B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  The war criminal Karina Tellassar was now in hiding as “Elizabeth Trinity”, an academic. In 2555, Trinity published A History of Mars, which argued that humanity had been noble in freeing the Martians from their backward ways. The generation to come would consider both sides of the argument. [773]

  Benny, age 16, went AWOL from her military academy and hid out in the woods nearby, giving advice to other girls living there. [774] A military recruit named Simon Kyle, age 18, had established a shelter in the woods - he became Benny’s best friend and first lover. When the military captured them, Benny refused to testify against Kyle, but he traded his journal of their activities for a reduced punishment. The military took Benny off frontline service and made her a private; en route to Capella, she jumped ship and arrived on a colony world. She started working with the archaeological unit there, faking her qualifications. Kyle went on to become Spacefleet officer. [775] Kyle later claimed that his bargain had prevented the officers involved from killing Benny, and that he’d never actually surrendered the journal. [776]

  c 2560 - Prisoner of the Daleks [777]

  The tenth Doctor became trapped within the disused refinery Lodestar Station 479 on Hurala, on the edge of Earth space. He was rescued by Dalek hunters led by ex-military man Jon Bowman, who were crewing the Wayfarer and received a fee from Earth Command for every Dalek eyestalk they netted. The Doctor was startled to realise that he had gone back to a point in Dalek history before their race’s involvement in the Last Great Time War.

  Thousands of human colonists on Auros evacuated their world, and destroyed it using the Osterhagen Principle - a series of nuclear devices buried within the planet. The Doctor and his allies learned that the Daleks were based on Arkheon, a planet believed destroyed forty years before, because they hoped to use the Arkheon Threshold - a schism in time and space - to become the masters of time, perhaps even wiping humanity from history. The Doctor and Bowman were interrogated by the Daleks’ Inquisitor General, the feared Dalek X, who arrived with a Dalek fleet led by an Exterminator-class warship. This was the first of its kind, with ten antigravity impeller engines and a crew of five hundred Daleks. The Wayfarer was destroyed, but the Doctor escaped, setting off an astrionic explosion that obliterated the Dalek base and fleet. Hurala became a radioactive world, with a communications seal that would last for five thousand years. Dalek X survived in the ruins, vowing revenge.

  A Supreme Dalek led the Daleks on Skaro. Koral - one of the Wayfarer crew - believed herself to be sole survivor of Red Sky Lost, a planet the Daleks had destroyed. Her crewmate, Cuttin’ Edge, had grown up on Gauda Prime.

  The Draconian vessel Hunter and five destroyers were lost fighting Daleks. Female officers had recently been introduced to the Draconian military. [778]

  The People of the Worldsphere fought a war against the Great Hive Mind, using new weapons and powerful sentient Very Aggressive Ships. The war saw twenty-six billion killed, destroyed fifteen planets and devastated dozens of others. The Great Hive Mind became part of the People. [779]

  Corporations such as Ellerycorp, Peggcorp, Spinward, and IMC maintained battlefleets of their own. During the Battle of Alpha Centauri, a small squadron of Silurian vessels beat back the main Dalek force, which fled into hyperspace. Daleks also infiltrated human Puterspace. [780]

  TAM Corporation’s ships fought in the Galactic Wars. The corporation pulled out of remote colonies like Mendeb, taking as much high technology as it could. [781]

  As often happened in wartime, the Dalek War saw a leap in human technological progress. A variety of intelligent weapons systems were developed: dart guns, data corrupting missiles, spikes, clusters and forceshells, random field devices, self-locating mines and drones.

  Earth’s Spacefleet included 1000-man troopships armed with torpedoes that could destroy a Dalek Battlesaucer. A fleet of warp vessels - X-Ships - were used to ferry communications, personnel and supplies. Most troopers were placed in Deep Sleep while travelling to the warzones. This was done to conserve supplies, not because the ships were particularly slow, as it now only took a matter of weeks to cross human space. Ships still used warp engines, but they also used ion drive to travel in real space.

  Computer technology was now extremely advanced. The Spacefleet Datanet was a vast information resource, and data was stored on logic crystals. Nanotechnology was beginning to have medical applications: a nanosurgical virus was given to most troopers to protect against various alien infections, and cosmetic nanosurgery beautified the richest civilians. Holograms were now in widespread use for communications, display, entertainment, combat and public relations. Holosynths - simulations of people - acted as receptionists and could answer simple enquiries. HKI Industries, based on Phobos, specialised in the manufacture of transmats. These had a range of only a couple of thousand kilometres, but they were installed on all large ships and linked major cities on most colony worlds. Hoverspeeders were still in use.

  By the late 2560s, it became clear that Earth was going to win the wars with the Daleks. By then, the fastline - a state of the art, almost real-time, interstellar communication system - had been developed. [782]

  c 2560 - Enemy of the Daleks [783]

  During the Dalek Wars, the planet Bliss was a sanctuary for rare flora and fauna. Professor Toshio Shimura, a scientist at a biological research facility there, took DNA from “piranha locusts” native to Bliss and gestated it in human beings without their consent. The subjects formed cocoons and emerged as the Kisibyaa: ferocious, metal-eating creatures that Shimura hoped would literally consume the Daleks. Shimura gave his own life to host Kisibyaa larvae. The seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex witnessed these events, and the Doctor - fearing the Kisibyaa would threaten all species, not just the Daleks - killed the Kisibyaa by destroying the facility.

  At this time, Valkyrie units - composed of one commissioned officer and twenty troopers - were all-female fighting forces commissioned to engage the Daleks.

  The Early Career of Bernice Summerfield

  2561 to 2562 (1st January) - Benny: Genius Loci [784]

  Benny’s faked resume netted her the position of assistant field director at a dig on Jaiwan. Professor Mariela Ankola served as Benny’s mentor, but died in her sleep after encountering lethal industrial toxins on the planet Cray. Benny adopted Ankola’s habit of keeping journals. A non-sapient Jaiwan spider bit off Benny’s foot, and she had a grown one attached on her birthday.

  Owing to Benny’s excavations, some Omega spiders were awakened from hibernation. This threatened to activate the Hibernation Clause of the Protocols of Colonisation, but the Omega spiders struck a clandestine deal with the Jaiwan authorities - the Omegas would share the planet in exchange for help in wiping out any remaining caches of Alpha spiders.

  Benny and her allies - including members of Spacefleet’s First Regiment of Combat Archaeologists, and the revived Pinky and Perky AIs - awakened some Alpha spiders to present their case. In doing so, Benny killed someone for the first time - she shot a local reporter and patriot, Lola, when she threatened to kill Benny’s protégé, Shawnee.

  No later than 1st January, 2562, Benny left Jaiwan aboard the Goodnight Dolly. A grateful archaeologist provided her with a certificate naming her as a Master of Science, Archaeology, accredited to the Department of History, University of Jaiwan at Kondeeo. On 2nd February, 2562, Benny travelled toward humanity’s core worlds aboard the Chin Shen Mo. Papers provided by General Elsa Lafayette, a friend of Benny’s parents, helped Benny avoid being incarcerated for desertion.

  2562 - Benny: Old Friends: “The Ship of Painted Shadows” [785]

  Benny departed for Earth aboard the Prince of Mercury liner, and joined the New Gondwana Ladies’ Choir to pay for her passage. The group was otherwise composed of the wives of Hanekawa Goro, a.k.a. Michio Dankizo XXVIII - a Kabuki performer who was being influenced by shadow beings that were entertained by tragedy. The shadow beings slaughtered many innocents, prompting Goro to commit suicide. Benny escaped as the
Prince of Mercury disappeared into a spatial rift.

  A demi-lemur, Ivo FitzIndri, had committed murder to save Benny’s life - he asked that she go to a temple of the Order of Lost Lemuroidea and tell her story. Benny planned on doing so, but was diverted upon receiving a clue as to her father’s whereabouts. FitzIndri was consequently excommunicated and spent the next fifty years looking for her.

  2562 - Benny: The Sword of Forever [786]

  By now, retroviruses released during the Dalek Wars had spread across 40% of Earth, and infested 68% of terrestrial DNA. Most of the retroviruses were harmless, producing physical changes in a small amount of those infected. The Rhone Valley, however, saw evolution run wild, and produced a thousand species of hybrid terrestrial-alien strains of planet, animal and human life.

  Benny attempted to find the finger of John the Baptist as a means of securing herself an easy fellowship and to qualify for a doctorate. She located the Castle of Arginy, but her lover, Daniel Beaujeu, seemingly drowned while trying to overcome the traps within. He actually survived, was mutated by retrovirus, forgave Benny her mistakes and enjoyed a relatively happy life in Paris.

  At some point, Benny went to Stuttgart. [787] She visited Mars when she was 24. She was now in love with a man named Tim. [788] She made her reputation as an archaeologist during excavations of the Fields of Death, the tombs of the rulers of Mars in 2565. [789] She went on to investigate the Dyson Sphere of the Varteq Veil. [790] In Benny’s time, humans had eradicated most of the previously common illnesses. [791]

  2565 - Benny: The Vampire Curse: “The Badblood Diaries” [792]

  The vampire-stricken Badblood had orbiting human settlements that moved to remain in continual daylight, and occasionally intersected for major celebrations. The Kikan corporation, run by psi-powered yakuza who went straight, coveted Badblood’s fish exports as a means of strengthening its sushi monopoly. Benny was granted dispensation to study Hunanzun, the first human settlement on Badblood, and wound up preventing a vampire outbreak on Station CT1107.

  2565 - Benny: The Vampire Curse: “Possum Kingdom” [793]

  Benny joined an expedition to explore the cave system found underneath Possum Kingdom Lake in Texas. She found a naked, amnesiac man who was taken away to a military hospital at Fort Worth.

  In 2568, the Spinward Corporation’s computer, the Net, predicted that once the Dalek Wars ended, Earth’s authorities would show an interest in their activities on Arcadia. [794]

  2570 (late June) - Love and War [795]

  Bernice Summerfield and her group arrived on Heaven to survey the artifacts of the extinct Heavenite civilisation on behalf of Ellerycorp. The seventh Doctor and Ace arrived as the fungoid Hoothi brought to fruition a plan centuries in the making - Hoothi spores infected everyone on Heaven, meaning that the Hoothi could instantly turn the living into fungoid creatures and animate corpses. They sought to create an army of billions to attack Gallifrey with. Ace became engaged to one of the Travellers, Jan, who was in an open relationship with a woman named Roisa and her lover Marie. Jan was pyrokinetic, and so the Doctor manipulated him into becoming transformed into a Hoothi fungoid and joining the Hoothi group mind. The Doctor encouraged Jan to bring his pyrokinesis to bear - the Hoothi, their fungoid creatures, their army of the undead and Jan were all incinerated, saving the galaxy. Heaven was evacuated shortly afterwards, and Ace departed the TARDIS, unable to forgive the Doctor for sacrificing her fiancé. Bernice better accepted the Doctor’s actions and became his travelling companion.

  Following this time, Ace spent three years in the twenty-sixth century during the time of the Dalek War. After a series of adventures, including a spell working for IMC, she ended up with the Special Weapons Division of Spacefleet. She fought alongside the Irregular Auxiliaries, reputed to be the most dangerous arm of the military. [796] Ace served aboard the Saberhagen, the Corporate Raider and the IMC-funded ship Corporate Strategy. The planet Lucifer became of strategic importance in the Dalek Wars, and IMC asked Ace - should the opportunity present itself - to go back in time with the Doctor and discover why the planet was walled off behind a force field. [797] She used a D22 photon rifle when she was a Marine. [798] She fought Daleks in the Ceti sector and Hai Dow. She killed a Black Dalek. She fought Marsh Daleks in the Flova trenches. She was issued a tool for removing the tops of Daleks. [799]

  Hamilton’s father died during the last Dalek War. [800]

  Venedel joined the Earthlink Federation, an allied group of worlds with ties to Earth. [801] By 2571, the Repopulation Bureau on Sarah-361 established guidelines for what constituted good breeding stock. [802] Circa 2573, a Chelonian slave camp on Apollox 4 was discovered. [803]

  & 2573 - Deceit [804]

  The Dalek Wars were all but over, and although Dalek nests survived on a number of worlds, the army and Spacefleet were gradually demobilised.

  During the Dalek Wars, Earth Central had superseded the Colonial Office, while Spacefleet had been expanded and modernised. The Office of External Operations, “the Earth’s surveyors, official couriers, intelligence gatherers, customs officers and diplomats”, now had a staff of five thousand. While the corporations remained powerful, the Earth government reigned in some of their power and broke some of their monopolies.

