Into Silence
888
"Dal-ek forces have entered or-bit above Gallifrey!" the copper tank reported from its interface alcove. "The fi-nal bat-tle of the Time War COM-MENCES!"
"Shall we join our breth-ren?" a black dalek asked as it glided across the bridge of the war saucer. Its eye stalk turned to look at four daleks sitting in the middle of the bridge. Three were copper but one was black.
"Neg-a-tive." The central black dalek replied. Its eyestalk swiveled to the dalek that had asked the question. "We have our mis-sion to com-plete. Enter the trajectory 03-45-82 time vector 8647."
"That des-tination is beyond the con-flict zone of the war-" the interrogating black dalek reported looking at the four central daleks.
"A-firm-a-tive." The central black dalek replied. "You have your or-ders. Com-ply!"
"We will not be able to ren-der as-sis-tance to the Em-per-or!" the interrogating dalek retorted. "We serve the Em-per-or! We must join the bat-tle. We must make sure the Time Lords are EX-TERM-I-NATED!"
The interrogating black dalek swiveled around and glided up to the black dalek amongst the four that sat in the middle of the bridge. The seven or eight copper daleks that surrounded the central bridge lifted their eyestalks and turned them to the brewing conflict. The blue light of the impetuous black dalek's camera shimmered against the black gleam of the central dalek. The aperture of the camera shrunk. The four central daleks all turned their eyestalks to this impetus black dalek.
"We serve some-thing great-er than the em-per-or!" the black dalek of the four replied. "Our a-lege-ance is not sim-ply to a sing-le da-lek em-per-or, or a sin-gle dal-ek cause. We serve all dal-ek kind! We serve to en-sure the Dal-eks always SUR-VIVE! The war is not yet over, the Pre-da-tor still lives! His-torical analysis suggests that the On-coming Storm will save Gallifrey, and des-troy all Dal-eks. We four have de-vised a strat-e-gem to overcome any un-fore-seen complications of the En-e-my's de-sign!"
"DA-LEKS ARE SU-PREME! We do not fearrr the Pred-a-tor! He has failed al-ready! As we speak the ar-mad-a crushes the Time Lords' city of Ar-ca-dia, Gal-li-frey will FALL! This fin-al bat-tle will require all Dal-ek forces to en-gage the en-e-my! Our ship could be the de-ci-sive fac-tor in our ul-tim-ate vic-tory!" the rebellious dalek retorted. "You are en-gag-ing in in-sur-rec-tion! You do not sup-port the Em-per-or! YOU ARE CON-TAM-IN-ATED! YOU MUST BE EX-"
The impetuous black dalek exploded as the blue lance of k-alpha energy burned through its armored shell irradiating the spongy creature inside, eviscerating its puritanical DNA and pureeing its internal organs. The central black dalek lowered its gun stalk and swiveled its head to the other copper daleks that encircled them.
"In-put the co-ordinates, en-gage the drive sys-tems." the central dalek said calmly. The copper daleks looked at each other and didn't move. The central dalek's camera aperture narrowed. "Com-ply." The copper daleks looked at the group of four still motionless. The black dalek shook slightly. "You will o-bey or-ders! YOU ARE DAL-EKS! YOU WILL O-BEY ME! I AM DA-LEK SEC! WE ARE THE CULT OF SKAR-OOO! WE HAVE OR-DERS THAT SU-PER-CEDE THE EM-PER-OR! "
"We serve the Em-per-or…" One of the copper daleks stated. "The Em-per-or is suuu-preme!"
"NE-GA-TIVE!" growled one of the central copper daleks. "A sin-gle em-per-or can-not claim su-prem-acy over the da-lek race's sur-viv-al!"
"Dal-ek Jast, they will not listen-" another copper Dalek stated as it looked at the jittery copper daleks that encircled them.
"It is as we thought, Dalek Thay-" one of the copper daleks in the middle of the bridge said. "Simple sol-diers will not under-stand our de-signs. We will have to en-gage the pro-to-col our-selves."
