Taken by surprise by the Dalek's shouting, the Doctor recovered & sidled up to it.
"What are you worrying about, they can hardly get out of that room, even if they have made it out of their cells. There's only the lift which you can presumably isolate."
"The lift can be isolated, but the creatures may use brute force to open the way. The Warrior has the strength to tear open the doors."
The Dalek turned around & glided past Nyssa, who had just shuffled out from the table & was now smoothing creases in her skirt & swiping dust away. Reaching a bank of monitors, the Dalek switched them on & began to flick over security footage. The Doctor & Nyssa joined it & watched the images flicker at speed. After a few seconds, it settled on the containment cells.
It had been the Warrior that took advantage In the aftermath of the chaos. The cracks in the cell window splintered as the ground shook, a vast spider's web of cracks travelling farther across the glass than they ever had under the Warrior's assault. Once normality resumed, the Warrior had simply charged & shattered the obstacle in it's path to freedom. Slowly, it set about freeing it's siblings, the strange glass of their cells badly cracked by the quake. As the Drone emerged, it turned it's head slowly toward the camera pointed at it's cell. Behind it, the Warrior & Runner were wrenching the inert machine gun in the corner of the room from it's housing. It stared as the red light indicated that it was now being used.
Nyssa gasped as the Drone's face filled the screen, a small corner at the top left showing a little of the other two. Suddenly, the image disappeared as the Drone raised it's arm & swiped at the camera. The Dalek burst into life, turning around & gliding across the room as it spoke.
"This base is now under maximum security!" it boomed. "All Slave Units will now operate under Contingency One."
The hitherto dark orbs of each Slave Unit began to glow a dark, eerie red colour & moved to seal each doorway. The Dalek & the larger Slave Unit took up position at the door that led onto the corridor with the lift, the two smaller ones seeming to guard the Doctor & Nyssa.
"You will watch the security monitor, there are cameras in the lift shaft." ordered the Dalek.
"I think the chances that it was the Warrior that got out first are high."prodded the Doctor. "A bit lax not to repair the damage to the big ones cell, wasn't it?"
"They were never meant to escape their cells."
"Woolly thinking." replied the Doctor.
The Dalek rounded on the Doctor & advanced.
"The glass was made of a material that strengthens when weakened In Increments, the more the Warrior tried to break free, the greater the strength of the glass became once it ceased. It was not designed for catastrophic damage."
The Doctor held the Daleks gaze for a time, half hoping to goad another reaction out of it, but the Skaran remained silent. Turning, he joined Nyssa & walked over to the monitor array before stopping & sighing.
"We can't operate it, we have hands, not sucker sticks." he said
One of the smaller Slave Units dropped gently from above them & slotted a long, thin rod from one of it's fingers into the machine.
"Order it to shift image." said the Dalek
Ordering the robot to do as such, the Doctor & Nyssa watched as the screen flickered. Eventually, the screen settled on a dankly lit door. The door seemed to shudder occasionally, before a slip of light tore through a small gap. Slowly, a pair of 6 fingered hands extended out of the gap & grasped either door. With seemingly no effort at all, the double doors slammed open & the Warrior stood triumphant, back-lit by lights from the cell area. Slowly, the three creatures shambled out into the lift shaft, the camera craning after them.
"Doc-Professor, I think you should look at this." said Nyssa.
She had been observing another camera in the lift shaft through another monitor. Stretching his head over, the Doctor examined her screen, his face creasing with annoyance as he did.
"Some people get all the luck."
Inside the lift shaft, the Drone craned it's head skyward & looked upon the great crack in the ceiling with unseen eyes. Light poured through, various rays illuminating the dark pit & glistening on it and the Warriors jet black skin. They needed no communication to know what to do next, they simply acted. Grabbing onto walls & metal pillars, the three creatures began to ascend, their duty clear: Find the Queen.
