The Strategist was studying security footage piped from the Dalek Scientist’s nano-spies. ‘Their fighting potential is impressive,’ it announced. A pause. A greasy clank. ‘For an inferior species.’
‘For an inferior species,’ the Eighth Doctor repeated.
The Dalek Scientist bobbed with agreement, zooming in on one of the Bloodsmen attacking.
‘There is much life in the Dark Times that the Daleks have never encountered,’ it grated. ‘Analysis would be beneficial to Dalek might.’
‘Not the deal,’ the Doctor said. ‘We’re here to sort this mess out, and we still can.’ He watched the Bloodsmen hunt down a fleeing crewwoman. ‘I can’t believe he’d let them do that …’
‘It is unreasonable to expect the nature of your army to change,’ the Scientist announced and wheeled away. The Eighth Doctor found himself feeling increasingly uneasy.
‘We have to stop this!’ the Tenth Doctor cried.
The Ood was already loading up another of the ancient weapons.
A beam shot out from the Tenth Doctor’s flagship. Space froze. Energy drained from anything in its path. The Coffin Ships ground to a halt, force shields cracked like frosted windowpanes. The Dalek craft tried firing, but its blasts withered and glittered in the air. Lone Daleks juddered to a halt, ice racing over their casings and biting into them. They flailed in silence and fell still.
A vast, impossible lake of ice stretched out across the stars. The shields on the Dalek saucer sputtered and then fire blasted out from them. The engines of the Coffin Ships burnt cold as they filled with ice.
Contact.
Contact.
Contact.
The three of them met among the stars. The Knight, the Fool, and the Dead.
The Tenth, Ninth, and Eighth Doctors floated in a unity of telepathic contact, walking gently over the ice lake.
‘A temporary ceasefire,’ the Tenth Doctor said. ‘Let’s sort this out.’
‘I dunno what to compliment you on more,’ said the Ninth. ‘The hat or the skating rink.’
The Tenth ignored him and strode over to the Eighth Doctor. ‘Daleks?’ he roared, shoving his former self onto the ice. ‘How could you?’
The Eighth Doctor, rubbing at his shoulder, looked up at him. ‘It’s not a voluntary arrangement. Also, I didn’t realise you were wiping out species. How could you?’
‘It’s the Kotturuh …’ the Tenth began. ‘We’ve heard the stories, but I saw them sweeping down on worlds, snuffing them out, all for the sake of progress. So I stopped them.’
‘You did more than stop them.’ The Ninth Doctor wagged a finger. ‘You obliterated them. Time’s been changed. Thought we’d learned our lesson there.’
‘They caused the death of a child,’ the Tenth whispered. ‘Really … it came down to that.’
The argument stopped for a moment.
The Ninth scratched the back of his head. He was thinking about Rose. Half dead and recovering on a remote world. He’d nearly done it. He’d nearly wiped out all the vampires. Bit early, not strictly his job, but he’d nearly done it because of her.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I’d never go that far.’
‘OK, then,’ the Tenth said, clearly not believing a word of it. He turned to the Eighth. ‘And you? Never broken the rules? Never changed time because a friend of yours died? Isn’t that … forgive me … isn’t that how you got started?’
For a moment the Eighth said nothing. He was looking at the skies around him.
‘All these fireworks would be very pretty if only each little sparkler wasn’t someone’s life. We all need to step back. I’m on a ship full of trigger-happy Daleks. And that –’ he was suddenly standing very close to the Tenth Doctor – ‘should pull you up. When even the Daleks think you’ve gone too far, chances are you’ve gone too far.’
The Ninth looked between the two of them. ‘We need to solve this calmly,’ he said. ‘Maturely.’
‘Calmly?’ the Tenth Doctor asked. ‘Your undead army is drinking my people. Calm. Mature.’
‘Know yourself, know your enemy,’ the Eighth Doctor said.
‘Quoting The Art of War?’ The Tenth Doctor winced. ‘What next? A tribal tattoo? Since when did any of us quote Sun Tzu?’
‘Since you started trying to be a warrior.’
The Ninth shrugged. ‘We stop this.’ He jammed his hands in his pockets and turned his mental back on them both. ‘There’s a reason why you can find the Doctor anywhere in the universe except at the head of an army. It’s not a look that suits.’ And he strode away into infinity.
