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  The Doctors listened in horror.

  ‘Gallifrey,’ the Eighth Doctor whispered. ‘Before the Time Lords can rise to power … The Daleks are going to destroy Gallifrey.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The three of them stood in the dirt of a dead planet. The Knight, the Fool, and the Dead united at last.

  ‘This means war,’ said the Knight.

  ‘I’ve been a fool,’ said the Fool.

  ‘The end of everything,’ said the Dead.

  For that is how time works. You change one thing – it can be squashing a bug or pulling down a castle – and the whole universe topples, changing into something new. Sometimes an extra breeze stirs in the trees. Sometimes worlds are born and burn on such a change.

  The Doctor had come here and taken on Death. He’d won. But lost. For he’d drawn himself there. One falling into the oldest war of his people. And the other forced into an alliance with his oldest enemies. His oldest enemies with a history of brutal cunning.

  ‘This is not a time for recriminations,’ said the Knight, seeing the look in the eyes of the Fool and the Dead.

  ‘If the Daleks wipe out Gallifrey in the Dark Times, then that’s it. Nothing will ever stand against them.’

  ‘It can’t be allowed to happen,’ the Dead said. ‘I can’t live in a universe without Gallifrey.’ He didn’t notice the look on the faces of the Knight and the Fool as he announced, ‘We’re going home.’

  The Last of the Kotturuh stood with a vampire and watched the vast bulk of the Donna lift up into the sky where, with a wheezing, groaning pop, she vanished.

  ‘What did the Doctor give you?’ asked Madam Ikalla.

  ‘A plant.’ Inyit indicated the remains of Hector.

  ‘And what did you give the Doctor?’

  ‘A gift in return,’ said Inyit.

  The Kotturuh looked out at the sullen sky, and the howling desolation, and then stepped into the biodome.

  The door to the drive carbine finally gave way to combined Dalek firepower, and the creatures glided into the room to find Brian waiting for them.

  The Ood bowed politely.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said to the Dalek Commander. ‘I’ve been asked to point out that I’m standing in front of your engine, so, should you attempt to exterminate me, it will, regrettably, damage your ship.’

  While the Commander considered this, the Symbiont thrashed forward. Brian did not even glance at it.

  ‘Your pet has done a commendable job of finding me, but please restrain it now,’ he announced. ‘While I would not dream of exploiting this situation, my colleague Mr Ball –’ he tapped his translator globe, revealing a wire trailing from it – ‘has also connected itself to the drive core. I would hate to rip it open during my death agonies.’

  The Commander turned to the Symbiont. ‘Retreat!’

  The Symbiont twitched and gurgled resentfully, then dragged itself a few feet back from Brian, tentacles drumming against the side of its casing.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Brian. ‘Mr Ball is much obliged. Now. I believe we should talk.’

  The Donna leapt through space, with the Doctors standing at the viewscreen. Even with the Tenth Doctor’s TARDIS wired into the engines, it was still taking more time than any of them wanted.

  ‘Look at those stars,’ the Eighth Doctor said. ‘I’ve just realised how new they are.’

  ‘Next time we see them, they’ll be so much older,’ said the Tenth Doctor.

  ‘Or they won’t be there at all,’ said the Ninth.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the Ninth, ‘Sometimes I bring the mood down.’

  Inyit looked around her greenhouse. There was still a lot of work to be done, but she was tired. ‘I need to sit,’ she said, and Madam Ikalla came to help her. ‘No need to fuss …’

  ‘I would like to,’ Madam Ikalla said stiffly.

  The cowled figure seemed to smile at her. ‘You have spent your life in service. Do not replace your Great Ones with me.’

  ‘Your species is as great as theirs,’ Ikalla said, settling her.

  ‘As terrible, perhaps,’ Inyit shifted in the chair, craning for a view of her plants. ‘But now it seems there is just me, and I no longer have the strength to bring death.’ The Kotturuh took a long breath. ‘I am simply a gardener. And possibly not a very good one.’

  Madam Ikalla stood back, neatening the edges of her robe.

  ‘If you’re waiting for instructions, I fear I have none for you,’ Inyit said.

