by Steve Cole
‘Lovely!’ The Doctor flicked a switch on the crystalline circuit, and Chalskal’s chainmail glowed soft gold. ‘Now, Ambassador. We’ve made improvements to the power efficiency in the crystals powering the ’Shroud. Whoever wears it, their DNA signature is shielded from the Kotturuh’s genetic wave. But if we boost the power far enough, we think we can reverse that Wave and bounce it back at the Kotturuh …’
‘What use is that?’ Chalskal cried, crossly. ‘The Kotturuh can’t be affected by their own spells, can they?’
‘Not without a little adaptation,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘That’s the next stage. Sorry to love you and leave you, but hey, don’t worry. You can help Brian finish the demonstration.’
‘We need to know how long the crystals will hold double-charge before they either melt or explode,’ Fallomax informed him. ‘Might be hours. Might be days! Might be just minutes …’
‘You dare to make High Ambassador Chalskal your test subject?’ he raged, tails thumping the floor.
‘I would hold very still, Ambassador,’ Brian advised, stepping back. ‘With the extra charge running through them, the crystals become highly volatile …’
‘Release me!’
‘Perhaps I shall. Once you release control of your mercenary fleet to the Doctor.’
‘What?’ the Doctor and Chalskal chorused. The Ambassador was so shocked he actually fainted; the Doctor only looked like he wanted to.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the Doctor. ‘What do I need with a fleet?’
Brian crossed to him. ‘What you are planning is tantamount to declaring war on the Kotturuh. There may be … consequences.’
‘And billions of lives at stake,’ said Fallomax.
‘You said you would do whatever it takes,’ Brian said. ‘Remember? Crewed by mercenaries in Lifeshrouds, a conventional fleet will stand a better chance against the Kotturuh than anything else. I fear Mr Ball is too hot-headed for an admiral’s commission in peacetime, but I will act as your commander and brief the mercenaries—’
The Doctor shot him a look. ‘Why are you so willing to help me?’
‘Because I know that you would never just abandon this time and place. And so I prefer to live.’ Brian smiled. ‘I think you underestimate your grasp of strategy and fitness for command.’
‘Or prefer to,’ Fallomax muttered.
The Doctor looked troubled. ‘All right, we’ll argue about it later. Look after Chalskal and get things ready for action here. Professor, Estinee – we need to get to Andalia and get what we need to generate the reverse wave.’
Fallomax raised her eyebrows. ‘In your ship? How long will that take?’
‘We’ll be there before you know it,’ the Doctor told her.
‘Make sure you are away before the date given to you by the Kotturuh,’ said Brian, ‘just in case … Admiral?’
‘Admiral! No, thanks. Ship’s Doctor will do.’ The Doctor took a deep breath, summoning energy or will. Then he led Fallomax and Estinee over to his blue box in the corner of the lab. ‘Whatever the rank, I declare this fleet to have a new flagship! HMS TARDIS, ready for boarding …’
Estinee followed him in, and swapped boggling looks with Fallomax. The tiny box was wide as a field inside and glowing like a summer sunset.
The doors slammed shut behind them.
Chapter Thirteen
Estinee stood with the Doctor and Fallomax outside the Tombs of the Ended on Andalia. The plaza was littered with fallen flies, dust and corpses. Dead moss lay like ash. A few uncertain insects flicked tentative wings.
Together they watched a young Andalian creature scurry about. Tiny tusks squinted from the ridged forehead. It turned over bones and remains, absorbed and silent. Then, with no further thought, it took off gracefully into the sky and left them behind.
‘He doesn’t know what he’s lost,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s the burden of those left behind.’
‘Right,’ said Fallomax, sweating in her Lifeshroud. ‘We’re the ones really suffering.’
It would take time, Estinee supposed, for new life to get a proper foothold here. ‘I was always sad when the harvest was gathered back home. Only the short stalks left behind, even though I knew they would grow and rise again.’ Estinee gazed around her. ‘It feels the same here.’
‘“All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass,”’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘But this harvest didn’t have to happen.’