The Tenth and the Eighth Doctors watched him fade away between one step and the next.
‘He loves the moral high ground,’ said the Eighth.
‘Yup,’ said the Tenth. ‘Once someone else has shown him where it is.’
‘I’ll take care of the Daleks, you take care of your, er … Forgive me, I never learned their names.’
‘The Victis Fleet,’ the Tenth said. ‘Yeah, it’s crewed by mercenaries, yeah, I think I maybe have to pay them at some point. Now, you go calm down your Daleks.’
The Eighth Doctor smiled finally, and it was a beautiful smile. ‘When we’ve sorted this out, can we talk about what you’re wearing?’
‘No,’ said the Tenth, and he faded away.
The Eighth Doctor took one last look at the frozen battlefield and nodded to himself. He was pleased to see the back of it.
The Tenth Doctor blinked, finding himself back on the bridge of his ship. Alarms were blaring, there was smoke in the air.
‘There you are,’ said Brian. ‘Mr Ball was worried you were in a coma.’
‘I was talking to myself,’ the Doctor said. ‘It went rather well.’
‘And now you have finished,’ Brian nodded. ‘Just in time.’
‘In time for what?’ the Doctor began.
By the time he realised what Brian was doing, he was too late. He could only watch as the Ood launched more weapons.
‘No!’
Chapter Three
The Eighth Doctor opened his eyes to find the Dalek Time Commander shouting at him.
‘Under attack! Return fire! Return fire!’
‘No,’ he cried, ‘Wait—’
A wave of ancient energy swept into the Daleks and the ships of the undead. Moments later, that fire was returned, as the survivors threw all they had back at the fleet.
The vampire helped the Ninth Doctor to his feet. All around them was the tang of bonfires and a hint of barbeque.
‘You are not dead,’ she said. ‘It would not do for a dead man to lead the undead.’
The Ninth Doctor broke away from her, furious with the universe. ‘I’m not a fighter,’ he said.
‘You are,’ said Madam Ikalla simply. ‘Every man fights with himself. But only the brave win.’
It is amazing how quickly winning turns to losing. Under the onslaught, several of the old Victis mercenary fleet blew up. Several more simply turned and fled. Until all that was left was the flagship. A single blast from the Dalek ship took out the engines.
The Tenth Doctor lay groaning on what had once been a wall of his ship. A few minutes ago, he’d had a battlefleet he hadn’t wanted and the moral high ground. Now he had one broken ship and one Brian.
‘Where’s the crew?’ he asked. ‘They’re all right? They’ve not deserted too?’
‘Oh no,’ Brian seemed mildly surprised. ‘They’re putting out fires.’
‘Well,’ the Doctor leaned against a console and tried to make it casual rather than a vital support while he eased the pressure on his cracked ribs. ‘Good.’
‘Ye-es,’ Brian paused. ‘Mr Ball points out that they’ve worked out that, with the rest of the fleet destroyed or deserted, the fee split will make each of them fabulously wealthy.’
‘Oh,’ the Doctor said. ‘That kind of loyalty.’ Something was jabbing in his ribs. The Doctor fished around in his robes and pulled it out. It was the ruins of his sonic screwdri
ver. Even that had left him.
‘Of course, it is a moot point as, without an engine, you will soon have to surrender.’
‘Surrender, prudent surrender.’ The Doctor considered, then slipped the heavy collar from his shoulders and dropped it to the floor. ‘At least I can breathe again. Wearing that thing is like carrying history on your shoulders.’
Brian looked down at the collar.
‘So …’ The Tenth Doctor stood on his tiptoes and stretched out his jaw. ‘That’s the end of the Time Lord Victorious. He took on death and lost.’
‘Everyone does,’ Brian smiled. ‘It’s why assassins see themselves as being on the winning side. By the way, Mr Ball ventures you have one weapon remaining.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘The Kotturuh Death Generator …’ He slumped for a moment longer, then sprung forward, a new man, throwing off the last of his cloak. ‘I may as well get some use out of it, eh …’
‘Correct.’
