NationStates Jolt Archive

Princess Damia had enjoyed her first few days as the primary Hipolitan representative to the rest of the world. It was certainly a position she had every right to claim. She was credentialed as ambassador both to the United Nations and to Bigtopia, a staunchly neutral meeting place for a wide variety of powers. She was the Crown Princess and the heiress apparent. Moreover, she had won the physical, mental, and spiritual competition (a competition open to all Hipolitans, in which she had competed with the best her homeland had to offer) to be named the Champion of her people and had been given certain ancient relics believed to have been blessed by saints and heroes of the past. The last seemed most important of all, although it was of least interest to most foreigners. Still, she had a nagging feeling that she didn't fully understand the responsibility, that it was somehow meant more literally than she had been taking it.

She had not yet addressed the United Nations or participated in debate on any important issue. However, she had given several speeches about tolerance and equality, done some important charity work, and even personally taught a self-defense class for young women. She'd given a few interviews and seemed to have charmed quite a few members of the Bigtopian press. More than one article had been printed about the bright ideas of the ambassador from the tiny but optimistic nation.

Still, she wasn't jubilant this morning. She hadn't really given much thought to what the ways of the outside world meant in practice. Not until she started thoroughly reading her morning paper. Seventeen people had been murdered in the capitol last night. Three of them were murdered by police officers sworn to defend them. Damia couldn't see it as a statistic. Seventeen real people had died and this was just a normal night. How could people live like this?

Skaro, sometime in the distant future

The Dalek's visual sensor monitored its captive's reactions to the extreme physical stimulus being provided direct into her central nervous system through hundreds of tiny beams, whose emitters were mounted along the metal sides of the otherwise transparent booth in which she was imprisoned. Each beam sent a different sensation directly into a different cluster of nerves in the captive's body. Hundreds of different sensations, most of them unpleasant, all of them at a level of intensity just beneath the most extreme sensory input the captive's body could take. The thals on whom the booth had initially been tested had pleaded for the Dalek operator to end the ordeal and exterminate them in just moments, but the unfortunate presently imprisoned in the agonising torture device was no mere thal. She was a Time Lord.

The beams stopped, and the captive let out a groan and collapsed against the clear front of the booth, sliding down to her knees from exhaustion. The respite was only to be temporary, and she knew that. The Dalek operating the booth had been at it for days - eighty six hours and fifteen minutes in fact, although to any other person it would have seemed like an eternity. If she was capable of losing track of the time she had spent in the booth, she certainly would have by now. By now she knew the interrogation plan in intimate detail - the Dalek asked questions, and when she refused to answer them, the booth was reactivated. After an agonising period of being tortured by the beams, which had lasted a few seconds at first, then a few minutes, then over an hour, the Dalek deactivated the booth and allowed her some time to recover. Food and water in the form of tasteless cubes had been dispensed via a hole in the top of the booth on three occasions during the downtime before the cycle of interrogation started again. She was never given enough time to fall asleep, and the amount of downtime varied dramatically from just a few seconds to nearly an hour, although it had been steadily increasing along with the duration of the torture itself. At first she had thought that the booth needed time to recharge - now she was convinced that the Dalek's timing was based not on necessary recovery time for the booth but on necessary recovery time for her own central nervous system.

"It is useless to resist." the Dalek said in its inhuman voice, building gradually to an indignant robotic shriek. "You can be kept alive in this device indefinitely. You will eventually cooperate. You are merely prolonging your own suffering. It is not logical!"

"I'm sorry..." she replied as she caught her breath and looked back out through the perspex window at the Dalek. "Am I inconveniencing you? Did you have other plans for the week?"

The Dalek seethed with rage. It hated its prisoner with a depth of hatred unthinkable to even the very worst human being. It hated her race, which had interfered with the Daleks achieving their destiny as the supreme beings of the universe for countless millennia. It hated her bipedal, humanoid form, hated the way she could move about without a travel machine. It hated her golden hair and the way it had been arranged with some obvious thought as to its appearance, the tiny spark of irrational creativity which had gone into creating such a simple thing as a hairstyle, even a fairly simple one. It hated her milky skin with its millions of tiny variations and imperfections imperceivable to normal eyes (which it also hated) which stood out so obviously to the Dalek's optical sensors, as if announcing the triumph of chaos over order in nature. It hated her keen intellect, not out of jealousy, for it was a veritable genius even without the use of all the additional computing power provided by the travel machine in which it had lived all its life, but out of disgust at its unpredictability, its creativity, its originality. It hated her extensive mental conditioning, already so naturally developed in her species before being further improved through training at the Academy, because it made her resilient to all the coercive powers of the booth. Most of all, however, it hated her flippant sense of humour. It couldn't stand that after all it had done to her, she could still muster such levity in her responses.

"Silence!" the Dalek shrieked at her, its travel machine almost trembling with rage. "You will not speak unless asked a question!"

"Awww, but I so enjoy our little chats..." the captive mock-sulked.

"You are my prisoner!" the Dalek raged. "You will obey!"

"I thought we were beyond those little preliminaries by now." the Time Lord shook her head and pretended to be offended. "Do we need to go through the introductions again? I'm Cecinia of the Cerulean College of Time Lords. What's your name?"

"Silence!" the Dalek commanded in a shrill tone.

"Silence, now that's a funny name... Oh, I forgot, Daleks don't have names. Doesn't that get confusing? I mean, when you see another Da..." she replied, but was cut off half-way as a scream built up at the back of her throat.

The Dalek moved its manipulator arm back onto the booth's control panel, and brought the beams back to life, starting at a low setting and slowly turning up the intensity.

"You will provide all details about TARDIS vortex loop control circuits!" the Dalek commanded.

"Is... this... because... you're jealous... I have... a name?" she managed breathlessly between shallow gasps and brief squeals of barely concealed agony.

Oh, how it hated how she kept joking...

The Present, Somewhere in Bigtopia

Princess Damia, still saddened by the news she'd read that morning, news no one else considered in the least unusual, stared out the window of her limousine as she was ferried to yet another public event, a charity ball being hosted by a few local businessmen. The exotic princess had stroked a fair amount of interest among society types, far more than most forty year old ladies. It was a good charity. Still, she couldn't help being sad.

To see what had happened, she had worn her honors as champion today. On her finger, she wore a golden ring inset with an unfamiliar sort of pure crystal and around her waist she wore a broad golden belt. Otherwise, the tall, athletic princess was dressed in an elegant red gown, suitable for the event.

Out the window, things didn't look good. Poverty abounded in this part of the city and Damia could see the local people were suffering. Her mind was just beginning to reflect more deeply on the matter when she saw a young girl, she couldn't have been a day over twelve, run crying from a building. A bulky man followed, screaming something in the Bigtopian, a language Diama was still learning. Still, the clear trauma on the young girl's face and the anger and lust on the man's were all Damia needed to know. "Stop the car!"

A stunned driver obeyed and Damia lept out of the car, rather recklessly ignoring the driver's attempts to warn her of the danger. The people in the area, who had been ignoring the little girl's plight, did notice this, turning to stare. The man didn't hesitate. However odd the situation might be, it was ultimately just one unarmed woman coming at him. He drew his gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

Bigtopia, the Next Several Weeks

Princess Damia survived being shot. She was barely hurt by a shot which could have killed her, should have killed her. At first she was confused but over the next several days she began to experiment, learning that the artifacts that had been bestowed upon her were more than ceremonial. They gave her extraordinary strength, rendered her especially resistant (though not immune) to harm, and even gave her the power of flight. The ring, moreover, bestowed certain other powers which it was harder to fully discover. It seemed to have many powers connected to truth, not least of which was the power to compell a truthful answer from a target, although Damia's use of the ring had so far been imperfect.

Armed with these weapons, which seemed to be more than tools, to somehow imbue her being with power in ways she could not yet fully understand, Damia began to do even greater good works in Bigtopia, protecting the innocent and bringing the guilty to justice, becoming a champion of the people in the outside world as she was to her own.

