The First Arcadia to Fall

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"This is wrong, admiral!" The Doctor growled looking at the uniformed officer. "I told you already, the world cannot harm us anymore! The calculations have been corrupted; the Daleks cannot use the populace to create the weapon they were hoping to use!"

"The infrastructure still exists, Doctor." The officer replied. He was in his red vestments, satin shoulder guards.

"If you do this…" The Doctor started, he tried to look intimidating.

"What? If I do this what?" The admiral snorted in amusement, looking at the man in the green velveteen jacket. "I command the flag Bowship of Gallifrey's sixth WarTARDIS squadron. I command the power equivalent of the energetic output of six star systems, and that's just in baseline drive capacity. What could you possibly do, Doctor? You're old museum piece is lucky to get up in the morning let alone launch any kind of threat to me."

"The people of the planet Arcadia deserve to at least be relocated before you launch your weapons!" The Doctor seethed.

"The people of the planet Arcadia ARE the infrastructure I'm talking about, Doctor." The admiral sighed as he stirred his tea. "Their genetic makeup has evolved on this planet specifically to manipulate block-transfer computational matrices. The Daleks have set themselves up as gods on this world….the people are devoted to doing their will against the great demons…IE us…"

"Not anymore." The Doctor said leaning forward and putting his hands on the admiral's desk. "I have fomented a resistance against the Daleks. I've shown in public that the Daleks are not gods…"

"As we speak planetary broadcasts are transmitting this…" The admiral said quietly as he pushed a button.

"We, the loyal, beseech our lords and masters to forgive the sins of a few, to cure us of our false witness. To save us from the coming apocalypse from the sky…"

A priest was on a hovering holoscreen publicly praying. Crowds could be heard murmuring ascent to the words of the priest.

"Let me go back down there, let me talk to them, let me…"

"No, Doctor, you've had your chance. You tried it your way, now it's time to do it the right way." The admiral said, shaking his head.

"I'll take this straight to the Lady President!" The Doctor growled.

"Who do you think authorized the military action?" the admiral said as he handed a small pad to the Doctor.

"This…this can't…" The Doctor read the writing on the pad. "I don't believe she would ever…"

"And yet, there it is." The admiral said quietly. He drank his tea in a gulp and stood up and started towards the door of his office. "Now if you excuse me, I have a population of Daleks to neutralize."

"You really think it's that simple?" The Doctor asked quietly as he turned to the admiral. "Blow up a planet and that'll solve all the problems?"

"Don't be naïve, Doctor." The admiral said. "This is just the first world to burn. This war is only just joined. The Daleks gave us a bit of a bloody nose at first but we'll soon show them what the might of Gallifrey can do. The squiddy bastards won't know what hit them."

"I won't let you just commit genocide willy-nilly. I won't let this happen." The Doctor said, his fingers curling into fists at his side. "If you know anything about me, admiral, then you'll know what I can do when I'm roused."

"Yes, I do." The admiral said as he opened the door, two large, heavily armored, heavily armed guards walked through the door. "Take him to the brig. Put him in chrono-stasis until the bombardment is finished. Oh yes, and confiscate his sonic screwdriver, his psychic paper, his laser lance and his TARDIS key. He won't be needing any of that until after we've fixed the temporal inclusion field. Don't want someone thinking they can just pop back in time and stop us…" The admiral looked to the Doctor, "isn't that right, Doctor?"

"You can't do this! I have rights, I'm a former president of the high council!" The Doctor screamed as he was grabbed by the guards.

"You're on a military vessel, Doctor, you're rights ended when you threatened to interfere with our mission." The admiral said, waving at the Doctor as he kicked and fought against the guards' restraints. The admiral took a deep self-satisfying breath of reconstituted atmosphere and then walked back into his office. He pressed a button on his desk. "Yes, command deck, tell the weapons technicians that they are free to target Arcadia, and may launch all N-Forms at their leisure."

The voice on the other end copied the message. The admiral turned and stood at the large window that over looked the giant blue orb that was soon to be the remnants of Arcadia. He watched as thousands of bolts of light flew downwards towards the planet below. Seconds later massive multi-dimensional tentacles issued out from the planet's core tearing and shredding the world and its inhabitants to bits.

"Really, they should be quite proud of themselves." The admiral mused to himself as he watched the N-forms eviscerate the planet, tearing every atom of it into tiny quantum puffs. "First collateral damage of a truly great war….not been one like it since the Dark Times…I dare say it's about time. It's good for a civilization to get out and stretch the military legs once in a while…fire off a few shots. And it's not as if the Daleks can do anything. They caught us with our pants down, sucker punched us, that's all…" He said almost trying to convince himself. He nodded as he watched one N-form tentacle crush a piece of planet with a particular flourish. "Now that we're up and ready, we'll have the little dust bins scurrying before this war was ever started. Don't know what they're up against…they all think we're a bit soft, but we'll show 'em, yes…we'll show 'em."