...is anyone still here? I am. late, and posting inconsistently, but i promise this will see its end.
Chapter 41
"And put some clothes on, would you?".
"Right!", he jumps up, and runs away. I tilt my head watching his bum as he goes, smiling. I set the Tardis into emergency self repair mode and as I flip the switch I catch sight of Donna, still staring into nothing.
"Donna, you all right?", I ask her, helping her up.
"What just happened? Am I dead or hallucinating?".
I don't really know how to answer her. "Wish I knew", I shrug. "Regeneration energy is still a mystery to me. But we're okay. We're out of danger, for now. We can help the Doctor and the others".
"What can we possibly do? You two maybe, but me?".
"But Donna, it's like Rose said, the timelines are converging on you. Whatever just happened, must have been you".
"Now Zoe, you're just talking nonsense", she says, as the Doctor reappears in the console room, in a burgundy t-shirt and primary blue suit trousers.
"All repaired!", he smiles, happy, looking around, quickly polishing a round bulb with his jacket before pulling it on his shoulders. "Lovely. Shush. No one knows we're here. Got to keep quiet. Silent running, like on submarines when you can't even drop a spanner. Don't drop a spanner! I like blue. What do you think?", he says fast, his eyes going back and forth between me and Donna, who's staring at him.
In a way, he does remind me of his older incarnation, moving this quickly, speaking even faster.
"You. Are. Bonkers", Donna states.
He looks confused, "Why? What's wrong with blue?", he gestures at me. I wink at him, he winks back.
"Is that what Time Lords do? Lop a bit off, grow another one?", she asks fast, glaring at his shape, turning to me too. "You're like worms!?".
"No, no, no, no, no. I'm unique. Never been another like me. Because all that regeneration energy went into the hand. Look at my hand. I love that hand". The hand is still creepy, especially when he wiggles his fingers. "But then you touched it. Wham!" He pretends to push Donna. She screams, he shushes her. "Shhh. Instantaneous biological metacrisis. I grew… out of you. Still, could be worse".
"Oi, watch it, spaceman".
"Oi, watch it, Earth girl. Ow! I sound like you. I sound like her", he turns to me, as if asking for support. "I sound all, all sort of rough".
"Oi!", Donna protests.
"Oi!"
"Oi!"
"Spanners. Shhh. I must have picked up a bit of your voice, that's all. Is it? Did I? No. Oh, you are kidding me", he's suddenly realized something, his rambling stops in surprise. "No way. One heart. Zoe! I've only got one heart. This body has got only one heart", he repeats, shocked.
I watch their conversation like if I was watching a ping pong game. Mesmerized, but I can't just jump in, quickly as they go.
"What, like you're human?", Donna asks.
"Oh, that's disgusting", he growls.
"Oi!".
"Oi!".
"Stop it!"
"No, wait", he thinks, studying his new internal biology. "I'm part Time Lord, part human. Oh, Zoe's more Time Lord than me! Well, isn't that wizard?".
"I kept hearing that noise, that heartbeat", Donna whispers, confused.
"Oh, that was me", he nods in agreement. "My single heart. Because I'm a complicated event in time and space. Must have rippled back, converging on you", he says, gesturing around the console.
"But why me?", she asks.
"Because you're special".
"Oh, I keep telling you, I'm not".
"No, but you are, Donna, listen to him", I tell her again.
"Oooh. You really don't believe that, do you?", he says, his mood switching. The last of the Time Lords, all smug and proud, coming to terms with Donna's very human self-doubting. "I can see, Donna, what you're thinking. All that attitude, all that lip, because all this time you think you're not worth it", he says, pensive, surprised by Donna's dismissive thoughts as if it's the first time he notices them.
"Stop it".
"Shouting at the world because no one's listening", he continues. "Weeeell, why should they?"
"Doctor, stop it", she insists.
