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‘Someone is taking home a teasmade, a picnic set and a caravanning weekend in Rhyl,’ the Ninth Doctor grinned. He leaned into his older self. ‘When fighting back is like this, it feels …’

  The Tenth nodded. ‘Easier on the soul?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  They looked over to the Eighth Doctor, racing from console to console, rerouting power and whooping as he saved his home planet.

  ‘He doesn’t know, does he?’

  ‘If only we never had to.’

  The Tenth Doctor called down to Brian. ‘Congratulations!’

  ‘You are far too kind.’

  ‘That knocked out half the Daleks. Can I get the same again but bigger?’

  A discreet Ood ahem came over the communicator. ‘I regret to say that the only weapons I have left are some packing crates.’

  A disquieting mood settled over the bridge. Gelsin and Menden exchanged wary glances.

  ‘Packing crates? That’s it?’

  ‘We could throw them. If they penetrate the casings, they might cause some quite painful splinters.’

  Menden got ready to say something uncomplimentary, but the Tenth Doctor got there first, hands jammed into some pockets he’d somehow found in his robes. ‘You lot – you’ve all been brilliant. But now we want you all to get into the escape pods and, uh, well, escape.’

  The engineer swore under her breath. ‘Escape pods again?’

  ‘No more Brokers to pluck you out of space.’ The Tenth Doctor pointed to the door. ‘No arguing. Scarper.’

  Gelsin started to explain that the Bloodsmen would remain behind and help the Donna fight her last battle. But the Ninth Doctor instead reached out and shook his hand. ‘No, Gelsin. You’ve done enough. Get out of here.’

  ‘We’ll cover you,’ the Eighth vowed. ‘It’s the least we could do. And thank you.’

  Gelsin looked at the Doctors one final time, and then stalked away alongside Menden. ‘It really is a day for falling gods,’ he muttered.

  The remaining Dalek Drones soared towards the ship again.

  As they passed the debris field of still-burning Daleks, something strange happened. The shattered casings, oozing their occupants into space, twitched and turned and followed their surviving comrades.

  ‘Evacuation complete.’ The Eighth Doctor bounded onto the bridge. ‘Nobody here but us chickens.’

  ‘We’re on our own,’ the Tenth Doctor smiled. ‘As it should be.’

  ‘I think –’ the Ninth was running some calculations at the engine controls – ‘if we ram the Dalek ship, we can maybe wipe it out.’

  ‘No maybe about it,’ the Tenth said, scribbling with a bit of chalk on the floor. ‘Three regenerations of the same Time Lord smacking into a Dalek saucer …’

  ‘Along with three of the same TARDIS …’

  ‘Should cause an almighty release of Blinovitch Paradox Energy.’

  The Eighth smiled grimly. ‘Imagine that – we may end up as a small Gallifreyan moon to be stared at by hermits.’

  ‘Wait a mo …’ The Ninth Doctor was looking out at the approaching Dalek forces. ‘There’s something wrong with those Daleks. I’m not being funny, but don’t some of them look a bit too dead to be still moving?’

  ‘Oh no,’ the Tenth Doctor sighed.

  The Dalek Drones flew on, gathering up the dead and abandoned victims of the first assault, all of them drawing themselves together to continue fighting.

  ‘Kill … Kill … Kill!’ they cried as they flew towards the ship.

  The Executioner had deployed a fleet of newly manufactured Symbionts.

  The Doctors stared out the viewscreen in horror.

  ‘Undead Daleks?’ the Eighth Doctor said.

  The Ninth Doctor was already gripping the shunt thrusters. ‘We’re going to take out as many as we can.’ He grinned. ‘And then some more.’

  The Donna, alone and burning, flung itself at the advancing Daleks.

  Madam Ikalla moved among the plants in the biodome, drawing comfort from them.

  The suns didn’t set on Birinji so much as sulk away behind the barren mountains but, as they sank, they turned the dust clouds scarlet. For a moment this dead, hopeless world looked quite beautiful. She turned to say as much to Inyit, but the Kotturuh was asleep in her chair, tentacles folded across her chest.

  The creature had seemed weaker all day. Even the shimmering colours of her cloak had faded, as though the energy was drawn out of her. A thought came into Ikalla’s mind – if Inyit died, would the Gates of Death really open? Would she finally know peace?