Skaro, sometime in the distant future

"The prisoner shows extremely high levels of resilience to our interrogation techniques." reported the Dalek which had spent the last six days torturing Cecinia in an attempt to learn the secrets of time ship construction.

To a non-Dalek there was no easy way of differentiating this Dalek from any other ordinary Dalek. All ordinary Daleks had the same silver-grey shell, with the same blue spherical protrusions around its base, the same black eye-stalk which extended from its domed "head", if it could be called that, and the same gleaming silver weapon extending from its body. Somehow, the three ordinary Daleks engaged in the present conversation in the mission control room in Dalek City could tell each other apart. Even a non-Dalek however would have no problems differentiating them from the Dalek Supreme with whom they were conversing. The Dalek Supreme was a black Dalek, with a midnight black shell, and white spherical protrusions.

"A new approach is required." said the second of the three Daleks. "The prisoner's mental conditioning renders her impervious to extraction of useful information by force."

"We have not yet employed the full power of the interrogation device!" protested the first Dalek. "At higher power levels, the prisoner may be unable to resist."

"The prisoner's mental conditioning is highly evolved but her physical form is weak and imperfect." the third ordinary Dalek, an archivist, contributed. "Higher power levels may destroy her before she answers any questions."

The Dalek had placed a special emphasis on the word destroy. Its hatred for the Time Lord prisoner was almost as profound as the first Dalek's, even though it had never laid its optical sensor upon her. It knew she was a non-Dalek, which made her an inferior lifeform, worthy only of extermination. The thought of her destruction was a tantalising one, almost irresistible, only barely held in check by the knowledge that her understanding of time travel and TARDIS technology specifically was far more developed than understanding thereof of the Daleks. That this inferior lifeform possessed and could withhold information vital to the Dalek conquest not only of the universe but of all time was a source of immense frustration, and made it hate her all the more.

"Her early extermination is unacceptable." said the second Dalek, although it too felt the burning desire to destroy the prisoner, which manifested itself in the way the Dalek said the word extermination. "A new approach is required which will force the prisoner to cooperate, which by-passes her mental conditioning."

"Computer archives record an extinct alien species possessing technology capable of compelling truthful answers to questions even in subjects with extreme mental discipline." the archivist Dalek suggested. "The device was called an Altharus Galan, which meant Ring of Truth in their dialect."

"Is this technology available to us?" demanded the first Dalek. It hated the technology already for the simple fact that it was alien, and its feelings would only be changed on the matter if it learned that Daleks had learnt its secrets and managed to replicate it themselves.

"No, there are no known technical specifications of the device in question." the third Dalek replied.

"What was the name of the alien species?" asked the second Dalek.

"The Coari. They were destroyed by an unknown entity believed to originate in E-space." the archivist explained. "It will not be possible to create a stable time corridor to their era. However, computer records suggest that the Coari visited many planets still in normal space, and left their technology in the hands of the native inhabitants."

"Determine the most primitive planet visited by the Coari!" commanded the Supreme Dalek, who had thus far remained silent. As it spoke, its voice grew louder, shriller, and more insistent, building towards a terrible, inhuman crescendo. "Establish a time corridor to that planet in an appropriate era. We will travel there and retrieve a Coari Ring of Truth, and use it to learn the secrets of time ship construction from the Time Lord prisoner. Once we have built time ships of our own, nothing will stand between us and the conquest of all time! The Daleks will take their rightful place as the supreme beings of the universe!!!"

"We obey!" responded the other three Daleks in chorus, before turning away to leave the control room to carry out their tasks.

The Supreme Dalek's eyestalk slowly turned around to face a screen showing the Time Lord Cecinia in the interrogation booth, enjoying a few moments of reprieve from the torture she had endured for six days now, nibbling on a cube of tasteless food which had been left for her in the booth by the interrogator. The Supreme Dalek watched her closely, watching her chest rise and fall as she breathed in and out, her jaw move as she chewed the food, watching all the tiny movements a person makes at any given time. It reached its manipulator arm out to the circular indentation in the panel which served as a control system. It watched on as her natural, if exhausted, movements were replaced by the sudden writhing contortions of unbearable agony as it reactivated the booth.

Bigtopia

"Put the money in a bag, old man!" yelled Guido Camenzind as he levelled a pistol at the elderly immigrant standing behind the counter.

"Yes, yes...please...don't hurt me. I have a wife...children..." The man was stammering in broken Bigtopia, his eyes fixed upon the barrel of that gun. The man stood still for seconds, struggling to comprehend that this boy of less than twenty years was actually threatening his life, actually holding up a Wicky Petroleum like a hardened criminal.

"Now, old man." The kid was staring intently, tightening his grip on the trigger. He reminded the old man of his oldest son, now attending Bigtopia University. What if Alapp had grown up without the strong home and good values, surrounded by people who considered crime normal?

The boy growled, pulling the trigger. The old man started, stumbling back, before he realized he hadn't been hit. Falling to his back on the dusty linoleum floor, he brought a hand slowly up to feel his heartbeat, pounding wildly in his chest. "Oh, gooodness...."

"Holy f***!" the boy exclaimed, looking around the store hurriedly. He felt dizzy. Was the old man dead? Did he hit him? What was going on? Turning, he ran out of the store, forgetting the money he had been demanded. He just had to run. Maybe the cameras hadn't seen his face. Maybe he could just pretend it never happened. And then he saw her.

"Just give the gun, child. Everything is going to be alright. But you need to come with me." Damia spoke gently. She always spoke gently to the young and the scared, even when they were the ones she was supposed to be bringing in. This was a situation she'd grown familiar with every since she'd discovered the powers her artifacts gave her, put on some clothing she could manuever in, and patrolling the city streets. This was the tenth kid she'd had to deal with.

"F*** you, b*****!" He turned and ran. He ran as hard as he could. It burned him to breath as he strained every last muscle in his young legs, running scared, striving for an escape he knew was impossible.

Her grip on his shoulder when she inevitably caught up wasn't nearly as hard as it could have been. Damia felt more like she was reigning in a wayward child. "Come on, kid. If that old man wasn't hurt, I'll make sure you get an understanding judge."

Skaro, sometime in the distant future

"Space time co-ordinates of planet Earth programmed into targetting computer!" reported the Dalek operating the computer which selected the destination end of the time corridor.

"Load all data about planet Earth from mission control into memory banks!" the Black Dalek in command of the mission to obtain a Ring of Truth commanded its underlings.

"We obey!" they replied in unison, and all lowered their eyestalks as they activated the data transfer from the mission control computer.

"Scanning for out-of-era artifacts!" announced the Dalek operating the time corridor's scanner.

"Targetting space time coordinates of strongest association with Coari era artifacts." the Dalek operating the targetting computer advised. "Space time coordinates locked in."

"Open time corridor!" the Black Dalek commanded.

The giant machinery of the primitive form of time travel the Daleks had mastered came to life, emitting loud, high-pitched noises, until finally the corridor was established. A bulkhead opened to reveal the corridor through the time vortex which stretched away into blackness.

"Prepare to enter time corridor!" the Black Dalek commanded.

"We obey!" answered the other Daleks, six in all, before moving into formation before the entrance.

The Black Dalek's eyestalk moved down to look at a video screen, which flickered to life to show another Black Dalek, the Supreme Dalek, on the other end.

"Time corridor established!" the Black Dalek reported.

"Enter the corridor! Seek and locate a Ring of Truth!" the Supreme Dalek ordered. "When you retrieve the Ring of Truth, we will learn the secrets of true time travel, then the Daleks shall take the place of the Time Lords as rulers of time and masters of the universe!"