The Doctor threw himself to the floor, and started tearing strips from the embroidered Time Lord collar, pulling the filigree wire tracing out of it, and jabbing it into the ruins of his sonic screwdriver. ‘First I’m going to patch this up,’ he said, rewiring the circuits. Then he wrapped a couple of the metallic strips around the body of the screwdriver and held it aloft, looking at the overlapping bronze patterns of cogs. ‘Bit of a botched job, but it has a certain hipster charm.’
‘Mr Ball is curious … What is your plan, Doctor?’ Brian asked.
‘No engines, but a generator.’ The Tenth Doctor smiled for the first time in hours. ‘We’re going to live to fight another day.’
The Dalek saucer and the Coffin Ships closed in on the remaining ship of the Victis Fleet drifting over the ruins of Mordeela.
‘Time Lord! Surrender!’ The Dalek Time Commander broadcast. ‘Your ship is disabled. We calculate it will fall into the ruins of the planet below. Surrender to the Daleks is your only option.’
Another voice echoed through the void. ‘This is Madam Ikalla of the Free Undead. We demand you surrender to us.’
A third voice answered them. ‘Hello! Can you hear me, Eight and Nine? Sounds like your kids are fighting already. Good luck holding that peace accord together. Oh. And – byeee!’
Something fell out of the Tenth Doctor’s ship and tumbled into the ruins of Mordeela. The most powerful weapon ever created in the universe. It burst inside the ruined depths of the planet, sealing off the Kotturuh’s energy gateway. The resultant explosion caused the battered flagship to shiver, bend, and then vanish out of the system, leaving behind a sucking hole in space where Mordeela had once been.
The Ninth Doctor and the Eighth Doctors watched from their craft.
Behind the Eighth Doctor, the Daleks were shrieking. ‘The Time Lord has escaped! The Time Lord has escaped!’
The Eighth Doctor allowed himself a sad smile. Some things never changed.
Even the air was shaking as the flagship travelled at an inadvisable speed.
‘You don’t think I’m doing the wrong thing, do you?’ the Doctor asked. ‘Running away?’
Brian considered. ‘Mr Ball finds it a disappointment. But I understand. When I kill a client, my job is done. I remove myself from the scene swiftly rather than stand around to justify my actions to grieving relatives. I find them vexing.’
‘Ah.’ The Tenth Doctor nodded.
‘You set yourself the goal of wiping out the Kotturuh—’
‘Steady on!’
‘And you achieved it. The job is done. So you are leaving.’
‘Well—’
‘I would say that makes you an excellent killer.’
The ship sailed on and the Tenth Doctor, for once, was without words.
Chapter Four
The Tenth Doctor stared at the statue. It had been a long few weeks and he knew how it felt. The giant black horned tiger seemed to be holding up the boiling skies of the planet Entranxis. Above, the scowling scarlet clouds reflected in the weathered bronze of the buildings. He said, ‘This is not a pretty place.’
‘It is not,’ Brian agreed. ‘But it does not matter. What matters is whether or not we will be able to buy weapons.’
A gong echoed across the metal plains, and a doorway opened inside the statue.
‘I believe we are summoned,’ Brian prompted. ‘Shall we go?’
The Tenth Doctor followed him reluctantly inside. He was not happy about this. Brian had talked him into it. Brian was talking him into a lot of things lately. They’d wandered the Dark Times in their last remaining craft, having adventures and seeking answers, while the Kotturuh numbers went on dwindling as they tried and failed to flee their own curse. It was hard to feel any sense of triumph at what he’d done, no matter how often he told himself it had been necessary.
Beyond that, nagging away at him like an unpaid debt, was the knowledge that two of his other selves were still out there, allied with Daleks and vampires. They needed facing. And Brian had talked him around to it.
‘I’m not buying weapons,’ he said.
‘We’re simply overhauling the ship,’ Brian countered.
‘I can talk my other selves down,’ the Doctor protested, ‘when I’ve worked out what to say.’
‘And the Daleks? Can you talk them down too?’
‘Sometimes. Whatever, we’re not going to Entranxis.’
They went to Entranxis.
Inside the vast hall their steps echoed on ancient dark metal.
