The Doctor and the Master had retreated to the surrounding perimeter. The Master sat on the bonnet of an abandoned car and stroked his chin.
“Well?” said Faith, “what did she say?”
“She doesn’t want to destroy the Time Lords,” said the Doctor, taking a yellow boiled sweet from his trouser pocket and popping it into his mouth.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” said Maxus.
“In some respects,” said the Doctor. “Unfortunately she does want to rule the Time Lords.”
“Right,” said Faith, nodding. “So how do we stop her? I mean she’s surely not going to stay sat around the lions, is she?”
“She’s let us go to make our decision,” said the Master.
“Decision on what?” said Maxus.
“She told us that we could join her or be destroyed.”
“And you have come away to make your decision?” said Faith, looking a little frustrated and worried.
“Don’t be so naive, Faith,” said the Doctor. “We’re not going to join her, but we need to find time to find something that can defeat her.”
“And if we don’t?” said Maxus. “She doesn’t have an army behind her. What’s she going to do?”
“That’s the problem,” said the Doctor. “Celestia is tuned into time so to speak. She’s able to manipulate anyone who is a time sensitive.”
“Someone who has travelled in time?” said Maxus.
“Exactly. Well, those that are not able to block her out. So that includes you, Mr. Maxus, Holly, Lilly…anyone I’ve ever travelled with not to mention the various time sensitive creatures dotted around the planet. She could enslave their minds and bring an army together in no time at all. They’d be powerless to stop them.”
“Then we need to come up with a plan ASAP,” said Maxus, the urgency on his face.
The Doctor nodded, crunching down on his sweet. “I think I may have a plan, but it’s at a great cost.”
“How great?”
The Doctor looked at the Master. “It’d mean one of us would have to die.”
Holly was idly stirring a cold cup of coffee with a plastic teaspoon when Lilly trotted in and sat down opposite her. She smiled and then touched her arm. “You okay, Dangerfield?”
Holly sighed. “Just wondering how we get out of this thing.” She took a sip of the tepid coffee and grimaced.
“We’ve been in sticky spots before,” said Lilly.
“I know, but this time…look at all its cost.”
Lilly looked sad. “You know all that time I spent in Jacarthia I never suspected my mother could be something else.” She leant back in her chair, thinking back. “But there was always something a little distant about her. She clearly cared for me and wanted to get to know me, but she almost seemed a little reluctant. I put it down to her being off with me because of Caleb.”
“I didn’t know her well enough.” Holly took Lilly’s hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” said Lilly, smiling sadly. “I’ve come to expect it now.”
“Don’t say things like that.”
“No,” said Lilly, smiling, “I don’t mean that. I mean that I’ve come to expect it travelling with the Doctor, which is why I’m going to stop.”
“What? Seriously? Stop travelling with the Doctor.”
“Wherever we’ve gone I’ve had nothing but problems. I killed Caleb, my father was a psychopath and now I’ve lost my mother. The Doctor has become distracted as well trying to take care of me all the time.”
“But he wants to.”
“I know he does,” said Lilly, “but I don’t think he should anymore. He needs to break free and go on his own way again.”
“So you’re going to leave us again? Where will you go?”
“Well,” said Lilly, smiling at Holly, “I’ve found a nice little apartment for two in a town called Huxley.”
“What?” said Holly, not quite understanding what she was saying.
“Holly, I’ve done my adventuring through time and space now. If you’re willing to leave the Doctor too then so am I. I don’t just want to be with you. I want to be with you all of the time. Together.”
Holly was taken aback and laughed, putting her hand to her mouth. “You’re serious?”
“Dangerfield,” said Lilly, leaning in, “I’m in love with you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Holly smiled and leaned in closer. “Well then, how can I resist, Miss Galloway?” And then they kissed.
What they didn’t see was the Doctor the other side of the door, his back to the wall and looking sad. Things were changing and this particular chapter of his life was coming to an end. He shook his head, smiling at the conversation between Holly and Lilly and then made his way down the corridor towards the lab.