  Agent Defries investigated the Arcadia system, the base of the Spinward Corporation. The nearest troopers were on Hurgal, although some were taking part in a pirate hunt in the Hai Dow system. Instead, Defries was assigned the troopship Admiral Raistruck and a squad of Irregular Auxiliaries. She was also given a “secret weapon”: a clone of the Dalek Killer Abslom Daak, kept in cryosleep.

  The ship’s crew were told that they were going on a Dalek hunt. The Admiral Raistruck arrived in the Arcadia system and encountered an asteroid field carved to resemble terrified human faces. It was clear that Arcadia was subject to SYSDID (System Defence in Strength). Fighters attacked the Admiral Raistruck, but this was only a feint. The real attack came from behind: an energy being that was unaffected by the ship’s torpedoes. The ship was destroyed.

  Out of more than a thousand people, there were only four survivors: Defries, Daak and Troopers Ace and Johannsen. They discovered that Arcadia had been kept at a medieval level of technology. The population had been kept in ignorance, and the android Humble Counsellors enforced company law. All offworlders were killed as plague-carriers. The power behind Spinward was the Pool: vats of brain matter culled from generations of colonists, and housed in a space station in orbit around Arcadia. Pool intended to manufacture a universe of pure thought, making itself omnipotent. The clone Daak was killed, but Pool was ejected into the Vortex with the TARDIS’ tertiary control room.

  Ace rejoined the TARDIS, and travelled alongside the seventh Doctor and Bernice.

  c 2573 - The Dark Flame [805]

  The skull of Vilus Krull was unearthed on the toxic planet Marran Alpha, and agents of the Cult of the Dark Flame facilitated his resurrection in a dead body. The seventh Doctor and Ace collected Benny from a two-week stay on the deep-space research centre Orbos, and they stopped the Cult from creating a dark-light explosion that would enable the Dark Flame to spread its influence to every corner of space-time. Krull was thrown into the space-time vortex.

  & 2574 - Shakedown [806]

  The Sontarans secured information about the Rutan Host: Long ago, a wormhole had been established between Ruta III and Sentarion. In the event of a Sontaran victory, the Rutan Great Mother would use the tunnel to escape her fate. The Sontarans prepared to send a battlefleet down the wormhole to kill the Great Mother, but the Rutan spy Karne discovered the plan. The seventh Doctor, Roz, Chris and Benny tracked Karne down to the human colony of Megacity, and thwarted the Sontaran and Rutan plots.

  The Galactic War had passed over the planet Dellah, and so the grateful three-eyed Sultan of the Tashwari built St. Oscar’s University - partly to affirm peace and learning, and partly to further keep Dellah from ranking as a target. The Sultan gave the university and it
s nine colleges names appealing to humans. [807] To protect its neutrality, Dellah banned all military research. Unofficially, St. Oscar’s continued weapons work in secret, and developed a prototype method of transferring mental engrams into synthetic forms - a means of producing the ultimate soldier. The process went awry, and the crew aboard the Medusa, a modified luxury liner, killed each other. Its navigation system damaged, the Medusa remained adrift. [808]

  The Dalek Wars formally ended in 2575. At the end of the Galactic Wars, arms treaties were signed to limit the size and capability of combat robots. [809] A race of master weaponsmiths, the Xlanthi, had aided Earth during the Dalek Wars. Out of gratitude, Earth let the Xlanthi hunt fugitives in Earthspace without interference. [810]

  2575 - Benny: The Sword of Forever [811]

  Kenya and Somalia had been afflicted by Dalek retroviruses, and become home to many of the resultant mutations. The mutants were spreading south toward Tanzania and, more slowly, across the Ethiopian Plateau. Nairobi was nothing more than mutant jungle. Addis Ababa, formerly home to half a million, was now inhabited by hybrid humans. A Mason named Marillian tracked the Ark of the Covenant to Axum, a home to many human hybrids in Ethiopia. Marillian’s translator, Ondemwu, escaped with the Ark as the Russian Conglomerate Military Red Cross purified the area.

  & 2575 - Arrangements for War [812]

  The sixth Doctor and Evelyn visited the planet Vilag after witnessing the Killoran invasion to come, and observed the love developing between Princess Krisztina and Marcus Reid, a lowly gardener’s son.