Story 9: A Beautiful Life

“You never know how alien races are going to react when you drop in on them.”

“Nonsense,” said the Doctor, grinning, “the Gandrans are peace loving folk. They don’t get many visitors, but when they do they welcome you with open arms.”

“Famous last words,” said Holly, rolling her eyes at Lilly.


Richard Hicks has just joined the TARDIS team. His first stop: the jungle world of Gandra - a beautiful planet of tree-dwelling inhabitants.

But the lower levels of the tree complex are found to be deserted, the Gandrans having moved higher up.

The Doctor discovers that all is not as it should be on this peaceful world. What exactly is the Age? Who are the Surfacers? And what is irritating Lilly (other than her new travelling companion)?

The Age comes to all...


This is the ninth in a series of adventures starring James McAvoy as the New Doctor, Felicity Jones as Holly Dangerfield, Evanna Lynch as Lilly Galloway and David Anders as Richard Hicks.

Elsewhere (Chapter 11)

Chapter 11 (Tears Before Bedtime)

The disappearing portal had distracted the few Kro’Tenk foot soldiers long enough for the forces of planet Earth to fight back,

In Huxley, Bambera’s troops made a final assault on the remaining warriors, forcing them to scatter through the town.

Roxanne watched on, concerned, as Lilly, still caked in dry, blue alien blood joined in with the UNIT soldiers as they charged against the creatures.

In the days to come it was reported that a number of the creatures had escaped, but that UNIT weren’t concerned as they posed no real threat. They would find the occasional creature hidden in woodlands or in the sewers, but they were slowly mopping up the remaining survivors.

What concerned Roxy was what would happen to Holly.

And what would become of Lilly.




One Week Later




Holly and Roxy were sat on a bench in the cemetery. Holly stared down at a simple, white wooden cross with the name “Carole Smith” written in black paint on it.

“Sad, isn’t it?” she said.

“What is?”

“That all that remains of Carole Smith is this pathetic white cross. She probably died during the 1960’s or something.”

“How could you possibly know that?” said Roxy, with a laugh.

“Because all of these graves are marked with people who died in the 60’s.”

Roxy sighed. “I see the council are dithering over how best to tackle the repairs to the town centre.”

Holly shrugged. “You know what they’re like.”

“Yeah.” Roxy turned to Holly. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” said Holly. “The Doctor forgave me. Told me that I had another chance. We both said things in the heat of the moment.”

“So we need to say goodbye then,” said Roxy, holding back her tears.

“Not forever,” said Holly. “I’ll be back.”

“I don’t think you will.”

“I have family,” said Holly. “Of course I’ll be back.”

“Not forever though,” said Roxy, echoing Holly’s words. “You’ll flit back every now and then to see them, but this isn’t your life anymore. Your life is up there in the box with that torch-shining lunatic and the blonde psychopath.”

“She’s not a psychopath,” said Holly.

“Isn’t she? I told you how she killed that Kro’Tenk captain back in the library. She’s dangerous.”

“It’s just the way she is,” said Holly. “It was self defence.”

“Just keep telling yourself that, Hols.”

“Please, Roxy, let’s not argue.”

Roxy smiled and then relaxed. “I’m sorry. I’m just…I’m going to miss you.”

Holly took her hand and squeezed it tightly. “We’ll always be friends, you soppy sod.”

“Of course we will,” said Roxy. And then the two friends gave each other a hug.

In the years to come Roxy found out that Carole Smith was actually only a toddler when she had died in 1963. She had missed out on so much of the world. Of the twentieth century. But she also wondered if there was another alternate reality out there somewhere were Carole Smith was still living her life as an OAP, being with some grandchildren maybe and reflecting on a life filled with love and hope.

Somehow this comforted her.

“Do you love her?” asked Roxy to Holly as the sun began to set over the cemetery.

Holly didn’t answer. She felt her chest tighten.

“Come on, it’s a simple question. Do you love her?”

Holly turned to Roxy and just smiled.




Sixty miles away Richard Hicks sat in the passenger seat of a UNIT:X Landrover as he watched his wife and two children in a nearby children’s playground. He smiled sadly as he watched his wife try and round their kids up, both of them refusing to obey, instead wanting another five minutes on the slide.

And then he saw the tall, dark-skinned man sat on the bench next to her, his arm almost draped over her shoulder, but not quite.

Sat next to him in the drivers seat was Faith Crossland. She looked at him and exhaled. “His name is Toby Gilchrist.”

Richard nodded. “She moved on.”

“Don’t blame her,” said Faith. “She’s not over you. Not by any stretch of the imagination. She met him at a centre for people who have recently lost loved ones. They aren’t together, but she needs his friendship right now.”

“To help her get over me,” said Richard flatly.

“We can organise you being reintroduced to her,” said Faith. “What Stark did was wrong, but I can arrange for it to be put right.”

“No,” said Richard quickly.

“No?”

“I need time to process it. To process everything that happened to me.”

“But the longer you leave it the closer they may become. You may find it hard to come back from the dead.”

“I just need time,” said Richard. “I don’t know who I am anymore.” He looked at his hand as he clenched and unclenched his fist. “Can you take me back to the Doctor now?”

Faith nodded. “Doctor it is.”




Lilly stood in the large, ornate, Victorian-esque TARDIS shower. She’d showered a number of times since the final battle in the town centre, but somewhere - somehow - she could still see the blue blood smeared all over her face.

She turned the shower on and began scrubbing again as hard as she could. She felt sick to the stomach with what she had done. Holly had been understanding, but she didn’t want to understand it. She didn’t want this anger anymore.

And somewhere she could hear her father’s laugh - the Masters laugh - echoing around her skull.

And she scrubbed.

And she scrubbed.

And she cried.

And she scrubbed.




Stark swirled his ice cube around his whiskey glass and then took a swig of it. He nodded to Bambera. “Sure you won’t have one, Winifred?”

“No thank you, Roger,” she said. “I’m looking forward to going back home.”

The Doctor turned and smiled at her. “Are you sure you don’t need my help to round up the rest of the Kro’Tenk?”

“We’re fine, Doctor,” Bambera managed a smile. She had met the Doctor a few times before, but this incarnation of him was much quieter, much more subdued. He calmed her as well. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too, Winifred,” smiled the Doctor.

“You’ll have to drop in on myself and Ancelyn sometime,” she said as she got up from the desk.

“You can count on it,” said the Doctor.

Bambera smiled again and then saluted him. The Doctor responded with his own, more casual salute and then nodded. “As you were.”

Bambera turned to Stark, gave him a curt nod, and then made her way out of the office.

“All’s well that ends well,” said Stark, after the door had shut.

“How’s your bruise?” asked the Doctor, pointing to the purple side of Stark’s face.

“I should have him locked away,” said Stark, angrily.

“You had him killed,” said the Doctor, quickly. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“Indeed I did,” said Stark. “Ah, I suppose I should let the chap off.”

“Did your UNIT bods get a chance to look at Aldridge’s TARDIS. It won’t open for me. I’ve put enough power into it to light it up like a Christmas tree, but it won’t activate.”

“Afraid not,” said Stark. “I had the others do some tests, but it’s beyond them.”

“But not beyond you, Roger,” said the Doctor. He leaned back in the chair. “Oh well, I’ll take it away with me then. See what I can do.”

“You do that, old boy,” smiled Stark.

The Doctor got up to go and then turned back. “I suspect we’ll see each other again.”

“Oh, naturally,” smiled Stark.

The Doctor held his hand up to give him a mock wave and then turned to exit.

“And for god sake, man,” continued Stark, “Stop thinking about Jacarthia. That place is finished. We can’t change it now. Not after all this time.”