The Black Dalek imagined the Daleks taking their rightful place as the surpreme beings of the universe, being lords of all time, exterminating lesser races. It knew that Dalek domination of all non-Dalek life was the only way to ensure the survival of the Dalek race. An end to chaos, at last, for all eternity - the birth of a perfect universe. It was a great honour to be chosen to perform this vital first mission which would lead to the inevitable final victory of the Daleks!

"I obey!" the Black Dalek replied. The screen flickered off and it took its place in the formation in front of the time corridor. "Enter the corridor!"

"We obey!" replied the other Daleks.

Hipolis, Earth - present day

The first two Daleks in the formation emerged from a cave in the midst of a jungle. They surveyed their immediate surroundings and found them to their immense displeasure. Daleks weren't designed to operate in jungles, the ground was uneven, which made it difficult for them to move and maneouvre quickly, and the vegetation was thick, which made exterminating enemies at a distance difficult. Not that it had ever entered either of the Daleks' minds that this constituted any defect in their design, of course - such thoughts were quite literally unthinkable. Total certainty in the perfect of Dalek design was programmed into the computers which were integrated into the minds of each Dalek - it was the jungle which was wrong, which was imperfect. Not the Dalek.

After completing a visual scan, they begin moving out, cutting a path through the vegetation with their weapons, moving in the direction of the coordinates which had the strongest association with the Coari artifacts they sought. The other Daleks followed after them. Soon they emerged from the thickest of the jungle at the site of a structure which resembled nothing so much as an ancient Greek temple. Doric columns lined the surrounds of the temple itself, and the Daleks passed between them towards the ancient, partially over-grown stones.

The Black Dalek's eyestalk moved up and down as it exhaustively examined the temple, the columns, the ground, the steps, the carvings, everything. The design was inefficient, obviously constructed by an inferior race using primitive materials. There were no obvious defences, the building served no discernible practical purpose, and worst of all, it had steps. The Dalek hated steps, and found itself already loathing the species which had constructed the temple. Although it had never been to Earth, from its computer memory banks it knew that the native species was a lifeform called "human". It called up an image of a human on the tiny computer screen inside its travel machine, and found itself recoiling in disgust and contempt within its shell from the repulsive image. Humans looked surprisingly like Time Lords - that alone was enough to confirm the Black Dalek's initial instinct of loathing.

"Human female detected!" warned one of the lead Daleks. Its visual sensor zoomed in on the tree line where the jungle ended at the sight of movement within, and encountered the distinct outline of a human woman, dressed in ceremonial robes of some sort. It was clear that she had seen the Daleks and had hidden herself in the thick of the jungle whilst getting a better look.

"She is of no consequence!" the Black Dalek responded. It turned to another Dalek. "Scan for Coari technology in the immediate vicinity!"

"I obey!" replied the Dalek. It began scanning for out-of-era technology. In a few moments its scan came back negative. It tried again, employing a deeper level scan. "Only residual temporal signatures detected! The technology must have been removed recently!"

"Sensors indicated large numbers of alien lifeforms in the vicinity!" the Black Dalek responded. By alien it of course meant non-Dalek. Human. "One of the aliens may have removed the technology! Retrieve the human female. She may provide more information!"

"I obey!" replied the Dalek which spotted the woman in the tree line. It moved towards where she hid with surprising speed, breaking through the dense foliage right by where she hid. Its eyestalk rotated around ninety degrees and looked down to face her. "You are my prisoner! You will obey my commands or you will be EX-TER-MIN-ATED! Move out of the jungle and come with me!"

City of Sacred Relics, Hipolis

Calandra Theodopoulos was a young woman of eighteen years. She was...pure...as were all the women who tended to the ancient relics. Calandra had a heavy, round figure and a pleasant looking face. She was clearly out of shape, a condition that made her somewhat unusual in a nation like Hipolis, where physical fitness and military service were highly prized. Even among the Keepers, such a girl was sometimes picked on by her younger colleagues and that was why she had been trying to avoid them out here near the edge of the jungle.

The thing that came out from the trees startled her out of her pouty revelry and she rose to her feet hurriedly. "A...are you a demon?" she asked the creature, certain that it was one of the fallen come straight from Hell.

Capodistria, Hipolis

At any given time, the number of Hipolitans actually serving under arms is negligible. The nation was tiny and, even for its size, kept a small military. The navy and the air force were virtually negligible. However, fortunately for the Hipolitans, the structure of their military allowed for much quicker mobilization of larger numbers in response to a threat anywhere in the islands.

The system basically called for universal conscription of all able-bodied adults (with certain exceptions). While each conscript was only required to serve 424 hours, this time was spread out over a decade and a half, during which time he or she was considered a soldier in the Hipolitan armed services. Non-active soldiers keep their guns and uniforms in their homes and maintain contact with other non-active soldiers, active reservists, and militia officers in their town according to a system the Hipolitans have perfected over the years allowing for large sections of the population to mobilize quickly in whatever area an enemy might attack. Thus, while the standing military forces might take a day or more to respond to the Daleks, the troops in the nearest town would be there in a few hours from when they first got word. And the nearest town was Capodistria.

Of course, no one was yet aware of the attack. At that very moment, Captain Paula Theodorakis, the ranking officer living in Capodistria, was taking her adopted daughter Dominica out to feed the seagulls leftover rolls from dinner the previous night. Paula was a muscular woman in her mid-thirties with a face that looked accustomed to severity, even though she was grinning now. She was dark for a Hipolitan and one could tell from her features that a significant portion of her heritage came from the groups of runaway slaves which had fled to Hipolis from other American countries in the past. Dominica, in stark contrast, was fair-skinned and had a round, perpetually smiling gace. The child was about seven and was just getting to the age where she understood that Paula was not her birth mother. Both Paula and her daughter were in light, summer dresses and good moods. Feeding the seagulls was one of their favorite activities.

City of Sacred Relics, Hipolis

The Dalek regarded Calandra closely. Its eyestalk moved about as it examined the first human it had ever seen itself, comparing it to the memories it had of the humans encountered by other Daleks throughout the history of their race, memories which were provided to the Dalek creature by its computer memory banks, downloaded from mission control before it entered the time corridor. While all humanoids looked very similar to the Dalek, the subtle variations in body type, size, skin, hair and eye colouring, movement, voice, and behaviour were perfectly evident and equally infuriating. It wondered how humanoids could bear all these variations, how they could operate in societies, primitive though humanoid society was.

"Do not ask questions!" the Dalek commanded. "You are my prisoner! Obey or be destroyed! Move in front of me towards the others!"

The Dalek motioned with its gunstick for Calandra to move in front of it and walk towards the other Daleks.

City of Sacred Relics, Hipolis

Calandra paused to consider the situation. The Dalek was clearly either a demon or a robot. She had seen robots before on cheesy Lanerian science fiction shows. There were no televisions in the City of Sacred Relics and the virginal Keepers frowned on any of their initiates watching it, especially Lanerian programs. However, it was not explicitly forbidden like sex, alcohol, caffeine, drugs, and meat were and Calandra had seen more than one horrible show while visiting relatives in Taliadoros.

Blocking out all thought of what would happen to her, Calandra focused on putting one foot before the other, walking in front of the Dalek. "I guess I am your prisoner. Princess Damia will stop you though. She's our Champion."

City of Sacred Relics, Hipolis

"Irrelevant! The one called Princess Damia will not stand in the way of the destiny of the Daleks!" replied the Dalek as it moved along behind her, keeping its weapon trained on her back. It led her towards the other Daleks. She looked around at the other Daleks, trembling in fear. She didn't try to answer the Dalek.

The Black Dalek moved towards her, the only Dalek of the group assembled at the temple which looked visibly different from the others. It stopped in front of her, and its eyestalk moved up and down as it examined her from head to toe. It then addressed her, the orange lights on its domed "head" flashing with each syllable of its speech.

"Where is the Ring of Truth device?" the Black Dalek demanded.

"What's the Ring of Truth device?" she asked.

