by Cour M.
“Yeah.”
“I mean, I know we haven’t seen them anywhere.”
“Because maybe they can’t be seen right now,” Satsuki pointed out.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not precisely sure yet, but I think the Doctor has a certain type of theory. We’ve got to get them back.”
“Right. Once we get Daphne, the protestors and the Howards, luckily we have a TARDIS that can get them out of here and—”
Martha stopped talking when she saw Satsuki’s face stricken with horror.
“Satsuki?”
Satsuki’s eyes were fixed on something that was behind her. Without even looking, Martha felt the hair on her neck stand on end. There was something in the air that gave her a sense of foreboding. Yet she had no choice but to stand up and turn around.
Standing five feet away from them, with the galaxy ball in his hand, was the Time Splicer.
⌨
“You,” Martha whispered, flabbergasted, “you erased yourself from my memory again. How do you do that?”
The Time Splicer did not answer, but only stared at them, the galaxy ball still in his hand.
Martha raised her arms out to her sides slowly, in supplication and stern pleading.
“Look, whatever you want, whoever you are, and however I wronged you, I don’t know. However, if you want to fight me, if you want to torture me all over this universe, then do it later. The Doctors are captured and they need me. Let me go and come after me later.”
“No,” the Time Splicer replied through his mask. “The Doctor and companion are parted—the timing cannot be more perfect. Now it’s time. There is something you must see. Something you must know.”
The Time Splicer raised up his arm and the galaxy began to glow.
“No!” Martha cried, “please don’t!”
The light swiveled around her, but she was not alone. Satsuki rushed in, with her sword raised to attack the Time Splicer.
“No, get back!” He cried, but it was too late. As Satsuki entered the light around Martha, she had gotten sucked in, and both companions were now being pushed through time and space.
“No!” The Time Splicer cried at their dissolving figures. When they both were gone, he took a few steps and stood on the very spot where they had disappeared. The Time Splicer knelt gently on the ground, running his hands over the spot. “Not both. I never meant for both.”
The Time Splicer then stood up and looked at the TARDIS.
“Soon, Doctor,” he hissed. “Very soon… she will know what you really are.”
Next, he stood up, walked away, an invisible door slid open to display a wormhole through time, and then he disappeared into it.
Until the next time that he needed to come back. But he was patient. He always knew how to wait.
⌨
Through time and space, Martha and Satsuki traveled, and then they landed painfully on a dirty and stained floor. The lights were dim, and quite dark. Satsuki rolled over, clutching her side, and then she saw Martha laying there.
She crawled over to her, rolled Martha over, and Martha was rubbing her neck.
“Rough teleport,” Satsuki groaned.
“Yeah, really rough. But wait, did we teleport?”
“Of course, we must’ve. What else could it have been?”
Martha squinted, trying to remember how they had gotten to where they did. Unfortunately, all memory was slipping away from her. She didn’t know why or how they had gotten to where they did, but she could have sworn that it was through no teleport.
“I don’t know,” she replied, her eyes looking ahead, as if she were trying to see something in the distance, “but why would we teleport to a place that we don’t know about? Unless, you know it. What is this place?”
“Beats me. I’ve never seen it.”
They both helped each other up.
“Precisely. So why would we come here? And I don’t even know how to work a teleport.”
“Maybe we used a trans-mat.”
“Wouldn’t we remember it? Satsuki,” she whispered, looking around, “something is really off here.”
They searched through the darkness with their eyes.
“And I have the funny and sad feeling that we have to look around to figure things out.”
“Yeah, funny and sad all at once.”
They both began to walk slowly through the halls.
“Any chance you brought a torch with you?” Martha asked, taking out her gun while Satsuki did the same.
“Didn’t expect to walk down dark corridors, don’t you think?”
“And that is another reason why I don’t think we teleported here. If we intended to come to whatever place this is, we would have thought to bring some light. And why can’t we remember anything?”
“Oh, Celsius 8!”
“What?”
“I just had a frightening feeling.”
“What?”
“What if the Mecrellans have captured us, and we are now in the middle of some perverse Imitation Games? I’m already a public enemy, and by being friends with the Doctors, they naturally would want to torture us before they had us killed.”
“It’s a good theory. This planet is creative enough. But I don’t know. If we are captured, I would have thought they would want us to know it first. They would want us to know that it’s them doing this. It’s that ‘pride thing’ that all villains have. No, there’s something that I’m forgetting. And it’s right there out of the corner of my eye. If I only could remember it.”
They walked forward for a little longer, and then they entered a room that was pitch black.
“Oh, this is just too much darkness,” Martha commented.
“I agree. Come on, let’s go back.”
Suddenly, through the darkness, they saw circles of light beginning to glow.
One light appeared.
Then another.
Then a third.
And so on, until over ten lights appeared.
“Let’s move faster,” Satsuki advised.
“Stay where you are!” Came the demanding tone of a voice that was all too familiar to Martha and Satsuki.