The Doctor turned back to him and then turned to leave once more.




The TARDIS was sat on the same hill it had stood on in the other dimension when Bessie pulled up with Faith, Richard, the Doctor and Holly inside her.

Lilly was waiting by the TARDIS with the doors open, the wind gently whipping at her blonde hair. She was eager to get away and she smiled when she saw Holly.

Faith helped Richard out of the car and handed him a holdall.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked him.

“Absolutely sure,” said Richard.

“What’s going on?” asked Lilly, frowning at Richard.

“I’ve asked Richard to come along with us,” said the Doctor, taking his holdall. “To help him clear his head and sort himself out.”

“Thanks again, Doc.”

“Don’t mention it, Mr Hicks.”

“Just call me Richard, eh?”

“Is this wise?” asked Lilly.

“It worked out with me,” said Holly, flashing her a smile.

“He’s not my type though,” said Lilly, flashing Richard a dark look.

“Richard is a guest,” said the Doctor. “I’ll show you around.”

“Wait,” said Faith, walking up to the Doctor. “I never got a chance to say thank you.”

“For what?” asked the Doctor, as Richard hovered near the entrance to the TARDIS.

“For saving us. For stopping us from using Oliver’s bloody satellite dish weapony thing.”

“Don’t mention it, Mrs Crossland.”

Faith leant in and gave him a kiss on his cheek. “If you ever get fed up when the twenty-something lovers and lost middle-aged men have all left you, you know where I am, hey?”

The Doctor smiled. “Your seat’s already reserved, Mrs Crossland.”

She laughed.

“Take care of Bessie as well. I’ll be needing her next time I look in on you and Mr Stark.”

“Will do, sir,” said Faith, saluting him. And then she turned to go. As she got into the drivers seat of Bessie, Faith took out her phone and made a phone call. She waited a few moments and then her face broke into a huge grin,

“Hey, sweetheart, it’s Mummy here. I’ve missed you.” She looked at the Doctor as he guided Richard into the TARDIS. “Yeah, I’ve just realised how much this world means to me. How’s Daddy doing?”




Holly waited until Richard and the Doctor had disappeared into the TARDIS and then turned to Lilly.

“You okay with this?” said Lilly, thumbing back towards the police box.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Holly. “None of it matters. Only here and now. And you.”

Lilly narrowed her and eyes and looked a little bemused. “Beg your pardon, Dangerfield?”

“All that matters is you.” She took Lilly’s hands and looked at her deep, green eyes. “Do you get it?”

Lilly nodded. “Yeah, but, what about Roxy and your family and all the-”

Holly put a finger to her lips. “All that matters is you.”

Lilly didn’t blink as Holly leaned in and kissed her on the lips. For a moment the universe stood still. They could have had an army of Cybermen flying over their heads, yet neither would have noticed. After what seemed like a blissful eternity Holly broke free.

“Do you get it yet?” she asked again

Lilly nodded as she continued to look at Holly. “Yeah, Dangerfield, I get it.”




The Beginning

Elsewhere (Chapter 10)

Chapter 10 (Through the Eye of the Needle)

“I want to see my family,” said Richard Hicks as he sat on the edge of the stretcher in his medical gown and slippers.

“You can’t at the moment,” said Faith, as sympathetically as possible.

“At least tell me they’re alright.”

“They’re fine,” said Faith. “Your wife was very concerned about you.”

“So where are they then?”

Faith scratched her head and bit her lip. She couldn’t tell him the truth. It wasn’t her place to tell him the truth. “They had to be evacuated from the town because of the Kro’Tenk.” She decided to change tack. “Do you remember anything from your time on the other side?”

“No,” said Richard, shaking his head. “Just ash and cloud and burning. I remember arriving in the other Richard’s body and then…I think I lost my hand,” he said, bring his hand up to his face and looking at it with curiosity. “But then everything went black.”

“Well we can only assume that your other self’s body was taken care of and kept safe otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Where am I anyway? Where’s the Doctor?”

Faith looked around her. “It’s a medical facility on the outskirts of your town - well, actually it’s an old factory that my team have done up into a medical facility.”

“But you’re Australian.”

“Oh, jeez, does that mean I’m not allowed here?” said Faith sarcastically.

“No, of course not,” said Richard, smiling at her.

“I work for a group called UNIT: X. We deal with the unexplained. Aliens and all that stuff. We’ve been taking care of you.”

Richard scratched the back of his head. “A few months ago I’d had enough of working on that bloody market stall. Now I can’t wait to get back to it. To get back to Cheryl.”

“Yeah…” said Faith, distantly. “Look, maybe you should get some rest.”

“Look, Miss…?”

“Mrs. Mrs Crossland.”

“Look, Mrs Crossland-”

“Call me Faith though,” she said, holding up a finger.

“Look, Faith, I want to see the Doctor.”

“You can’t see him at the moment. He’s occupied elsewhere.”

“Occupied? With what?”

Faith exhaled. “He’s over in that other world trying to stop them from getting through.”

“What?!” said Richard. There was an explosion from somewhere in the distance. “It sounds as if they’ve already gotten through!”




Elsewhere…




“How do we know this plan hasn’t been tried in the dimension before this?” said Holly, as Ellie Hicks strapped her foot up with a bandage.

“Well, we don’t,” said Aldridge, who was sat at a table with his arms folded, “but we can only hope that it wasn’t. I think the advantage of them occupying each world for 20 years may work on our side.”

“How?”

“Because times change,” said Aldridge, sounding a little frustrated.

“What the Professor means,” said the other Holly from back towards the door, “is that twenty years ago the previous dimension probably didn’t have the twenty-five nuclear warheads under the surface of the Earth.”

“Exactly,” said Aldridge. “The Osterhagen Project.”

“The most despicable thing this planet has done so far,” said the Doctor with a frown. “Well, one of them.”

“So you detonate the nukes and it blows up the planet?” said Holly, a look of revulsion on her face.

“That’s about the size of it,” said Aldridge.

“Not wanting to be a doom merchant here,” said the Doctor, pacing around the table, “but why didn’t you do this before?”

Aldridge looked straight ahead, smiling. “There was always the hope. The hope that we’d find another way.”

Ellie finished bandaging up Holly’s ankle and got to her feet. “As we approached the twenty year mark we knew that we were running out of options. The Kro’Tenk will murder us all no matter what.”

The other Holly nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “So we’ve gotta nuke them before they leave.”

The Doctor stopped pacing. “The Osterhagen stations though-”

“Have already been occupied for some time by our agents,” said Aldridge. “All that remains is for us to send the activation signal.”

“Supposing one of them doesn’t go through with it? What then?” asked Holly.

“The alternative is being killed by the Kro’Tenk,” said Ellie, slumping to the floor. “Plus each station has two people in them.”

“Just in case one chickens out,” said the Doctor, glumly.

“Just in case one chickens out,” confirmed Aldridge. “It’s not ideal, but it’s the only way.”

“Then why didn’t you do it before they opened up their portal?” said the Doctor, rounding on Aldridge. “You could have saved a lot of trouble the other side.”

“Because I needed you to come through.”

“What?”

Aldridge got up and walked into a corner of the basement where a collection of boxes and storage containers were kept. He picked up what looked like a cube wrapped in a dirty, old rag. He handed it to the Doctor and slowly removed the covering. Underneath was a small, metal cube with ornate and intricate markings all over it. Each side contained a circular design.

“What’s that?” asked Holly, peering at the cube.

“My TARDIS,” said Aldridge. “I knew you’d eventually come to try and fix this little problem. I had to wait until you were safely through.”

“Nekram said he destroyed your TARDIS,” said the Doctor.

“He thought he did,” grinned Aldridge.

