He lay down on the floor and tried to work out what the Daleks were up to. ‘There’s always something nasty in the woodshed,’ he muttered.
The Dalek ship made several stops. Every time it did, the Doctor emerged, trying to work out more of what was going on. Sometimes, at the end of a corridor he wasn’t allowed down, he would hear screaming. He tried asking the Strategist about this. He received no answer. He tried finding someone to angrily protest to, but none of them listened. From that point on, he started lurking near the bridge whenever he detected a change in the engines. He was going to put a stop to this.
And he slipped aboard the Coffin Ship when the Daleks attacked it.
When the attack came, it was brutal. The Ninth Doctor had built up, if not a rapport, then at least an uneasy awkward silence with the undead inhabitants of the Coffin Ship. Madam Ikalla spent hours every day instructing him patiently in the careful courtly rituals of the undead, and the Doctor spent at least as long rolling his eyes.
‘Of course, it is second nature for me,’ she explained proudly. ‘I am the only true vampire on board.’
She’d kept that from him initially, probably wondering if he’d reach for the garlic ciabatta. She then started explaining the hierarchies to him, but it seemed as though each Coffin Ship was managed by a vampire ‘as we are the only beings the undead happily take orders from’.
‘We’ll see about that,’ the Ninth Doctor said and paid more attention to her lessons.
Then he went for a walk to think of a solution – somewhere in this universe there had to be a planet where the Free Undead could settle down without harm. As he was mulling this, the explosions started, and the corridors of the Coffin Ship started to buckle like a gothic submarine.
As ever, the Ninth Doctor was running towards the screams when a hand landed on his shoulder.
Aboard the besieged Coffin Ship, surrounded by screams and gunfire, the Eighth and Ninth Doctors stared at each other.
‘Right,’ they both said.
‘You’re rescuing me?’
The Eighth Doctor nodded. He was holding a spider plant.
‘And the Daleks?’
‘Already warned the crew – look out the window, you’ll see some escape pods.’
The Ninth Doctor looked. A large flotilla of boxes that were, well, coffin-shaped slid past.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You’ve just saved the vampires from the Daleks.’
‘I was hoping you weren’t going to say that out loud. Listen –’ the Eighth Doctor put down the plant, hooked his hands in his waistcoat and assumed a casual air – ‘My TARDIS is tied up. Is there any chance of a lift?’
‘Hang on. I thought you were rescuing me.’
‘It’s a flexible plan.’
‘Doctor!’ said Brian, in quiet delight. ‘You’ve found yourself!’
The Tenth Doctor ignored his other selves and ran towards the cage. Kneeling down, he reached out a hand to rest lightly upon the undead flesh. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
The vampire – registering the touch, the voice, the uncustomary kindness – turned sightless eyes towards him. Through cracked lips, she whispered, ‘End this … End this …’
The Tenth Doctor grasped her hand. Eyes blazing, he turned on the Brokers. ‘What have you done to her?’
The Broker replied, its voice cool and amused. ‘You wish to defeat the undead warriors. We found this one in space and have been studying her—’
‘Torturing her!’
By now, the other Doctors had joined him. Three sonic screwdrivers activated in a harmony of hums. The cage door popped open. The chains fell apart. The Ninth Doctor caught her before she toppled onto the ground.
‘Madam Ikalla!’ he cried.
She shrugged him away.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘I have been captured and disgraced.’ She struggled to stand. ‘What is mere agony to that?’
‘OK, fair do’s, only asking.’
‘What are you doing?’ the Brokers screeched. ‘We did not give you permission to inspect the merchandise!’
‘Hush for a moment!’ The Tenth Doctor dismissed them and regarded his other selves carefully. ‘Did you come here for me or the vampire?’
‘The Vampire.’ The Ninth Doctor didn’t look up from projecting healing vibrations over Madam Ikalla’s ruptured skin. ‘We don’t bother with lost causes.’
The Eighth Doctor said quietly, ‘History’s a mess. Time’s been disrupted! We’ve got to sort it out. Together.’
‘But I don’t want to sort it out,’ said his future self. ‘I’ve defeated Death!’