"A piece of Coari technology. It has been removed from this location. You will tell us where it is, or you will be EX-TER-MIN-ATED!" the Black Dalek commanded, its voice building almost to a shriek as it talked.

Calandra took a step back, stumbling and barely managing to keep her feet. "B...but...I...I honestly don't know what it is."

The Black Dalek pointed its gunstick at Calandra, and the Dalek which had escorted her from the jungle moved forward a little, so that she could feel its manipulator arm against her back. There was clearly no escape.

"The Ring of Truth device is a circular object constructed of gold. A green mineral beryl gemstone is set on top. It has been kept here for most of the period of the last three thousand rotations of this planet around its star!" the Black Dalek specified. "It has been removed!"

"Princess Damia..." Calandra began to confess before breathing in and setting her jaw heroically. "I won't tell you!"

"The one called Princess Damia is the champion you spoke of earlier." the Dalek who captured Calandra observed.

"Does Princess Damia have the Ring of Truth?" the Black Dalek demanded.

"Y...yes." Calandra stammered, her attempt at heroism fading fast.

"Where is Princess Damia?" the Black Dalek asked.

"In Bigtopia." she answered.

The Black Dalek consulted its memory banks and found that Bigtopia was a human nation on another landmass. It moved closer to Calandra, so that it was almost touching her. After a brief moment of relishing in her fear and contemplating exterminating her, the Black Dalek continued.

"You will travel with us to Bigtopia and lead us to Princess Damia!" the Black Dalek told her.

"I... I..." Calandra stammered, not knowing what to say.

"Are you unable to lead us to the one you call Princess Damia?" the Black Dalek asked, its voice shrill with rage.

"I didn't say that!" Calandra shouted in a panic.

"Then you will lead us to her!" the Black Dalek declared.

She didn't say anything this time.

"Do you obey?!?" the Black Dalek demanded, its shell actually shaking as it screamed at her.

"Y...yes, sir." she replied, looking down as a single tear rolled down her chubby cheek.

"Take the prisoner to the transmat in the cave!" the Black Dalek ordered the Dalek behind Calandra. "Set destination coordinates for the location in Bigtopia she provides. You will remain at the transmat device to guard the entrance to the time corridor and to transport us back when we have retrieved the device."

"I obey!" the Dalek behind Calandra replied. It nudged Calandra forward with its manipulator arm. "You are my prisoner! You will obey my instructions! Move forward! If you attempt to escape, you will be exterminated!"

Calandra slowly and sullenly moved forward as the Dalek pushed her with its small device. "I already said I'd obey..." she muttered, half under her breath.

"Silence!" the Dalek told her, and led her off towards the jungle from which the Daleks had emerged.

"We will transport to Bigtopia and locate Princess Damia." the Black Dalek told the other Daleks. "We will retrieve the Ring of Truth."

"We obey!" replied the other Daleks in unison, and began following the Dalek and Calandra back through the jungle towards the cave.

Bigtopia

"This is a joke, correct?" Princess Damia was saying as she looked into the mirror. She was wearing a uniform which might better be described as a costume. It was a gaudy affair in the colors of and with a design clearly inspired by the Bigtopian flag and it showed far more skin than Damia would have thought prudent.

Aaren Alden, the prominent Lanerian businesswoman who'd come to help Princess Damia in her quest, shook her head. "Hardly. Your powers are only half of what makes you effective. The reputation you're building greatly helps your effectiveness in fighting the bad guys and protecting the innocent. A clearly recognizable costume, one of a heroine and not a mere warrior princess or informal cop, will help immensely."

"But...I am a Princess of Hipolis. I do not dress so revealingly." Damia complained.

"You wrestle naked on that island of yours, don't you?" Alden teased, tossing her blonde hair slightly. She was much younger than Damia and not royalty but she had still developed a slightly annoying habit of speaking to the Hipolitan Princess as though they were sorority sisters.

"That's different." Damia insisted. "It is a cultural tradition and no men are present..."

Alden opened her mouth and just closed it again. It was just too easy. Damia rolled her eyes slightly. "You're taking it out of its cultural context. There's nothing more sexual about it than there is about the athletics of the men of classical Gre..." Damia decided to just stop talking at this point.

"Look at you, Dam. You're not just some fighting diplomat. You're...you're the Champion!" Alden exclaimed, grinning brightly.

"Alright. Very well." Damia said resignedly. "But get me a uniform in the colors of my own flag. I'm a Hipolitan. There is no compelling reason for me to dress like a walking symbol of a country not my own simply because I am based there."

Skaro, sometime in the distant future

Cecinia staggered into the cell, utterly exhausted, but relieved to finally be out of the booth. The Dalek which had escorted her from the booth to the cell stood behind her, its gunstick levelled at her back. As she turned to face it, she wondered how the Daleks were planning to learn what she knew about TARDISes now that they had obviously given up on torturing her.

"It was very sweet of you to walk me to my front door like this..." Cecinia began.

"You may rest now. Your questioning will resume when we have retrieved the Coari interrogation device!" the Dalek, her torturer, replied. The Time Lord's renewed attempts at humour totally escaped it this time, but it knew she was joking again, and so the Dalek couldn't help but assure her that her ordeal wasn't over yet.

"Well..." Cecinia replied, unable to avoid showing her dismay at the mention of the Coari interrogation device. Whatever it was, it sounded painful. "That's put a dampener on what was otherwise a very enjoyable week. I won't let you kiss me goodnight now."

"Silence!" the Dalek shrieked, trembling with rage. "After we have forced your cooperation with the Coari interrogation device, you will be EX-TER-MIN-ATED!"

With that, it backed out of the cell and the bulkhead closed, sealing Cecinia inside a small, eight foot by eight foot metal room with no furniture, and no windows. The ceiling was the only light source - its surface shone brightly, all the time. Either the Daleks didn't know that humanoids preferred to sleep in darkness on soft surfaces, or they didn't care. Now, alone at last, Cecinia gingerly lowered herself onto the floor, lay down and began to cry quietly as the horror of her situation washed over her. After a few unguarded moments, she realised that the Daleks were probably watching her with a monitoring device of some sort, and quickly pulled herself together again.

Bigtopia

Calandra had been unable to provide a more specific location than Bigtopia's capital city, and so the Daleks had no other choice than simply beaming into the middle of the city via the transmat beam. The Daleks, minus the one left behind in the cave guarding the transmat and time corridor, and a terrified Calandra materialised in the middle of an intersection in the middle of the Bigtopian capital. Behind them, the sound of a car horn could be heard as an automobile hurtled towards them, breaking in a futile attempt to avoid impact. It was then Calandra witnessed first hand the power of the Dalek's innocuous looking gunstick.

One of the Daleks, the one directly in the path of the breaking, swerving car, had turned to face the beeping vehicle immediately. It monitored the car hurtling towards it with its visual sensor. Within a nanosecond its war computer had calculated the vehicle's velocity and trajectory, and judged the weapon power setting needed to stop it before it hit the Dalek.

"EXTERMINATE!" the Dalek shouted as a bolt of energy shot from its gunstick into the car, which promptly exploded along with its passenger. It was destroyed so utterly that nothing ended up hitting Calandra and the Daleks but a tiny amount of ash.

The screeching of dozens of sets of tyres coming to a sudden halt could be heard amongst an orchestra of car horns and engines.

"We are under attack!" announced one of the Daleks, which began firing at the traffic.

Pedestrians started screaming and fleeing as fast as their feet could carry them, and as quickly as they could, with little regard for safety, the cars started turning around and racing off in the opposite direction.

"Cease fire!" the Black Dalek commanded as the people and vehicles alike escaped as quickly as they could. "Scan for Coari technology!"

"Scanning!" replied another Dalek. "Coari technology is present in the wider vicinity."

