"Xena, what's happening? Why all of these sudden storms? What is with all this freakish weather?" Gabrielle asked with fear in her voice.
"I don't know," the warrior replied, "It could be Dahak. Alternatively, after all that you've told me and what we've seen, whatever is going down in Amphipolis has definitely got to have something to do with it. One thing I'm convinced of now is that it's not the work of the Olympian gods. It's far too showy for even them." The warrior and bard both cast brief glances across the oddly behaving sky. Clouds passed and flew by at an alarming rate as the weather conditions worsened. First there would be a sudden burst of rain in a hard downpour and then it would stop abruptly and turn immediately into snow. The snow would just as soon vanish only to be replaced by a very dense fog. The nightmare went on and on. The pair had managed to scrounge around and find some shelter in the trees where the foliage was thick. Xena, demonstrating one of her many skills once again, managed to weave the plant leaves together tight enough to keep them dry. As an extra precaution, they pulled out their traveling cloaks.
Ares had watched as Hexa Prime tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to pull the soldiers backwards in time. In its weakened state, however, the Gate, couldn't exercise the needed control and the soldiers evaporated into the wastes of the continuum. After this little attempt had gone awry, the God of War had retreated to rethink his strategy. In all the excitement, he had allowed himself to get caught up in the moment and he knew he couldn't let that happen again. Also, he reminded himself, there was no way to tell whether or not the Gate honestly had not had the strength to hold onto the soldiers or if it had been a deliberate attempt on the part of the Gate to stall for time to suit whatever purpose it had. It was a partnership he wouldn't take lightly. He had to admit he had been thinking too narrowly. He wanted to hurt Xena; hurt her bad and maybe, just maybe, he was angry enough to want to see her dead too. He wouldn't rest until she knelt before him and acknowledged him as her supreme lord. Equally, his lust over her burned inside him just as strongly and he found a familiar pleasant tingling sensation in his groin as his masculinity started to make its desires known. The one time when Callisto's essence had been trapped in Xena's body and Ares had made love to her, he drank in every curve, every scent of the Warrior Princess; enjoyed the delicious taste of her body's natural perfumes on his tongue, teasing the succulent nipples of her breasts even if Xena's essence was at the time trapped in Callisto's body. He knew Xena's one weak spot would be Gabrielle and he knew that releasing Callisto and Velasca would most assuredly get the warrior's attention. He also saw an opportunity here to rule not only Earth but whole other worlds and times and with the Gate as his to command, his power would be absolute. He could strike at Xena where she was weakest, meaning he could harm Gabrielle or Amphipolis or even that bumbling fool Joxer. He had sent Joxer to try and find Xena and deliver his ultimatum. Ultimatums weren't really his style, he though. He was more of a sneak and he had to admit that Xena still roused his passions when he saw her in action. The pity of it was that since she had been on this atonement kick of hers, she could be a real bitch if you got on her bad side. He finally decided that in a case such as this, the direct approach was the best and if it came right down to it, the world minus one warrior princess wouldn't be such a bad thing. After all, he said to himself with a slight grin, when all is said and done, who's really gonna give a damn?
* * * * *
CHANCELLOR SPANDRELL'S QUARTERS: THE PANOPTICON; GALLIFREY:
An elderly figure sat behind lonely controls at the desk of the Chancellor of the High Council of Time Lords. Called out of retirement, the Chancellor had been given the post upon Romana's rise to the position of President after her return from E-Space.(1) Spandrell was a wily old bird who had a dozen tricks up his sleeve and seeing as how the President knew the Doctor, he was more than glad to be of assistance to her. Several weeks had passed since Ambul had taken over along with his band of cronies and in Spandrell's wizened opinion, his cover story as to his take over and soon-to-be induction as President had more holes in it than a well worn blanket. The story went something like this; there was a terrorist attack from a group of internal dissenters to the new government. The President, unfortunately, had been involved and had perished. Then there had been the "supposed" instructions that should an untimely (and, Spandrell believed, highly unlikely) event occur, Romana had chosen Ambul as her select candidate to lead the planet. He didn't waste any time either. He vociferously attacked Romana's liberal policies with all the vim and vigor he could muster and doing his best to bolster support for his plot to destroy Earth, all in the name of planetary security. To Spandrell, it stank worse than a load of fetid Gallifreyan wharf-vole kidneys. Today was Ambul's day to make a big production of how it would be for "...the greater good of Gallifrey..." and all that nonsense. To Spandrell, the man was as daft as a Gulmere pouchling. Still the hard part would be the pretense of putting up a loyalist front in support of Ambul. What was the saying? You could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Spandrell knew that everyone would have their attention focused on Ambul's induction which would provide him excellent cover for his little bit of homegrown treachery. The old Time Lord studied his console and changed the view to that of the detention center. Romana and Ace sat glumly, their faces betraying little or no emotion whatsoever. The President's face was set as if in stone, a grim determination discernible in the steely blue-grey eyes. Ace's face was a blank mask, belying the rage that bubbled inside her. Upon hearing of the "supposed" accident with Ace and Romana, it hadn't taken Spandrell too long to ferret out what had really happened to them and where they were being kept. Ace was speaking, "Romana, we've been here for God knows how long and that crukking bastard Ambul will have the whole populace believing his lies. Why haven't we tried to get out of here?"