‘Can’t be done,’ said the Ninth Doctor crisply.
‘Neither can alliances with Daleks,’ the Tenth shot back bitterly. ‘Oh! Wait! Turns out I’ve only gone and done that!’
‘Extenuating circumstances,’ said the Eighth, his voice clipped.
From behind them, Brian said, to nobody in particular, ‘I have found, over the years, that extenuating circumstances make a good all-purpose defence for any number of actions.’
The Eighth Doctor glanced over at the Ood and blinked. ‘I’ve met him later. I didn’t trust him.’
The vampire let out a shuddering sigh.
‘We’re done here,’ said the Ninth Doctor. He picked up the spider plant and led Madam Ikalla to the door.
“Hey,” said the Eighth Doctor. “That’s my—”
‘Enough!’ boomed the Broker. ‘You do not leave without paying. This is a pureblood vampire. A rarity! She will cost you.’
Their servants rushed forwards to block the exit.
‘Interesting,’ said the Ninth Doctor. ‘Looks like we’ll have to fight our way out.’
‘Or,’ offered the Tenth Doctor, ‘we could ask Brian to kill them.’
‘An assassin for a companion,’ the Eighth Doctor mused. ‘I can’t think why I didn’t try that before. Oh. Wait. Yes, I can.’
Before any of them could reply, cries of alarm echoed in the ironclad darkness. Bells tolled. Heavy footsteps, running, thudded against the ground. With a crank of chains and a grind of gears, the doors ahead of them began to close. Orders were yelled: ‘Protect the masters! Protect the masters!’
Before the doors could close, there was a blast of terrible gunfire and they exploded in a shrapnel spray of molten steel. The servants fell back, screaming. Behind them, the Brokers were rising from their seats.
‘Exterminate! Exterminate!’
Four Dalek Drones – plain, functional, and very deadly – filed into the room, weapons blazing. The deadly fire ripped through the slaves, searing pale flesh to an agony of translucence. The Tenth Doctor turned to the Eighth, shooting him a furious look. ‘Did you invite them?’
‘Course I didn’t.’
‘Betrayed by Daleks.’ The Ninth Doctor shook his head. ‘Saw that one coming.’
Two Dalek Drones powered towards them.
‘Doctors! Halt! Surrender the target. You are now prisoners of the Daleks!’
Chapter Five
Three Time Lords independently assessed their situation.
‘Plan?’ asked the Eighth.
The Tenth licked one of the vast columns stretching into the darkness. ‘Pure cast iron.’
‘Showy but terrible with sonic resonance,’ the Ninth said, managing to aim his sonic screwdriver while while chivvying along Madam Ikalla with a plant.
‘Surrender or you will be exterminated!’
Three sonics were lifted up and, in unison, fired at different parts of the room, which echoed like a church bell in a storm. Dalek eyestalks swung upwards, registering their peril.
‘Danger! Danger!’
‘Complete the mission! Do not be deterred! Proceed towards the target!’
‘Who’s the target?’ said the Tenth Doctor. ‘Are we the target?’
‘It’s me,’ hissed Madam Ikalla.
The Tenth Doctor frowned. ‘A vampire? What do Daleks want with a vampire?’
>
‘I dunno. But they’re not having her!’ The Ninth Doctor urged them towards the exit.
The sound built, and the Brokers reeled from it, as though struck, but the terrible resonant note echoed louder and louder until it filled the room until, with a crack, the ceiling split open and the entire chamber started to collapse.
‘Oh dear,’ said Brian. ‘That is likely to cause not inconsiderable damage.’
Madam Ikalla, taking one look at the roof, summoned up surprising reserves of strength and ran for her life.
Eight looked at Nine. Nine looked at Ten. And then, as one, they yelled:
‘Run!’
About five minutes later, a Time Lord clad incongruously in sneakers and suit and a Time Lord sporting a fine if loosened cravat (closely followed by attendant Ood) could be seen running down an empty corridor, turning a corner, and coming to a halt to catch their collective breath. From the distance came the faint but cheering sounds of their mutually caused chaos.
‘That,’ said the Tenth, after a moment or two, ‘was brilliant.’ He shot his other self a sharp look. ‘But I’m still not happy.’