“It’s a bit small,” said Holly. “How’d you get inside it?”

“It’s in siege mode,” said the Doctor, turning it over and over in his hands. “It’s kind of like the last desperate mode a TARDIS can take if it’s endangered. It’s takes quite a jolt of power to reactivate it.” He looked at Aldridge. “Forgive me, but why would I want your TARDIS?”

“Because of what’s inside it,” said Aldridge.

“Which is?”

The room shook. Brick dust trickled down on Holly’s nose and she sneezed.

“There’s no time,” said Aldridge. “We need to get you back to your TARDIS.”

“Wait,” said the Doctor, as Aldridge snatched the cube from him and wrapped it back up. “You can’t just expect me to take your TARDIS without an explanation. What’s inside it?”

The room shook again and a wooden beam came crashing down, narrowly missing Ellie.

“Ellie,” said Aldridge, pointing towards the young woman, “signal the operators at each Osterhagen station. Get them prepared.”

“Are we absolutely sure about this?” said the other Holly. Holly could sense the desperation - the fear - in her voice.

“There is no other way,” said Aldridge. Holly wasn’t sure, but she may have spotted a tear trickle down from his eye before he turned away and marched towards the staircase.

“Wait!” said the other Holly, “I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t come with us,” said the Doctor, looking back to her.

“Not to your world,” said the other Holly. “Just to…say goodbye.” She swallowed. “Please. I can’t die in here. I want to see my town one last time.”

Aldridge gave a simple nod of his head and then led them all upstairs.




When Faith and Richard reached the town centre they were blocked by UNIT soldiers. The town centre looked like a war zone, but most of the buildings were still intact.

Faith flashed her I.D. to one of the soldiers and he ushered them both through the cordon.

“Sentinel,” said Stark, rushing up to her from behind a Landrover. “What’s Hicks doing here?”

“He insisted,” said Faith. “Sorry, boss.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” said Stark, flashing her an angry glare. He turned to Hicks. “Please, Mr Hicks, you need to return to your hospital bed.”

“What the hell has happened here?” said Richard, completely ignoring Stark. He looked over towards four rows of burnt out market stalls. “Oh my god.”

“Richard, it’s fine,” said Faith, by his side again. “It’s just superficial damage. They’ll rebuild your town.”

“That’s if anyone can stop these things,” said Richard, nodding towards the sky as a rocket grenade flew over their heads and hit a nearby Kro’Tenk who fell to the floor and clattered down, twisted up with it’s burning bike.

“Double Zero has calculated a 48% chance that we will survive-”

“Shut it,” said Richard, pointing to Stark. “I want you to take me to my family now.”

“I can’t,” said Stark.

“Richard, please,” said Faith, putting her hands on his shoulders. “You need to come back with me. At least take shelter behind the safety line.”

“No,” said Richard, shrugging her away. “Where are my wife and kids?” He grabbed Stark by his lapels and pulled him towards him. Stark looked genuinely terrified. “Where is Cheryl?”

Stark held his breath and then swallowed. “They left town.”

“Why?” growled Richard.

“Because…” He looked at Faith who shook her head in disbelief that it’d come to this. “Because she thinks your dead.”

Richard frowned, staggered and dropped Stark, who backed away from him. “What?”

“Officially….you’re dead,” said Stark again.

The last thing he saw was Richard Hick’s fist flying towards his face.




The two Holly’s and the two Doctors had reached the top of the hill where the TARDIS was standing. The smoke had stopped billowing from inside it and it now stood silent and still. The journey up to the top had been pretty uneventful. Most of the Kro’Tenk were too busy coordinating their world-wide escape plans to bother with individuals now.

“I still can’t believe this,” said Holly as she turned back to the site of her town burning in the distance.

“You need to go now,” said Aldridge, handing the covered-up cube to the Doctor. “And keep this safe.”

“I will. I will,” said the Doctor, taking it from him. “Stop worrying.”

Aldridge took one more look at the cube, closed his eyes, kissed his hand and then placed the palm on the cube. “Farewell, old girl.”

“Listen-” started the Doctor.

Aldridge shook his head in frustration. “If you’re about to say that there has to be another way then please don’t, young man.”

“A man has to try,” said the Doctor, giving him a sad smile.

“Go back home. Save your world.” He extended his hand and the Doctor shook it. “I dropped the name Doctor because it soon became apparent that I couldn’t heal this world. This world didn’t need a Doctor any more.”

“I did something similar once, a long time ago,” said the Doctor, smiling sadly at the distant memory. “So where does the name Aldridge come from?”

“Someone I used to know,” he replied. He cleared his throat. “Now come on, you two. Chop-chop, eh?”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

Aldridge smiled.

The Doctor turned to both Holly’s who were both watching the burning town below. “Don’t be too long, eh?”

Holly turned to look at him, nodding silently and then turned back to her counterpart as the Doctor entered the TARDIS.

“You could come with us, you know?”

“Not my world,” said the other Holly.

“Neither is the Doctor’s world,” said Holly. “I mean all the planets and travelling and things, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t belong there.”

“You have a life back there. A life I have never had.”

“You could have a life too. A real, normal life.”

“I could never adjust to a normal life. Not now.” She turned to Holly. “When I was little I had a teddy bear. His name was-”

“Sir Current Eyes.”

The other Holly smiled and then laughed. “That’s right. Well when the world went to crap he was the only thing I could put my trust in. The only thing that I knew would never die. Would never leave me.”

Holly felt sad. She’d given her Sir Current Eyes away to the children’s hospice when she had grown out of teddy bears and childish things.

“Then one day Sir Current Eyes caught on fire and he was gone. Just like that. Became ash and cinder just like this place.” She shook her head. “The only thing I could rely on - put my faith in - was gone. And so was my faith.”

“I’m sorry,” said Holly, putting a hand on her shoulder.

A gentle hum had started up from the TARDIS and Holly noticed Aldridge sat, cross-legged on the hill gazing out to the unknown.

“You need to go,” said the other Holly. “Please.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll be happy knowing you’re out there living a life.”

Holly nodded. “I came here because I wanted to see my granddad, but I realise now that I don’t need to. He was your granddad, not mine. Mine passed away six months ago, but at least I got to share that magical time with him. He’s never coming back, is he?”

The other Holly shook her head.

And then Holly leaned in and gave her alternative self a tight hug.

“Do all that you can to be happy, Holly,” she said. “Fall in love. Save lives. Have fun. You never know when it might all end.”

“Holly!” came the Doctor’s voice from within the TARDIS.

Holly broke away from her other self and tearfully made her way back to the TARDIS. She took one more look at the lonely girl stood on the hill, gave Aldridge a sad, goodbye nod and then disappeared inside the box.

Aldridge turned and watched as the blue box shot up into the air and towards the swirling clouds until it was nothing but a blip against the green glowing portal.

When he was sure it was enough time he crossed over to Holly and put his arm around her and squeezed her tight. Then he put a walkie-talkie to his mouth and cleared his throat.

“Lethbridge-Stewart, when you’re ready, signal the operators at the stations. Activate the Osterhagen Project. Goodnight everyone. Goodnight, Alistair.”




Nekrum was standing over a monitor watching Azure coordinate a number of troops when he felt the ground rumble underneath him. He frowned as the vibrations grew heavier and heavier. Then a huge, quake caused him to fall over, landing hard on his armour-clad back.

There were panicked cries all around him and he looked up as the machine that was generating the dimension beam began to shake.

And then the ground opened up beneath them. There was a huge explosion from somewhere underneath him and the machine tipped and collapsed into the huge, gaping hole in the ground. The beam flickered and fluctuated and then winked out as the machine disappeared into the ground. The portal in the clouds closed up and Nekram shielded his eyes as more explosions erupted around him.