  ‘Do you want me to go away?’ Ikalla asked.

  ‘No, no …’ The Kotturuh focused on her with difficulty. ‘You may stay, of course.’

  ‘Does my presence offend you?

  ‘It … still unsettles me. Forgive me, I have never quite got over the difference between our two species. I have never entirely understood what you are for.’

  ‘I see.’

  The Kotturuh extended a hand, softly tapping the arm of Ikalla’s gown. ‘It does not mean I do not like you. Simply that I am learning to accept new things.’

  Another pause.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Now,’ Inyit said eventually, ‘I just want to look out at the lack of a view and think.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of how, when I die, it will be the end of my species and the last of this world. Of how it will also be a fascinating chance for you to find out what the opening of the Gates of Death will mean.’

  ‘The Doctor – one of him – might be right when he said it could simply be a myth.’

  The Kotturuh rubbed the side of her face with a tentacle. ‘It may be indeed. But I will not be around to find out.’

  In the drive carbine of the saucer, Brian looked at the Daleks just as carefully as they looked at him.

  ‘You wished to talk?’ snapped the Commander. ‘Talk!’

  ‘I would be only too delighted,’ Brian replied.

  ‘You wish an alliance?’

  ‘An alliance?’ Brian shook his head. ‘Dalek alliances tend to end with you gliding over corpses. No. I shall tell you what I want. You will do it for me. If not, then we shall have to try to kill each other. And …’ A modest pause. ‘I never fail.’

  The Dalek Commander said nothing.

  Other life forms found the silence menacing, found that when confronted with a perfectly aimed gunstick, they started to babble, to cry and plead and then greeted their eventual agonising death with something like relief.

  Brian merely regarded his cuffs.

  ‘To continue,’ he said, as though smoothing over an awkward pause at a dinner party, ‘I now know your Ultimate End. You wish to destroy Gallifrey. That does not interest me. Also –’ the merest glance at the gibbering Symbiont – ‘your pet project does not interest me. You have a way out of the Dark Times. Correct?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘I would like you to take me back. When I tell you that I was stranded in this time by the Doctor, perhaps you will understand my motives.’

  ‘You wish us to take you back?’

  ‘That is all. Can you do that without betraying me? If so, then I will allow you to obliterate Gallifrey and return to Skaro.’

  Another silence.

  The Commander turned to the Dalek Scientist in the corridor. There was a brief sub-audible burble of data.

  The Commander turned to the Daleks in the room. Each one moved, repositioning itself just slightly.

  Still the Daleks said nothing.

  Brian stared at his translation sphere and twitched it, just a little. The engine core casing shimmered. ‘Tug tug,’ he announced. ‘I merely remind you of the leverage I hold.’

  Seven Dalek gunsticks twitched with miniature precision.

  The Commander spoke. ‘Weapons calibration is complete. You may now be exterminated without damage to the drive unit.’

  ‘No bargain? Oh dear.’ Brian clucked, pulling the trigger wire taut.

  The Symbiont lurched forwards. ‘Kill!
Kill! Kill!’

  The Eighth and Ninth Doctors stood on the flight deck of the Donna.

  ‘Where’s the other guy?’

  ‘Said he had something to do.’

  ‘Have we slowed down?’

  ‘Just a bit. He borrowed his TARDIS.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I recognise these stars from my childhood.’

  ‘We’re coming home.’

  ‘This could be it. The day it all ends.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You owe me a spider plant.’

  Alarms sounded on board the Dalek ship. At the same time the drive chamber filled with a wheezing groaning sound, and the TARDIS appeared in a spitting hail of Dalek gunfire.

  Once it subsided, the door opened a crack and the Tenth Doctor’s voice called out.

  ‘Before you fire again – my TARDIS now exists twice in the same location, both here and in the main engine room. A lucky shot could trigger time cone inversion, so best not.’ He stuck his head out, waited to see if anyone blew it off, and then beamed. ‘Brian, hello! Daleks, hello! Mexican standoff, hello! And what’s that?’ He jerked a finger at the Symbiont thrashing and crawling towards him. ‘Throwing a wrecking ball through history, harvesting lost species, even invading Gallifrey – that I could understand. But, a hybrid of Dalek and Great Vampire DNA?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Dalekula?’