"But look at what you did. No, it's more than that. It's like… we were always heading for this. You came to the Tardis. And you found me again. Her granddad, Zoe. Your car. Donna, your car. You parked your car right where the Tardis was going to land. That's not coincidence at all! We've been blind. Something's been drawing us together for such a long time", he looks at me, but I can't confirm his thoughts.
"But you're talking like destiny. There's no such thing. Is there?"
"It's still not finished. It's like the pattern's not complete. The strands are still drawing together. But heading for what?", he pauses, puzzled, his face anguished.
The Tardis shakes.
"It's the planets", I point at the screen. The scanner is registering movement. "The twenty-seven planets, they're… aligning", I tell them. The Doctor and Donna come closer.
The Doctor looks confused, his eyebrows raising, as he stares at the screen with his chin resting on his hand. "Single string Z-neutrinos compressed into-", he stands up, looking at me "No, no way", he says, defeated.
"What does it mean?", Donna asks, confused.
"The alignment of the planets", I start, "it flattened the z-neutrino energy into a single string. It… It cancels electrical energy, Donna", I take a deep breath. "It cancels every atomic electrical field, what bounds atoms together. Structure falls apart".
"The stars going out", Donna quotes, somberly.
"That was just a test", the Doctor says. "Full transmission will dissolve every form of matter. He's using the twenty-seven planets as a massive transmitter… it will dissolve the whole universe".
"Not just that, I'm afraid", I add, as if that wasn't enough. "The rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade… it will ripple the wavelength through every parallel, every dimension…all of reality".
The Doctor looks at me, he knows I'm right.
"Can you stop it?", Donna asks.
"Weeell", we both say in unison, and then our words overlap.
"A Z-neutrino biological inversion catalyser", the Doctor says.
"Death Star sabotage - oh, bio-inversion, that's", I hear the Doctor as I speak. "That could work, but…".
"Ahem, Earth girl, remember?".
"Davros said he built those Daleks out of himself. His genetic code runs through the entire race. If I can use this to lock the Crucible's transmission onto Davros himself…", the Doctor explains.
"It destroys the Daleks?".
"Biggest backfire in history", he says, but he notices my worried look. "…Yeah, bit drastic. Zoe, what's a death star?".
I am a little annoyed that the Doctor isn't familiar with the greatest film ever made, but I have no time to explain. "With the Tardis operational, I can use the time ring. Go back to the Crucible and find a way to sabotage the ship".
"It does look a bit like the Death Star, but what, they're just going to let you stroll around? Point you to the console and massage your neck? You are bonkers, I've said it", Donna says.
"Oh yes, they could", the Doctor springs up, picking the laser screwdriver from my hands. "Because she's got this perception filter, this masking field. You could actually go unnoticed", he points it at the necklace, boosting the field.
"You also keep working on that thing though. Better try both plans, Blue", I nod at the machine he's putting together, as I pick up one of the big rifles Jack and Rose had.
"Zoe", Donna says. "Good luck", she says. The Doctor tilts his head, disapproving of the rifle, but encouragingly, and I flash away.
I materialize in a dusty, dimly lit chamber, it must be the Vault. I hide against a wall, just behind a line of Daleks. Davros is - well, he's as ugly as his voice. He's hissing insults at the Doctor, who is standing a couple of steps next to Rose - holding cells, I assume.
I spot a control desk, I assume the detonation could be stopped from there. I try to move as silently as possible, but the Daleks are all sliding around in preparation. Also, now I'm sure that my perception filter is working because I sort of step in front of the Doctor and he doesn't notice me.
I get to the console, studying its systems. I'm not that familiar with Dalek technology, but a magnet is a magnet and I guess if I can tap into its matrix with the laser I could… disperse some of the z-neutrino energy?
"This message is for the Dalek Crucible. Repeat. Can you hear me?" Martha's voice comes through a holographic monitor.
"Put me through", the Doctor pleads.
