk. The hologram shifted displaying reports from the front line. "It's not going well again, I see. You've lost twenty percent of your holdings in the last century."
"LIES!" Shouted the general.
"Fact." The Doctor said, turning back to the general. "I'm telling you here and now, that if you enter the Time War, the Daleks and the Time Lords will tear through you like a sword through tissue paper, and the Rutans will finish you off. You'll be the last General Sontar, ever."
"You gravely underestimate us, Doctor!" the general growled clenching his three-fingered fists. "If you've come here, to scare us into not joining the fight then you can tell your Time Lord president that you have failed!"
"I figured you'd say that." The Doctor said, sighing. He took out the little wand from his jacket pocket and pointed it to the desk. The hologram shifted once more. "I'm not here under orders; I'm here for a specific purpose, my own." The Doctor moved to one side revealing more of the hologram. "I'm a pariah, I've renounced the Time Lord society and now I'm a free-lance of sorts."
"Traitor, on top of being a coward you commit treachery against your own species, if you were a Sontaran you would be killed and your gene line would be purged." The general growled.
"I support neither side in the conflict. I am on the universe's side." The Doctor replied, he pointed at the screen. "You must be aware that the universe is falling apart. You're just barely capable of it, but you must see it."
"This fact makes our entering the war even more honorable. We have to protect ourselves." General Sontar returned.
"You won't make a difference…" The Doctor replied, "Which brings to my reason for being here. There is a way you could make a difference." He pointed at the hologram. "This is the Gin-Siangh cluster; it is heavily populated by billions of peoples. It is also the site of the Time Rift in the Gidrah system. It is quickly becoming the new front line of the Time War." The Doctor sighed quietly to himself. "I need you to evacuate this region."
General Sontar blinked, staring at the Doctor for several minutes and then started to laugh hysterically. After a few minutes of his deep barrel-chested laugh, the Sontaran snorted. "If you want this done, do it yourself."
"I can't." The Doctor replied, he turned and pointed at the screen, a red line circled the region. "As I said, I'm a pariah, this region is under so much monitoring that my TARDIS can't get within a hundred million parsecs of it without the whole region exploding as the Daleks and Time Lords race to capture or kill me." He turned back to the general. "That's where you come in. I can't get in there and do anything, but the Sontarans can, they are generally below the threshold of concern of either side. You're not a threat and if you start shuttling people out, so what?"
"You ask for our assistance and then insult us! Never mind the insult of request!" The general grumbled. "If this is so-called diplomacy, I think I prefer war. If this is all you are here for, then leave…"
"I really was hoping that for once I could meet a Sontaran who wasn't so blood-thirsty and belligerent that they could see the opportunity as it presented itself." The Doctor sighed, bowing his head slightly.
"Opportunity? We are not slaves to you, we don't help other races, we subjugate them; we use them until they have no utility!" Sontaran said proudly.
"And look at what that's gotten you!" The Doctor implored, he flicked his wrist and the hologram jumped back to the reports on the Sontaran-Rutan war. "Your civilization is collapsing, you're slowly going extinct!" The Doctor shook his head. "Why do I even bother, you'll never see the benefits." The Doctor leaned against the desk. "Imagine the power you could have if the entirety of the Gin-Siangh cluster owed you a debt of gratitude. Imagine if, a Time Lord owed you a debt of gratitude, if I owed you a debt of gratitude."
The Doctor watched General Sontar. The general grimaced slightly, and looked side-long at the Doctor. "Gratitude gets us nowhere. We need new weapons, technology, power. Not a batch of sniveling weaklings thanking us!"
"Ok, fine then, let's move to my back-up plan." The Doctor said, he pointed his device at the desk and the hologram shifted. "You lot just got a shipment of food stock, that's been distributed across most of the planet, right?"
"I will not divulge…"
"Yes, yes, yes, you can't divulge military operations…" The Doctor replied, waving off the general's reply. "Let's just take it as true. The thing is, I got to your supplies first, and you really won't like me to get a hold of things without your knowledge, because I'm very likely to do something like this…" The Doctor's device whirred again and the hologram shifted from a supply ship into the vessel and the drums of feed-stock solutions. It zoomed in deeper and deeper before finally small flickering bubbles were visible. "Each of these bubbles is a nanite. Each of these nanites are programmed upon my command to activate, come out of temporal orbit and start converting your food stocks into Coronic acid."
"Then you are a fool." The general said with a smile. "You've given us your only leverage. We will simply remove the nanites."
"You haven't got the technology. The nanites are fixed in temporal orbit, you can't touch them, and furthermore you've already started mixing the contaminated stocks with what supplies you currently have. The nanites are designed to reproduce, and resist removal." The Doctor said, sitting on the general's desk, leaning his hands on his knees. "You don't help me, I turn all of your food supplies on Sontar into deadly, deadly poison, and you can't survive the time it will take to bring in more supplies, and even if you could, the nanites will persist in your supply stocks until I say otherwise. These food stocks are the basis of that energy regeneration system you utilize, and the nanites will eventually get into the entire empire's supply network. So, you can either die in a fit of stubbornness, or you can help me, and save the Gin-Siangh cluster, have my gratitude and the gratitude of a billion species."
"This is cowardice!" General Sontar roared hopping up and down in his chair. "You are no better than those disgusting green pustules! If you think I will accede to this extortion…"
"Fine…" The Doctor sighed and took out a small circular machine, "at least, I won't have to worry about you on top of the rest of the universe falling apart." He lifted his hand, extended a finger and started to plunge it towards the device.
"STOP!" General Sontar shouted. He seethed in rage and barked. "Fine! I shall commit transport vessels to the region. We shall…" General Sontar screwed his face up as if the words were toxic, "assist these peoples, and evacuate them. Maybe we will get into a fight with one side or the other and can justify our atta…"
"Ah, no, sorry, forgot this bit." The Doctor shifted uncomfortably. He walked forward. "No Time War for you, I'm afraid, if I hear a peep about Sontaran brigades fighting in the war I will push the button…your home world will experience a mass extinction. Just evacuate and get out. Got it?"
General Sontar grumbled.
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear that?" The Doctor said leaning in.
"We'll bar ourselves from the war and evacuate the civilians." The Sontaran growled.
"Great, this went far better than I hoped." The Doctor smiled and took a step back. He lifted his arm and exposed a band on his arm. "Well, I have a Terreptilian cargo ship to catch, and don't think about shooting it down. If I don't return to my TARDIS at a specific time, it will, well…you'll melt at your next meal."
The Doctor pressed a button on the arm band and disappeared. General Sontar roared and raged and the chair fell over just as his doors busted open and his field marshals rushed in.
"Imperator!" the guards rushed forward.
"GET ME OUT OF THIS CHAIR!" Roared the imperator. "You useless, gill-snipes, chasing ghosts! None of you will ever get promoted! Your gene clans will all have major revisions! FOOLS! YOU LEFT ME HERE WITH AN ASSASSIN! It was only by my own might and splendor that I could repel him after he deviously ensnared me!"
General Sontar raged and roared as his officers freed him, but never explained what had happened. The Strategic High Council never fully understood what had followed the strange events of the day, nor could they figure out why they were sending transport ships to the most far-flung, strategically pointless region of the universe and only to evacuate the populations. They were infinitely more perplexed when General Sontar: Grand Imperator of the Sontaran Empire, Prime Consul of the Grand Strategic Council, Warrior Supreme, Clone King of a Million Star Systems scrapped all military plans for their glorious invasion of the Time War, the grandest war in the history of everything.