‘It always happens,’ said Estinee. ‘That’s what my mother told me. Harvests have to happen just as children have to grow. Seasons and children are the only things that change …’
‘Famous last words, Mum,’ Fallomax muttered.
The Doctor stared up at the silent tombs. ‘You two can wait in the TARDIS if you want. I’ve got to take samples from the dead in here.’
‘I’ll help,’ said Estinee.
‘I’ll set up inside,’ Fallomax said.
Estinee did what she could as the suns tracked through the clear sky, but it wasn’t much. She hunted for living moss; the Doctor said he needed it for comparison, but she couldn’t find any. The Doctor told her to keep searching while he did the work of ten people at once in the TARDIS: gathering the rest of his samples, analysing them, dazzling Fallomax with new ways of doing things, using technology she could barely comprehend. And if the Professor couldn’t grasp them, Estinee decided it was wiser not to even try.
The way she saw it, the Kotturuh put limits on life with their magic spells. The Doctor was searching for the words of the spells in the Andalian DNA, and, once he had them, he would make a spell of his own to stop the Kotturuh for good.
But it was taking time that they didn’t have. The hours were counting down, not just to the End of Days on Skalithai but to something a lot more personal.
‘The Kotturuh wanted me to know a time and a place.’ The Doctor had said it so casually, just an hour ago, as he’d added something to a phial of fluid in the TARDIS lab. ‘They came to me before I could leave Mordeela and they left me babbling a date – five days from now, here on Andalia.’
‘That’s what I heard you muttering on the flagship?’ Estinee realised.
‘Their way of gloating. Warning me that I’m going to know death.’ The silence was heavy, and the Doctor waved it away. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all right. The Kotturuh think they see the future, but I’m a Time Lord – I’m from the future. And I know the future’s not written. Here and now … I can do anything.’
‘Well, that is kind of the basis for this whole plan,’ said Fallomax. ‘But don’t you think we should get back to Brian on the flagship and work there?’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll be long gone before five days are up.’
‘That’s almost when Skalithai is due to fall.’ Estinee lowered her voice. ‘Do you think the Kotturuh know our plans?’
‘If they do, and they’re bothered, that’s a good sign.’ The Doctor gave her a rare grin that felt like a gift. ‘It means we’re going to win.’
And just half an hour later, he whooped as if he really had. His phial of crystals was bubbling with black filings.
‘What?’ Fallomax stared at him. ‘What have you done?’
‘Not sure.’ He peered at the phial warily. ‘Got to double-check. Run it through the sequence accelerator.’
So saying, he sprinted from the lab. Estinee and Fallomax swapped a look and followed him back to the control room.
‘We’ll soon know if we’ve done it.’ He had already lashed up some bulky equipment on the console, and now poured the contents of the phial through a funnel he’d jammed into one end. ‘If we channel a little temporal energy through the solution we can achieve months of incubation in seconds …’
There was a loud, brassy ping and, with a mechanical chatter, strips of printed paper curled out from a slot. The Doctor pushed his glasses into place, snatched up the paper and scanned the results.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Well, well, well, well,
well.’
‘What?’ Fallomax’s cheeks had paled to pink. ‘You did it? No. You didn’t. Did you?’
‘It works. The reverse wave works!’ The Doctor threw his glasses into the air, grabbed her and kissed her head. ‘Look, Estinee! The Kotturuh cells have decayed, unravelled. Died off!’
‘We can fight back?’ Estinee stared, mouth open, feeling sick and excited. ‘How did you ever get Kotturuh cells?’
‘One of them grabbed me by the throat. Barest trace of Kotturuh DNA left behind, but enough to work with.’ The Doctor beamed. ‘I made a culture in the lab.’
‘That’s what you were doing? Why didn’t you tell us?’ Fallomax demanded. ‘I thought we’d never get anywhere without their DNA …’
‘Had to be a secret.’ He looked at Estinee. ‘The Kotturuh might’ve been listening in. Now it’s too late for them to stop us – cos we can stop them. I’ve simulated them firing their Genetic Wave at a Lifeshroud and bounced back our remixed, reflected version …’
Fallomax cupped her hands over her mouth. ‘You’ve built a weapon?’