  She turned back to the sunset and stiffened.

  A craft was pushing its way down through the dust.

  Another Dalek scout ship.

  Ikalla turned back to Inyit, desperate to rouse her, but the Kotturuh did not move.

  The three Time Lords stood there, resplendent in their robes, gripping the flight controls as the Donna threw herself in one final, hopeless gesture at the Dalek fleet.

  I always thought this would be how I died, the Tenth Doctor thought. Alone and yet not alone. One final heroic gesture. And I’ll never know if it worked.

  Light bloomed outside.

  The craft was knocked—

  Knock

  Knock

  Knock—three times by the blooms of light. Three Coffin Ships appeared out of nowhere, in between the Doctors and the Daleks.

  The voice of Gelsin over a communicator sounded across the flight deck.

  ‘I summoned the Free Undead to help.’

  Battle raged in space. Bloodsmen apparated in the darkness. One would wrestle with a Dalek. Another would plant an explosive. Then they would flit away again. Every now and then a flailing humanoid figure would light up and go screaming away into the stars.

  The Daleks, no matter how damaged, continued towards the Donna.

  ‘They’re making a path for us,’ the Ninth Doctor said.

  ‘There’s always someone who’ll stay loyal to us,” the Eighth said.

  ‘Someone good we lose.’ The Tenth Doctor’s hand slipped into his pocket. He found something. The last gift he’d been given. Maybe it would be enough.

  The Donna flew on, her hull disintegrating. Strange, awful creatures crawled and tore across it, shrieking silently as they ripped the hull apart. Beyond them, Dalek troops blazed away at it. And beyond that, but growing closer by the second, was the Dalek saucer.

  The Dalek Commander turned to the Executioner. ‘Will they succeed?’

  The Executioner did not even pause. ‘Negative, they will be exterminated.’

  The Dalek Strategist watched the firefight, watched another Bloodsman spin away in a final agony. ‘The Doctor’s associates are failing. The Doctor is failing. Soon, Gallifrey will be destroyed.’

  On Birinji, the Dalek scout ship landed. A ramp descended from the small saucer and a single creature glided out onto the unwelcoming rocks.

  ‘Kill … Kill … Kill …’

  Inyit woke up.

  ‘Please, cease shaking me, little one,’ the Kotturuh whispered.

  ‘You must get up!’ Ikalla ordered her. ‘There is a problem.’

  Inyit looked around her biodome. ‘The plants are watered. What else remains to be done?’

  Madam Ikalla pointed through the window at the Dalek coming towards them.

  One of the Coffin Ships exploded, the shockwave knocking out the Donna’s systems. For a moment, everything on board the ship cut out. The only sound was the distant screams of metal as Dalek Symbionts tore their way into the hull.

  The Dalek saucer’s guns targeted themselves on the Donna.

  The door to the flight deck opened and Brian strode in. ‘Mr Ball is sorry to announce that I would appear to have made a mistake and picked the losing side.’

  The Dalek guns opened fire.

  The Symbiont drew closer to the biodome. Its simple mind felt only two urges, to feed and to kill. It was not capable of fear, or even of planning ahead. It simply moved and kept moving.
It was given orders to kill and it obeyed them.

  A door opened in the biodome and two targets stepped out into the thin atmosphere. It trained its gun on them and then reconsidered. There was time. Time to do this properly.

  It focused on the primary target – the Last of the Kotturuh.

  Madam Ikalla made to stand in Inyit’s path, but the Kotturuh moved her to one side with surprising gentleness.

  The cowled face looked kindly at Ikalla.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Allow me.’

  The Last of the Kotturuh glided, perhaps a trifle stiffly, towards the advancing Dalek Symbiont. Its claws and tendrils snapped and squelched as it propelled itself closer.

  ‘Kill, kill, kill,’ it squealed.

  ‘Yes,’ Inyit nodded. ‘The Daleks are such cowards.’

  The Symbiont paused.

  ‘Even now the Daleks are afraid of what I might do to them. They show that they fear me by sending a creature not-quite-Dalek to kill me.’ Inyit’s tentacles unfurled under her old robes. ‘And yet, they made a mistake when they sent me you.’

  ‘Kill … Kill …’

  ‘I am weak,’ Inyit conceded. ‘I am tired. But, free now of our Design and the edicts behind it, I have one more judgement in me.’

