Revolution
888
She sat at her desk. The papers piled on all sides. She scribbled signatures and advances and signed off on requisitions. Being President of the Time Lords came with more paperwork than any actual leading. Even her conferences with the High Council were now nothing more than her listening to incessant complaints. There was in the distance thunder that rumbled through the walls of her office. Her stylus stopped.
The thunder rumbled again. She took a deep breath. The war had shifted. Gallifrey was losing, the Daleks were slowly gaining an upper hand. What they failed to gain, the Great Vampires had stolen and destroyed. Yet neither of those were of the pressing concern. The outer war was largely nothing more than stories and reports that flitted into her office. It was the inner war that now kept her mind occupied. There was a another boom of thunder. The building shook slightly. It was the first time in a thousand millennia that this building had experienced thunder, the outer dome so protected it from nature. The thunder cracked again, this time the walls of her office shuttered. In the distance a siren was going off.
She put the pen down as a the doors of her office opened. A man strode into her office. She glowered slightly as he seemed to flow towards her in his red robes. The giant frill of his collar framing his gray-haired head. A hawkish smile played across his lips. Not soon after two others rushed into the office, as if trying to catch him. The old man lifted his hand showing a small white handkerchief.
"I believe in the lower realms this is a symbol of peace." the old man said as he strode to a chair and took a seat.
"We tried…but…" One of the second set of men started.
She looked to the speaker and nodded, and then sent them away.
"Your bombardment is not an act of peace, Lord Delox." she turned her gaze back to the old man. "I should have you arrested right here and now."
"My dear lady, I think we both know you won't." the old man replied quietly. "The image of it would be…impolitic." The old man leaned forward. "I have come to inform you that our forces have breached the dome."
"That much was noticed." She said quietly as another rumble of thunder vibrated the room.
"Furthermore, we have taken most of the citadel." the old man said. "The court guards have either been captured or defected. Our forces now nearly control the Panopticon."
"I see." she said, sitting back in her chair and intertwining her fingers together. "I suspect you think this means I'll be what, surrendering?"
"You haven't much choice now." the old man replied smiling. "You could struggle on, I suppose a long term siege could last for months. A year at most, but really we know the truth; the people are sick of this, tired of your desperate clutching at the straws of power. I expect the city will erupt into riots within a few days and you, locked in this room may technically remain president, but it will only be so in name. The real president will be…"
"President? Is that the title he will take then?" she said, she chuckled slightly. "Not imperator, not general, not Never-Ending King?"
"He is the only true leader this world has ever known!" the old man growled, glaring at her. "He was one of the great heroes of Gallifrey, how dare you besmirch him!"
"He was a power mad dictator, he still is." she said quietly. "Determined to outlive every threat to him and his power, one way or another. We have forgotten the sins he committed against the universe, the unleashing of the Great Vampires, the secret Time Wars, the silencing of entire cultures, the enslavement of others. The abomination that is the Death Zone is his creation." She looked the old man in the eyes. His cold steely eyes were hard against her pressing. "Is this the who you want ruling us in our darkest time? Is this how you want the rest of the universe to remember us?"
"They will remember us as we once were! GODS!" the old man spat. "Lords of Time, not milquetoast paper pushers asking, pleading for the help of our lessers! They will respect us once more! They won't mock us anymore! They will know the power of the Time Lords, they will feel the might of Gallifrey once more! They will fear us again, as they should have all this time!"
"Do you think that will stop this?" she asked quietly. "Do you think he can beat them? As great as you claim him to be, do you think he can dig us out of this pit?"
"He cannot be worse than you." the old man said, not even hiding his contempt.
"I see." she said quietly. "I see it this way, we can only win if we obtain alliances with the other races. The only way to fight a xenophobic enemy is through opening oneself to assistance from others."
She looked up behind the old man, and he turned. Two leonine men were behind him. They looked down at him.
"So you will use your Tharil bouncers to keep power?" the old man said turning back towards her. "Do you think the citizens will accept these occupiers? Do you think they'll be enough to end our rebellion?" She didn't answer. The old man sneered again and huffed. The two leonine men reached out to take a hold of the old man but he snarled an old curse and pulled from their grasp, turning and leaving the office. Before he left he turned. "Our hero will give you five hours to surrender the articles of office to him. After that we will start the operation to take them by force."
She narrowed her eyes as she watched his robes flow out of sight.
"Lady Romana…" one of the Tharils said. "We may not agree with him, but he is not wrong in his appraisal of the situation. The insurgency holds most of the citadel. Arcadia is in their hands, the hinterlands and countryside are theirs. My people can bolster your position but we cannot win the war for you. The insurgency's numbers increase while those loyal to you continue to dwindle."