"It begins as Dalek Caan foretold", Davros says, delighted.
"The Children of Time will gather, and one of them will die", the crazy Dalek announces.
"Stop saying that", the Doctor groans. "Put me through!".
"Doctor! I'm sorry, I had to", Martha says.
"Oh, but the Doctor is powerless. My prisoner", Davros states, smugly. "State your intent".
"I've got the Osterhagen Key. Leave this planet and its people alone", Martha threatens, showing a chip card. "Or I'll use it".
"Osterhagen what? What's an Osterhagen Key?". The Doctor asks, confused. Been wondering about that too.
"There's a chain of twenty five nuclear warheads placed in strategic points beneath the Earth's crust. If I use the key, they detonate and the Earth gets ripped apart". Oh, so that's the Osterhagen plan. Bit drastic, we were saying?
"What? Who invented that?", he screams, upset, then shifts. "Well, someone called Osterhagen, I suppose", he mumbles answering himself, "Martha, are you insane?".
"The Osterhagen Key is to be used if the suffering of the human race is so great, so without hope, that this becomes the final option".
"That's never an option", the Doctor says, annoyed.
"Don't argue with me, Doctor!", Martha insists. "Because it's more than that. Now, I reckon the Daleks need these twenty seven planets for something. But what if it becomes twenty six?" She explains. "What happens then? Daleks? Would you risk it?".
I see Martha's plan, if the planets weren't well, twenty-seven, of which I know nothing, location, atmosphere, I would have gone in the same direction. But I'm still trying to figure out if this Dalek ship has some sort of vent? An exhaust port?
"She's good", Rose points.
"Who's that?", Martha asks.
"My name's Rose. Rose Tyler", she replies.
"Oh, my God. He found you", Martha says, moved.
Well, actually, she found him. The Doctor has just been brooding and sulking while Rose experimented with dimensional jumps and reality cannons and whatnot. For years.
Anyway. The laser screwdriver buzzes too quickly, and loudly, and the console sparkles, and my perception filter stops working.
"Intruder. Explain. Explain", the Daleks start sliding around me.
"Yeeeah, sorry, that was me", I say, pointing my rifle at Davros.
"Zoe", the Doctor says, his voice broken. He's relieved and puzzled at the same time. "You were- where, where did you get that gun?".
"See, Martha's right. Turn the engine off. Or, lose the power. I've been wondering, what if I reversed the core polarity, and disperse the energy down the drain? No power, no bomb". I shrug.
"But that's- that would make the whole Medusa Cascade radioactive - Zoe! Stop it", the Doctor protests, shaking his head sadly, as one Dalek starts coming closer. At least they're not shooting. I don't know if it would work, of course. But the Doctor reverses the polarity as much as the IT crowd suggests to turn it off and on again, so, might give it a shot. Also, it took the whole resistance coming together, and a lot of spies and allies, to find a weak point in the construction plans of the Death Star, and a whole rebel fleet to take it down. I've had five minutes, and a screwdriver. All I could do was retrieve the original coordinates of the twenty-seven planets. But I hope it buys Blue some time to finish that device.
"Second transmission, internal", another Dalek reports, interrupting.
"Captain Jack Harkness, calling all Dalek boys and girls, are you receiving me?", Captain Jack asks, as a second holographic screen appears. He's standing somewhere on the ship, with… Jackie Tyler and Mickey? I haven't seen them in ages. "Don't send in your goons, or I'll set this thing off", he says, swinging something shiny.
"He's… still alive", Rose says. "Oh, my god. That - that's my mum".
"And Mickey. Captain, what are you doing?", the Doctor says.
"I've got a Warp Star wired into the mainframe", Jack says. "I break this shell, the entire Crucible goes up".
"You can't! Where did you get a Warp Star?", the Doctor asks again, incredulous.
"From me", Sarah Jane says, stepping forward into the frame. "We had no choice. We saw what happened to the prisoners".