They could sense her, their sister-queen, growing & all their instincts screamed to find & protect her, but they were directionless. If she had been grown, the queen could easily have guided them back, but as it was, the calling was faint, indistinct & easily lost on the cold winds.
It was then all three creatures became aware. It was more akin to a feeling, but it thrummed in their heads & washed over them like a blanket of dark, loving calm. Something impressed upon them as if they had been submerged in cool waters, it's being gifting them the knowledge they needed, not in words but thoughts.
No voice spoke, but they knew now where their path lay, the knowledge part of them like a limb or organ. To the far south.
So with purpose they clambered higher & higher, the light becoming brighter & defining the crags & jagged edges of the rent which offered them freedom. The Drone, however, stopped it's ascent by a set of lift doors. It's siblings continued to ascend, sidling past silently & deftly.
It could sense them. The silver thing, their captor, & the two fleshy things, the man & woman. The desire for revenge after decades of imprisonment was strong, more so the need to hunt the fleshy ones. To stalk & terrify, to bring them to the height of their fear & then move in for the kill. A long, many jointed finger traced the join between the two doors in a motion akin to a caress. The Drone brought it's large head closer & seemed to scent the air. It could smell them too. Their fear, curiosity, anticipation. The Silver One did not fear, however, only thought & planned & schemed. It was a danger.
Some intrinsic sense prevailed, however. The Drone, resisting the strong temptation, tore itself away from the lift door & returned to it's ascent. This place was the Silver things home, it would know secret ways & have many eyes. Too many. The odds would be against it.
As it continued to climb, the Drone let out a low, echoing wail, akin to a soul in utter torment. It would remember them. The man, the woman & the silver thing. When the time was right, it would take pleasure in the hunt.
Emerging onto the surface, the Drone let out huff of air which turned to vapour in the cold air, twisting & dancing in the air before disappearing. The light that had guided the Drone & it's brethren out of the Silver Thing's prison was quickly dwindling, given way to a purple twilight. The pine forest stretched out before it In every direction, the fallen needles blanketing the forest floor like a carpet of green. A gust of cold wind blew, unsettling the needles & flinging them into the air, some colliding with the Drone as it stood stock still. It needed no thought to know where to go, however, it was simply savouring it's new found freedom & the anticipation of the tasks ahead. Turning south, the Drone stalked off into the darkening woods.
As the Drone departed, a large crow alighted near the rent in the ground & cawed sonorously.
"They've gone." said Nyssa. "Leapt out through a crack in the lift shaft."
The Doctor stood watching the screen for a few minutes, his face unreadable in the glow of the security console. The Dalek had left it's position by the door & now shunted between the two to examine the monitors.
"Where are they going?" said the Doctor, quietly.
The Dalek's silver dome swivelled to face the Doctor, it's iris dilating as it did.
"They will most likely seek the human colony." it said
"What makes you say that?" inquired the Doctor
The Dalek slid backwards, still watching the Doctor, and busied itself at another console.
"The creatures seek life through the deaths of others. It is in their nature."
A strange look came over the Doctors face as he watched the Dalek. It took Nyssa a few moments, but she soon decided that he had bitten back a comment of some kind.
"Ridiculous." said the Doctor, eventually. "No creatures senses are so acute. The distance between the temple & the colony is vast! There must be something else...perhaps another creature guiding it."
The Daleks dome swivelled toward it's task, the eye-stalk lowering as it did.
"There are no other creatures, they have all been contained here. Regardless, only a Queen could guide them, if such a caste exists."
The Doctor walked over to the Dalek & was about to speak when it's eye-stalk lifted up.
"There may be another. Several decades ago, one of the arachnid-parasites escaped before it was safely contained. When I sought it out, I discovered the corpse of a bovine & the quadruped creature, but not the remains of the spider."
Nyssa, now standing beside the Doctor, spoke up.
"You mean it may have been able to parasitise more than once?"
"Yes." replied the Dalek without turning around. "The Slave Units were ordered to disperse a paralytic agent into the vicinity which should have rendered the creature immobile."