  The Doctor beckoned Brian inside the TARDIS and, pausing on the threshold, fixed his attention on the Dalek Commander.

  ‘You’ve faced one of me in battle with two of me on your side. Don’t go up against all three of us.’

  He closed the door and the TARDIS faded away.

  Inside, the Tenth Doctor worked the controls silently. Brian made several attempts to open the conversation but the Doctor ignored him. He picked a glass ball off the console, tossed it into the air a few times, then stared at it.

  ‘It gets harder,’ he said. ‘Every time. Talking to them like I don’t care. Really all I want to do is scream into their stupid ugly eyestalks until I run out of air.’ He put the glass ball back. ‘But what would be the use?’

  Brian tilted his head to one side in a show of sympathy. ‘I am grateful to you for rescuing me.’

  ‘Least I could do,’ the Doctor said. ‘Why were you in their engines?’

  ‘Finding things out. Frightening them. Preparing to sacrifice myself nobly. The engine core was attached to –’ Brian glanced at Mr Ball – ‘Oh. The cord appears to be broken, if not the accord. But still, I would have taken the ship and all those Daleks with me. Perhaps you should have left me.’

  ‘Perhaps I should.’ The Doctor was busying himself at the controls.

  ‘Of course,’ Brian mused, ‘as you pointed out, there is an earlier version of this TARDIS also in the engineering section. Had I blown up the ship, it would have been destroyed. Never mind time-cone inversion – what a paradox that would have caused!’

  ‘You know, I hadn’t thought of that,’ said the Doctor, almost convincingly.

  ‘How selfless of you to come and rescue me.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  In the drive carbine, the Strategist turned to the Commander.

  ‘Report?’ it demanded.

  The Commander twitched.

  ‘My assessment is that the Doctor rescued his associate,’ the Strategist continued. ‘The Doctor has learned from you the location of the Emperor’s Ultimate End. The Doctor will be waiting for us. Gallifrey will now be defended.’ The Strategist turned away, seemingly dismissing the Commander from all further thought. ‘I have informed the Executioner of a way to strengthen our forces. I have deployed the Symbiont. I shall ensure the Emperor’s orders succeed.’

  The Strategist glided away without a further word.

  As the Dalek ship pulled out of transwarp, a scout ship broke away. It had a mission to undertake.

  The orange planet sat at the heart of Kasterborous. In their own savage way its people were ambitious but relatively quiet. They had not troubled the ancient life forms. The Jagaroth had come and gone without visiting; the Uxaerians had not enlisted them in their doomed fight to ward off the Kotturuh; the Dæmons had not even bothered trying to advance the species. The Osirans knew of the planet, but didn’t use it as ammunition in the war between their seven hundred and forty gods. The inhabitants had only started to master space, and had encountered a species that they would be fighting a war against for a long time. Other than that, they were, by the standards of those times, peaceful.

  As the Donna glided majestically into orbit around Gallifrey, the Tenth Doctor imagined a child walking on the silver shores of the lake. If she looked up and listened really hard, would she hear the wheezing groaning sound of the ship? Would she remember that noise? Would she wonder at it, daring to imagine what her people would one day become? ‘Who knows?’ he muttered.

  ‘Dressed up again,’ said the Eighth Doctor.

  ‘Yes.’ The Tenth Doctor looked down at his scuffed and battered robes. ‘Last time I wore these I was the champion of the universe.’ He pulled a face. ‘Now I’m saving my home.’

  ‘They suit you better this time,’ said the Eighth Doctor.

  ‘Yeah,’ the Tenth Doctor conceded, grateful that the collar no longer itched so much.

  The Ninth Doctor strolled onto the flight deck, was about to say something, then saw the planet on the screen. He stared at it, shaken.

  ‘It’s nice to be home, isn’t it?’ the Eighth Doctor said, misconstruing his open-mouthed stare.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I always mean to pop back more than I do,’ the Eighth said, ‘But you know how it is, I never find the time.’

  ‘Right.’ The Ninth’s voice was low.

  ‘Still, I’m here now. That’s what counts.’