Davros steps ahead. "Impossible. That face. After all these years".
"Davros. It's been quite a while. Sarah Jane Smith. Remember?", she says, proudly.
"Oh, this is meant to be. The circle of Time is closing. You were there on Skaro at the very beginning of my creation", Davros says, excited.
Sarah Jane doesn't flinch. "And I've learnt how to fight since then. You let the Doctor go, or this Warp Star, it gets opened". She says.
"I'll do it", Jack adds. "Don't imagine I wouldn't".
"Now that's what I call a ransom", Rose giggles. "Doctor?".
But the Doctor is lost in thought. Martha, me, Jack and Sarah Jane. I was worried about Blue, but we're all going for drastic measures. Of course he doesn't like it, of course he feels responsible.
Davros notices his face too. "And the prophecy unfolds", he says, sliding around him.
Crazy Dalek Caan laughs. "The Doctor's soul is revealed. See him. See the heart of him".
"The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun", Davros states, mocking him. "But this is the truth, Doctor. You take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers!", he gloats. "I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this".
The Doctor's voice is broken. His gaze meets mine, but it doesn't comfort him. "They're trying to help", he says.
"Already I have seen them sacrifice today, for their beloved Doctor. The Earth woman who fell opening the Subwave Network".
"Who was that?", he asks.
"Harriet Jones", Rose tells him. He's shocked. "She gave her life to get you here".
"How many more? Just think. How many have died in your name?", Davros screams. Again, I try to comfort the Doctor through the psychic link, but he's still shut down in the darkness of his thoughts. "The Doctor. The man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself.", he finishes, triumphantly.
"Enough. Engage defence zero five", the red Dalek orders.
"It's the Crucible or the Engine", Martha repeats.
I charge my rifle, still pointing the laser, when the Dalek closest to me suddenly slides around the console and starts pointing one of its stalks towards it.
"Transmat engaged", a Dalek says.
"No!", I scream, as I feel rifle and screwdriver dropping, and I reappear an instant later at the Doctor's side, along with Martha, Jack, Mickey, Jackie and Sarah Jane.
"I've got you. It's all right", Jack says, catching Martha from the floor.
"Don't move, all of you. Stay still", the Doctor instructs, touching the forcefield around him to light it up.
"Guard them! On your knees, all of you. Surrender!", Davros orders.
"Do as he says", the Doctor orders. He's almost panicking. Well the Daleks could easily take all of us, Romanoff family style. How much longer does Blue need? Why isn't the Tardis here already?
"Mum, I told you not to", Rose whispers.
"Yeah, but I couldn't leave you", Jackie says.
"The final prophecy is in place. The Doctor and his children, all gathered as witnesses", Davros laughs, hysterically, then turns serious. "Supreme Dalek, the time has come. Now, detonate the Reality bomb!".
"Activate planetary alignment field", the red Dalek orders. "Universal Reality detonation in two hundred rels".
The Doctor looks at me, confused, why am I not that worried?
"You can't, Davros! Just listen to me! Just stop!", he pleads, again.
"Ah, ha, ha, ha! Nothing can stop the detonation. Nothing and no one!", he laughs, triumphantly.
He laughs so hard and loud that at first I think I'm imagining the sound of the Tardis. But then I look around, Jack gets up, the Doctor looks puzzled, Martha sighs incredulously, giving me a look.
I exhale.
"But that's-", the Doctor is piercing my eyes with his gaze, still trying to understand.
"Impossible", Davros says.
The Tardis appears in the vault in all its glory and shining light. The door swishes open, Blue is standing in the doorway with a funny looking device gun.
"Brilliant", Jack says, smiling at me.
Blue starts running across the floor, the device pointed at Davros.
The Doctor understands. "No!", but before he could fire, Davros zaps him and he falls down in pain, dropping the device.
"Activate holding cell", Davros orders.