"Transfer coordinates into war computers!" the Black Dalek ordered. The other Daleks complied by connecting remotely to the scanner and downloading its coordinates into their on-board war computers.

"Move out!" the Black Dalek commanded. It looked to Calandra. "You are my prisoner! You will assist us in locating Princess Damia! We will follow the signal of the Coari technology, and you will identify her!"

Bigtopia

Five minutes ago....

Damia turned in surprise as she heard the sound of explosions coming from the center of town. Even as her face grew grave, Damia made a dry quip. "I suppose it won't kill me to be seen once in bad color scheme."

Four minutes ago....

Children often don't understand what death is, especially not children who had, until now, lived relatively safe, protected lives. Still, the children on school bus route three knew, on some level, that they were about to die. There had been a great deal of confusion in front of them. There had been explosions and then all hell had broken loose. Cars had been ramming recklessly into each other trying to drive in the other directions. People on foot had been shoving past each other, fighting to break into any moving vehicle they came near. At least as many Bigtopians had been killed by their fellow human beings as had been killed by the explosions ahead. And this school bus, full of boys and girls ages five to eleven, had been knocked from a bridge towards the river below. The children had started to scream and cry and some had even soiled themselves. And then the bus came to a sudden, but not too sudden, stop in midair. Blinking, the young Bigtopians saw a pretty woman about the same age as most of their mommies holding the bus gently and setting it down along the side of the road.

Three minutes ago....

The mob was frantic. Their attempts to drive off had been stopped by an overturned petroleum truck. After frantic honking and screaming, they had gotten out of their vehicles and began a rather riotous movement around the vehicle, a movement which became murderously frantic once the people spotted the spreading fire from the exploding cars closer to the city's center. And then she landed, holding her arms up for order. "Everyone, please remain calm. You are only adding to the danger. I can stop the danger from outside, but this crowd is itself dangerous. I'm going to ask you to calm down and remember that you're a community."

Gently, Damia, or the Champion as Aaren Alden had now christened her, pulled the barely breathing driver from the wreckage. "Someone give this man CPR." she instructed swiftly, even as she turned her attention to lifting the truck and swiftly flying it out of the danger zone and setting it down gently.

Two minutes ago....

The boy fell. It was only natural. There were grown men and women all around him and all of them seemed to have forgotten themselves. They were shoving and running without a thought for anyone else. Fights had even broken out here and there, some involving knives and guns. And a ten year old boy had been forgotten and had fallen. Men had stepped on his back and his legs with their full weight, again and again. His flesh was bruised and he thought some of his bones were broken. And then he felt hands lifting him up off the ground. He felt like he was flying and then he found himself in a park with the chaos but a distant noise. A face he knew he'd seen in the news but couldn't quite place smiled down at him, only to be replaced by concerned police officers.

One minute ago....

Damia soared straight up into the air, not stopping until she had reached a height eighty stories above the city. Her keen eyes turned towards the ground, looking for the center of the destruction. It didn't take all that long to find and she headed downwards again in almost an instant, ready to handle the situation.

Now....

Bigtopia

"H...assist you how?" Calandra stuttered, looking around the downtown area.

"You will identify the one you call Princess Damia!" the Black Dalek told her. "Obey!"

"I will! I will! I just needed to know my orders so I could obey them." Calandra said in a tone like that a sulky child might use with a parent. The death surrounding her was just too much for her to react to. The situation seemed so unreal.

The Daleks proceeded through the city streets moving in the direction of the Coari technology they had detected. The streets in the immediate area were largely abandoned, at least by the living. Here and there, wounded Bigtopians lay amongst the collateral damage, ignored by the Daleks. A little girl whimpered from under a crashed car very near the Daleks. One of the Daleks turned towards the overturned vehicle, its eyestalk pointing down towards the sound of the little girl's voice. From the strength of the whimper, the Dalek estimated that the human creature in the wreckage was hurt, possibly dying. It looked closely for signs of movement. The girl slightly lifted her left arm, whimpering faintly and making a noise which was likely an attempt at speech.

"EXTERMINATE!" the Dalek shrieked, and blasted the crashed vehicle with a high-energy bolt from its weapon. The other Daleks paid no attention to the destruction of the car and the little girl trapped beneath it, instead monitoring the dense urban terrain carefully for any sign of resistance.

Before the first siren sounded, the Daleks sensed the Coari technology beginning to move. It was no longer in a stationary position the Daleks could travel towards. It was moving at a rate faster than Daleks ordinarily moved and it was moving in a wide circle, just out of visual range of the area where the Daleks were.

"Coari signal moving rapidly!" the scanner Dalek warned, coming to a halt. The other Daleks did likewise. "Coari signal now just out of visual range."

"Form defensive perimeter!" the Black Dalek commanded. It moved into the centre of a circle of Daleks which formed around it, keeping Calandra right next to it.

It was around that time that a rapidly moving figure appeared in the air, flying by virtue of some Coari technology which seemed to defy the laws of physics as modern Earthlings understood them. It was a human woman dressed in a bright uniform heavily influenced by the Bigtopian flag.

"Human female detected!" one of the Daleks warned, its eyestalk pointed up in the air.

"Humans are incapable of flight! It is probable that she is employing Coari technology. The Coari signal is now very strong." the scanner Dalek postulated.

"Identify this human female!" the Black Dalek commanded Calandra. "Is she the one you call Princess Damia?"

She is." Calandra said with the first smile she'd had since her capture.

"Princess Damia!" the Black Dalek called out, the volume of its shrill, inhuman voice increasing dramatically as it looked up at her. "We have your associate! Give us the Coari Ring of Truth device or she will be EX-TER-MIN-ATED!"

"That would be rather unwise." Damia said, placing her hands, crossing her arms and cocking her head at the Daleks, giving them a teasing smile as she slowly lowered herself to hover a foot from the ground, directly in front of the Daleks.

"You will obey or she will be destroyed!" the Black Dalek insisted, turning its body in Calandra's direction so that its gunstick was pointed at her, although its domed head and eyestalk remained facing Calandra. The ordinary Daleks changed their formation so that they were facing Princess Damia.

"You actually remind me of a Lanerian television show I saw once about a family stranded in space. They had a robot like you but with longer appendages which it would wave wildly whenever its human master was in danger. It has a shrill voice like yours as well. Have you ever considered acting?" Damia asked.

A sense of humour, just like the Time Lord prisoner. The Black Dalek seethed in its shell at the propensity inferior lifeforms had for the irrational.

"Will you surrender the Ring of Truth?" the Black Dalek demanded.

"Perhaps you'd like to test it first?" Damia suggested.

"You will answer yes or no! Will you surrender the Ring of Truth?" the Black Dalek raged.

Damia landed, extending the hand bearing the Ring of Truth towards the Black Dalek. The ring began to glow with a green radiance, forcing its target to answer truthfully. "If I did surrender the ring, would you have any intention of letting the girl or myself live?"

"You are inferior lifeforms! You must be destroyed!" the Black Dalek replied.

The ordinary Daleks between the Black Dalek and Damia looked at their leader, then at Damia, then at the ring, then at the Black Dalek again.

"The Black Dalek is under attack!" screamed the Dalek with the scanner. "Exterminate!"

In a cacophony of excited "EXTERMINATE"s and the high pitched whines of their weapons, the Daleks opened fire on Princess Damia with their death rays.

With a speed that outraced bullets and aided by the fact that the Daleks had given her a second or two of warning by screeching exterminate at the top of whatever passed for lungs among them, Damia dived beneath the level of the Daleks firing, not hitting the ground but flying just centimeters above it. She darted straight into the Daleks, grabbing Calandra and pulling the young woman beneath her as she continued through the Daleks and away from the battle zone. It was impressive. It might well be surmised that a Coari warrior at the height of that race could have moved easily through the Daleks untouched. However, this technology was still alien to Damia. A Dalek death ray struck her in the side, slamming her through the wall of a nearby brick building. It was all she could do to turn so that her back and not Calandra's front hit the building.

