‘The Krikkitmen simply need new orders,’ the old woman said. She stalked her way across the hall, pushing her face into the Doctor’s. ‘Disgusting alien!’ she barked. ‘You claim we are being manipulated – how can you be so sure that you aren’t being manipulated as well?’
‘Oh, come now,’ the Doctor chuckled, not looking Romana in the eye. ‘I’m a Time Lord. We’re above that sort of thing. Hahaha.’
Romana groaned. The Doctor’s fake laughter had once caused economic collapse on a casino planet and a royal wedding banquet to push aside the fish course.
She hoped the worry wasn’t evident on her face. What if the Krikkitmen were still controlling her? What if they were controlling the Doctor? What if they were all part of someone else’s grand plan?
Romana did some serious thinking and realised something worrying. ‘Hang on—’ she said.
Which was when the door burst open and the pram smashed in.
The Doctor had been rescued by many things – but never before had he been rescued by two screaming babies in a pram. A pram being pushed by a Krikkit robot who was going ‘hushhushhushhush’ while their mother strode behind carrying a large gun.
‘Jal!’ he beamed. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed, resting?’
‘With those two?’ Jal shot a proud, tired look at her new-borns. ‘They’re far too loud. Come and stand over here. If you don’t mind the noise.’
‘Oh, some of my best friends have been screamers,’ the Doctor said. Dismissing the entire gabble of Elders, he crossed the Parliament, and knelt down by the pram. The rest of the Universe had simply stopped existing as far as he was concerned. He was staring with deep fascination at the babies. Planet in existential turmoil? Billion-year plan? Menacing deity? Army of Krikkitmen? The Doctor put it all on pause to waggle his fingers in front of the children.
Oddly, his soft murmurs carried throughout the entire room.
‘Do you know what you lovely creatures are? You’re hope. Hope for this entire world. Now, don’t be scared, you little scamps. You’re remarkable – because you are the first babies born after the Slow Time field collapsed. The first children who aren’t part of your god’s plan. Whatever you two do in your entire life will be because you want to do it. And don’t you forget that, Jal – when you catch them crayoning the sofa – it’s free will.’ The Doctor smiled with all of his teeth. ‘And you wouldn’t want anyone on this planet to interfere with your life would you? No you wouldn’t.’ He stood, his back to the entire cluster of Elders. He held up a hand. Not in surrender, but in stillness.
‘I don’t think I have to say any more, do I?’
The silence held.
‘Do you, ah,’ Sir Robot said, ‘still need rescuing?’
‘Good point,’ the Doctor said. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve made my point and we’re all in agreement and we’re going to leave quietly.’
The silence agreed with him.
Until Elder Narase barked her blackboard scrape of a laugh. ‘No.’
‘No?’ The Doctor’s shoulders shrugged. ‘It’s a boring little word, but what does it mean?’ His feet shuffled. ‘You’ve just tried to destroy the Universe and discovered the existence of God. Have a sit down and a Garibaldi. Most importantly, don’t make any sudden moves.’
‘Kill them!’ screamed Elder Narase.
‘Like that one,’ the Doctor sighed sadly. A ‘You’ll regret this later once I’ve destroyed your army and made a lot of mess’ sigh.
‘Wait,’ Chief Elder Grayce shouted over the roars of assent. ‘That won’t achieve anything, will it?’ His hesitation at the end was fatal. The shouts became louder. The Elders of Krikkit, who, for a while had seemed on the brink of listening, were now baying for blood.
Romana thought it useless and sad. Tearing her and her friends limb from limb would achieve nothing beyond some mild staining of the floor. And yet, she supposed, that kind of demonstrated the conditioning of the Krikkitas. They were unable to cope with alien life.
‘I’ve a suggestion.’ Jal smiled wearily at the Doctor and Romana. ‘Do you two run?’
‘Do we?’ The Doctor and Romana turned to each other and grinned.
And so, that was how the Doctor and Romana came to be running for their lives, pushing a pram.
Behind them, Sir Robot and Jal held back the ferocious Elders of Krikkit. This was quite easy. The Elders hadn’t thought to bring their guns to work with them. Jal was happily blasting chunks from the ceiling. The noise was terrific, and yet, over it all, carried the wailing of Jal’s babies.