“No,” said Nekram. He got to his feet as buildings and ruins slowly crumbled and disappeared into the ever unstable ground. “Nekram to Azure come -”

But Nekram didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. There was a flash of light and then….nothing.

From space the battered, devastated planet Earth cracked, collapsed in on itself and then disappeared in a flash of pure, white light.

A whole planet full of history, people and life winked out of existence to leave nothing but dust.

To be concluded....

Elsewhere (Chapter 9)

Chapter 9 (The Final Throw)

Our world…




Lilly closed her eyes and ducked her head down as a shower of brick dust landed on top of her. She screwed her eyes tightly shut and crouched as low as she could get to the partially destroyed wall that surrounded the car park.

She could smell burning from somewhere nearby mixed in with the stench of burning flesh. She opened her eyes and lying to her right was one of the UNIT soldiers lying at an awkward angle, part of his face smouldering.

She edged away from him a little. She could hear the panicked cries of the public running away from the carnage that was raining down from above.

The Riders had struck quickly and without mercy. As soon as they had emerged from the clouds they had dived bombed the waiting troops, blasting them with laser bolts and swiping at them with swords and daggers. And then they had dismounted their bike contraptions and had taken to hand-to-hand combat.

When an explosion had gone off nearby she had legged it to the car park, but had been pinned down by laser fire from above. The Kro’Tenk that was firing at her must have gone for a harder challenge as he had flown away to join the other two dozen or so fighters that were attacking the UNIT troops.

“Hold your ground!” she heard Bambera shout over the sound of gunfire. “Aim for the exposed parts!”

“Lilly!”

She turned to see Roxanne running towards her, sheltering her head from the occasional burst of mud or brick dust.

“What are you still doing here?!” yelled Lilly as Roxy reached her and crouched by her side.

“I thought the Doctor was going to stop all this?”

“Clearly he failed.”

Another explosion. Lilly heard Roxy let out a yelp of fear.

“Get out of here!”

“Show me the way, blondie!”

Lilly frowned. Her hand went to her pocket and pulled out her phone. The Doctor was calling her. She answered it and looked up to the sky. “Doctor?”

His voice was very distorted, but she could just make him out. “…doing?…damage there?”

“You’re going to have to say again. The line is bad!”

“What…happening?”

“The Kro’Tenk are happening you silly sod. What happened?”

“…to…stop them. Got a…plan….need Stark.”

“What do you need him to do?”

“Tell…hold…off. Hold…them…”

“Hold them off? Okay, I think it’s a given that they’re already doing that.”

“How’s Holly?” said Roxy, anxiously.

“Shush,” said Lilly. “And what are you going to do?”

“….”

“Doctor?”

“….”

“He’s gone,” said Lilly, cancelling the phone call. “I guess we need to tell Stark to keep them at bay.”

“So you reckon he’s got a plan?” said Roxy, as she half-crouched, half-walked with Lilly across the car park, keeping to the shelter of the wall.

“He’s always got a plan,” said Lilly. She glanced back up at the sky as another Rider zoomed over their head, narrowly missing Lilly with it’s sword. “Let’s just hope it means that they come back from it.”




Elsewhere…




“I cannot advocate you destroying an entire planet,” said the Doctor, shaking his head.

“This isn’t your world,” said Aldridge.

“No, but what gives you the right to decide the fate of billions of people?”

“You should know, as I do, that we make those decisions every single day.” Aldridge got up and walked away, his back to the Doctor. “Every single day, Doctor.”

“But there has to be-”

“There is no other way,” said Aldridge, his voice a little louder than he had intended it to be. “This is not your world. This is mine.”

“Wrong, Aldridge. It’s not your world. Your world is Gallifrey. This place belongs to the Human race.”

“And the Human race have made this decision,” came the other Holly’s voice.

The Doctor turned to face her. She was stood in the doorway, leaning on the door frame with her arms folded.

“Holly-”

“I’m not your Holly,” said the other. “I’m a twisted, bitter version that never got to live her wonderful life.” She walked into the room and picked at some loose brickwork on the wall. “Doctor, if you had lived here and seen everything we had seen….there is no coming back from this for us, but the least you can do is help us to help all the other realities to come.”

The Doctor walked over to the other Holly and looked closely at her. Her face was so different. On the surface it was the same Holly he knew, if a little scarred and dishevelled, but inside was a totally different woman. The woman who had leapt on board the TARDIS a while back was nowhere to be seen behind those eyes.

“Aldridge convinced me - he convinced all of us - that it’s the only way.”

He closed his own eyes and turned away.

“Will you understand?” asked Aldridge softly.

The Doctor turned back to him. His eyes were wet. “A long, long time ago I watched another world die in flames. Another, alternate world.”

“But your world - your reality - survived.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, feeling utterly defeated. “And it was for the good of my world. I stopped the problem from happening in my world.”

“Just as we can all stop this problem now.”

The Doctor shook his head and smiled in defeat. “I never was very good at arguing with myself. I’d always lose one way or the other.”

“Then you will help us?”

The Doctor looked at him. “Tell me your plan.”




Our world…




Lilly and Roxanne had found shelter in the library building. The children’s section was downstairs and it seemed as safe as any place to shelter from the destruction outside. With every explosion and every shout Roxy flinched, holding her knees to her chest.

“It’ll be fine,” said Lilly, who was flicking through a well-read copy of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.

“I’m more worried about Holly,” said Roxanne.

“I know,” said Lilly.

“Come off it, blondie,” said Roxy. “You barely know her.”

“I know her enough,” said Lilly. “I know that I almost lost her a while back.”

“What do you mean?”

Lilly put the book down and turned to face Roxy. “I thought she was dead. Turns out she was put into some kind of deep, alien coma.” Lilly looked away and smiled. “I didn’t realise how much I needed her until then.”

“You have feelings for her, don’t you?” said Roxy.

Lilly nodded. “More than you can imagine. More than I think she knows herself.”

“Listen,” said Roxy, edging a little closer towards Lilly, “Holly’s never had much experience with relationships before. I guess her and I were the complete opposite. But let me give you this advice - if you really do care for her, make sure you’re willing to take it to its final outcome.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not the most stable person, are you?”

Lilly looked angry and then closed her eyes, laughing. “No, I’m not. I lost someone very close to me a while ago. My brother.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be sorry. It was my own, stupid fault.” She straightened herself up. She wasn’t going to go into this with Roxy. She barely knew her. “I don’t want to hurt Holly.”

“Then don’t hurt her. If you really, really trust your feelings for her then go for it. If you don’t…then don’t. Whatever you do don’t destroy her. If you do I‘ll come after you.”

Lilly nodded.

And then there came the sound of gunfire from somewhere outside the building. No, it was in the library foyer. The two girls got to their feet. A shadow was moving about and the sound of struggling men coming from above.

And then they both jumped as one of the UNIT soldiers came rolling down the stairs and landed at the bottom with a deathly thud.

The two girls backed themselves up against the wall as armoured footsteps stepped ominously down the staircase. Emerging into the light of the library was a huge, nine-foot lizard-man - bigger than any they had seen before - wearing black, polished armour and a red, glittering cape. He brandished a huge, broadsword and its muscles rippled under its skin.

“Keep back,” said Lilly.

The lizard turned to face them and raised its sword. “What have we here?” he said, with a deep, almost Russian-accented voice.

“Just a couple of young ladies with no intention of harming you,” said Lilly, worriedly.

The lizard laughed. “Neither one of you could put even the smallest dent in my armour.”

“What’s your name?” asked Lilly, feeling a little braver.

“Captain Leet,” he said, almost bowing to her.

“Well, Captain Leet, I’d very much appreciate it if you could let the two of us go.”