"I won't simply give up, Biroc." Romana growled looking up to the Tharil. "Not to him, not like this."
"You know what will happen if they are forced to capture the Presidential suite." Biroc said quietly. "You fought as hard as you could have. You tried to bring your people kicking and screaming into universal modernity, but you can't force them to do something that they don't want to do. I know this now, it took my people going into slavery to our former slaves to learn that you can't force things."
"I fear that if I don't stand up to him, though, that our people will fall into slavery, or worse complete extinction." Romana said as she took a deep breath and leaned back. "I had hoped that the Time Lords would see the grandeur of the universe, like how I saw it. Saw the opportunities that could be achieved if we worked with the universe rather than if we stood above it, but all they see is the fear, the monsters, the vulnerability." She looked to Biroc. "There really is no chance of that now is there? There's no fixing it? No regaining their trust?"
The man shook his head, his flowing mane around his head swooshing back and forth. "My men will stand by your side regardless of your decision. Defend you as long as we can. But we can't stop this, not forever."
"No, that's not necessary, Biroc." Romana said quietly. She stood up. She slowly lifted the heavy metallic sash draped over her shoulders and placed it on the desk. She walked across the office and touched an inconspicuous panel on the wall, it glowed and slid open. Within was a jewel encrusted rod and a bejeweled coronet. She took them out, looking at them morosely. She turned and walked to the desk once more. She gently laid them onto the desk. She turned to the two Tharils. "Tell your men to retreat, to go home. I have no need for them to die for me."
"And you, my lady?" the lead Tharil asked. "What of you, my lady?"
"In situations like this I often think of what he would do?" Romana said as she looked down at the trinkets on her desk. She reached down and grasped a small metallic rod. She pressed a button and it whirred with a small mechanical whirr. There was a soft shift in the room as a TT capsule appeared in the corner of the room. It looked like a small wardrobe, painted white with a flower pattern on the edges. "K-9 and I built this, the chameleon circuit never did work." She smiled. "K-9 should be inside, that was the plan." Her face turned once more to a frown. "I'm not surrendering to him, I refuse to believe that we're that irredeemable. I still believe that the Time Lords should integrate with the rest of the universe, but at this time, I have to admit to the fact that right now that isn't what they want. They want to bask in their former glories, remember their rose-tinted pasts. They want to feel great again, and are willing to follow any madman who whispers that into their ears. No, I'm not surrendering, just retreating…" Her fingers curled around the small rod in her hand. "I'll be back, oh yes, I'll be back. Hopefully until then they won't have too many tears, too many regrets. They'll have to continue forward on their own, and I will have to learn how to be a better leader, so that when I return I can usher Gallifrey into a shining future…."
Romana walked to the TT capsule, she turned to the Tharils and nodded. The two turned and faded into the time winds. She opened the wardrobe doors and walked into the sterile white console room within. The center console nothing more than a shimmering holographic projection. K-9 was at attention at the side of the console.
"Mistress, where shall we be going?" the robot dog asked.
"Away, for now, just away." Romana said as she pushed a holographic button on the console. "This is President Romanadvoretrelundar to all military and security forces still loyal to the Presidency and to Gallifrey. I am asking you to stand down. Allow the insurgents access to the Panopticon, and the offices of power. I do not want to see your lives thrown away for no purpose. We have a greater enemy to face, and this - distraction - is only working in our enemies' favor. Know that we did our best. However, the mark of a good leader is to know when to pick your battles. This battle isn't worth the cost of your lives. Please assist Lord Delox and his champion to reestablish civility to Gallifrey. May Gallifrey Stand…forever."
She leaned against the holographic console and looked down at K-9. The metal dog's antennae ears waggled back and forth. She touched a button and with her finger slid down a small holographic toggle. The column in the center of the console slid downwards and then rose back up.
"Mistress, inquiry, are we now fugitives? Shall I execute the renegade program?" the metallic dog asked.
She smirked slightly at the question. "He really had installed that program into you hadn't he?"
"Affirmative, mistress, it was the first program the master installed into my core drives when he finished customizing my build." The dog responded.
"He knew then, of course he did, he always knew I was too much like him." She said as she reached up and pressed some buttons. "Then yes, we are fugitives, and yes, initiate the program."
A small transmitter extended from the dog's forehead. "Initiating randomizer, disabling recall response programming, shutting down command access from Eye of Harmony, re-configuring battery power to accept rift energy. Uploading all back access codes for re-entry into the transduction barriers."
She opened the view screen and saw Gallifrey retreating into the darkness. "One day, I'll be back…"