  ‘It does.’ The Ninth Doctor caught the Tenth Doctor’s expression reflected in the viewscreen.

  ‘And,’ said the Eighth, ‘when all this is over, we can all go see President Romana. Tell her three outrageously different accounts of it and make K-9 very cross.’

  No one said anything, and the Eighth Doctor’s smile dimmed. He frowned.

  ‘But first, let’s save it.’

  The two other Doctors suddenly looked so much older and wearier.

  ‘Yes. And this time we stand together.’

  The Tenth Doctor gestured to some ornate garments folded over a chair. ‘I got you both some clothes if you’d like to change.’

  The Donna, last stubborn survivor of the Victis Fleet, stood alone between a planet called Gallifrey and whatever was coming to devour it.

  At the edge of the constellation of Kasterborous, the Dalek saucer appeared, gun ports open. Platoons of Daleks flew out of it towards the planet, guns already firing.

  The Donna was only one ship and she didn’t stand a chance.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘It is one thing –’ the Tenth Doctor was gripping onto the flight computer – ‘to say that we’ll defend Gallifrey—’

  ‘But yeah –’ the Ninth Doctor avoided a falling chunk of ceiling – ‘sometimes—’

  ‘Mmmf,’ the Eighth Doctor said profoundly. His mouth was full of sonic screwdriver and retaining bolts.

  Around them the crew of the Donna did the best they could to save the ship from the Dalek onslaught. Menden, the chief engineer, was bellowing instructions as calmly as she could while Gelsin was ordering his Bloodsmen to the defensive.

  ‘We forgot something,’ the Tenth said.

  ‘It’s the thing we’re always forgetting,’ the Ninth agreed.

  ‘Weapons!’ the Eighth Doctor exclaimed, spitting out his screwdriver.

  ‘That’ll be it.’ The Tenth grabbed a microphone and bellowed into it: ‘Brian!’

  Two levels down, the Ood was sorting through his collection of ancient weaponry.

  ‘Doctors,’ he said. ‘I take it you are hoping for some kind of eldritch nightmare to unleash upon the Daleks?’

  ‘Yes.’


  ‘Did you by any chance remember to secure my armoury at any point?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘I’m afraid that when the crew left, they rather helped themselves.’

  ‘Oh.’

  A long pause.

  ‘There’s a reflective Kastrian barrier,’ Brian stared doubtfully at a metallic cube. ‘It’s not strictly a weapon, not as such—’

  ‘Brian!’

  ‘Of course,’ the Ood bowed to the excited voice. ‘It would be my pleasure to deploy it.’

  Score after score of Dalek Drones swooped in, their guns cutting through the battered hull of the Donna.

  The Dalek Executioner watched them fight and was satisfied. It did not strictly approve of the Dalek Strategist, but these modified units were highly efficient. More than that, they were bloodthirsty.

  The Drones turned about for another strafing run.

  On the command deck, the Ninth Doctor was tearing off a strip from his robes to bandage up a crewmember’s arm. ‘About all this is good for – it’s highly absorbent material. Also,’ he confided, ‘would cover a sofa handsomely.’ He looked over to where the Tenth and Eighth Doctors were programming in a counterattack. ‘Oi, Kublai and Genghis, have we won yet?’

  The ship shuddered, and another series of explosions raced through it.

  ‘Absolutely,’ the Tenth Doctor shouted. ‘We’re just lulling them into a false sense of security.’

  A yawning chasm appeared in the floor.

  ‘Lulling them very hard,’ the Eighth remarked.

  The Dalek Drone force prepared to open fire.

  A flickering blue shield formed around the Donna. At first it was simply light, but as it absorbed the Dalek blasts it began to form into a complicated crystalline structure, one that began to hum and drone with a sound that could only be heard by the ears of a passing Eternal sailboat. It was a beautiful, perfect note, entirely wasted on the deafness of space. The note built and built until finally the crystalline lattice glowed and shattered, sending a blast of energy back at its attackers.

  ‘Bullseye!’ the Tenth Doctor shouted as the energy wave engulfed the Dalek Drones, hurling the debris against the hull of the Dalek saucer.