Leet raised his sword and swung it down at the dead UNIT troop, slicing his head clean from his body.

Roxy yelped.

Leet brought the sword to his face, ran his scaly finger down the blade and then licked the blood off his finger. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, young lady.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” said Lilly.

Leet raised his sword again and then began advancing on the two girls. “I’ll make this swift for you two.”

“I’ll make it swift for you as well,” said Lilly.

In one motion she grabbed Roxanne and pushed away out of the way where she landed beside the booking out desk with a thud. Then she leapt out the way of Leet as he swung his sword and slice through all seven Harry Potter books.

Lilly ran behind the bookcase and gave it a shove, causing it to come toppling down, showering the lizard-man with a cascade of children’s books.

Leet fell to the ground under the weight of the book case and Lilly jumped on top of it, pounding her feet across the heavy wood.

“Get out, Roxy!” yelled Lilly.

Roxy didn’t have to be told twice. She got to her feet and began making for the bottom of the staircase, trying her best not to look at the decapitated UNIT soldier.

Leet hefted the bookcase off the top of him and sprung to his feet angrily. “I will crush you, Human!”

Lilly span around. She was holding the UNIT soldiers discarded rifle. “I’m not a Human.”

He raised his sword and she shot at him, but she didn’t shoot at his armour. Instead she shot at his sword, which flew out of his hand and clattered to the floor a few feet away.

Leet went for the fallen sword, but Lilly was much more lighter on her feet and leapt to it, grabbing it and hefting it up. It was heavy, but she used all of her anger and might to lift it.

“It is too heavy for you, Human.”

“I’m already told you, Kro’Tenk, that I’m not Human.”

Leet dived for her, but Lilly swung the sword, hitting Leet on the arm. It didn’t hurt him, but it was enough to throw him off balance. Lilly grabbed the riffle again and shot a few more rounds at Leet, knocking him back further before he tripped backwards over the fallen bookcase and landed on his back.

Lilly saw her chance and leapt on top of Leet. His neck was exposed between his breastplate and helmet. She raised the sword as high as she could and thrust it into his neck. Leet screamed in agony and the sword dug deeper and deeper. Thick, blue blood gushed and spurted from the deep gash, covering Lilly in it. But she didn’t relent. She continued to push the sword down and down until Leet’s head was almost severed from his body.

When Leet finally stopped writhing she stopped herself. She remained crouched there for a good few minutes, panting heavily, blue blood and sweat dripping from her.

And then she relaxed. “I’m not Human. I’m Gallifreyan.”

She collapsed to the ground and let the blood-soaked sword fall to the side. She turned her head and standing there, fear across her face at the top of the stairs, was Roxanne. She shook her head and then quickly ran away as fast as she could.

To be continued...

Elsewhere (Chapter 8)

Chapter 8 (The First Strike)

Our world…




She sighed as her jeep rolled up and parked beside the office block. She shook her head as she watched Stark and his two minions setting up their over-complicated science equipment.

She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of worried voices outside as members of the public looked on at the swirling clouds above their town. She had considered retirement last year, but in reality she wasn’t sure if she was ready to give it up yet. Her children had grown up and left home and her husband was happy to spend his days building things in the garden, but she wasn’t ready to leave this life yet.

The life of a UNIT soldier.

But recent years had caused her to rethink that. UNIT wasn’t the same organisation it had been when she had first joined. Back then it had been very straightforward. UNIT would deal with alien incursions. There was no splinter group and, even though Torchwood was around back then, it was very much an underground operation.

Now things weren’t so straight forward. Back in Lethbridge-Stewarts day there was a simple order of things. He would be in command of operations, assisted by the Doctor. That was it.

She had no control over Stark or his team. His so-called UNIT: X.

She sighed again and opened the door. She holstered her sidearm and marched up to the flatbed truck where the giant satellite dish sat.

Stark turned to face her and smiled at her. “Brigadier Bambera,” he nodded.

“Stark,” she said, looking up at the dish. “Is it true what command are telling me?”

“About the dish? Yes, it is.”

The blonde woman, Crossland, turned to face her and smiled. She was a nice woman, but she was still one of them. “We’re hoping it’s a last resort.”

“I would hope, Mrs Crossland, that any plan that involves the destruction of an entire world is a last resort.”

“If it comes to it, Winifred,” said Stark (she hated him using her first name), “then the protection of this universe is paramount.”

“Indeed it is, Roger, but I understand the Doctor has gone through to the other side?”

“Bloody nutter if you ask me,” said Osborne, as he clambered down from the truck.

The clouds flared white and there were the sounds of screams. Bambera turned to face some of the UNIT soldiers who were busy gazing up at the spectacle. “Alright, you lot. We need to clear this area of civilians now.” They looked at her gone out. “Come on, move!”

The soldiers began to scramble, shepherding the members of the public out of the immediate area.

“You don’t have them very well trained,” said Bambera.

Stark smiled. “I do appreciate you loaning me my own platoon,” said Roger, as he checked his watch, “but I’m not a soldier.”

“You’re still their commanding officer, Stark,” said Bambera, as she gazed up at the sky worriedly. She then noticed two people out of the corner of her eye. A blonde girl with big, green eyes and a curly haired girl. The pair of them were right under the swirling clouds.

“You two!” barked Bambera, “Back behind the cordon.”

“Ah, these two ladies are friends of the Doctors,” said Stark.

Lilly and Roxy made their way over to the group.

“Is there no word from the Doctor yet? Hasn’t he even attempted to make contact?” asked Lilly.

“For all we know he may be dead,” said Faith, sadly.

“Not the Doctor,” said Stark, shaking his head. “You can’t get rid of him that easily.”

There was a crack of thunder and all of their faces turned towards the clouds. Bambera narrowed her eyes as a number of small, black dots appeared in the sky. They appeared to be coming from a small gap in the clouds - and they were moving.

As the dots moved closer she realised they weren’t dots at all. They were shapes. Humanoid shapes on flying devices. Her hand instinctively went to her pistol.

“Oh, bollocks,” said Osborne, “they’re here.”

“You’re not kidding,” said Faith, edging a little closer to him.

“I suggest you start coordinating my troops, Brigadier,” said Stark.

“Oh, shame,” said Bambera, as the first strike began.







Elsewhere…




Holly had never heard an explosion so big in her life. Even after travelling with the Doctor for the last few weeks she hadn’t heard anything as loud as this. She was thrown to the floor by a loud shockwave and landed flat on her back in the wet mud mixed with ash.

She could hear the sound of voices and squelching, running footsteps.

She felt the Doctor grab for her hand and haul her to her feet. As she found herself being dragged along she looked around her. The whole area was in disarray. Bodies of Kro’Tenk lay around, whilst others mobilised themselves for another attack. Near to the device that was creating the beam of light was a huge plume of smoke and flames.

Her vision was blurred as she found herself being half-dragged towards a line of Human-looking soldiers, and standing there, in the middle of them all, was an old-looking man with a deep-lined faced and grey, dirty hair that hung lankly down the sides of his face.

“Come on,” said the man, beckoning them forward.

The Doctor pushed Holly forward to the relative safety of the mass group of people.

“Fall back, fellas,” said the old man, as he helped the Doctor and Holly through the group of soldiers and through the back of them. “Can you both run?”

“I can carry Holly,” said the Doctor, hefting her to her feet and carrying her in his arms. “You’re heavier than you look!”

“Watch it, Doc,” said Holly.

“Fall back. Fall back!” shouted the man.

There were a few more explosions - covering fire as well - as the group headed into the ruined streets of her town. She felt a twang of heartache when she saw the building that - in her world at least - housed the Old Fat Cat. The building was converted from a furniture shop in the late 90’s, but here it was still the blasted out remains of the furniture shop. It had never had the opportunity to become her favourite pub.