"Patience, Ace, we'll think of something."
"The time to think of something was when we first got dumped in here weeks ago. Besides, Ambul has probably has himself inducted as President by now. If that's the case, that slimy bastard moves faster than a snake."
"Yes, I know." The two women fell back into silence.
"Chancellor Spandrell, have all the necessary final checks been made concerning the induction ceremony?" Ambul said this as he swaggered into Spandrell's office in the Chancellery.
"Yes, Lord Ambul," the old Time Lord replied. To him, Ambul appeared as a pompous strutting peacock who was eager to show off all his splendor. He strolled around the room pouring over all the readouts of security arrangements. Spandrell looked up from a display to see Ambul getting dangerously close to his secret files to free Romana and Ace and expose Ambul's treachery. Spandrell cleared his throat and diverted Ambul's attention with a trifling point over security to keep him from discovering his plans. Pretending to want to discuss the matter further, Spandrell escorted him out of the office.
* * * * *
The Doctors, Susan and Ian paused on the landing just inside the main TARDIS door. As the Eighth Doctor made his way down the steps and across the floor to the hexagonal, mushroom-shaped console, the others could just stand and stare. The room was far more spacious than any of the Doctor's personas were used to. Sticking his hands in his pockets, the Second Doctor poked out his stomach and with a petulant scowl on his face, said, "You've been doing the TARDIS up a bit, haven't you? Hmmmmm, I don't like it." The Doctors all then made themselves at home in the ship. The atmosphere was warm and had a homely feel to it. Ian walked as if in a daze. This TARDIS was so different from when he and Barbara had traveled with the Doctor so many years before. He felt a tugging at the back of his mind and felt a warm and familiar presence like an old friend as the ship bonded with him on a telepathic level. He examined all the flora and fauna as he found he had wandered into the Garden Room. Finally alone with his thoughts and the TARDIS' cybernetic sentience in his mind, the old schoolteacher let the tears flow as the grief poured forth from his soul.
The Eighth Doctor twisted knobs, turned dials and pulled levers on the console as he tried to sort the endless data that was streaming in from the world outside. The news was catastrophic. Time was collapsing in and around the planet with the force of a whirlpool. At that moment the Cloister Bell began its deep, resounding clang that the Doctor knew spelled certain doom for the planet. It was no good. He needed to think, to plan, to find a way and if this information was correct, then Earth had little time left and when it went, the TARDIS was sure to be dragged along with it. His other selves gathering around the console, the Doctor worked furiously to move the ship to retrieve Barbara's casket. Taking turns at the console's different stations, the Doctors all worked as one. At last the Eighth Doctor straightened up; "Cross our fingers," he said, switching his personal pronouns, "Here goes." The Doctor threw the master dematerialization switch and the rods inside the time rotor lurched into motion. Halfway through the cycle, the rotor froze and refused to budge. The Eighth Doctor groaned, "It's no good. The time dimensions around Earth are contracting to the point of collapse too fast. We'll have to make the jump and bypass space-time altogether." The Doctors set to work as one again making sure that the timing of the jump was perfect. If the calculations were off by even a fraction of a micro-second, the TARDIS would be flung randomly into space-time or destroyed. Making the necessary corrections, the Doctor threw the dematerialization switch again. The TARDIS engines roared to life with a warped strain to their sound. The beacon flashed brilliantly as the ship began to fade into transparency. Suddenly, in the middle of the maddening mob, there were two faintly transparent Police Boxes-one near the cemetery wall and one seeming to overlay the area where Barbara's casket rested. As the transparent form of the TARDIS near the wall faded out of existence, the ship's hull solidified around the casket. The bypass of space-time was a success!