‘They are loud, aren’t they?’ the Doctor said, pushing the pram at a frantic pace.
‘Not that way, Doctor.’ Romana realised he had quite limited experience of wheeling things. He’d once trundled around Davros, creator of the Daleks (that hadn’t gone well) and then there’d been the time they’d gone to a supermarket looking for mercury for the fluid links and … she shuddered at the memory of the Doctor holding up the biscuit aisle while he tried to mend the wheels of the shopping trolley with his screwdriver while hissing, ‘Earlier this morning I sewed shut a quantum corridor, so why do you have to be so difficult?’
Romana looked at the two howling babies and wondered if they were hope for the future, or simply handy symbols. Well, something was better than nothing. Even if the one on the left was smelling quite unsavoury all of a sudden.
‘Wait!’
A figure called out to them. It was Chief Elder Grayce, his clothes bloodied and torn. He tried pulling himself up to a level of authority, but he fell back against a pillar, exhausted. ‘Aliens,’ he began. ‘If what you say is true, then go to our god. Do what you can. I will delay any further attacks. I will give you what time I can.’
Romana doubted it.
The Doctor reached out and shook his hand. The Elder recoiled.
‘I appreciate this,’ said the Doctor. ‘Your planet is on the brink.’
Elder Grayce nodded, and turned to stall the baying mob heading towards him.
The Doctor’s group ran on.
Sirens were sounding through the Parliament building. Still not enough to drown out the crying of the infants. ‘Gosh. They are effective at asking for things.’ The Doctor leant over the pram. ‘Go on, ask for universal peace, I dare you.’
Chief Elder Grayce stood his ground. He’d spent his entire life standing his ground. He’d stood firm during the last days of the Krikkit War. He’d stood firm in a foul alien courtroom. He’d stood firm during their five years of Insulting Disgrace. He’d placed his feet solidly behind the plans for the Supernova Bomb, and he’d definitely dug in when the Krikkitmen had returned to help out. So was it any surprise that, faced with a massive change in circumstances, he’d stand firm?
That old woman sneered at him. What was her name again? For the life of him, he couldn’t remember.
‘Narase,’ she told him as though she wasn’t surprised at his ignorance. Grayce had always dismissed her. A lot of the Elders did. Her father, or was it her grandfather, had been something of terrible importance, at the extreme end of things. And, for a Krikkita, the extreme really was extreme. But, all that said, she’d always been valued for her sharp brain. There wasn’t much harm in having the odd crank in government – after all, they were going to blow up the Universe, so it didn’t hurt to have the odd idea which was so out there as to make that seem rational.
Narase smirked sourly at him. She was flanked by two Krikkitmen.
‘Where are they from?’ he said.
Narase shrugged. ‘I don’t care,’ she told him. ‘But they obey me. That is all that matters.’
‘Obey you?’ he scoffed. ‘I’m Chief Elder. They should obey me.’
‘Fine.’ Narase crossed her arms nastily. How she managed this is curious, but there was insolence, contempt and sourness in the folding of her elbows. ‘Perhaps you should issue them with an order.’
‘Very well.’ Grayce felt a little worried by this. He looked at the robots, at the red f
ires glowing in their helmets. ‘Stop the fighting!’ he commanded, for the first time in his life.
The Krikkitmen did nothing.
‘My turn,’ said Narase, and she gave Grayce a slow, steady look, one that made his mouth go dry.
‘Kill him,’ she said.
And they did.
The Senate of Elders was in a mess. Elder Narase stepped over the bodies of the injured and dying, and sat on the Chief Elder’s throne. She was laughing. She had never sought power, she had never spoken out for it. That was how she’d got it in the end. She may have been old, but now was the time to have fun.
‘No delays,’ Narase laughed again, and her battered, tired followers wondered if they’d ever get her to do something about that laugh. ‘I’ve issued orders to the Krikkitmen and they are now carrying them out. I’ve ordered them to go to war.’ She looked down at the groaning figures of those who had stood against her. The option that most politicians wished for was open to her. ‘And kill everyone who disagreed with me.’