  The Symbiont clanked close, tendrils rearing up towards the Kotturuh. ‘Kill.’

  ‘My judgement is that you are as ridiculous as you are repellent. Be gone.’

  And something – something indefinable between light and magic – flowed from the glittering diamond hands of Inyit the Last of the Kotturuh and into the Dalek Symbiont. The creature began to burn and scream.

  The three Doctors stood, arms around each other’s shoulders, as wave after wave of Dalek Drones flew towards them and beyond that, at the Dalek saucer firing into their burning ship.

  ‘This is it,’ said the Eighth Doctor.

  ‘Fantastic,’ sighed the Ninth.

  The Tenth Doctor, at their centre, looked over his shoulder at the Ood. ‘Brian, I think you’re going to die a hero.’

  ‘How marvellously surprising,’ the Ood said.

  And then it happened quite suddenly.

  The Dalek Drones burned and died. Tiny little balls of fire and dust that flared and left nothing behind but blackened components.

  ‘Something’s wiped them all out,’ the Tenth Doctor said. ‘What could wipe out a whole species as fast as a thought?’

  He stopped, and his face split into a grin.

  ‘The judgement of the Kotturuh,’ the Eighth Doctor said.

  On board the Dalek saucer, the Commander was calling for status reports. The Dalek Executioner was assessing frantically how many of its Drones had been upgraded to Symbionts, and the Scientist was working out if the judgement was spreading to pure Dalek DNA.

  ‘The Kotturuh! The judgement of the Kotturuh has reached us!’

  The Dalek Strategist had withdrawn to one side and was considering its options. ‘We must proceed to Gallifrey!’ it insisted.

  None of the other Daleks were listening.

  They were too afraid.

  Inyit sank to the ground by the pile of twitching dust that had been the Dalek Symbiont. Madam Ikalla rushed to her side.

  ‘That was the last judgement of the Kotturuh,’ Inyit said, her voice weak in the thin atmosphere. ‘That it was against the Daleks was fitting. But … I do not know … how successful it has been … how much Dalek remained in that creature …’

  Ikalla helped the Kotturuh to her feet. ‘Let us get you inside,’ she urged.

  ‘I made it as quick as I could. Death can be as swift as thought.’

  Inyit’s normal glide was more of an uneven stagger as they made their way back to the dome. She turned and looked back as the last of the suns set and the featureless night fell on Birinji.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that the Gates of Death are opening.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘This isn’t a victory,’ said the Tenth Doctor.

  ‘Not yet,’ agreed the Ninth. ‘It’s just a reprieve.’

  The Eighth Doctor broke away from them.

  ‘Where are you going?’ said the Tenth Doctor.

  ‘The Dalek ship,’ said the Eighth. ‘I brought them here. It’s time I took them away.’ He turned to the Ood. ‘Brian?’

  ‘Mr Ball and I regret but … we are not coming with you.’

  ‘Oh, no. Course not.’ The Eighth Doctor frowned at the thought. ‘No, I just wanted one of the Bloodsmen’s apparators.’

  ‘Ah.’ The Ood seemed to smile. ‘I can certainly arrange that.’

  ‘Splendid,’ the Eighth Doctor said, bounding off to certain doom as happy as ever.

  ‘Before you go …’ the Tenth Doctor summoned him back.

  ‘Oh?’ the Eighth paused, curious. ‘Are you going to give me a speech?’

  ‘No.’ The Tenth smiled. ‘Something useful.’

  Confusion reigned on the Dalek ship, a growing wave of barely controlled hysteria. The Dalek Strategist found it most annoying. It was a trait of Dalek behaviour that would have classed as a weakness if Daleks had weaknesses.

  Systems and processes were hard-wired into Dalek mutants to suppress needless mental functions, but they were all too often overridden by the primary Dalek urges to hate and to fear. Experiments had been made to eradicate fear, but without the little heresy Daleks were not quite as successful, not quite as ruthless. The problem was that it meant that Daleks could, as now, still panic.

  The Strategist plotted out the future and found it remained hopeful. Gallifrey’s destruction could still be achieved, and then the next move could be plotted. All it needed to do was to reassert its authority and ensure no more random elements interrupted its predictions.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said a voice, tapping it on the side of its dome.