"Long enough for it to die of natural causes?" asked the Doctor, a worried look In his eyes.
There was a stony silence for a time. When the reply came, it was from Nyssa, not the Dalek.
"From what we could discern, these creatures, even the spiders, can suspend life for an indefinite amount of time if no suitable host is present."
"How far were you from the colony?" asked the Doctor
"100 miles." answered the Dalek. The Doctor noted there was a rising irritation in it's tone, it was becoming fed-up with the questioning.
"It obviously never reached the Colony...there's something we're missing here."
"It is irrelevant!" screeched the Dalek. "All that matters is your work on the device, which you will now report on your progress."
The Doctor, still distracted by his thoughts, took a moment to realise the Dalek spoke. When he did, he smiled sheepishly & passed his hands into his coat pockets.
"Ah, well, you see, there's a slight snag there." he said falteringly. "The device, which is clearly some kind of temporal shift, needs a specific material. Kronostalthite, a very useful crystalline material which is often found either in very small or large conglomerations near time rifts and schisms. I believe some race used it to power their trans-mat tech & star-ships before they discovered it's real uses."
The Dalek advanced on the Doctor, it's sucker stick raised.
"Will this material fuel the device?"
"Yes, but I highly doubt that there's a rift or schism in the vicinity, the next best thing would be to fabricate it. The material would be woefully weaker than the real thing, but it would suffice for short jumps, so to speak."
"Then I will fabricate the material." said the Dalek, about turning & heading for the door.
"There's just one more thing!" called the Doctor. "It'll need to mature in specific conditions, it can't be used right off the bat otherwise we'll make a wonderfully sized crater."
The Dalek exited, seemingly without heed to the Doctor's parting remarks, followed by two of the Slave Units. The Doctor turned to Nyssa & guided her towards the device on the table.
"I wonder if you'd give me a second opinion, Nyssa." he said cheerily. "I'm getting on a bit, so I wouldn't be surprised if I'd made a mistake here or there."
Nyssa eyed the Doctor for a moment, perplexed. He rarely asked for help or second opinions in such matters, and normally when he did it was even rarer for him to acknowledge straight away that he may have made an error. Planting herself in a chair, Nyssa began an in-depth analyses of the device, the Doctor wandering about the room. She soon realised what the Doctor had been getting at.
The device was configured for spatial transmission, nor temporal.
Looking up, she saw a triumphant look on the Doctor's face.
"Only problem is, even if the Dalek has the right lab conditions, the shortest it'll take for the artificial Kronostalthite to mature is four days."
After the Dalek had returned, the Doctor had explained the situation. Having done so, the Dalek then had the two imprisoned in a long cubicle at the other end of the lab. At one point it had been used to isolate specimens for experimentation, the shucks of dead alien eggs decaying still inside. Despite this, the empty shells gave off no repellent scent. A glass pane separated the Doctor & Nyssa from the Dalek, but kept them in view of it or the Slave Units at all times.
Sitting with her back pressed against a wall, Nyssa cast a wary glance at the Dalek.
"Do you think we can talk now?"
"Yes, I expect so." said the Doctor, sitting cross-legged a few feet away from her. "But don't get too relaxed, it's a suspicious one, this Dalek."
"Do Daleks have names?" she asked.
"No." answered the Doctor. "Titles & ranks, but no names."
"It seems silly to have to refer to it as just "dalek"." Nyssa said, furrowing her brow."What would scientist be in the Dalek tongue?"
The Doctor closed his eyes & pursed his lips, becoming lost in thought. After a few moments he spoke slowly, as if the memory was hazy.
"Yúrgaal."
"Chief Scientist?"
"Yúrgaal-Dra." he said quickly.
"I think that's what I'll refer to it as, it'll make things easier."
"Well, whatever you do, don't say it to it's face-er, eye-stalk."
"Why?"