"That's it. There's no more I can do. With time collapsing around the planet, the TARDIS is frozen to this place. We need outside help." The Doctor's words were almost lost through the din of the Cloister Bell's resonant peals.
"Doctor, what do you propose to do?" Susan asked. The Time Lord looked up at each one of his seven previous personas in turn and noted their grim expressions and then said, "Call the Time Lords. They are our only hope."
* * * * *
Spandrell's little diversion had worked rather better than he had dared to hope. Right in the middle of the Gold Usher inducting Ambul as President, the alarm sounded. As a result, all of the assembled Time Lords were in an uproar. The safety bulkheads lowered trapping everyone in the great Audience Hall. Once they had walled up the Audience Hall, only the Chancellor or a higher ranking official could release them. And with an energy dampening field in place, the Audience Hall was totally isolated. Regaining his bearings in the chaos, Ambul growled through clenched teeth, "Spandrell!"
Spandrell, Romana and Ace sped down the hidden corridors of the Panopticon to the secret room that only Spandrell knew of. They turned, ducked down passages and backtracked to confuse anyone who might would follow. Spandrell doubted that, with his little deception, anyone would really bother to look for them. At least he hoped they wouldn't. At last they came to a darkened room that appeared to be tucked neatly away from everything else. After catching her breath, Romana spoke, "Thank you for that daring rescue Chancellor. Where is it that you've brought us to?"
"It's an old disused control center for the Time Scoop. Ever since the Death Zone Affair(2) and the Doctor's subsequent trial(3), it has been largely forgotten. I happened on this secondary control center quite by accident." Ace was glancing around and said, "This is some severe technology you've got here Chancellor."
"Why thank you."
"Chancellor," Romana continued, "How did you know we needed access to the controls of the Time Scoop?" The old Chancellor smiled as he tapped the side of his nose and gave a sly wink.
* * * * *
The Doctor, noticing that Ian had been absent from the rest of the group for the last several minutes, left his other selves and Susan to get reacquainted and went to see if the old teacher was holding up. As if acting more on instinct than having to actually look for him, the Doctor crossed opposite the console to the rather opulently adorned Garden Room and found Ian on an ornate wrought iron bench near a large reflecting pool. To normal standards, it looked like a small pond. As he looked up to see the Doctor enter, he gave a shuddering sigh and tried to bring his emotions under control. The Doctor sat next to him and ran a hand through his wavy brown curls. Finding words for situations like this were always difficult for him and he reckoned that after a thousand years and eight lifetimes, he ought to be a pro at it. He let out a deep sigh and glanced up at the ceiling to the artificial blue of a daytime sky on Earth. A cloud passed by and somewhere in the transcendental spaciousness of the Garden Room, a bird called out. Light from some source streamed through the foliage casting shadows on Time Lord and human alike.
"Ian, about what I said earlier,"
"Huh?" interrupted the teacher.
"I wanted to apologize for the nasty things I said earlier."
"What are you talking about? I was arguing with the..." He said before he realized that even if it was his eighth persona he were addressing, the man sitting next to him was still the Doctor. As the realization sank in, Ian turned his gaze back to the Japanese fighting fish that swam lazily in the reflecting pool. The Doctor, for his part, was feeling like a fish out of water and stumbled over his next words, ignoring the two ferrets that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere having perched on him; one on his lap, the other on his shoulder.
"Ian, I can understand your anger. I feel Barbara's loss as deeply as you do. I was younger then," he paused realizing how contradictory that must sound. He realized again in the space of seconds, that even though his first persona appeared as an old gentleman and his current persona appeared to be in his mid-thirties, he was in fact now about eight hundred years older-and wiser. He went on, "I know I was often an irascible, cantankerous old lout, but think of the fun and the travels we had. Even with the many arguments, there were the happy times too."
"I know Doctor. What I can't figure out is if I am really just mad at myself, for not being able to help her or mad at her for leaving me alone. She's gone and I'll never see her again." Looking Ian squarely in the eye, the Doctor said, "As long as she lives in here," he pointed to Ian's heart, "And as long as she lives in your memory, she will never truly be gone."
"There is just so much I wanted to say to her before she died and now I'll never get the chance."