  The Strategist spun round.

  The Eighth Doctor had appeared from nowhere. Over his normal jacket he now wore a set of resplendent robes and on his face was a beaming smile that the Strategist found offensive.

  ‘Doctor!’ cried the Dalek Commander.

  The Executioner targeted its weapons against the Time Lord, leading several Drones to follow suit.

  ‘Now then,’ the Eighth Doctor said, ‘no time for that. We need to leave.’

  ‘We shall not leave!’ the Strategist announced. ‘We must achieve the Ultimate End.’

  ‘Hmm,’ was all the Doctor said.

  The Commander surveyed the Strategist.

  ‘I mean, sorry, but just a friendly word, ally to ally, how much are you all committed to that?’

  ‘Gallifrey must be destroyed!’ bellowed the Executioner.

  ‘Ye-es …’ The Doctor pulled a face. ‘Thing is, a little bird tells me you’ve been judged by the Kotturuh. It’s taken out the newest additions to your species – all those Vlad the Exterminators – but that was just the start and the judgement is coming for you. Even now it’s in the air, looking at your DNA … rewriting it … How long does a Dalek live?’ The Doctor rapped the Strategist on its crumbling casing. ‘Few thousand years? Is that it? Again, I say – hmm. Going by the fate of your Symbionts, your new lifespan is going to be a few seconds of hate. That’s all.’

  The Scientist’s eyestalk bobbed in silent confirmation.

  ‘The only hope for all of you is to leave the Dark Times. Forget about Gallifrey. Let me get you home.’

  There was a silence.

  The Doctor pointed to the door. ‘My TARDIS is that way. We can be gone in seconds. Trust me – I’ve been outrunning Death all my lives.’

  The Strategist turned to the Doctor and was about to say something when the Executioner thundered: ‘Gallifrey must be exterminated!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ the Doctor tutted. He started to back away. ‘I was afraid you’d say that. So. Three quick things.’

  He took another step, snapped his fingers, and the door to the flight deck flew open. His mouth was dry, but he licked his lips and smiled, producing somethi
ng from his pocket. ‘Three – this stone is the last crystal of Mordeela. It’s connected to the remaining death energy of the Kotturuh and a sudden blast could set it off.’ He threw it to the floor.

  ‘Two – a friend of mine booby-trapped your drive core earlier. I popped down there and fitted this remote trigger.’ He held it up. ‘See? Lovely red button.

  ‘And one,’ he said as he pressed the trigger. ‘Apparently – I’m the Time Lord Victorious.’

  The ensuing explosion tore through the Dalek saucer, hurling it into the Time Vortex.

  As the Doctor ran, the corridors bent and screamed around him. He could feel the ship plummeting through time, hurtling until the drive core was spent. Hopefully the explosion had cleared a path to his TARDIS in engineering. But how long before the damage reached the command deck? How much energy was in that Mordeela crystal the Tenth Doctor had given him? Would it have been enough to destroy the craft or damage it still further?

  The Doctor carried on running as the ship shuddered and buckled. Daleks spun near him, oblivious and screaming. Ahead of him was a wall of flame. All he had to do was what he’d always done, what he always would do: keep running until he found the TARDIS.

  The Eighth Doctor ran into the fire and kept running.

  ‘The Dalek craft has gone,’ Brian said. ‘Gallifrey is unharmed. You can both open your eyes now. You still exist.’

  The Ninth Doctor opened one eye carefully. The Tenth Doctor did the same.

  ‘We could both be a terrible paradox.’

  ‘So, best not hug.’

  ‘Always a good plan.’

  ‘Also, let’s take these robes off.’

  ‘Yeah, we look like curtains.’

  The two of them smiled at each other and then turned to Brian, who was trying to attract their attention. ‘I realise that you are both happy, but Mr Ball informs me that this craft is disintegrating rapidly. If you both intend to die, perhaps one of you could provide me with the keys to a time machine?’

  ‘Right,’ said the Tenth Doctor and made to go.

  But the Ninth reached out and took his hand, and steered him back to the viewscreen. ‘Last look at Gallifrey,’ he said gently. ‘Never thought I’d see it again.’

  ‘No.’

  So the two of them stood there, looking at the innocent orange world spinning beneath them.