"Princess Damia has been destroyed!" one of the Daleks announced.

"Retrieve the Ring of Truth!" the Black Dalek screeched, almost ecstatic. Having witnessed the power of the Coari interrogation device first hand, it knew that once the Daleks had the Ring of Truth, the Time Lord prisoner would be forced to divulge all the secrets she knew about constructing and operating a TARDIS.

"We obey!" replied two of the Daleks, moving towards the building into which Princess Damia had collided at an almost leisurely pace. They approached the hole in the building.

Damia rolled as she hit the ground, observing more of the force. Her side hurt worse than she could remember being hurt. That weapon, whatever it was, was no joke. Her left flank was bruised badly her uniform was singed, She helped Calandra to her feet. The younger woman had been exposed to much less but she could also take much less. She was pretty bad off. "I know this is going to hurt..." Damia said softly "...but whatever those things are, they aren't fast. I need you to force yourself to run."

The Daleks detected movement within the building, spotting glimpses of Damia moving about through the hole. They stopped, and raised the power level of their weapons. Calandra, almost whimpering with the effort and jogging, had just made it into the next room as the Daleks entered. Damia, forcing herself to hide the ache in her side, cocked her head again. "You do know that without innocent bystanders in the way, I can afford to get tough with you, don't you?"

"Exterminate!" the Daleks said in unison, opening fire again at a much higher power setting this time.

Damia flipped her legs backwards, flinging her body upwards above the Dalek rays and pointing her fists directly at them. She then flew towards the first of the Daleks at full speed, pulling back a fist and hitting its armor with the incredible force of her punch added to the momentum of her speed. She kept flying past, not wanting to find out what happened if they hit her with the stronger beam, angling upwards as soon as she exited the building as the Daleks seemed to be fairly horizontal creatures. It wasn't until she was hovering a few stories above that she looked to see what kind of damage she'd done to the Dalek. The Dalek she had hit went flying backwards and crashed out the other side of the same brick wall Damia had been sent crashing through, the multiple impacts damaging its armour visibly, and sending the Dalek creature inside the metal shell bouncing around, badly injuring it.

"I am damaged!" it cried out, alerting the other Daleks who were waiting for the pair to return with the Ring of Truth. "My function is impaired! I require assistance!"

The other Dalek in the room followed Damia's movement up with its eyestalk.

"Elevate!" it shouted, and it began to slowly take-off the ground. It flew upwards into the air to Damia's level, and started opening fire again.

Damia, discovering the Dalek could fly, spent a few minutes trying to dodge it while she thought of a new plan. When a very powerful bolt grazed her shoulder enough to burn, she dived right above the Dalek, but instead of continuing to manuever, she planted her boots on the top of the creature and squated there, outside the reach of a ray that moved around the Dalek's circumference. Damia took this opportunity to examine the surface of the Dalek.

The Dalek's armour was constructed out of a smooth metal she couldn't identify. Its domed head was perfectly smooth, with the exception of two small lights, one on either side, which lit up when the Dalek spoke, and the Dalek's eyestalk itself, a short metal rod covered with sensors and ending in the Dalek's primary visual sensor. Underneath its domed head was a sort of neck, although trunk might be a better word, with several ribs which ran around its circumference. A thicker section sat underneath this ribbed trunk, a sort of torso of thick, solid metal, from emerged the Dalek's short gunstick and its long manipulator arm, which ended in a sucker-cap. This section had extra armour plating around it. Underneath all of this was the Dalek's base, with a vaguely oval base which was elongated at the front, whose sides were covered with blue spherical protrusions.

Her examination didn't last long, however, as the ordinary Daleks still on the ground below slowly flew up to the same level as the Dalek on top of which Damia was perched.

"Surrender the Ring of Truth or you will be destroyed!" the Dalek Damia was 'riding' commanded, seething with anger at the impunity with which the Champion had planted herself on its head.

Damia hit the lens of the Dalek's eyestalk as hard as she could before diving down to the ground, heading for a now abandoned petrol station. In the background, sirens were wailing as regular authorities fought to contain the chaos and struggled to come up with a plan for fighting the Daleks themselves.

"My vision is impaired!" the now blind Dalek shrieked. "I cannot see! My vision is impaired! I cannot see!"

"Princess Damia is escaping with the Ring of Truth!" one of the Daleks observed.

"My vision is impaired! I cannot see!" the blind Dalek screamed again, before it starting firing randomly, spinning around in the hope of catching Damia with a stray shot as she escaped. Instead, the blind Dalek hit another Dalek, which screamed as a bolt of energy blasted through its armour, sending it crashing to the ground, where it exploded on impact. The Black Dalek quickly blasted the blind Dalek with its weapon turned to maximum, in order to prevent it accidentally destroying another Dalek. The blind Dalek exploded in the air, leaving only a few pieces of scrap to fall to the ground below.

"Withdraw!" the Black Dalek commanded. "Regroup!"

"Withdraw! Regroup! Withdraw! Regroup!" the other Daleks replied, and kept repeating as the Daleks hovered back to the ground as a group, coming to rest by the Dalek Damia had damaged earlier.

Damia didn't emerge from the petrol station. It was of the larger type, containing a small store selling a variety of snacks, automotive products, and even some entertainment products.

"Scanning for Coari technology suggests that Princess Damia has landed two kilometres north east of our current location!" advised the scanner Dalek.

"You are damaged!" the Black Dalek told the Dalek which Damia had smashed through a wall. "You will beam back to the transmat and relieve the guard, who will take your place with us."

"I obey!" croaked the injured Dalek.

The Black Dalek silently transmitted its orders to the Dalek back in the cave in Hipolis, and a few seconds later the injured Dalek dematerialised. A few seconds after that, the undamaged guard materialised in its place.

"We have underestimated the one called Princess Damia!" the Black Dalek told its underlings, who would've been crestfallen if they were not burning with rage and hatred for the Champion. "I am calculating a new strategem! We will establish a base of operations and withdraw to that location."

"We obey!" replied the Daleks, who then followed the Black Dalek away from the scene of carnage and battle.

Hipolitan Embassy, Bigtopia

Damia, now changed into something more casual, sat down on the edge of the bed where Calandra was recuperating from her wounds. The princess flinched slightly and moved one hand to her side where she had been directly struck by a Dalek death ray. "I almost died out there. Hundreds of people did. Whatever those things were, they need to be found and..."

"And killed" Aaren Alden, seated on the other side of the room, insisted. The businesswoman turned to look out the window with a glare. From the embassy, she had a clear view of the downtown area lying largely in ruins. Bigtopian troops had cordoned off the area and helicopters were patrolling over head.

"I don't believe in killing. I help the authorities bring criminals to justice. I'm not an executioner." Damia said softly. Guilt was weighing heavily on the woman. The image of the Dalek she'd blinded going wild and then being brought down by its leader played in her head.

"Those are criminals. These are monsters if they're even alive at all." Alden said. "Besides, how many will die if you don't?"

"I'll...do what needs to be done to save life. It's just not an easy call." Damia said with a heavy sigh, gently taking Calandra's hand. The girl hadn't been participating much in the conversation. She was in shock. But she did keep insisting that Damia stay with her, claiming it was the only way she felt safe.

Inbound North Line Tunnel, Bigtopia
The Daleks didn't make another appearance until the next morning, spending the night conducting surveillance and preparing the elements of the Black Dalek's plan to force Princess Damia to surrender the Ring of Truth. At twelve past eight the next morning, in the midst of peak hour, the Dalek plan revealed itself.