"The Daleks never speak their own language in front of aliens. Any alien who did such a thing would be exterminated on the spot."
"I didn't think them capable of reverence for their own language." replied Nyssa, her blue eyes widening with surprise. "What does it sound like?"
"Guttural, harshly guttural." replied the Doctor, a faraway look on his face."There's a lot of surprising facets to the Daleks, Nyssa. As much as it pains me to admit. Take this Dalek for instance, still banging about in an outer shell the Daleks abandoned long ago, a colour scheme that denotes it as a Drone, the lowest rank & yet it's intelligence is on par with the Dalek Supreme or the Gold Dalek."
As the Doctor finished, Nyssa glanced at their captor. It was busying itself in the lab, but occasionally it would stop to observe them. Turning back, she asked another question.
"What race used the Kronostalthite as fuel?"
"Oh, a little known race of vein curators & dusty old gargoyles in ostentatious headdress."
The Doctor was smiling & Nyssa knew immediately who he was talking about.
"The first space-farers, which were referred to as Mariners, discovered it. Lashdeveratra, considered the Mariner, was credited with it's discovery. As it happens, he's an ancestor of my old friend Romana. Not that she set much store by it. Very few do nowadays, sadly."
Nyssa cogitated over this for a few moments, she was curious, but it seemed like direct reference to Gallifrey or the Timelords was off the table. Silence descended again before she decided to bite the bullet.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
"When the time comes, stay very close to me." said the Doctor, his tone conspiratorial. "The Dalek still needs help on the final stages."
"How can you know?"
"I don't, but I'm fairly certain that this specimen is from a period in time when the Daleks are still experimenting in time-travel, otherwise it wouldn't have needed me in the first place. We just have to remain patient, Nyssa."
"But...the colony." she said, her voice tinged with worry.
"Trust me." he said, trying his best to smile reassuringly. "Now, tell me more about these...creatures."
Taking a deep breath, Nyssa launched into all she had learned about the parasites & their life-cycle. The Doctor remained studiously quiet for most of the lengthy time she spent imparting what she had discovered, only asking one or two points of clarification. When she finished, the Doctor remained quiet for several minutes before he spoke.
"The more I learn about these things, the more I'm convinced they're not some bizarre product of a strange world. I'd say they were bio-weapons, genetically engineered bio-organic weapons."
Nyssa raised her eyebrows quizzically, which the Doctor caught.
"Just think of it, Nyssa. Let's say there's a planet you want take over or colonise, but it's already inhabited. You jam-pack your spaceship full of those eggs, or better still, whatever laid them, & then you drop them wholesale on your target. The creatures hatch, they infect the local populace & enemy combatants, killing them in the process whilst birthing an unstoppable killing machine, which then goes on to kill or capture more hosts for implantation. For every target killed, a new creature is birthed & strengthens it's side, whilst the opposing side dwindles."
"It's abominable if true, the race that created them must be monstrous. That said, there's just one issue. You've removed your target & replaced them with what could arguably be more dangerous combatants."
"That's why you build in a limited life-span for the creature. It's either that or the people that created them would have to be superior, in some fashion, to their creations." replied the Doctor.
"In which case, it would beg the question why you would even need these parasites in the first place. As to the limited life-span, I didn't see anything that suggested as such in their make-up. If anything, they seem to be able to prolong their life." answered Nyssa.
"Hmm, you have me there." said the Doctor, scratching the side of his cheek. "Evolution! The creatures could have evolved beyond their creators needs & means, perhaps even wiping out said creators in the process. Wouldn't be the first time a newly created abomination has outpaced the expectations of it's creator."
As he spoke, the Doctor watched the Dalek keenly. It seemed to Nyssa as if his final comment had some relation to the Dalek.
"It's a strong theory, but still just that."
Quiet descended on the small chamber as both became lost in thought. Nyssa broke the silence once more some ten minutes later.
"You said we were missing something?"
Looking up, the Doctor's easy-going features crumpled into a look of grim worry.