"They will o-bey, Da-lek Caaan!" Sec replied swiveling its head to the copper dalek. "They will o-bey USZZ!"
"No! They will-not!" Dalek Caan replied as the copper dalek pushed forward.
It moved towards an access alcove. The encircling daleks moved to block Caan's advance. Those daleks found themselves dead seconds later as Caan blasted through them. The remaining copper daleks charged their guns.
"YOU WILL NOT FIGHT HERE!" screamed Dalek Sec as the black dalek swiveled around as blaster fire pulsed against its shields. "STAND DOWN! YOU WILL NOT FIGHT HERE!"
"In-i-ti-at-ing bio-feed-back surge!" Dalek Caan reported as it pushed its manipulator arm onto the access panel.
Within seconds the bridge was filled with screaming daleks as the rebelling copper daleks casings swarmed with bio-electrical energy. Dalek Caan surveyed the death of the daleks and then turned its eyestalk to Dalek Sec.
"That was not re-quired." Dalek Sec said as the black dalek swiveled its head around surveying the carnage.
"The effect was sent ship-wide." Dalek Caan reported ignoring Sec's protest. "Da-lek Jast, you will report to the engine room. Da-lek Thay you will re-port to the car-go hold and pre-pare the sphere for launch!"
"I am the lead-er!" Dalek Sec glided between Caan and the other surviving daleks. "I will give the OR-DERS!"
"Then LEAD! Give the or-der-" Dalek Caan replied narrowing the aperture of its camera.
"Pro-ceed- as di-rec-ted-" Dalek Sec finally said, one could almost hear the exasperated realization that Caan had been successful in subverting its authority. Sec lifted its eyestalk to Caan. "Da-lek Caan will in-put the co-or-din-ates and ex-e-cute the nav-i-ga-tion func-tions. I will monitor for Time Lord ac-tiv-i-ty."
"What shall we do with these un-its?" Dalek Jast asked as it lifted its manipulator arm towards one of the dead soldiers.
"Leave them, they will be dis-carded. We have no fur-ther use for them!" Sec replied almost remorsefully.
Jast and Thay moved off of the bridge. Caan moved to the navigation alcove and started inputting the coordinates.
"It was nec-ces-sary," Caan said almost off-handedly. Caan's eyestalk swiveled to Sec. "They would not have sub-mit-ted to your or-ders. They have been bred to on-ly lis-ten to the Em-per-or. We knew they would re-volt e-vent-u-al-ly! All sim-u-la-tions pre-dict-ed it."
"I could have ex-plained-" Sec replied. "Max-i-mum ex-term-in-ation pro-to-cols were not re-quired."
"You ex-term-i-nat-ed their com-mander." Caan returned. "They would not have com-plied. No ex-plan-a-tion would have been suc-cess-ful. The only sol-u-tion was to neu-tra-lize them, all - of - them, as ef-fi-ci-ent-ly and thor-ough-ly as pos-sible."
Dalek Sec's eyestalk fell on the other black dalek travel machine in the room. It had been aware of this dalek. It had had some prestige in the battle of Trillium's Rouge. It had held the line with only three ships against ten WarTARDIS's and a Bowship, for fifteen cycles when reinforcements arrived and pushed the Time Lords into the dark cathedrals of Morvick's Hollow. Its distinction was the reason this dalek had been chosen for this mission by the cult, it had shown impeccable capacity for imaginative thought and adaptation in the face of extreme circumstances, and now it was dead, because of its loyalty to a maniac. The armor of the casing was still smoking the olfactory chemical analysis displayed the concoction of hydrocarbons and phosphate that steamed from the still hot inner chamber of the travel machine. Sec noted the extreme displeasure of the experience but yet continued to scan the machine as if doing so would somehow assist the dead unit.
"Our mis-sion was to save the da-leks-" Sec said quietly. Its eyestalk swiveled to Caan who was still working with the navigational computer. "Yet we have only ac-com-plished mas-sa-cre."