Blue is still shaking, looking at the blue light holding him in place, when Donna runs out of the Tardis. "Doctor! I've got it", she screams, picking up the device. "But I don't know what to do".
I close my eyes when Davros zaps Donna, sending her flying backwards. The device falls to the ground, Davros orders a Dalek to destroy it. Donna lands at the opposite side of the console I was working on.
"Donna!", the Doctor calls. "Donna, are you all right? Donna?".
"I was wrong about your warriors, Doctor", Davros says, smugly. "They are pathetic". It's weird, he sounds disappointed.
"How comes there's two of you?", Rose asks the Doctor.
"Human biological metacrisis", Blue says.
"Never mind that. Now we've got no way of stopping the Reality Bomb", the Doctor interrupts him, bitterly.
The countdown continues, as does Davros' speech.
"Stand witness, Time Lords. Stand witness, humans. Your strategies have failed, your weapons are useless, and. Oh. The end of the universe has come".
He. is. Annoying.
"Nine, eight, seven, six, five…",
How am I still not terrified? Because I see Donna slowly standing up, and as she does so, something pierces my mind. Blue looks at me, he must have felt it too. I turn to the Doctor, he's looking at Donna too.
"four, three, two, one", instead of the bomb exploding, an alarm sounds.
And… Donna is typing. "Mmm, closing all Z-neutrino relay loops using an internalised synchronous back-feed reversal loop", she explains, slamming the console. "That button there".
The Daleks are shocked in confusion. "System in shutdown. Detonation negative. Explain. Explain. Explain!".
The Doctor is equally surprised. "Donna, you can't even change a plug".
"Wanna bet, Time Boy?" She smiles.
"You'll suffer for this", Davros threatens, but Donna lifts a lever and Davros' electrical zap backfires travelling up his arm. "Argh!" He cries.
"Oh, bio-electric dampening field with a retrograde field arc inversion", Donna is chanting. Boy, she's on fire!
"Exterminate her!", Davros orders. "Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate", the Daleks repeat, but Donna's managed to take down their weapons.
"Macrotransmission of a K-filter wavelength blocking Dalek weaponry in a self-replicating energy blindfold matrix".
The Doctor is still confused. "How did you work that out? You're-".
"Time Lord. Part Time Lord", Blue says.
Donna continues. "Part human. Oh, yes. That was a two-way biological metacrisis. Half Doctor, half Donna".
"The Doctor Donna. Just like the Ood said, remember? They saw it coming. The Doctor Donna", he says, looking at her, then at me.
Donna doesn't stop. "Holding cells deactivated. And seal the Vault. Well, don't just stand there, you Time Ladies and Gentlemen. Get to work".
"Stop them! Get them away from the controls", Davros urges as the Doctors and I make our way to the console.
"Aaaand spin", Donna says, as the Daleks start spinning around on the spot.
I have to admit, a Dalek without weapons, crying help me, help meee while he spins is pretty hilarious.
"Aaaand the other way", Donna repeats the trick.
"What did you do?", Blue asks.
"Trip switch circuit-breaker in the psychokinetic threshold manipulator".
"But that's brilliant!"
"Why didn't I think of that?" I ask.
"Because you are just Time Lords, you dumbos, lacking that little bit of human. That gut instinct that comes hand in hand with Planet Earth. I can think of ideas you two, three couldn't dream of in a million years. Ah, the universe has been waiting for me. Now, let's send that trip switch all over the ship. Did I ever tell you, best temp in Chiswick? Hundred words per minute".
"Ha!", Blue cheers, but I have to admit I'm a bit worried by how fast Donna is speaking.
The Doctor glares at me. Okay, Donna is brilliant and she stopped the detonation, and I am a Time Lady and all I could do at that console was… retrieving coordinates. Also I was human for a long time, I should have that gut instinct Donna's bragging about. I feel a little intimidated. I shrug, turning around. What am I good at? I pick up my laser and the rifle from the floor, just as Jack runs out of the Tardis with the other rifle.