"It's not too late Ian. She may no longer be with us physically but wherever she is, I'm sure she can hear you. Come with me." The Doctor led Ian out of the Garden Room and back across the console room. Turning at an odd angle, he headed down a long corridor that matched the rest of the ship's layout. He stopped abruptly at a heavy bronze double door and gave it a gentle tug. What Ian saw as the door swung open bewildered and amazed him. Beams of golden late afternoon sunlight streamed out into the corridor. In the center of the open area that was displayed before them, was a crystal bier standing in a grassy glade that was surrounded on all sides by softly rolling hills that disappeared into the horizon. There was a salty scent to the air and Ian noticed an ocean someways in the distance and just off to the left were mountains, dark and brooding. Ian knelt down to feel the emerald carpeting of the grass. It was real. Returning his attention to the crystal bier, he noticed that Barbara's casket rested on top of it.
"Doctor, this is amazing! How is it done? Are we outside the TARDIS? Is it holograms? Dimensional transference? How?"
"None of the above, actually," came the reply, "We're still in the TARDIS and this is simply a room like all the others. Everything you see is real, nothing holographic or fake about it. I think," he said with a smile pulling at his mouth, "I think that the old girl rather had a soft spot for Barbara too."
"You mean you didn't..."
"No. The TARDIS did this herself. I think it's her way of showing how much Barbara is missed."
"It's beautiful."
"Anyway, I'll leave you alone. I suspect there are some things you'd like to get off your chest in private."
"Yes. Oh, and Doctor?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
"You are quite welcome my friend; quite welcome." The Doctor then turned and left the room and headed back towards the console room, leaving Ian alone with his thoughts and a strange kind of peace in his soul.
* * * * *
TIME SCOOP CONTROL CHAMBER-GALLIFREY:
Spandrell had wasted no time when they entered the chamber. He erected a force field which only he knew how to disarm. He then set about helping Romana and Ace scan for any trace of the Doctor's TARDIS. Ace's voice floated across the room, "I've got him! The TARDIS is on Earth in London on the seventh of October, nineteen ninety-seven. He's activated the distress beacon. That's how I was able to pinpoint him!"
Madame President," Spandrell interrupted, "You should know that when we activate the Time Scoop, they'll know immediately. They may also be able to locate us."
"Then we had better work fast then, hadn't we?" came the President's reply.
Ambul had gathered a handful of his supporters about him and growled his instructions, "Find Spandrell. Check on the President and her pet savage. IF they are missing, I want them found and brought before me! Go! Now!" His confederates turned to carry out his orders.
"Romana, we're ready to begin broadcasting. We have managed to cut in on Public Access Television's main channel. Ambul won't know what hit him! Broadcasting....now!" Romana then, to the surprise of all in the Audience Hall, addressed all of Gallifrey and told the planet of Ambul's treachery and his plans to usurp the position of the President. "Lastly," she continued as she finished up her address to her people, "We have an agent who can help us save both the Earth and Gallifrey. At this moment we stand ready to retrieve his TARDIS from where it is trapped on Earth. Citizens of Gallifrey, let me also urge you not to be swayed by Ambul and his like who would destroy our planet for their own personal gain. Take back what is ours! They cannot win!" With that the message ended and the lights flickered as the Time Scoop mechanism was fired from the secret control room. The interruption in the power caused the Audience Hall to open and allowed Ambul's confederates to begin their search. Ambul stared around himself, horrified, as an eerie hush fell over the gathered Time Lords. His beautiful dreams of empire were burning to the ground around him. A low rumble had started and grown quickly in volume as the assembled Lords began muttering amongst themselves. As he tried to restore to a situation that was rapidly spiraling out of his control, a young acolyte Time Lord managed to get a patrol staser away from its owner and made a mad dash towards the dais where Ambul stood. Raising the staser, he aimed and shouted a call to arms, "For Romana! For GALLIFREY!!!" All Ambul could was stare dumbly as he was shot at point blank range. The Gallifreyan Civil War had begun.
The TARDIS lurched drunkenly and sent the Doctor hurtling to the floor. Picking himself up, he ran to the console room with Ian following just a few seconds behind.
"What is it?" the Doctor asked one of his previous selves, "What's going on?" He started to fuss over the controls. His fourth persona came and laid a restraining hand on his arm. Pointing to the ceiling he said, "It's the Time Lords. I think we're going home." The Doctor's gaze fell upon the time rotor and made note that it was moving indicating the TARDIS was in flight. After studying the controls, the Eighth Doctor looked up with a grin and said, "I hope they've prepared a welcome home party."
1. See Doctor Who: The E-Space Trilogy starring Tom Baker. E-Space was a small universe outside of the normal universe. The normal universe was referred to as N-Space.
2. See Doctor Who: The Five Doctors-starring Peter Davison
3. See Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord-starring Colin Baker