Train 5D12 on the Inbound North Line of the Bigtopian subway service sped along its route, running just twelve seconds behind its timetable. The tunnel was dark, and the driver kept a keen eye out for anything in the train's path. A look of surprise appeared on his face when the light at the front of the train shone down on the tracks half-way between stops, and he saw the rails in his train's path were warped and cut, as if blasted by explosive. It was too late to avoid derailment, although the driver slammed on the breaks and tried in vain to do so anyway. The train, full of passengers, derailed and skidded along, sparks flying up from the ground where the train's steel wheels ran in vain on the smooth concrete of the tunnel floor. A second surprise lay in store for the driver - a tunnel cave in just ahead, completely clogging up the tunnel with stones and concrete blocks. Although the derailment had slowed the train down dramatically, it still hit the blockage with enough force to crush the driver's cabin and kill the driver. The train came to a sudden, sickening halt, and the lights inside its carriages went off.

The terrified passengers in the rear carriage started to turn the hydraulic crank on the emergency exit door, when they saw three lights, about four feet apart and five feet off the ground, move toward them. A pair of smaller orange lights came to life on either side of the light in the middle, and a robotic voice screeched at them.

"YOU ARE MY PRISONERS!" the Dalek screeched. "Remain in the train! If you leave the carriage, you will be EX-TER-MIN-ATED!"

A young man in his twenties, dressed in black leather and sporting at least a dozen visible body piercings, snorted as she opened the emergency door, strutting forward. "Oh, yeah?"

The Dalek fired its deathray at the man, filling the tunnel with the high-pitched sound of the weapon. The man died before he could even scream. Seeing that the Daleks were serious, the remaining passengers began to back away from the emergency exit. The other two Daleks moved down to perform similar demonstrations on the other carriages. The Black Dalek was still nowhere to be seen. Most of the carriages had some person who tried to test the Daleks, doubting they were serious about killing them. It just seemed so unreal. Some of the carriages had dead or wounded people from the wreck and requested that they be able to send out the dead or get medical attention. Other carriages had passengers who asked what the Daleks wanted or offered to negotiate. The Daleks weren't interested in negotiation, and they weren't interested in allowing the dead or wounded to be removed from the carriages. They provided no other explanation to the prisoners.

"Scanning for Coari technology signals!" announced one of the Daleks, as it began to scan for Damia's approximate location.

Coari technology was moving around above them. However, time kept passing, without any sign of Damia. The Daleks lay in wait. They knew that soon news would reach the world outside the tunnel that a train was trapped with its passengers on-board within. And yet no sign came. The Coari technology was still moving about overhead, sometimes passing directly over the Daleks. Some distance away, men were preparing something further down the track. Damia had not yet come.

Back down the tunnel, several hundred yards before the derailed train, the Black Dalek waited, scanning the movement of the Coari technology itself. Satisfied that they had Damia's attention, it targetted its gunstick at the tunnel ceiling in front of it, and then blasted, caving in the tunnel at that point too, sealing off the section of track which contained the Daleks and the train. It then began moving down the track towards the train itself to rejoin the other Daleks.

The people on the train began to panic at the noise. Five or six leaped out, trying desperately to run nowhere in particular. A few of the wounded seemed to be fading and people were now calling out the windows, desperately begging the Daleks for help. Because the nature of the human body hadn't changed, the tunnel was beginning the stink of urine and feces. The Daleks ruthlessly exterminated the humans who tried to flee the train, and otherwise gave no responses to the pleas for assistance. The Black Dalek arrived at the train.

"Report!" it commanded the other Daleks.

"We have captured two hundred and forty three humans. Nine have been exterminated. Twelve were destroyed in the crash." answered one of the other Daleks.

"Transmitting!" the Black Dalek announced, and it began broadcasting its voice across every radio frequency at a power sufficient to ensure that every radio within five miles could pick it up clearly. "We have captured a train and two hundred and forty three passengers. We will speak only with the one called Princess Damia!"

As the Black Dalek spoke, the result of Damia's plotting while the Daleks waiting began. Out of vents in the walls of the tunnel began to pour thick, black, vision imparing smoke, swiftly filling the area of the tunnel where the Daleks had secreted the train, blinding them. Screams could be heard from the even more terrified humans. Although the eyestalk was the most vulnerable part of a Dalek, the visual sensors within were quite powerful and had a number of different modes.

"My vision is impaired! I cannot see!" the Black Dalek announced as the smoke filled up the tunnel. It performed an automatic systems check on its visual sensors, and found that they were operating normally. An analysis of the air outside its shell alerted it to the real problem - the introduction of a thick gas. Since the Daleks were first created, they had always had a mode to allow them to see through the smog, smoke and heavy gases of the battlefields of ancient Skaro during the Thousand Years War, when Thals and Kaleds employed chemical weapons like poison gas on a regular basis. "Activating Inter-Spectral Vision mode!"

The Black Dalek's sight was restored, although this visual mode lacked the usual acuity. The other Daleks actived their inter-spectral vision in short order.

"We are under attack!" announced one of the ordinary Daleks. "Scanning for Coari technology!"

It was then that Damia struck directly above the Daleks, tearing a wide whole through the street and the ceiling of the tunnel, far wider than she needed for her own body. There was only one Dalek at this end of the train.

"Coari technology detected..." the scanner Dalek by the Black Dalek at the other end of the train began, but it was cut off by the sound of the street being ripped up.

"Halt!" the Dalek up at Damia's end of the train screeched at the superheroine. "Surrender the Ring of Truth or the prisoners will be EX-TER-MIN-ATED!"

"Prepare to destroy train!" the Black Dalek commanded. The other Daleks set their gunsticks to maximum power and aimed at the train. In a few shots, each Dalek could destroy a carriage and kill all the humans trapped within. The Black Dalek began moving down the length of the train towards Damia's location at a surprising speed.

"You will exterminate the prisoners whether I give you the Ring or not." Damia answered, hovering in the large verticle tunnel she had made.

"That is incorrect!" replied the Dalek nearest Damia. The Black Dalek arrived next to it, and pointed its eyestalk up at Damia.

"If you surrender the Ring of Truth, the prisoners will be allowed to survive. They are of no consequence!" the Black Dalek promised.

"But the goal of the Daleks is to destroy all inferior lifeforms." Damia pointed out.

"That is incorrect!" the Black Dalek replied. "The goal of the Daleks is to survive!"

"Will I be exterminated if I give you the Ring?" Damia asked.

"Negative!" the Black Dalek replied.

"But what reason would you have to refrain from changing your mind once you had the Ring?" Damia asked, slowly lowering herself into the tunnel. "I can't imagine you like me much."

"In our previous encounter, you employed the Ring of Truth to expose that I was lying." the Black Dalek replied. "My new strategem now employs no deception."

"I believe you." Damia said. "But I still cannot agree to your terms." At that, she spun with fists raised so as to be pointed at the Black Dalek, presenting only the area of her head and shoulders as a target, and dove.

"EXTERMINATE!" the Black Dalek screamed. It fired its weapon at Damia repeatedly, and the other Daleks began opening fire at the train.

Damia was knocked backwards into the wall of the train station by the blast, grunting sharply as she slid to the ground. In a matter of seconds, the train was destroyed, along with all the people on-board. The Black Dalek found it difficult to monitor Damia sufficiently closely to tell if she was dead or alive with its visual sensor set to inter-spectral mode, and so fired its deathray at her again.

"Because of your lack of cooperation, the two hundred and forty three passengers of the train have been destroyed!" the Black Dalek told Damia.

Damia screamed out loud, curling up to try and shield her head and torso from the blasts. The Black Dalek moved slowly towards Damia's curled up form, coming to rest right beside her. Its eyestalk aimed down at her writhing, pain-wracked form.

"Surrender the Ring of Truth or you will be destroyed!" it commanded her.

Inbound North Line Tunnel, Bigtopia City

"Give me....let me think..." Damia pleaded.

"Your inferior intellect is the cause of the destruction of the train and your present predicament!" the Black Dalek taunted her. "The Ring of Truth makes it impossible for me to deceive you. Surrender it and live, or be destroyed!"