After she was carried for what seemed like ages they finally entered a building and descended some stairs. She realised that their group had thinned out somewhat. She’d seen some of the soldiers filtering off into other streets and buildings. They moved more safely in less numbers.

Eventually they reached a basement room and the Doctor settled Holly down on a chair.

“Oh, my arms,” said the Doctor, spinning both arms around in circular motions.

“I told you to watch it!” said Holly, not being entirely angry with him.

“So,” came a voice that sounded spookily like her own, “that’s what I look like without my scar.”

Holly had never experienced anything like this before. Standing on the other side of the room in dirt overalls and short hair tied into a small ponytail was a battered, blackened version of herself, complete with a large scar running down the side of her face.

“Doctor…” said Holly, feeling a little uneasy at coming face to face with herself.

“You’re okay, Miss Dangerfield,” came the voice of the old man as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

“It was bound to crop up eventually,” said the Doctor, looking at the old man.

The other Holly stepped forward and then crouched down in front of her, eyeing her up and shaking her head in disbelief.

“Nice to meet you…I think,” said Holly, extending her hand.

“Won’t the universe blow up or something?” said the other Holly, not willing to touch her other self.

“I think we’re safe,” said the old man.

“Although your world looks like it’s already on the way out,” said the Doctor.

The old man nodded. “Sadly.”

“You must be Professor Aldridge,” said the Doctor, shaking the mans hand.

“The very one.” Aldridge smiled. “And you are the Doctor.”

“Yes,” smiled the Doctor, “but that’s no surprise to you, is it?”

“So you figured it out, did you?”

“Well, when Nekram began talking about blue boxes already being here, it didn’t take me long to put the puzzle together.”

“He’s you, isn’t he?” said Holly. “An alternate version of you?”

“Indeed I am, Miss Dangerfield,” said Aldridge. “An older and much wiser version of you. A version who needs you to go back to your own world.”

“We need to find a way to defeat the Kro’Tenk first,” said the Doctor.

Aldridge smiled and closed his eyes. “Follow me, young man.”

Holly watched as the two versions of the Doctor exited the room. Her alternate self was still crouched down in front of her. She’d been watching her like a hawk when she finally smiled at her. Her teeth were yellow and the scar creased under the strain of her smile.

“You’re so pretty,” she said, touching Holly’s face.

“I’m sorry,” said Holly.

“What for? For this?” said her other self, pointing at the large scar. “Got this when I was a little girl. A piece of metal just sliced through my face like butter. It’s been there for my whole life. Like a friend, I guess.”

“This shouldn’t have happened to you.”

“No,” said her other self. She got up off her haunches and turned away from her, “but then it was always destined to happen.” She turned back to her. “And it’ll happen to you too.”

“Not if we can stop it.”

“That’s what Aldridge says,” said her other self, “but who knows?”

“Is any of your family still alive?”

The other Holly looked sad and looked away. “No. They all died.”

“All of them?”

“All but granddad, but he’s dying anyway.”

Holly felt her heart break. “How?”

“It’s this world. He can’t hang on any longer. Losing Agatha was what did it to him.”

Holly nodded. She remembered the vision she had had back when her mind had been invaded by Uncle Joe. She had seen Agatha badly injured and dying.

“I’d very much like to meet him.”

The other Holly turned to face her and shook her head. “This is not your world.”

“I know, but-”

“But nothing,” said the other Holly. “This is not your world.”




Aldridge sat the Doctor down on a battered metal chair and handed him some weak-looking tea. He went into his brown, tweed jacket and pulled out a single sugar cube. He tapped his nose, smiled cheekily and then dropped it into the Doctor’s mug.

“Thank you,” said the Doctor, “but I don’t take sugar in my tea.”

“Oh,” said Aldridge. “Well what a waste!”

“We need to try and convince the Kro’Tenk to stop their invasion.”

“Goodness me!” mocked Aldridge. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Well you don’t seem to be doing a good job of stopping them.”

Aldridge straightened himself up. “Shall I tell you a little story, young man? Twenty years ago this planet was invaded by the Kro’Tenk. I was enjoying an ice-cream with a friend - Katy her name was - when the skies opened up and the Riders came. The Time Lords tried to get me to leave. They told me that this version of Earth was next on their list and there was nothing we could do to stop them. We had to let it happen and think ourselves lucky that they only invaded Earth.”

“But you stayed?”

“Yes. Even after Katy was vaporised by them. I stayed. And why? You know the answer to that.”

“Because we have always protected this planet.”

“Exactly.” He had a swig of his own tea. “And I have spent twenty years protecting the planet, but nothing we have ever tried to do has stopped them. Nothing.”

“And so you’re just going to let them take over my world as well?” The Doctor shook his head.

Aldridge sighed. “Doctor, do you know how many friends I have lost trying to stop them? Trying to stop them crossing to the next reality? You don’t even recognise this face.”

The Doctor didn’t answer him, but instead looked away.

“When the Kro’Tenk leaves this world they will nuke it. They will kill everyone here.”

“That’s no reason to give up.”

“I never said I had given up,” said Aldridge, becoming frustrated with the Doctor. “In fact, when this planet goes nuclear, I’m going to make sure they are stuck on this world when it happens.”

To be continued...

Elsewhere (Chapter 7)

Chapter 7 (Aldridge)

“Some people - not the people of Earth - would question why I have stayed here. Why I have helped the people of Earth with such an impossible task. The answer? It’s because I believed it was the right thing to do.”

“Do you still believe that?” said Ellie as she took a sip of her tepid tea.

“I firmly believe that, Ellie,” said Aldridge, copying her as he drunk his own tea. He looked down at the wishy-washy liquid and frowned. “This is awful.”

“It is,” laughed Ellie.

Aldridge looked up at the low-hanging concrete beams that lined the ceiling and sighed. “Basement 5 has been m home for nearly 20 years now. I’m going to miss it.”

“Really?” laughed Ellie. “Miss this?”

Aldridge managed a weak smile. “I’ll miss you. I’ll miss your brother.”

A metal door scraped open and Holly walked down a small, stone staircase, her hair tied up and her face as grubby as ever. “Mothers meeting?”

“Come and join us, Miss Dangerfield.”

“Just call me Holly,” she replied, checking her rifle was loaded and then putting it down on a battered, metal put-up table. “How’s your brother?” she said, turning to Ellie.

“Delirious, but alive,” said Ellie, sadly. “I suppose we must be thankful of that.”

“Professor Loopy here’s gonna blow us all to kingdom come so why should you care about your brother?”

“I’m not going to blow you all to kingdom come,” said the man, sweeping his sweaty, grey hair back and scratching his nose.

“You said that you and committee-”

“We’re going to shut down their machines.”

“And blow us all to kingdom come,” said Holly.

“Aldridge shook his head.” The Kro’Tenk will send an advance guard through, but the majority of them will stay here until the last minute. We launch a coordinated attack on each of their machines and shut them down. Trap them here.”

“And we have to live the rest of our lives under their rule,” said Holly, shaking her head in disbelief.

“No,” said Aldridge, “then we blow ourselves to kingdom come. The Kro’Tenk won’t launch their nukes with them trapped here.”

“That’s when we attack and do it ourselves.”

“But it’s suicide.”

“The Kro’Tenk will never settle. They’ll never rest until they get their machines operational again. The only way to stop them is to destroy this planet with them on it.”

“But we’ll die!” spat Holly.

“But all the alternate dimensions to come after us will survive.”

Holly shook her head and grabbed her gun. “There has to be another way,” she said, turning her back on them.