Inside the lab the Master was hunched over the monitors watching the newsfeed of Celestia, biding her time sat on the steps near Nelson’s Column.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked.
“I was going to ask the girls to join us, but they’ve got other things on their minds.”
“Forget them;” said the Master, “we have twenty five minutes to stop her before she begins her attack on this miserable planet.”
“I know that,” said the Doctor.
Faith entered the room with Maxus. “Well, so far she’s not done anything else so I think we’re okay for now, but you fellas need to come up with something ASAP.”
“We have a plan, but first we need to look at how she was defeated in the first place,” said the Master
“The Time Moons and the Staff of Roth.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Maxus.
“That’s how they did it. When she was born the staff was used to channel the space/time vortex through the time moons, into the machines and into the female Gallifreyan. The storybooks say that she was defeated at the Battle of Spire Peak. The Gallifreyans aligned the moons and channeled the energy through the moons via the staff. Roth, the scientist, was killed, but the energy was extracted from the host body.”
“The Gallifreyans then sealed the energy into the casket and cast it out into the Void. The host body – Celestia – fell through time with no knowledge of the person she used to be.”
“Celestia once said to me that she was a young lady living rough in the streets of Antihope when she met Reikon. She was always a little fuzzy on her past.”
“Now we know why,” said the Master.
“Okay,” said Maxus, trying to get his head around this information, “so we need to find the Staff of Goth.”
“Roth,” said the Master and the Doctor together.
“And two time moons?” said Faith, looking bewildered.
“Well the time moons are going to be the problem,” said the Doctor. “They were naturally occurring aberrations from the time vortex. Since the vortex was tamed they don’t appear anymore.”
“And the Staff?”
“Would you believe,” said the Doctor, “that it’s housed in the Omega Arsenal on Gallifrey. It’s just been sat there for millennia like some old, forgotten relic.”
“Fantastic!” said Faith. “But what do we do about the time moons?”
The Doctor looked at the Master. “That’s where our real problems begin. We can use our two TARDISes to channel the power, but the energy would almost certainly destroy one or even both of them. They’d certainly be badly damaged.”
“Okay, but the Time Lords can help you there, can’t they?” said Faith. “They could give you new TARDISes if need be.”
“Well, apart from the sentimental value of my ship, yes they could do, but we have another problem.”
“Oh, what a surprise!” said Faith.
“Tell them, Doctor,” said the Master.
“Someone needs to be holding the staff to channel the power. That person will almost certainly be killed.”
“Oh,” said Faith, looking worried.
“But that’s how the custard cream crumbles,” said the Doctor. “Sacrifices have to be made.”
“As soon as the energy is extracted we have to seal it back in the casket, yeah?”
“No,” said the Master. “The energy survived last time because the host body – Celestia – was allowed to live. This time, as soon as the energy is released, we have to kill Celestia.” The Master looked at the Doctor who looked upset. “He doesn’t like that part.”
“I don’t like any part,” growled the Doctor.
“The energy should then evaporate without its link to its corporeal form.”
“Okay,” said Maxus. “Well we need to get out skates on. We’ve only got twenty minutes before she makes her move.”
“Agreed, Mr. Maxus,” said the Master.
As the Master began making calculations with Maxus by his side Faith walked over to the subdued looking Doctor. She put a hand on his chest. “Please don’t get yourself killed.”
He looked at her and smiled sadly. “I think you already know my answer to that.”
“Let him do it,” she said, nodding towards the Master. “He’s expendable. You’re not.”
“He’s also untrustworthy,” said the Doctor. “I don’t trust anyone to hold that staff other than myself. I need to make sure I get the job done.”
“But you’ll die.”
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders. “Like I said, sacrifices need to be made.”
The Master turned and looked over his shoulder at the Doctor and Faith. He then looked back at the monitor, stared down at the black and white news footage of Celestia and made his decision. Sacrifices would be made.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment