So, they just had to rely on their eyes and ears – as well as the feed of information through their earpieces and helmet visors. Naxil led his team through the ruined buildings, sweeping their weapons to and fro, desperate to cover for any surprise attack.
When it came, the attack was no surprise.
They heard the bombardment creeping towards them: explosion after explosion of high-impact plasti-shrapnel mortar shells. Naxil and his troops kept their heads down. They knew they couldn’t move. And yet, this was exactly what the enemy wanted.
As the barrage died away, the enemy came, moving though the smoke with their uncannily fitful movements; their genderless, dead faces turning this way and that, trying to get a lock on the Gallifreyans. Clad in the blue boiler suits, guns protruding from where their fingers had fallen away – there was no mistaking them.
Autons.
Naxil didn’t need his instruments to tell him what they were. He signalled his squad and they all opened fire. Their weapons had minimal effect, melting the plastic from face or torso, but never stopping them.
‘Concentrate your fire!’ he yelled.
Before the troops could regroup, the Autons attacked. Nasty, sulphurous smoke blossomed from their blunt metal weapons and two of Naxil’s team fell. The brown smoke billowed around their bodies where the shots had hit and then retreated again as if time was being reversed. The two Gallifreyans vanished with an unnatural swooping sound. Total destruction.
‘Get us out of here!’ Naxil roared into his helmet mike.
But then more Autons appeared. He witnessed the last member of his squad killed before him. And then multiple Auton impacts cut down the dashing Commander himself. As he vanished from existence, his visor camera stopped transmitting.
The young Rassilon stared at the static image projected into mid air for a second and then turned to face General Brissilan.
They were standing in the War Council room on Gallifrey. Several other high-ranking soldiers, the Castellan and the head of the CIA were in attendance. The table they were standing at was indented in places as if a huge mouse had taken bites from an oval biscuit.
‘It is clear to me that this strategy is not going to work,’ Rassilon said.
The General – resplendent in red and gold armour – looked stern but determined. ‘Lord President, our strategists have deduced that only this place – here, now – can be the turning point. Even the Visionary concurs.’
Rassilon placed his gauntleted gloves on the table before him. ‘How many squads have you sent in? Five?’
‘Nine, my Lord.’
‘Nine!’ The President of the Time Lords rose and patrolled the table, pointing at the static that still hung at its centre. ‘You’ve sent nine of our best Pathfinder squads in there! And none of them have been able to set up the transmat.’
The General lowered his head. ‘If we are to win this war before the Nestene reach our galaxy …’
‘If we are to win this war, at all,’ Rassilon said calmly, ‘we will need a new strategy.’
‘My Lord President?’
‘Pull your troops, back, General. We are retreating. Contain the Nestene threat as best you can.’
The General went to protest, but Rassilon already had his back to him and was leaving the War Council room.
As he left the chamber, Rassilon was joined by his most trusted aide, Sektay. She had tied her auburn hair in a tight bun and wore the simple, black robes of a technician. Rassilon knew she was anything but.
‘What will you do?’ she asked, casting a sideways look at his face. He had recently lost the full beard and looked younger now, handsome even with a jocularity to his face that did not sit well with his office.
He smiled. ‘There is always another solution.’ But then he stopped and sighed. ‘I don’t know. Ever since Omega’s accident …’ He trailed off. ‘No matter.’
He started walking again, heading for his personal chambers. Two junior councillors passed them in the corridor, bowing and casting a suspicious eye at Sektay. She smiled sweetly at them.
As they reached the entrance to Rassilon’s chambers, two Chancellery Guards snapped to attention. They passed inside, and immediately Sektay offered the President her solution.
‘You could consider Roppen, Lord President,’ she said.
Rassilon turned. ‘The idealist?’
‘The scientist. The renowned creator of the Eye of Discord …’
Rassilon raised an ample eyebrow. ‘You would have me force him to re-engineer his device?’
‘It is another solution …’ Sektay offered.
‘I will consider it, as I do all options for dealing with the Nestene High Command.’ And he swept away before pausing in the doorway. Then, without looking back he said: ‘Thank you, Sektay. Your counsel is always appreciated.’
Sektay inclined her head. ‘Of course, Lord President.’
She’d never heard him quite so tired.
Sektay returned to her quarters and went to her personal Matrix Access point. She quickly brought up all the files relating to Roppentheomjer. Her vidscreen filled with images of the man and details of his career.
He was a handsome man, if a little gaunt. He had slick, black hair swept back from his high, intelligent brow and dazzling green eyes that seemed somehow haunted despite their glint. As Sektay had reminded Rassilon, Roppen was a renowned scientist. He had served with Omega on the initial attempts at black hole manipulation.
After Omega’s disappearance, he should have become the natural successor to the legendary stellar manipulator. Instead, Roppen had taken up the position as Lead Scientist at the Academy’s so-called Lost Laboratory – its name a reflection of the brilliant minds to be found hiding there.
Every member had been a great Time Lord thinker, engineer or scientist once. Now they simply wanted to hide away from the glare of unwanted attention – as well as the realities of the wars their race found themselves fighting: the Racnoss and the Vampires.
Roppen played no part in politics. He never attended council meetings – even though he was permitted to do so. He avoided the media at all costs and never appeared on the Public Register Video telecast about the lives and deaths of Omega.
So he fitted right in to the Lost Laboratory: collaborating with other top minds, competing to outthink each other. This created a hothouse for scientific breakthroughs – perhaps driven by pure ability alone.
He took his studies in a different direction, applying what he had learnt about the forces controlling the Eye of Harmony and reversing them. Roppen had applied the effect of retrogressive solicitation used in early TARDISes to these forces and created a device both astounding and terrible.
No one at the Lost Laboratory had seen the military application of his new discovery. However, per the edict of the High Council, all such breakthroughs had to be submitted to the War Council for assessment. It did not take them long to see that Roppen’s discovery would make an awesome weapon. If the destructive gravitational forces of a thousand black holes were to burst at once into life, that would be unlike the splendour of any weapon before it.
At first he dubbed the device the Eye of Discord. It was a scientific witticism; a Time Lord in-joke for the intelligentsia of the Academy. Later, the War Council called it the Galaxy Eater. No matter what its name, the device was timely, for war had just erupted between Gallifrey and the Nestene High Command in the constellation of Sephin in the nearby Illia galaxy.
That was when Roppen had truly become lost. He dismantled his device and used a sentient computer virus of his own creation to destroy all record of his research. Soon after, he left the Academy and travelled to the Mountains of Solace and Solitude to take up a life of contemplation and simplicity.
The War Council had been livid. They had demanded that he be arrested. Rassilon himself had interceded and told them no such warrant would be issued while he was still President.
Sektay smiled as she looked at the Executive Order granting Ropp
en clemency for any perceived crime the scientist had committed in destroying both the research and the device. Rassilon was truly a great man.
This was exactly what she was thinking the next morning as he informed her of his decision.
‘I believe you are correct,’ Rassilon said. He was slowly pacing the gardens of his residence, his robes replaced with attire more fitting to an outsider from beyond the Citadel.
‘Thank you, Lord President.’ Sektay was genuinely thrilled to hear these words.
‘It would take too long to develop the sort of weapon we need. Roppen must be convinced to return to the fold. The Galaxy Eater will deal with this threat, and Gallifrey can concentrate on more compassionate undertakings.’
‘That sounds most reasonable,’ Sektay said.
‘That is why I have decided to leave straight away,’ Rassilon said. ‘Alone.’
He waved an arm at a hover car standing on the gravelled driveway beyond an ornately trimmed hedge.
‘You cannot go alone!’ Sektay was aghast.
‘It is a simple journey into the Mountains, Sektay, not an irresponsible mission to a Racnoss Webstar.’ Rassilon was already walking towards the vehicle. ‘Roppen is not a man who would respond well to us sending gunships or even the whole High Council! I must go.’
‘But, alone, Lord President?’
‘Yes.’ Rassilon smiled and took her hand in his. ‘Thank you for your help. I think you may have saved Gallifrey.’
Sektay smiled back. She wished no part in history. How could she, beside such a figure as Rassilon? He climbed into the driver’s seat of the hover car and started the engine.
‘Hurry back,’ she said.
Rassilon nodded, gave a characteristic grin and was gone.
The two Time Lords sat at a plain wooden table, drinking wine from the vineyards on the lower slopes. Roppen’s home was not quite as simple as rumour had it. The building was more like a villa than a hovel and lacked for no technology, although its trappings were not opulent.
‘I thought the War Council would try again,’ Roppen said. His face had more lines these days and his eyes were a little hooded. His voice remained steady and slow, however. ‘I did not think you would come in person.’
‘How could I not?’ Rassilon said. ‘You should be ruling beside me. Like Omega. Not skulking in the dusty corners of academia – or worse: stuck out here like a Shobogan!’
‘Shobogan!’ Roppen laughed. ‘You always had a colourful turn of phrase. I am hardly an outsider!’
Rassilon smiled. ‘Maybe not. But you are hiding out here.’
‘I am retired.’
‘A Time Lord does not retire,’ the President replied. ‘To spend an eternity watching sunsets and drinking wine is no life for the greatest mind in the galaxy.’
Roppen raised a glass. ‘It sounds good enough to me!’
‘Will you be happy to indulge yourself while Gallifrey is overrun by the Nestene?’
‘That will not happen.’
‘Don’t be so sure,’ Rassilon said, He leaned forward and stared evenly at his friend. ‘They have us beaten in Illia. They have almost that entire galaxy in their grip. All their protein planets and Auton factory worlds … if we do not stop them now, our galaxy will be next – maybe the entire universe.’
‘When I showed the Wider War Council my research, some of them laughed, one or two cried. Most people were silent. I just stood there and recalled the line from the ancient Pythia texts: In my duty to defend existence I became mortality itself, the slayer of spheres.’
‘I know your feelings on the use of the Galaxy Eater.’
Roppen winced. ‘Please do not call it that.’
‘Whatever its name, we need it,’ Rassilon said. ‘Please. It will save countless worlds. It will save us.’
‘It will not save Illia.’
‘The Illia galaxy has no real civilisation to speak of now. Any races or cultures that once existed there are lost; all the planets and races endure only to serve the Nestene.’
Roppen gazed at the orange sunset, slowly turning blue as twilight fell. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth of the sun. ‘If I do this,’ he said. ‘The device will be built exactly to my specifications.’
‘Of course.’
‘It will be only used once.’
‘Agreed.’
Roppen let out a long, low breath. ‘And we should start at once.’
Rassilon raised his glass. ‘I think we have time to finish these first.’
While Gallifreyan warships kept the Auton assault ships and Nestene Swarms contained within the Illia galaxy, Roppen returned to the Lost Laboratory. He worked in seclusion and almost entirely alone. Rassilon and a team of technicians worked on a specially fitted TARDIS that would allow him to operate the weapon and still escape its destructive force.
When the day came, Roppen walked into the War Council room and placed his cuboid device on the table, right in the middle. It looked very different to the Eye of Discord. That had looked cold and functional; prosaic. This looked almost lyrical.
Instead of brushed metal, this device was made of dark wood with what looked like brass cogs and gears visible on some of its panels. Their circular designs seemed to mimic the Gallifreyan language that was carved into its edges.
On other facia were maze-like patterns, as if some outward appearance of the complex computer programmes running within. Although instead of electronic circuit boards or any other higher technology, Roppen had favoured clockwork for the device’s control mechanism, which whirred and ticked as if almost alive.
‘How is it operated?’ asked Rassilon.
‘Simply turn the wheel on top,’ Roppen replied. He looked pleased with himself for some reason. ‘Then give it your instructions.’
‘It’s voice activated?’ asked General Brissilan.
‘The operating mechanism is sentient.’
Rassilon raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that wise?’
‘Exactly to my specifications,’ Roppen replied. ‘Remember?’
Rassilon smiled. ‘Of course.’
The echo of their conversation faded and Rassilon ordered the device taken to the specially equipped TARDIS.
Rassilon looked round the room. Sektay smiled at him from a dark corner.
‘Well then. Let us end this war!’
A line of Chancellery Guards led to the TARDIS door. Rassilon sighed. But he understood better than most how ceremony was used to reinforce and to some extent control a society.
Wearing the deep red armour of a soldier, he marched between the guards dressed in their sunnier, scarlet and white uniforms. Rassilon turned as he reached the TT-capsule. Unlike Roppen, he did not avoid the Public Register Video, and this was being transmitted across Gallifrey and its colony worlds. He gave a heroic smile, waved and stepped inside.
At the six-sided central console were half a dozen science techs, all in white overalls. Rassilon gave the order for dematerialisation and passed through the vast chamber to another door, leading deeper inside the spaceship.
The room he found himself in now was unfurnished save for a grey-white plinth on which stood the wooden frame of Roppen’s device. The walls surrounding it were indented with circular craters, echoing the quiet ticking of the machine they housed.
Rassilon positioned himself over the device and carefully turned the golden wheel on top. The whirring of the mechanism intensified for a brief moment and then died away once more. But nothing else happened. The Lord President of Gallifrey frowned.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘Well what?’ asked a deep but slightly croaky voice behind him. Rassilon turned slowly. He expected to see one of the white-clad pilots form the console room.
Instead, an old man stood before him. He had a lined but kind face, a white-grey goatee beard and unruly hair of the same colour, swept up into the merest suggestion of a crest at the centre. His clothing looked alien: an animal skin jacket and woven scarf. Across his chest he had a bandoli
er.
‘Who are you?’ Rassilon shouted, angry at the intrusion. He began to approach the stranger. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘Neither of us should,’ the old man replied, then he smiled. ‘Ha!’
Rassilon gazed at the man. ‘You’re an artificial intelligence?’
‘Artificial?’ the old man scoffed. ‘I am the interface. Well, a representation of it. Chosen especially for you so that you’d feel at home.’
‘Feel … at home?’
Just then, the door opened behind the old man and a fresh-faced pilot stood there looking slightly foolish.
‘Excuse me, Lord President, but is everything all right?’
Rassilon glared at the intruder. ‘Of course! Why?’
‘We … heard you call out.’
‘I was talking to this man!’ Rassilon said.
The pilot stared at him and then slowly looked around the room. ‘Man?’
‘You can call me Pandoric,’ the bearded man said. ‘But he can’t. He can’t see me.’
‘Ah,’ Rassilon said. ‘The device has a sentient operating system. The interface is only visible to the operator. You may leave us.’
The pilot bobbed his head and darted from the room, closing the door firmly behind him. Mad old Rassilon. That was what he’d be thinking. The Time Lord smiled and turned back to this OS that called itself …
‘Pandoric?’
‘Yes. After the Pandorica. Another mythical box that was supposed to harbour something very dangerous; the prison of a warrior or a goblin that fell from the sky and tore the world apart. Sound familiar?’
‘Not at all.’
The old man looked crestfallen. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Ah. Hang on. I’m a bit confused. That’s the future. They’re so easy to confuse, aren’t they? Don’t you find?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Well, I do.’ He walked across the room and looked at the wooden box. ‘Still. Let’s just stick with Pandoric, shall we? It’s a good enough name.’
Doctor Who: Myths and Legends Page 21