“There isn’t,” said Ellie. “Trust Professor Aldridge. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Thank you for your confidence, Ellie.” Aldridge drained the last of his tea and then cleared his throat. “I have been over and over different plans with the committee and we have found no other way of stopping them.” He got up from his chair and looked into the distance. “I used to travel this universe. I used to visit this planet regularly. But then the Kro’Tenk came through and when I realised my own people weren’t going to help…well, I’ve always been this planets protector. I will continue to protect you until the very end.”




The Doctor and Holly had been marched down the hill towards the town centre. Holly tried hard not to think about it, but she couldn’t resist looking at the place she knew so well reduced to rubble. She knew the streets of Huxley like the back of her hand, but here she couldn’t tell you where they were anymore. It was all such a ruined mess.

It wasn’t her world.

Holly had struggled to walk on her bad ankle, but so far she had made it. Just.

Every time they slowed down Azure would bark at them to continue walking until they reached a clearing in what she assumed used to be the town centre. Here stood a huge, built up metal cauldron-like device with cables and wires snaking from it into the ground. It stood about fifty-foot high and the green beam continually erupted from it. It was about 200 feet in diameter and Holly could feel the heat coming from it.

Up above the sky-bikes were circling still.

“Impressive,” said the Doctor. “Most impressive.”

Azure pushed him forward. “You will remain silent.”

“I’ve been silent for the last thirty minutes. I don’t intend to be silent any longer.”

“You will do as the Lieutenant Azure commands,” came a deeper, more smoother voice.

Standing to their side, wearing gold armour, was another, larger lizard with grey scaly skin. He flexed his muscles and brandished an axe.

“Commander Nekram?” asked the Doctor, extending his hand again.

Once again, the Kro’Tenk ignored it. “You’re correct. And you are?”

“Just call me the Doctor. And this my friend, Holly Dangerfield.”

Holly smiled inwardly. At least he still considered her a friend.

“Azure reports that you are a Time Lord.”

“And that you have a Time Lord in this dimension as well,” said the Doctor. He wasn’t willing to let Nekram ask all the questions.

“Aldridge came here not long after we did,” said Nekram, circling the pair of them as Azure stepped back. “He came in a box similar to yours. A blue box.”

“And where’s his box now?”

“Gone. We destroyed it.”

“Do you do nothing but destroy?” said the Doctor, angrily.

“It is the way we are. It is what we have always done.”

“But why?” said Holly, managing to find her voice. “Why would you just go from dimension to dimension draining it?”

“Because it is what we have always done,” repeated Nekram.

“You can’t even remember why you do it.”

“We have done this for countless millennia. Across infinite universes and dimensions. Our reasons are lost in the mists of time.”

“And you never stop to consider?” continued the Doctor. “You never even stop to question why?”

“Why would we? It is what we have always done.”

The Doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You realise that I have to stop you now.”

“Aldridge and his precious committee has tried for 20 years to stop us. He hasn’t succeeded.”

“I’d quite like to meet this Aldridge. Why would he come here? To Huxley?”

“Your names mean nothing to me.”

The beam of light flared causing Azure and Nekram to look up to the sky.

“Not long now, commander,” said Azure.

“So you travel from dimension to dimension, sucking the planet dry, stealing all their resources and then , after 20 years, you move on.”

“Correct.”

The Doctor looked up as a number of huge cargo-like ships began to head their way. “And what do you do with these resources.”

“Stock pile,” said Nekram, nodding at the ships as they passed overhead.

“Stock pile for what?” said the Doctor, exasperated.

“For our future.”

“What future?” said the Doctor. He almost sounded sad for them. “A future that you’ve forgotten about? A future that may never come? What?”

“We do not know,” said Nekram, becoming angry with the Doctor. “It is what we have always done. We build more cauldron’s to travel from here to there.”

“You have to break the cycle, Nekram.”

Nekram broke into a wide smile. “Aldridge spoke of the same things you do.”

“Then Aldridge sounds like a very clever man.”

“Even he has given up,” said Azure.

“Doctor, are you okay?” said Holly.

“No I’m not!” he said, turning to face her. “Do you not realise how sad this is? Their entire race has forgotten why they are doing this, but instead of just stopping they’re continuing just because they know nothing else. It’s so…sad!”

Nekram frowned. “You pity us?”

“I do,” said the Doctor. “I pity all of you.”

“Maybe there’s something in the book of darkness that can help,” offered Holly, rubbing her bad ankle.

“All that Visquis transferred to Corrinas was all that he knew, which was about as much use as the information Laurel and Hardy have here.” He shook his head. “I’ll stop you, you know.”

Azure drew his sword again.

“There is no time for this,” said Nekram. “Azure, prepare the first wave. The Riders must be ready to strike.”

“I have friends on the other side that are ready for you,” said the Doctor, suddenly realising he was running out of time.

“And I have people who will kill your friends,” grinned Nekram. “What a wonderful world we all live in.”

To be continued...

Elsewhere (Chapter 6)

Chapter 6 (The Bridge)

“Why aren’t we going to see Roxy?” asked Holly as the Doctor parked up Bessie down a small alleyway a little way off from the town centre.

“You two are,” said the Doctor, as he stopped the engine and took out his TARDIS key.

“And you?”

“I’m going up to that thing,” said the Doctor, pointing back towards the swirling clouds above him.

“On your own?!” said Lilly, horrified. “Why?”

“I need to slip through to their world before they destroy it. I need some kind of idea. Some clue,” he said, unlocking the TARDIS.

“We’re coming with you,” said Holly.

“No,” said the Doctor, holding up a finger. “I can’t endanger the pair of you.”

“Then at least take me,” said Lilly.

“If you go then I go,” said Holly.

“Neither of you are going,” said the Doctor. “You need to stay here and make sure Roxy and your family are safe.”

“But, Doctor-”

“No,” said the Doctor, sternly. “Lilly, you can drive. Go start up Bessie. Get to Roxy. Holly, go with her.”

He unlocked the door as Lilly ran back to Bessie and got inside her.

Holly watched Lilly as she started the engine and then turned back to the Doctor as he disappeared inside the box and shut the doors.

“Come on, Dangerfield!” shouted Lilly. “He’ll be absolutely fine.”

“I can’t,” said Holly, scarcely believing herself. “I need to go and see.”

“What?!” said Lilly, over Bessie’s engine. “See what?”

“My granddad.”

“Holly, no!”

Holly turned, put her key in the TARDIS door just as the engines started and pushed her way inside. Lilly jumped out of Bessie and ran towards the TARDIS just as the blue box vanished.

She looked up to the sky, almost hoping to see the box somewhere, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“Holly, what are you playing at?” she said to herself.




The Doctor was staring at Holly, his face a picture of fury. Holly shuffled uncomfortably and stepped back a little to the doors.

“I’m sorry,” said Holly, quietly.

“How dare you disobey me,” said the Doctor. “You are a guest on board this ship. When I give an order I expect them to be followed.”

“I just…I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“No you didn’t” said the Doctor. She’d never heard him so angry before. “You wanted to come and see your granddad.”

“When I was at his grave all that time ago the earth moved beneath me. That means his alternate self is alive.”

“He’s not the same man, Holly,” said the Doctor, shaking his head and turning back to the controls.

“I know, but…”

“He’s not the same man!” he shouted, turning back to her. “It’s an alternate dimension. It’s not this place. You’d be better off just going and looking at a picture of him. That’d be more true to the man he was.”

