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Alf woke to the sound of screams searing her consciousness. She immediately reached out a hand to Lorkan, but he was not there. She looked out from the shallow cave and saw that pandemonium had gripped the small camp. Five Yahanans were lying on the ground and above them floated a dozen smooth gemstones the size of a child's balloon, blazing with golden light. Nothing could have contrasted more with the dull, matt landscape. Arcs of electricity connected the prone bodies to the creatures like permanently earthed lightening. She could make out those still hidden in their caves as the brilliant white light reflected off their horror-filled eyes. Like them, she was powerless to stop the beautiful assailants, but concern for Lorkan meant she had to find him. 'Lorkan!' she shouted above the noise of the crackling electricity. All eyes turned on her hiding place and the gemstone beings also seemed to notice the outburst. Bad move, she thought. Several of the creatures started floating away from their victims towards the source of the noise. Shit! Alf scrambled out of the cave and started running. She stumbled over the springy ground away from the camp, and up one of the bone promontories. There her haphazard escape came to an abrupt halt. The inert body of Lorkan was slumped on the rock, his head lolling over the edge as if peering down on events in the camp. Alf realised he must have been on watch when the attack happened. 'You bastards!' she screamed, turning to face her pursuers, defiant with rage. She felt the warm sting of tears fill her eyes, making the gemstone creatures blur as they surrounded her sobbing form. Dark. Safe. Sound! Danger? Fear. Fear. Sound. Close. Danger! No. Moving food. Two. Here. Now. Flight? Hunger. Danger. Hunger. Danger. Hunger. Danger. Hunger. Hunger. Feed. Small. Two. Feed. Now. The city was their playground - especially at the moment, with most things not working because of the NEMO thing on the news. Adults seemed to be so concerned about it, but Rollis knew they were stupid. All they cared about was washing his face and doing his preparation. They had no idea how much fun the city was at the moment. They could go almost anywhere and no one seemed to question them. Of course it helped that their parents were working and the seminary had been shut. He and Lexis had been playing all day and pretty soon they would have to go home. But before they did, Lexis said they should go to the depot. The depot had been standing empty for over two years now. It used to have all these great trucks delivering great big loads of lactic that were broken into smaller bits and sent throughout the city's seminaries on really old-fashioned hover-wagons. Now lactic had been stopped. His father had said it was something to do with politics, but all Rollis knew was that he used to like having a carton of lactic at break time. Stupid adults. Now, though, the depot was a forbidden place; 'dangerous', their parents called it. They said it could collapse and that the glass windows were not there for their target practice. Huh. He and Lexis had been breaking the windows for about five minutes, but had become bored and decided to go in and explore. 'Look!' shouted Rollis as his eyes became used to the dark. 'What?' Lexis was busy smashing at an abandoned table with his stick. 'I think it's an old hover-wagon!' Rollis moved towards the shape in the darkness, desperate to get there before his cousin, but was barged aside by Lexis as he ran past to arrive at the shape first. 'Aww. Rollis!' he said, obviously now convinced his young relative was an idiot. 'It's just a bit of scaffolding and a tarpaulin.' Rollis was crestfallen. But then his eyes lit up. 'Let's climb it!' he said. Before he could tear the frith-eared old material away, something moved out from behind it. He froze and for the first time that evening he felt the chill of the night. 'Rollis? What's wrong?' Lexis moved to join his friend and he too stopped to stare at the rounded shape that had detached itself from the deepest shadows in the depot. It moved inexorably towards them, suddenly becoming a blazing eye of golden death. Sound. Gone. Hunger. Gone. Moving food. Gone Fear…. Marshall Arat Jarah lived in a very normal house in a very normal district of Dar-Es-Buraq. She was the first Yahanan female to rise to the rank of Marshal but she was determined to give her children as normal a home life as possible. As such she eschewed the usual security protocol on which previous Marshals had insisted. It had certainly made for a more enjoyable life, not having your every move followed by CCTV. Indeed, the only - sensible, in her opinion - precaution Jarah took was in assigning a Surti vehicle to watch her home 31 hours a day. So when her doorbell rang at 19.15 she had no qualms in answering the door. The first thing she noticed on opening the front door was that the Surti vehicle was still in place. She could not have known that the trio of Sontarans that now stood on her doorstep had killed the hover-car's occupants minutes before. 'Marshal Arat Jarah?' asked one of the armour-clad Sontarans. It sounded so official. But then that was exactly what her second-in-command had wanted her to think when he had told his troops what to say. 'Yes?' The two silent Sontarans grabbed her arms while the leader drew out a syringe and plunged it into her neck. She was so shocked, she did not even cry out. The Doctor led Kovalis into the darkened console room and smiled. It was exactly as the Time Lord clone had left it two days before. He went immediately to the wooden font at the centre of the room to start the re-activation procedure. Before the Doctor could even press a single button, several things happened at once. The Doctor saw there was someone sitting in the chair beside the scanner, two Yahanans emerged to pinion Kovalis and a very powerful torch was shone in the Time Lord clone's face. 'Welcome home,' said the figure in the chair. The Doctor brought his hand up to shade his eyes from the intense beam of light. 'You seem to have me at a disadvantage. Would you care to level the playing field by giving me your name, Sir?' 'We are old friends, Doctor!' 'I doubt that on old friend would half blind me with a flashlight.' 'My apologies. It is all I had in my vehicle.' 'I'm sorry. I still don't recognise your voice.' 'Well you should,' explained the voice brusquely. 'After all, it was you who sent me to this godforsaken planet.' 'Me?' 'When you arrived at Outpost Gallifrey, you persuaded the High Council to send me here. You said this was where we would find the Nexus.' 'Outpost Gallifrey?' breathed the Time Lord clone. 'Yes. As soon as I saw the time ship was your TARDIS, I assumed you were here on some sort of rescue mission.' The voice huffed. 'Outpost Gallifrey?' repeated the Doctor, marvelling at the revelation. 'So you're a…' '…Time Lord. Yes. Is your memory all right?' 'Well, it's been a bit iffy of late now you come to mention it. Look, is it necessary for us to hold this conversation as if it were an interrogation?' 'Until you re-activate the TARDIS, I'm afraid it is, yes. Perhaps you would like to do that now so we can all see?' The Doctor remained silent. 'Hmm. I thought you might not be so agreeable.' 'I think I should tell you that I came here looking for Outpost Gallifrey.' 'Ah,' said the voice, its owner rising from the chair. 'In that case this may be a bit complicated for you. Let me start with my name.' 'Jeret Seth,' spat Kovalis. 'I know who you are.' 'And so you should, Commander. So you should. And you no doubt thought it was a nom de guerre because my name didn't have your rather tedious "-is" ending. Yes, I go by the name of Jeret Seth.' The Time Lord approached the Doctor. In the penumbra of the torchlight, the Doctor could see Seth was holding out his hand, smiling. 'It is good to see you again.' |