‘Neither am I,’ said the Eighth. A smile twitched wickedly across his lips. ‘But that really was very enjoyable.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So where now?’
‘What?’ said the Tenth.
‘Where are we going now?’
‘Well, me and Brian are heading back to my ship,’ said the Tenth Doctor. ‘Why? Where are you going?’
‘I was following you.’
There was a pause. The two Time Lords stared at each other.
‘What an awkward situation,’ murmured Brian. ‘Mr Ball’s toes, were he in possession of any, would surely be curling by now.’
‘How exactly did you get here?’ the Tenth Doctor asked his younger self.
‘I came in his TARDIS …’ He gestured behind him with his thumb – then realised the corridor was conspicuously empty of any third Time Lord. ‘I thought he was following us with the vampire!’
‘Well, he’s big enough and ugly enough to look after himself as well as her. As for you – are you seriously expecting me to give you a lift? You could be a Dalek plant.’
‘No. The other one’s got the plant.’ The Eighth Doctor saw his older self wince and he shrugged. ‘Look. I was forced into alliance with the Daleks. Someone had been altering time with potentially catastrophic consequences – I didn’t think it would be myself!’
‘Oh, really? Bringing the Daleks into the Dark Times, where they shouldn’t be – that’s potentially catastrophic! How much damage do you think even that single saucer can do back here? It’s them who need stopping, not me!’
‘In that case, all the more reason we get going to your TARDIS.’ The Eighth Doctor gave himself a crafty smile. ‘I assume I can have that lift?’
A few vaulted chambers away, and down a vastly over-embellished iron staircase, another iteration of the same Time Lord was ducking and diving his way down a narrow corridor, slipping past bits of girder that were now sticking out in unexpected places, and trying to keep up his pace. One hand was brandishing a sonic screwdriver, the other clutching the spider plant. He’d lost track of Madam Ikalla in the chaos.
He came to a halt. He took a breath, and peered ahead. Faintly, he heard Dalek voices. ‘The target! The target! Where is the target?’
‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘At least you can’t find her either.’
He shoved his sonic back into the mucky pocket of his battered leather jacket, and took stock of his surroundings. There was a doorway up ahead; faint green light pooled out into the corridor. ‘Might as well take a look.’
He loped on, entering a wide chamber. Pieces of stained glass lay around the floor, shattered fragments of a high window that had lately exploded into smithereens, presumably courtesy of some visiting Daleks. ‘Shame,’ he said. ‘Someone’ll have to tidy that up, won’t they? Nobody ever thinks of that. What’s history, after all, but someone following behind with a bucket?’
He heard a crunching of glass behind him. He drew the spider plant closer. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to it lovingly. ‘Everything will be fine.’ Carefully, he looked round. ‘’Ullo? Who’s there?’
Nobody replied.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘It’s gone a bit mad around here in the last ten or fifteen minutes, hasn’t it?’
He had spent this speech gently turning round, in a circle, on one foot, scanning the room. It made no difference. The person he was talking to – whoever that was – came up suddenly, and, with a scream that was part-rage, part-terror, leaped on him from behind.
Chapter Six
Taking advantage of a melee which they had, after all, gone to so much trouble to create, two parts of the same Time Lord – and a somewhat neutral Ood – scurried out of one of the back doors of the Hall of Supplication. Beyond the Hall lay a warren of slums and narrow streets and alleys that passed for a town, where the ore miners and smelters scratched a meagre living for their masters. They dodged and wove their way through the empty-eyed citizens, and into a market occupied by blastsmiths plying their thankless trade. The Tenth Doctor pulled out a little communicator and cried into it. ‘It’s the Admiral! Pick up! I want pick up!’
‘Admiral? What are you doing?’ shouted the Eighth Doctor.
‘I’m not running all the way to the space port,’ replied the Tenth. ‘They can come and collect!’
Even as the words came out of his mouth, a whirring noise began to stir the air behind them. Brian, looking back up at the great iron towers of the Hall, pointed up at the sky, where three black dots were growing bigger, and drawing closer. The people around them glanced up and whimpered in exhausted alarm.