Awaiting them were the Death Brokers. Each one appeared to have been hammered out of ancient iron by a demented blacksmith, but they were alive; vast and screaming. Their talons grated and clanked as their eyes ground slowly to focus on their visitors.
A huge voice boomed out: ‘You have entered the Hall of Supplication. The Death-Brokers will hear your petition. Kneel before them!’
The Doctor strode forwards. Coming to stand in front of the dais, he jammed his hands into the pockets of his crumpled suit, and peered at the figures on their iron thrones. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m the Doctor. Admiral of the Victis Fleet. Time Lord Victorious. Bringer of Death to the Bringers of Death. And I’m not kneeling.’ Slowly, one by one, he gave each metalled face a reciprocal steely look. ‘I’m here to buy weapons – if you’ve got any good enough for me.’
The silence seemed to echo around the vast hall. And then one of the Brokers began to caw. Soon all three of them were laughing away. It was the laugh the Devil would make, watching a soul plunge down into hell.
‘Mr Ball,’ said Brian, calmly, ‘would like you to know that he finds this sound most unpleasant. He would like you to know this as a matter of some urgency.’
But the Doctor was unperturbed. He stood with hands still in his pockets, rocking on his heels, and scowled at the figures. ‘Come on.’
‘You have shown yourself to be … interesting, Doctor. We have heard your petition. We have something you will find of value.’
A screeching summons came from the Broker’s throat.
Four pale creatures scuttled into the hall, grunting and sweating as they dragged behind them a huge cage. Inside the cage, weighed down by chains and shackles and iron, was a vampire – and from the screams, her suffering was terrible.
‘Stop right there!’ The words had been on the tip of the Tenth Doctor’s tongue, but someone else said them.
He turned. Marching into the hall were the Eighth and Ninth Doctors. Their sonic screwdrivers were out.
‘Excuse me,’ bellowed the Ninth. ‘That’s my vampire!’
‘What?’ said the Tenth Doctor.
‘Forget fighting,’ the Eighth Doctor said. ‘Let’s save some people.’
‘What?’ repeated the Tenth Doctor.
The Ninth grinned. He was carrying a spider plant.
‘What?’
It’s unfair to say the Eighth Doctor had started to worry about his alliance with the Daleks. He’d always worried about his alliance with the Daleks. After the battle
of Mordeela, the Dalek Time Commander and the Executioner had gone off to compare atrocities and the Dalek Strategist had retreated to whatever ghastly cell it machinated in. The Doctor had felt forgotten, like left luggage on a deserted concourse.
Why haven’t they gone home? The Doctor realised he was wandering into chambers to see if anyone would notice him. Sections of the craft were sealed off. Corridors with only a Dalek Drone. Not pointing its gun, not barking out a warning, just intimidatingly there. The one thing they’d definitely not forgotten about was the TARDIS. It was completely out of bounds. The Dalek Scientist had actually spoken to him when he’d tried to get in.
‘The Doctor may not enter his craft!’ it said, positioning itself between him and his TARDIS, metal arms twitching in his direction.
‘I thought we were friends,’ the Eighth Doctor said, with his most winning smile.
‘This artefact is vital to our passage out of the Dark Times!’ the Dalek Scientist announced.
‘I wasn’t going anywhere,’ the Doctor lied. ‘I only wanted a few items to cheer up my cell. Home comforts.’
‘Home comforts?’
‘You know. Books, biscuits, a live, love, laugh scatter cushion.’ The Doctor directed his winning smile at the TARDIS door. ‘You can come with.’
Which was how the Doctor found himself accompanied by the Dalek Scientist on a quick tour of the TARDIS console room. ‘Don’t get excited,’ he admonished it, as he grabbed a few things.
‘This is inferior technology,’ the Dalek Scientist announced haughtily.
The Dalek’s eyestalk focused balefully on the Doctor. He worked out his options. The Daleks clearly still needed him, otherwise he would have been exterminated. But how much did they need him?
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ he replied, selecting some books. ‘But it got you here and, as you say, you need it to get you home. Ah, yes, Cold Comfort Farm! Shall we go?’
The Doctor went back to the cell the Daleks had allocated him, and laid out his supermarket sweep. They did little to disguise the scratch marks on the walls. And why had he grabbed a spider plant?
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