"There's no way those creatures have strong enough senses to detect a colony over a hundred miles away. Sharks on Earth can only smell blood up to a quarter of a mile away & Elephants, whilst having one of the strongest olfactory systems on earth, can only sniff out water up to 12 miles away. Even if something has happened, from what you tell me, it can take upwards of a day for the creatures to begin their third stage of life. It's only been just short of 20 hours since we left the Colony where everything was fine."
Nyssa grimaced, the memory of watching the two colonists the Dalek had captured "giving birth" to the serpents was not a memory she would easily forget. She had never seen anything so horrible, making it worse was that it was a literal birth, an event Nyssa did not associate also with death, pain & horror.
"You think there's some third element at play?" she said, her voice quivering slightly.
"I'm getting more & more sure of it, that earthquake felt too convenient. But the trouble is, if my theory is correct, we could be in even worse danger that we already are."
In the lab, the Dalek removed it's sucker from a half-globe on the console it was working at. Moving around, it watched it's two prisoners talking behind the glass of their impromptu prison, keeping a keen eye on the man...
Four Days later...
"Finally." said the Doctor, rubbing the back of his neck. Behind him, Nyssa rose to her feet & stretched her arms. Though the Doctor had a pocket watch he kept in his inside pocket, apparently from his granddaughter, he had neglected to synchronise with the local time. As such, they had little idea of the hour, but the fact that the Dalek had deigned to free them at all suggested that the artificial Kronostalthite had matured. It watched them both silently some feet from them.
Despite her happiness at being freed from the cramped isolation chamber, Nyssa had a terrible feeling in her stomach. She had tried to pass it off as anticipation of her & the Doctor's escape, but something worried her. The Dalek had always been watching them since they were captured, but for the past few days, it's gaze had been fixed on the Doctor.
"You will move over to the table & begin the final adjustments to the device." it said.
The Doctor did as he was told & motioned for Nyssa to join him.
"The female will not aid you!" shouted the Dalek.
"I may need her technical skill, she is versed in some temporal science." the Doctor retorted, testily.
The Dalek silently acquiesced & Nyssa joined the Doctor. For 20 minutes they fixed & sorted various connections whilst the gaze of the Dalek bored into the back of their skulls. It was as the Doctor gave a hidden thumbs up to Nyssa that the Dalek spoke.
"For an inferior being, you are learned."
"Really, quite the compliment." said the Doctor without turning around.
"Your knowledge of the Dalek race is extensive. I would go further, your knowledge is not just extensive, but intimate..."
The Doctor raised his head slightly, a look of horror dawning on his features. Inclining her head ever so slightly, Nyssa peaked out of the corner of her eye & was horrified to see the Dalek advancing, it's gun-stick raised.
"Doctor look out!" cried Nyssa.
With lightning speed, the Doctor whirled around, the Temporal Shift clasped firmly to his chest & glared at the Dalek.
"You are the Doctor, the greatest enemy of the Daleks! You MUST be exterminated!" screamed the Dalek.
"Now, now, you don't want to go firing wildly, not with your only ticket home between you & me-and you can keep those silly bleeping robots right where they are!" he suddenly cried.
The Slave Units had reacted as one at the Dalek's scream of rage, attempting to circle around & attack. With the Doctor's demand, they silently moved behind the Dalek.
"You cannot escape, you will give me the device & submit yourself to extermination!"
"Sorry, must dash." smiled the Doctor. "Now, Nyssa!"
"Exterminate!"
The Dalek fired as the Doctor pressed a small switch on the side of the device & Nyssa grabbed hold of his arm. There was a brilliant electric blue flash as the death ray seemed to connect to the Temporal Shift & then, nothing. The Doctor & Nyssa were gone & the Dalek was alone.
"You will not escape me!" screamed the Dalek. "All Slave Units will follow, we will retrieve the Temporal Shift & exterminate the Doctor once & for all!"