‘Mr Ball thinks that these aircraft approaching us are most pleasing, aesthetically,’ Brian remarked. ‘But he does wonder whether they might be looking for us with negative intent?’
Mr Ball was not wrong, on both counts. The three machines, bulky and armoured like iron dragons, were heading towards them, blasting fire as they came. The shoddy wood and tarpaulin that made up the shanty town was quickly alight. The surviving Brokers of Entranxis were in flight, and seeking vengeance against their alien attackers.
The trio did not hang around to see him proven completely right. ‘Will they really blow up the town?’ puffed the Tenth Doctor, as they ran.
‘I’m not keen to find out,’ said the Eighth. About ten feet behind them, a food merchant’s stall burst into flames. ‘There’s your answer.’
They hurried on. People were out in the alleys now, screaming and running in all directions. One of the iron dragons, diving down, strafed the ground in front of them. A row of tenements exploded. They swerved left into another alleyway, coming out near an oily river. ‘Onto the bridge!’ yelled the Tenth Doctor.
‘There’s no cover!’ said the Eighth. ‘We’ll be completely exposed!’
‘Calculated risk!’
They ran out onto the bridge. One of the iron dragons, swinging round overhead, must have caught a glimpse of them from one steely eye. It bore down on them at great speed, spurting jets of flame. The river caught fire.
‘You appear to have miscalculated,’ said Brian.
‘We’re not dead yet …’ said the Tenth Doctor, staring up at the sky.
The mechanical dragons drew closer – and then a small and dirty shuttle slammed down in a straight vertical line directly above them, screeching to halt about six feet overhead. A hatch opened, and three escape ladders were thrown down. The Tenth Doctor gave a triumphant laugh. ‘Miscalculation, eh, Brian?’
‘I most humbly retract my previous statement,’ said the Ood.
‘I take it these are your people?’ said the Eighth Doctor, reaching to grab the nearest ladder as it swung past.
His other self gave the cockiest of grins. ‘Oh, yes!’
The three of them scrambled up and into the shuttlecraft. The hatch slammed shut. The shuttle pilot snapped out a smart salute.
‘That’s Tom,’ said the Tenth Doctor. ‘He does that whenever he sees me.’ He leaned forward. ‘There’s really no need to do that, Tom.’
‘Admiral-Doctor, sir!’ Tom cried as a jet of flame splashed against the shuttle’s windows. ‘What are your orders, sir!’
‘Go, go, go, go, go!’ the fleet’s admiral yelled back, in a considerably less slick but undoubtedly more urgent fashion, and Tom the pilot – to his credit – jumped to obey. The shuttle shot up. Both Doctors, losing their balance, reached out, keeping the other up on his feet.
‘Remind me,’ said the Eighth Doctor, ‘never to ask you for a lift again.’
‘Gerroff!’ yelled the Doctor.
There was a sudden, frantic scream. His attacker stopped attacking. Released from the grip, the Doctor fell backwards onto the floor, glass crunching beneath his weight. He brandished the plant in front of him like a weapon.
‘Ikalla! What is this all about?’
Crouched a few feet away, her hands over her head, was the vampire. ‘Pain,’ she hissed. ‘Pain and humiliation and a falling ceiling.’
‘Sorry about that,’ the Ninth Doctor said. ‘It was a rescue.’
‘A rescue? It took you a long time to find me.’
‘Sorry. We thought you’d escaped with the others.’
She shook her head weakly. ‘The Brokers comb the spaceways looking for escape ships, in case they contain anything of value.’
‘Well.’ The Ninth Doctor reached out a hand. ‘Your value isn’t just as weaponry.’
‘We are not friends,’ Ikalla announced firmly.
‘No, absolutely not,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘But still, we came for you. And the rest of the crew – they’re fine.’
Ikalla gave him the ghost of a smile. ‘That is something. I did wonder, during my incarceration.’
‘Long time for you with that bunch of charlies. Not much fun, I bet.’
She suppressed a shudder.
‘No.’ He reached out for the nearest long leaf on the plant, and examined it, closely. ‘Not much fun at all.’
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