Standing on a plateau, Romana looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful sight.
‘Goodness! There are stars over Krikkit,’ she said. ‘It looks how it should.’
The Doctor shook his head, sadly. ‘Those aren’t stars,’ he sighed. ‘They’re spaceships. That’s the Krikkit battle fleet.’ As he spoke, the lights burnt brightly and then vanished.
‘Plan B,’ he said. ‘They’re off to wipe out the Universe one planet at a time.’
The babies started crying again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE FIRST ELEVEN
The august and ancient citadel of Gallifrey drew itself together, a collection of cathedrals leaning in to whisper important secrets to each other. Gallifrey knew peace, Gallifrey knew order, Gallifrey did not, definitely did not, know change.
Until a small cricket pavilion popped out of thin air in the middle of the Panopticon. A woman stepped out, dressed fetchingly in a sports jacket.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Romana, checking her watch. ‘I’ve just invaded. Could you hurry the President along?’
(Acting) President Borusa boggled with outrage. Up until now, Romana had never seen her ex-tutor boggle.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ the little man was demanding.
‘This old thing?’ said Romana, leaning against the pavilion. Her jollity vanished. ‘It’s been the biggest clue of all, and it has been hiding in plain sight.’
‘Explain what you mean!’ rasped Borusa, as he often had at the end of one of her frankly exhausting essays.
‘Krikkit craft are vast warships. This is similar in design but not in function. Krikkit warships are imitative of the craft that crashed on their planet. This pavilion is not. It dematerialises from one point and materialises in another. It is also roomy enough for five million and a bit Krikkit warriors to hide inside. Is this reminding you of anything?’ Romana paused, partly for dramatic effect and to make sure, for the seventeenth time, that she’d got her workings out right. She had, of course. ‘To top it all, I’ve just landed it on Gallifrey.
‘Only one kind of craft can land on Gallifrey,’ she continued. ‘A TARDIS. Anything else is impossible. Gallifrey is protected by a ring of Transduction Barriers.’
The meaning of Romana’s words made its way into Borusa’s brain. ‘You managed to breach the Transduction Barriers with that thing?’
Romana nodded.
‘But, they were built by the finest temporal engineers over four generations.’
‘Well, I wish they’d taken five and done it properly,’ said Romana. ‘I came here to warn you – the Krikkit fleet is coming. They’re going to wipe out the Universe one planet at a time, and they’re coming here first.’
Borusa shrugged. Many fleets had tried. Many fleets had failed.
Once the polite laughter of the assembled Time Lords had died down, Romana tapped the pavilion again. ‘They’re coming in craft like this.’
Silence echoed across the Panopticon, and with it a shudder of fear.
‘Somehow, Krikkit has acquired Gallifreyan technology. Including a way through the Transduction Barriers.’
A long time ago, the best way to protect your castle was to build a moat around it and fill it with water. That had been fine until the invention of powdered cement. Borusa stared up into the sky as though it was about to fall down.
‘Scramble the Transduction Barriers!’ the President yelled. ‘Gallifrey is under attack.’
Romana should have felt pleased. She’d been on Gallifrey for under a quarter of an hour and already all the alarms were sounding, the planet was being invaded and Borusa was having a panic attack. This was a record the Doctor would find hard to beat.
Then she looked up at the orange clouds above the citadel. And she knew it was an empty victory.
The skies of Gallifrey burst into sparks as one by one, the Krikkit warships started pushing their way through and, not needing a better plan, began firing.
The Vast And Terrible Krikkit Fleet hurled themselves at the Transduction Barriersfn1 and ploughed through all of them, burning the orange sky cinnamon.
At which point the Transduction Barriers just switched off.
Suddenly unimpeded, the Krikkit fleet accelerated uncontrollably towards the Capitol, only to find that it was no longer there.
‘This is highly irregular,’ huffed Romana’s ex-tutor.
Romana’s boots didn’t answer him. That was all that could be seen of her. The rest of her was buried deep inside the Transduction Barrier controls, hammering away with a spanner.
‘I’ve saved the planet, haven’t I?’ said Romana.
‘That remains to be seen,’ rumbled Borusa.