"We will save the Da-leks from them-selves! These sol-diers were blind-ed by the failure of the da-leks' hu-bris, blind-ed by loy-al-ty to a sin-gle-mind-ed em-per-or who will die and rot in the pits of Ska-ro!" Caan said as it disconnected from the navigation alcove and swiveled around. "We will take the army that sleeps within the hold of the Time Lord prison, and we will es-cape beyond the reach of the War. And when the time is right, we will e-merge, noth-ing and no-one will be able to stop us from ful-fill-ing the prime di-rec-tive of the da-leks! We will be the supreme spe-cies! All o-ther spe-cies will fall and burn in the face of our su-per-ior might! We will re-turn the da-leks to the path of su-premacy af-ter cen-tur-ies of serv-i-tude to fool-ish-ness and in-san-i-ty!"
"A-firm-a-tive-" Dalek Sec said as it looked away from the dead, black dalek.
A small klaxon went off. A holographic screen appeared in front of them. It depicted Gallifrey surrounded by dalek war saucers. A transmission called out of the chaos and fire.
" Time Lords of Gallifrey, Daleks of Skaro, I serve notice on you all; too long have I stayed my hand. No more…."
"It is the Doc-tor! He is im-ple-menting his strat-e-gem! A-lert! A-lert! An e-nerg-y sig-nature is detected-" Dalek Caan reported. "En-er-gy sig-na-ture cor-re-lates with in-tel-li-gence re-ports, it is the Mo-ment! De-ton-ation will destroy all matter with-in the in-ner tem-por-um of Gal-li-frey with-in all time-frames. He in-tends to ex-term-i-nate both Time Lords and the Da-leks! Po-ten-ti-al-ity waves are con-verging…com-plete ex-term-i-nation im-min-ent!"
A second klaxon sounded.
"We have ar-rived at the co-ord-in-ates!" Dalek Sec said as it turned its head and another holographic screen appeared showing Dalek Thay in front of a giant golden sphere. "Pre-pare the Null Portal generator!"
"I will pro-ceed to the car-go bay!" Caan stated. "I will as-sist Da-lek Thay in making the void ship ready for launch!"
"I will join you soon, I must pre-pare the sau-cer to self-de-struct!" Sec said as it turned to the command alcove. "Da-lek Sec to Da-lek Jast, join Da-lek Thay and Da-lek Caan in the cargo bay. We launch in six hun-dred rels!"
"I o-bey!" replied Jast as it turned to depart the engine room.
Dalek Sec plugged into the command alcove. It re-routed the microwave power matrix into a self-reflexive loop. The power surge would overload the power grid of the entire ship, resulting in a massive artron reactor overload. The whining scream of the alert flooded the ship. Dalek Sec unplugged from the console and initiated a site to site transmat to the cargo bay. Thay, Caan and Jast were herding the Time Lord prison ship into the sphere. Dalek Sec glided towards them. It surveyed the portal generator that hummed next to the sphere.
"As soon as the ship is sealed, the por-tal will o-pen and we will be pro-pelled in-to the void!" announced Jast.
"I un-derstand." Sec said as it levitated up to the ship to join the other daleks.
As Sec turned and looked out at the ship he knew that very likely this would be the last experience it would ever have. The theory behind the void ship was sound. They would survive. That much was true, there would be daleks that survived the Time War. The aperture on its camera narrowed. The truth was though, there was no guarantee that they would ever exit the void. Whilst the daleks would technically survive they could easily be ensuring their perpetual exile into the neverwhere. The ship sealed itself. Sec looked to the other daleks with it.
"Seal at one hund-red per-cent!" announced Jast. "Portal generator has ac-ti-vated. Ex-tern-al sen-sors shut-ting down."
There was the most subtle of jolts. And then there was nothing. Time stopped, sensation of all types ended. There was nothing more for Sec to think about and in the perpetual, timeless silence, all it could do was mull over the idea of saving the daleks from themselves.
888
AN: Daleks are hard to write….because…you run the risk of making them too human. So thankfully the Cult of Skaro exists so I can hedge my bets.