“Oh no,” Satsuki cried, “no, no, no, not today.”
“Please, no…”
The lights on the room began to turn on and from out of the darkness, a squad of Daleks appeared.
⌨
“Do not move,” the main Daleks ordered as more Daleks emerged from the dark. “Do not move! Not move! Not move!”
The Daleks began to encircle them as Martha and Satsuki raised up their weapons.
“We’re not moving, mates,” Martha cried, “Can’t you tell!”
“You are intruders! Intruders! Intruders!”
“What can we say?” Satsuki jabbed, “we enjoyed the look of the building design.”
“Drop your weapons,” it demanded, “or you will be exterminated.”
“Satsuki,” Martha advised, “our weapons are useless against theirs. If we surrender, there’s a chance that they will take us where we need to go and we can learn something.”
“However, this ends, it will not be well. Promise me, no matter how much they torture us, you will tell them nothing about the Doctor. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Good.”
“We’re lowering our weapons,” Martha instructed, “do not shoot us, for we are just lowering our defenses. Again, that’s all that we are doing.”
Martha and Satsuki lowered their guns to the floor and then stood up, their arms still outstretched in supplication.
“Where are we?” Satsuki asked.
“You are the intruders and you do not know where you are?”
“We didn’t stumble to this place on purpose,” Martha asked, “and my friend asked you a question. Report!”
“We do not answer to the demand of inferiors who are not welcome.”
“Do you not? Then that is most unwise. If you do not tell us where we are
, then you can never learn of why we came. My friend and I need to know this, to answer your demands in the best way possible.”
There was silence.
“You thrive on logic, Daleks,” Martha continued, “so what is your answer?”
“You are in the Laboratory of the Daleks.”
“The laboratory?” Satsuki repeated, “is that what you said?”
“Affirmative.”
“So, that’s why we are here, but we can’t remember it!” Satsuki bellowed. “You need us, so you pulled us out of our time zone, just to continue with your repulsive experiments.”
“All of the subjects that we required are already detained and accounted for. Your appearance here is very much an unknown factor. Now, you shall follow us, and if not, then you will be exterminated. Exterminate! Exterminate!”
All the other Daleks began to cry out ‘exterminate’ as well.
“You said it, mate,” Martha responded, and then she and Satsuki began to follow along, side by side, with their hands up.
⌨
“You know that they’re taking us away just to be exterminated eventually, right?” Satsuki whispered.
“Yeah, I know. But sadly, there’s nothing for it. By the way, didn’t you hear what they said? We’re in the Laboratory of the Daleks.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever heard of it?”
“A bit, but I never knew what it was. I always just assumed that it meant this is where they tried to perfect time travel.”
“I don’t know why, but I get the sense that it’s more than that.”
They walked along, and were steered into a great hall. There were Daleks all along the walls, remaining sentinel, and Martha looked at them closely as they were being led down the hall.
“Wait, a minute,” Martha noted, “these are renegade Daleks.”
“They are?”
“Yes, look at their design. They’re renegades.”
“What does that mean?”
“One time, when the Doctor didn’t notice, I looked up information on the Daleks on the consul unit. It was just after we had fought the Daleks when they tried to take over Manhattan. Different Dalek factions or generations have different color schemes. These are renegade Daleks.”
“What makes that important?”
“They are the Daleks who fought against the Imperial Daleks, who were under the authority of their leader named Davros.”
“No way!”
“Yeah. But here’s the problem. They should have all been wiped out. I saw the information. The Doctor destroyed them all—”
“During his seventh incarnation, using the Hand of Omega.”
“Precisely.”
“Yeah, I know that part. However, that’s the thing that I’ve learned about Daleks. They always stash some more of themselves through the galaxy somewhere.”
“Or worse perhaps.”
They reached the end of the room, and there was one Dalek standing at the very front.
“Oh Celsius 8!” Satsuki swore, for this time, the head of the Dalek was exposed, covered in a glass casing. And it was ugly.
“I want to puke,” Martha confessed.
“Your phrase indicates that you are ill,” the Dalek spoke.
“In a manner of speaking,” Martha replied, looking over its casing. “And you must be the supreme renegade Dalek.”
“I am. And you are trespassers.”
“How can you say that, when you were the ones who abducted us?” Satsuki protested.
“Exactly,” Martha concurred, “we were on a whole other planet, and then we get beamed here with no memory of how the whole thing has occurred. So, don’t play coy. It’s beneath the demands of a Dalek to do that. Why did you take us? Are you in league with the Clockwork droids?”
“Information not recognized. What are Clockwork droids?”
In hearing the Supreme Dalek’s ignorance on the subject, Martha and Satsuki felt the moment turn even more ominous. The Daleks weren’t behind what just happened to them. So, who was?
⌨
“And you are not authorized to ask questions or make demands,” the supreme Dalek informed them. It then moved forward and Satsuki and Martha had to do everything in their power to keep from covering their mouths in horror. As the Supreme Dalek accosted them, stopping within only a couple of feet of their persons, it looked more grotesque.