“But don’t you wish-”

“Don’t I wish what? That I could go through to this world and see an alternate version of Caleb?” The Doctor shook his head. “Even if I thought I wanted to I couldn’t. That world is so very different from ours. I may not even exist in that dimension.” The Doctor looked upset with Holly, but relaxed a little. “Believe me I can understand how you feel. Imagine how I feel having a time machine and not being able to use it to save the people I care about. But there are some rules that have to be obeyed. I’ve learnt my lesson before. Help, but don’t interfere. Don’t change things. Become a part of it. Don’t change things to fit you.”

“That’s where we differ, Doctor. You have this magnificent machine. You should take advantage of that.”

“And that, my dear Miss Dangerfield, is why you won’t be coming on any more trips with me.”

“Maybe you should ask Lilly how she feels about that,” said Holly.

The Doctor turned back to Holly and walked over to her. For the first time ever she felt scared of him. “Lilly is not your responsibility. She stays with me until she’s better.”

“She’s better with me,” said Holly, “not with you.” Holly swallowed. “She’d be better off staying back on Earth with me.”

“She needs to be on the TARDIS where she’s safe.”

“You mean so you don’t feel alone? That’s the only reason. You’re frightened of being alone.”

The Doctor frowned, but there wasn’t time to reply. The TARDIS lurched violently forward, knocking Holly off her feet.

The Doctor raced to the console and flicked on the scanner. The screen only showed the swirling clouds of the vortex created by the Kro’Tenk.

“It’s too late to take you back now,” said the Doctor. The TARDIS continued to rumble and shake. “We’re caught in the updraft. We’re getting sucked it!”

The TARDIS shook again and Holly held on for dear life as the TARDIS was drawn up into the epicentre of the swirling clouds.

And the all the lights went out.




Lilly parked up Bessie in a car park outside a Tesco Express and stopped the engine. She sat there for a moment, staring ahead at the back of the building. A little old man was walking to his mobility scooter struggling with four bags of heavy shopping. He looked at her with hopeful eyes, but when she didn’t acknowledge him he sighed and continued his struggled walk to his vehicle.

She sighed and looked down at her hands. She didn’t know what to think. Usually it would have been her that would have tried to follow the Doctor, but something about Holly was making her want to stay here. She cared for her.

So why didn’t Holly care for her then?

Lilly shook those thoughts out of her head. Of course Holly cared, but there was always the loss of her granddad that was there at the back of her head. Holly needed to get this all straight in her head first before she could have any kind of relationship with Lilly.

Relationship….was that really what Lilly was after?

“Lilly?” came Roxy’s voice from across the car park.

Lilly looked up at her and managed a smile. “Hey, Roxanne.”

“Where’s Holly and the Doctor?” she said, looking around her.

“They both went on a bloody suicide mission into that thing up there,” said Lilly, pointing towards the swirling clouds.

“They’re insane,” said Roxy. “What the hell is Holly playing at?”

“You tell me,” said Lilly. She slumped back in the seat of the car and shook her head. “We may never see them again.”




Elsewhere…




When Holly opened her eyes she was face-down in wet, black mud. Her clothes were soaking wet and her ankle hurt. She turned onto her back. The TARDIS was a few feet away from her, its blue paintwork scorched black and steam rising from it. The doors were open and smoke was billowing out. The Doctor emerged from the box, wafting the smoke away and coughing, trying to clear his lungs.

“You alright?” he said, noticing that she was awake.

“What happened?” she said, sitting herself up.

She was sat on a blackened, ash-covered hill. In the distance was the ruins of Huxley and a beam of green light shooting up from the centre of it and creating the swirling mass in the sky above. She remembered this place from what she had seen in her visions before. It didn’t feel real then, but it felt too real now.

She shivered and pulled her arms around herself.

“We got dragged in and when we emerged on the other side I managed to steer the TARDIS away from the beam. The console’s overheated and is going to take a few hours to cool down before we can set off again.”

“My ankles hurting,” she said, rubbing at her red, right ankle.

“Yes, in my haste to get you out of harms way I may have thrown you further than I intended to do.” He crouched down beside her and began feeling her ankle. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. She hadn’t forgotten their argument on board the TARDIS.

“This place is a ruin,” said the Doctor, looking around him. “What a horrible world to live in.”

“It hardly seems real,” said Holly, looking across the vista with sad eyes. “The air’s so…I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like there is any air.”

“It’s the ash,” said the Doctor, grabbing a handful of the black-grey matter and letting it drop through his fingers. The Doctor got to his feet and ran his hand through his hair. “We need to get to the beam of light. That’s where the Kro’Tenk are channelling their energies.”

“So there’s all of those across the entire planet?” asked Holly, trying to get up and collapsing back to the ground.

“That’s right,” said the Doctor. “And they’re not far off getting ready to go through.” He pointed towards the beams. A number of Kro’Tenk were in the distance, riding their bikes and circling the beam as if waiting for the signal to go through. “You’re not well enough to walk. You’ll have to wait here.”

“I need to come with you.”

“It’s not safe.”

“Neither is staying here,” said Holly, raising his voice.

“Your friend is right,” came a gravely, rasping voice.

The Doctor span around and Holly craned her neck to look. Standing there was an eight-foot lizard-man dressed in dull, grey armour tied tightly onto it’s body with leather straps. On it’s head there sat a battered, metal helmet and it’s yellow eyes looked out through a visor.

“You must be one of the Kro’Tenk,” said the Doctor, cautiously edging forward and holding out a hand.

The Kro’Tenk looked down at the hand and drew his sword.

The Doctor pulled his hand away quickly. “There’s no need for that, chief.”

“You came through the bridge,” said the lizard-man. “You came from the other side. I was sent to investigate.”

“Indeed I did.”

“How? In this box?” it said, walking to the dirty-looking TARDIS and running his hand over the surface. “It feels….different.”

“It’s alive,” said the Doctor. “Do you know what I am?”

The lizard turned back to the Doctor. “It matters not.”

“I’m a Time Lord,” said the Doctor. “I don’t know if you have them in this universe, but I come form the planet Gallifrey.”

The Kro’Tenk’s eyes narrowed. “We do not concern ourselves with off-worlders. All we are bothered about is-”

“The conquest of innocents?” said Holly.

The Kro’Tenk looked down at her. “You are familiar.”

“Stay away from her,” said the Doctor.

The Kro’Tenk went to his side radio and spoke into it. “This is Azure. I have found the intruders. One is a young woman. The other is a man I haven’t seen before. He claims to be another Time Lord.”

“Another Time Lord?” queried the Doctor. “So you do have them this side.”

“Bring them to the departure area,” came a crackling voice on the other side of the radio. “We cannot delay for much longer.”

“Yes, Nekram.”

“Azure…that’s a nice name,” said the Doctor, smiling at the lizard.

Azure pointed his sword at the Doctor. “You will come with me.”

“Holly isn’t well enough to move,” said the Doctor.

Holly smiled sheepishly and rubbed her ankle.

“Then she will die now.”

“No, wait!” said the Doctor, leaping in front of her, his hands held up in defiance. “There’s no need for that.”

“She is injured.”

“And if I’m not mistaken you’re about to depart this dimension and destroy everything, right?”

“That is correct,” said Azure, edging a little closer to the Doctor.

“Then what do you want with us anyway?” asked the Doctor. “Why are you bothered about taking us down to the departure area?”

“Because Command Nekram ordered it.”

“But why? Why did Nekram order it?”

Azure continued to stare at the Doctor, his eyes bright-yellow. “Because we believe the other Time Lord is going to try and stop us.”

“So you do have another Time Lord here. One from this dimension I presume?”

“Do you think it’s the Master?” said Holly, trying to get to her feet again.

“No,” said the Doctor. “I don’t think the Master is involved this time.” The Doctor lowered his hands. “Who is he?”

“He calls himself Aldridge. Professor Aldridge, and he came to our world in a box identical to this one.”

To be continued...