The planet shook. It was the sound of an entire battle fleet smacking into an unexpected mountain range.
The shaking subsided.
‘So,’ said Romana, pulling herself out of the machinery.
‘Indeed,’ marvelled Borusa. ‘You diverted the energy from the Barriers into the planetary rotation. Clever.’
‘I thought so,’ Romana was dusting herself off. ‘Let’s go and fight back. What have you got? Oh, and –’ this was delivered a fraction too late – ‘mind your head.’
They called it the Chamber of the First Eleven. The first twelve War TARDISes had been built to fight the Krikkitmen. One had been lost during the conclusion of the war, but the remaining eleven had been placed in storage. Gallifrey had, it realised, little use for War TARDISes, especially ones so viciously effective.
Ever since, the First Eleven had been penned up in their Chamber. They looked innocuous enough – a collection of armour-plated cupboards. If Dracula had owned a wardrobe, if Rasputin had a garden shed, or the Borgias had needed a portable toilet, then they’d probably have looked like a War TARDIS. A cathedral roof’s worth of lead had been fastened across the smallest possible surface area with the greatest possible number of rivets. A War TARDIS bristled with spikes and weapons that were somehow invisible in this dimension and yet utterly present.
They were also soul-shakingly loud.
‘What is that?’ Romana wrinkled her nose. It seemed the wrong response but, even high up on this walkway, the noise was roaring in her head without ever troubling her ears.
‘They mutter a lot,’ said Borusa, peering down into the pens with a weary shudder. ‘They don’t approve of Gallifrey’s policy of non-intervention.’
‘But that’s been going on for aeons!’ Romana protested. ‘Surely they’d have grown used to it.’
‘You’d think,’ Borusa nodded. ‘Instead, they have become resentful.’
The whispering sharpened in Romana’s head. Ordinarily, whispering didn’t do this. Whispering was a soft, hissing thing. But this was as soft and hissing as a hungry snake. The whispering slithered through her brain, mentally ticking off all those occasions of deadly peril when she could have been helped out marvellously by a lovely, armoured War TARDIS.
‘Release us!’ boomed the W
ar TARDISes.
Borusa surveyed them warily and checked his chronometer. ‘The barriers are falling. I think we need to do this.’ He scratched his nose. ‘The problem is, there’s no way of doing this without sounding pompous, and I so hate that.’
‘Even now?’ Romana queried.
‘Oh yes,’ Borusa looked like a bank manager at the end of a long and difficult day involving postal orders. ‘But I suppose we’d better.’ He harrumphed. ‘Release the—’ He stopped, realising that this was a great moment in his presidency and shouldn’t sound like an apology. ‘Release the War TARDISes.’
As he said the words and the ancient bonds dissolved, the air filled with an angry, terrible roaring. Eleven War TARDISes snapped and bit at the fabric of the Universe, ready to tear into it. Romana wondered if this had been such a clever idea after all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE IRON LADY
The Krikkit Pavilion arrived smartly on the ground at Lord’s. Romana stepped out blinking. ‘Well, that went exactly according to plan,’ she thought. In some ways she missed travelling by TARDIS. Mind you, she’d enjoyed pressing a button and going where she expected without having to coax, cajole, tease and plead with both the Doctor and his craft. Both were quixotic, unpredictable, and all too liable to get distracted by something going on 500 years in the opposite direction.
Normally, this was fine (more or less depending, Romana had to admit, on what the TARDIS wardrobe was serving up). But right now she had to save a universe quickly.
Things had stared out well. She’d rescued Gallifrey. Then Borusa had freed eleven War TARDISes to protect all of time and space. Which was where her beginner’s luck had run out. The entire fleet of War TARDISes had blinked out of existence.
‘But I didn’t get to give them instructions,’ bleated Borusa. ‘Do you think they’ll know what to do?’
‘Hum,’ Romana had said, looking up at the empty sky. She was so preoccupied, she didn’t notice Borusa miss his footing at the edge of the walkway.
When the Doctor had given her the mission, it had all seemed so easy. ‘I’ll go and talk to the god. You tackle the Krikkitmen.’
Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen Page 24