‘More of a mirror,’ the Doctor conceded.
‘What will it do to them?’
‘Estinee’s “will to life” doesn’t sit well with the Kotturuh’s will to death. Depends on the intensity of what it’s reflecting, but …’
‘It could kill them?’
‘Maybe.’ The Doctor met her gaze. ‘I’m hoping to drive them back. Perhaps a bit more.’
‘You’re using me to do this?’ Estinee felt cold. ‘I thought you were just going to give them a lifespan, so they don’t live for ever any more.’
‘It’ll only affect them if they attack,’ said Fallomax. ‘This could be a way to curb their aggression, contain them—’
‘Or we could do it,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘We could end the Kotturuh.’
Estinee looked at him. ‘I hate the Kotturuh for all they’ve done. But to kill them all …?’
‘If I don’t, it won’t stop!’ The Doctor looked suddenly agonised; she was reminded you didn’t always have to scratch deep to draw blood. ‘I know what happens, I’ve seen it. Left unchecked, the Kotturuh sweep across the entire universe, crushing life, bringing death, tearing apart civilisations that might’ve stood for eternity …’
‘A doctor’s meant to bring life, not death,’ said Estinee. ‘You’re a doctor!’
‘Or am I an admiral? Or a knight, or a fool? Does it matter what I am?’ He reeled away from the console, paced about. ‘I’d be saving so many lives. Lives that will go on and on. See, in my time, death is a constant, everywhere you go. The price we pay for progress. The pain we pay for love. The way to win a war.’ He turned to look at her and Fallomax. ‘But it doesn’t have to be. I can stop the Kotturuh here and now and change everything. Reinvent the future.’
Fallomax looked uneasy. ‘You’d really mess with the way things are meant to be?’
‘Who gets to choose what’s meant to be?’ The Doctor didn’t wait for an answer. ‘The Time Lords, that’s who. My people. They came up with the Laws of Time and tried to enforce them but, in the end, death came for them too. They all burned – last act of a Time War that left the universe hollowed out and a billion galaxies in bits. Death gone mad! That’s what creation has to look forward to. But if I crush the Kotturuh, sweep away their Design, think of the suffering that could be stopped. The worlds that could be saved! Ascinta, Perganon, Gallifrey – worlds you’ve never dreamed of! Think of it – the Time Lords may never fall, the Daleks may never evolve, the people of Mondas never wear out so they never become Cybermen …’
Estinee swapped a blank look with Fallomax. ‘We don’t know what these things are.’
‘You won’t need to know. It’s perfect!’
‘But all the people you’ve known—’
‘The people I’ve lost,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘They’ll always have lived, I’ll still have known them. I’ll remember and honour their lives. But this way, who knows, maybe I’ll meet them again – and they can stay with me for ever! With lives no longer defined by endings … with a continuity to the ages … think what so many worlds could go on to achieve!’
‘Sounds kind of like you’re trying to convince yourself,’ said Fallomax. ‘Not us.’
‘I don’t have to convince you. It’s not your call.’ The Doctor stared down at the equipment on his lab bench. ‘There’s this story about a man who cheats Death … a story I’ve known well, for a very long time. Sometimes it felt like my story. The choices I’ve tried to make. The parts I’ve had to play. But in the end, you have to stop playing.’ He spoke distantly, as if remembering across the years. ‘There were times when I couldn’t be the Doctor. When I had to become something else … to do what I didn’t want to do. But this – oh, I want this! Death, decay, limits – they can all come to an end, and I’m calling it.’ He shouted to the vaulted ceiling, or perhaps to the stars beyond it: ‘If I’m the last Time Lord standing, I’m staying that way, whatever it takes – victorious!’
Snatching up the phials he strode away, out of the control room.
‘He’ll be taking those to the lab for tests and fine tuning,’ said Fallomax quietly. ‘The most incredible ideas come out of his head, but the rest of him? It’s all but empty.’
Nothing left to lose, thought Estinee. She looked at Fallomax. ‘Do you want to kill the Kotturuh?’