"Na-ah, rockstar. Come and do your best, we've got twenty-seven planets to send home", Blue stops me.
"Mickey!", I call, and throw the rifle at him, who points it at Davros' face.
"Ready?" I finish typing.
Donna nods. "And reverse".
We start pulling out rods, and I feel the gravity shifting as the planets start disappearing one by one.
"Off you go, Clom", "Back home, Adipose Three", "Shallacatop, Pyrovillia and the Lost Moon of Poosh. Sorted. Ha!".
The excitement is real. "Ha!", Blue cheers.
"We need more power!", the Doctor warns.
"Is anyone going to tell us what's going on?", says Rose, walking closer.
"He poured all his regeneration energy into his spare hand. I touched the hand, and he grew out of that, but that fed back into me. But, it just stayed dormant in my head till the synapses got that little extra spark, kicking them into life. Thank you, Davros! Part human, part Time Lord. And I got the best bit of the Doctor. I got his mind", Donna explains, shining with delight.
"So there's three of you?", Sarah Jane asks.
"Three Doctors?", Rose insists.
"I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now", Jack says, glaring.
"You're so unique the timelines were converging on you. Human being with a Time Lord brain", I say.
"But you promised me, Dalek Caan. Why did you not foresee this?", Davros laments.
"Oh, I think he did. Something's been manipulating the timelines for ages, getting Donna Noble to the right place at the right time", the Doctor says, smugly, finally seeing the prophecy for what it is. But wait-
"This would always have happened. I only helped, Doctor", the crazy Dalek agrees.
"You betrayed the Daleks", Davros says.
"I saw the Daleks. What we have done, throughout time and space, I saw the truth of us, Creator, and I decreed, no more!", Dalek Caan continues, laughing.
The Red Dalek descends to the vault. Davros blames Dalek Caan, but before Jack can fire at the red Dalek, it manages to zap the control panel.
"We've lost the magnetron", I tell the others.
"And there's only one planet left. Oh, guess which one", the Doctor says, showing up at my shoulders. "But we can use the Tardis!", he says, running back inside the blue doors.
"Holding Earth stability. Maintaining atmospheric shell", I type.
"The prophecy must complete", Dalek Caan invites.
"Don't listen to him", Davros suggests.
"I have seen the end of everything Dalek, and you must make it happen, Doctor", Dalek Caan continues.
Donna and I exchange a glance. Blue keeps looking at the deformed Dalek. "He's right. Because with or without a Reality bomb, this Dalek Empire's big enough to slaughter the cosmos", he says, quietly. "They've got to be stopped".
"Just, just wait for the Doctor", Donna says, worried.
"Blue, stop", I say, pushing him away from the console.
"Stop calling me that. I am the Doctor", he snarls, shrugging me off and returning to the controls. "Maximising Dalekanium power feeds. Blasting them back!".
I shiver, as Daleks start exploding all over the Crucible. The whole ships shakes violently, the Doctor runs out of the Tardis.
"What have you done?", the Doctor cries. He looks at me. I should have stopped him.
"Fulfilling the prophecy", Blue says.
"Do you know what you've done? Now get in the Tardis!", Blue looks at him almost surprised, then runs to the Tardis. "Everyone! All of you, inside! Run!", the Doctor calls.
We all start running in, I'm the last one after Mickey, the Doctor is still on the threshold, trying to get Davros.
"Davros? Come with me. I promise I can save you", he says, stretching his arm.
Davros is furious. " Never forget, Doctor, you did this. I name you. Forever, you are the Destroyer of the Worlds!". Actually, that title is taken. Robert Oppenheimer already claimed it.
"One will still die", Dalek Caan adds. As if The Doctor didn't look sad enough.
"Let's go", I whisper to him, pushing him inside, forcing him to stop looking at the Crucible falling apart.