“You both are time travelers?”
“Affirmative.”
“What are your names?”
“I’m Vicki and this is Barbara,” Martha lied about their names. “We came from Mecrellas, yet not by choice. We were on-planet, then suddenly we must have been teleported here.”
“For what purpose?”
“We were hoping that you could tell us.”
The Supreme Dalek turned to his other subordinates.
“I ordered there to be no more tests for today,” he demanded.
Another Dalek came forward.
“Your orders were obeyed,” the Dalek responded, “there were no other experiments, nor anymore pursuits for more subjects.”
Martha squinted, trying to piece together what they were just told. They were talking about running some tests, needing subjects—and they were in a laboratory.
“Wait, you’re experimenting on people again!” Martha ordered.
The Supreme Dalek turned to her.
“You know of our experiments?”
“I know because I ran into your kind before. And I can promise you that these experiments are useless. You will never succeed at making a human-Dalek hybrid.”
“The Daleks are always victorious.”
“Except for the times that you are not. Which is often enough, because there will always be someone there to stop you, unless you change. Daleks, please, whatever you are doing, if you value your species, then stop doing it now. Return to whatever it is that you call home, and be done with it.”
“Our home?” The Supreme Dalek repeated, “Our home is not our home any longer.”
“I know,” Martha sighed, “but still, find somewhere and just—live. Go back to it.”
“You are distributing signs of empathy. We Daleks have no concept of that emotion, nor do we care for it. And now that information has been exhausted from you both, you are useless. Prepare to be exterminated.”
“Because that’s all a Dalek is good for,” Satsuki replied.
“You will cease talking. Cease talking. Prepare to be exterminated!”
Martha and Satsuki backed up against each other as the Daleks encircled them.
“Well, no way out of this,” Satsuki ground her teeth.
“The Doctors will never know what happened to us,” Martha realized.
“Yeah, if only the TARDIS could come.”
“To have a TARDIS, rather than just a TARDIS key.”
“Yeah! Wait, what?! What did you say?”
“I have a TARDIS key, but that’s about it.”
“You have a TARDIS key! Take it out and summon the TARDIS!”
“What?!”
“My Doctor has been doing experiments, and he said that he could now summon the TARDIS as long as he had the TARDIS key. Just take it out and concentrate.”
Martha removed the key from inside her jacket and raised it up. Satsuki closed her hand around Martha’s.
“TARDIS!” Martha demanded.
VWORP! VWORP!
The TARDIS materialized around them just as the Daleks began to fire.
⌨
“The TARDIS is acquired,” the Supreme Dalek cried. “it’s the Doctor, it’s the Doctor! Retrieve him! Retrieve! Retrieve!”
Inside of the TARDIS, Satsuki and Martha found themselves protected.
“Right!” Martha bellowed, “now let’s get out of here.”
Satsuki rushed back to the consul unit and dematerialized, heading straight into the vortex, while Martha hung on.
“Thanks for remembering that about the key,” Martha complimented.<
br />
“Thanks for having one.”
Chapter 7
The Talk of an Innocent Man
Along the surface of Jupiter 6, Ten and Lesius were riding along on their hover-lifts, with their gas scoops. Ten had just gathered some more gas, scooped it up and dumped it into one of the gas containers.
“I hate it when my face itches,” Lesius complained, tapping his helmet, “because there is no way to scratch it.
“Yeah, that is the one drawback to these spacesuits,” Ten admitted, closing the container before the gas leaked out again. “Lesius, I have a question.”
“Go ahead, shoot.”
“We’re scooping gas from a planet that’s made of the stuff. Have you never wondered about the repercussions of that?”
“Oh, like you mean how eventually the planet will be destroyed, due to the inability to remake the gas in the time it takes for us to extract it?”
Ten looked at him, surprised that he knew what he was implying.
“Well, yes.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Doctor. If that’s your real name.”
“It is my real name.”
“Yes, but it’s not your real real name, now is it? I know how you Timelords work. You sometimes take another name, as a promise that you’re making.”
“You know an awful lot more about Timelords then. More than the average person. Which leads me to dissemble that either you have thoroughly researched us, or you’ve met one of us before.”
Lesius looked at him, and then looked away.
“Oh, come on,” Ten groaned, “we’re stuck in here forever, you know. What’s the point of secrets? What? Did you look us up in school, or something?”
“Yes, in a way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was born in Mecrellas, but when my mother died, she had arranged for me to be sent to her home planet named Westrid to be raised by her Melrid relatives. When there, I went to school at the main Academy. One of our teachers was a Timelord.”
⌨
In hearing this, Ten blinked.
“How long ago was this?”
“About twenty years ago.”
“Twenty years,” Ten repeated, and then he thought. “And what happened to this teacher of yours? Did she eventually return to Gallifrey?”