‘I … just want all this to stop.’ Fallomax turned from her and crossed the control room. ‘I’d better go and help him with those tests. Find out what he thinks we should do next. If I can remember the way …’
Estinee watched her go. She was alone in the control room. I don’t want to kill anyone, she thought miserably. Not even Kotturuh. She lay on the floor and closed her eyes. Curled up on her side, lonely in the blue firelight of the control room.
A Kotturuh drifted from the coral shadows behind her like a ghost. It hovered over the console and its glittering claws flicked over the controls.
Chapter Fourteen
Fallomax could hear the Doctor’s voice from the TARDIS laboratory all the way down the corridor, spilling over static. She had no idea how the ship could be so big inside something so little, but it felt like she hadn’t walked so far in her Lifeshroud in years. The damn thing chafed and weighed you down. The thought that she might finally take it off and still feel safe …
With a pang of guilt, she thought of wide-eyed Estinee, so shocked at the idea of killing.
‘Whatever it takes, sweetheart,’ she muttered.
‘Brian, this is the Doctor …’ He was still calling in the laboratory. ‘Interference from somewhere … Brian? Are you receiving me?’
She hesitated outside, eavesdropping.
‘Brian, it’s the Doctor! Are you …?’
‘Commander Brian, receiving you, Admiral,’ came the calm response at last. ‘How is your great endeavour—’
‘I want you to take Chalskal’s fleet and attack Mordeela.’
A pause. ‘Please repeat your instructions, Admiral.’
‘I’m not an Admiral!’
‘For appearances,’ Brian said more quietly.
‘All right. All right, Commander. This is Admiral-the-Ship’s-Doctor ordering you to move out of Skalithai space. Get into a holding orbit around the Mordeela exclusion zone.’
As he talked on, Fallomax waited in the doorway to the laboratory. While the phial was irradiated in a machine filled with Kotturuh crystals, the Doctor was talking to Brian over a monitor screen. The Ood was still wearing his black suit, but with a red sash worn diagonally which looked suspiciously like it had once been part of Chalskal’s poncho.
‘Admiral, are your orders that we take the fight to the Kotturuh?’
‘We take a leaf from their book,’ said the Doctor, ‘threatening what they love and value most. Maybe they’ll call off their attack on Skalithai to defend their gateway.’
‘Go against their own Design? That seems unlikely.’
&n
bsp; ‘Agreed,’ said Fallomax, with a mock salute to Brian. ‘They have an unbreakable shield to defend their gateway.’
‘Oh, I think I have an idea of how to get past it,’ said the Doctor. ‘If the Kotturuh agree to be contained – agree to leave the universe alone – then we’ve won.’
‘They will never agree to that,’ said Brian. ‘The Design is their only cause and religion. You know that.’
‘If that’s how it is,’ said the Doctor, ‘then what happens next is on them.’
‘On that subject, Brian,’ said Fallomax, ‘how long did the crystals hold the charge on Chalskal’s Lifeshroud before they ran down?’
‘For just over six hours,’ Brian reported, ‘then they exploded. Mr Ball found the detonation to be unexpectedly violent. He was relieved that something soft got in the way.’
The Doctor frowned. ‘Chalskal?’
‘The Ambassador should be able to bow again within a month or so. He is receiving excellent treatment on Skalithai.’ Brian gave a discreet blink. ‘The authorities assure me he will soon be well enough to stand trial.’
‘Oh.’ The Doctor experienced a momentary worry at Brian’s smoothness. ‘Don’t they want to confiscate his fleet or something?’
‘Why no,’ the Ood chided him. ‘Once I explained the mercenary nature of this organisation, they were horrified at the thought they might be liable for the bill. I assured Skalithai that you would be only too happy to pay for them.’
‘I would?’
‘You would. You may even have offered the troops a bonus to reassure them that they would not be abandoned by the new management. It was very kind of you.’
‘It was.’ The Doctor felt that tilting worry of control edging away from him. ‘Brian?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do I really need an army?’
The Ood stared in some consternation at his translator sphere and shook it slightly. Then he looked back at the Doctor, patiently, pityingly. ‘You are facing off against Death. You cannot propose doing that just by yourself.’