For its confident talk, the Black Dalek wasn't sure whether Damia was as wounded as she appeared to be. In fact, it now felt that it was in a weakened bargaining position as a result of the destruction of the train, although the extermination of the two hundred and forty odd humans demonstrated to Damia the strength of the Dalek resolve, if nothing else.

The other ordinary Daleks moved towards Damia and the Black Dalek, training their gunsticks on her. Damia looked down for a long moment before slowly sliding the Ring off her finger and letting it fall on the ground before the Daleks. The Black Dalek pointed its manipulator arm down at the ring. It then extended until the cap at the end of it covered the ring, which it gripped via suction. The arm retracted into its usual position.

"How does it operate?" the Black Dalek demanded.

"You just put it on." Damia answered.

The mutant creature inside the Black Dalek's battle armour recoiled at the thought of putting the ring, which had touched the inferior lifeform's flesh, on one of its tentacles.

"And to activate it?" the Black Dalek asked.

"That's all." she answered.

"Shall I exterminate her?" one of the ordinary Daleks asked, longing to see Damia die.

"No." the Black Dalek replied. "She is now of no consequence. Nothing now stands between the Daleks and the conquest of the UNIVERSE!"

"I obey." the ordinary Dalek replied, begrudgingly.

"Levitate!" the Black Dalek commanded, and the Daleks hovered off the surface of the tunnel floor.

The Daleks flew out of the hole in the tunnel, disappearing from Damia's sight.

Bigtopia

When the paramedics found her, Damia's flesh was practically a giant bruise. Her costume, never modest, was torn nearly to shreds and what was revealed was not the well-muscled physique of a healthy woman but bloody, burnt, and battered flesh. Her hair was frizzled from the shock. Because of the nature of the Dalek weaponry, no bones had been broken.

A few hours later, the Champion was lying in a hospital bed. Depression and disappointment filled the city. Their Champion, who had come to them only a few weeks before, had failed her first major challenge. People were fearful of what these aliens would do now and were only hoping that their goals had been accomplished and they would now leave.

Damia, for her part, was torn. The Daleks had made a great mistake in leaving her her belt. While it was not the technology they needed, it was the source of most of her physical powers. It was not of much advantage to the Daleks but, in her hands, it was a threat to them. But Damia was doubting herself now. She had been unable to save hundreds of people during the initial attack. Over a hundred more had died because of a miscalculation on her part, over a hundred she might have saved had her foolish pride allowed her to make earlier a concession she ended up having to make anyway. And hadn't the Daleks come to Earth to get something she possessed anyway? Damia wasn't sure if she could or should be the Champion. Not now.

City of Sacred Relics, Hipolis

The Daleks returned to the cave in Hipolis via the use of their transmat, but before returning to Skaro, they had to test that the Ring of Truth worked. The Black Dalek opened up its shell and slid one of its tentacles through the ring. It closed its shell again, and shortly thereafter, the Daleks emerged from the cave once more, and passed through the jungle to emerge by the temple once again. None of the Keepers were hiding near the edge of the jungle this time. In the city itself, the Daleks could see distant human figures moving about their daily routines, baking bread, sweeping the paths, and tending to their gardens.

"Human females detected!" said one of the leading Daleks.

"We will interrogate them to test the Coari Ring of Truth device!" the Black Dalek ordered.

The group of Daleks made their way through the City of Sacred Relics towards the Keepers. As the Daleks approached, they could make out individuals more clearly. The Keepers were all, as the Daleks had sensed, human females. They were all dressed in similar robes. Beyond that, they were widely diverse. They ranged in age from eighteen to eighty. Some were fat and some skinny. Most had Hellenic features but there were any number of blondes and redheads among them, as well as women with African and Asian features. As the Daleks neared, it was a redhaired woman who looked to be in her mid-fifties who approached them first. She was thin, with a stern expression and with her frizzy, graying red hair worn in a bun.

"Excuse me..." she began harshly "...but this area is not open to the public."

"What is the name of this area?" the Black Dalek demanded, employing the Ring of Truth to compel a truthful answer.

"This is the City of Sacred Relics." the woman answered. narrowing her eyes at the strange creature.

"What is its purpose?" the Black Dalek inquired.

"To serve God, to preserve the relics of our ancestors, and to strengthen our spiritual strength and our love of humanity." she answered.

"What is your function here?" the Black Dalek asked.

"I'm one of the senior Keepers. I help organize things and maintain discipline." she answered.

"This is not a valid test!" said one of the ordinary Daleks. "It must be determined whether the Ring of Truth can compel an answer to a question which the subject does not want to answer!"

"That is correct." the Black Dalek replied. It turned back to the woman. "Where is the nearest population centre? We must EXTERMINATE its population!"

The woman gasped, staring wide-eyed at the Dalek. "It's..it's Capodistria but...there's a thousand people there. You can't just...you...Why are you doing this?"

"Inferior lifeforms must be exterminated!" the Black Dalek replied. "Describe the defences of Capodistria!"

"I don't...I don't know the defenses of Capodistria. But...how are we...we're not inferior lifeforms! What are you?" she insisted, starting to panic.

"We are the Daleks!" the Black Dalek replied. "We are the supreme beings of the universe! Why was the Coari technology usually stored at this location removed by the one called Princess Damia?"

"I don't know what Coari technology is." she answered.

"The Ring of Truth device is one of several Coari devices!" the Black Dalek replied. "It was stored here along with other such devices. Why were those devices removed by the one called Princess Damia?"

"Her Highness earned the right to bear the relics in a competition." she explained.

"Her Highness is the one called Princess Damia? The one the human female we took prisoner yesterday called your champion?" the Black Dalek asked.

"Yes, she is." the woman answered, starting to take a few steps back from the Daleks.

"Why was she resistant to our weaponry?" the Black Dalek demanded, moving closer menacingly, its question angry and urgent.

"Stay where you are!" one of the ordinary Daleks commanded.

"Do not move!" commanded another.

"I don't know!" she shouted back, freezing in place.

"Can she be EX-TER-MIN-ATED?" the Black Dalek asked at a shriek.

"I assume so...but..." the woman trailed off, looking over her shoulder.

"What are you looking at?" the Black Dalek asked. One of the ordinary Daleks started to move along in the direction of the Keeper's glance.

"I was considering running." she found herself forced to answer truthfully.

"STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" shrieked one of the ordinary Daleks.

"DO NOT MOVE!" cried another.

"STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" echoed the one which had moved behind her, which now turned around.

"You are my prisoner!" the Black Dalek told her. "Do not move! Obey! OBEY!"

She stood still, looking down at the ground.

"You will describe the powers of the one called Princess Damia!" the Black Dalek commanded her.

"What powers?" she demanded.

"The capabilities she possesses in addition to the limited capabilities of an ordinary human female!" the Black Dalek clarified, moving closer to her, its eyestalk focussing on her even more intently.

"I don't know!" she yelled again.

"Who knows the capabilities of Princess Damia?" the Black Dalek asked.

"Princess Damia. This is all very new." she said.

"Who can describe the defences of the population centre you call Capodistria?" the Black Dalek asked, moving backwards a little as it neared the end of its questioning.

"Captain Paula Theodorakis." she answered.

"Where can we find Captain Paula Theodorakis?" the Black Dalek asked, the tone of its questions lowering back to what she might imagine was an ordinary level for a Dalek.

"In Capodistria." she said.

"Be more specific!" the Dalek commanded.

"I don't know these things!" she protested.

"We will go to Capodistria and interrogate Captain Paula Theodorakis!" the Black Dalek ordered the other Daleks.

"What of the prisoner?" asked one of the Daleks.

"She is of no use to us!" the Black Dalek replied. "Exterminate her!"

"EXTERMINATE!" the other Daleks screamed in chorus, before blasting her with their deathrays.

Capodistria, Hipolis

At that moment, Paula Theodakaris was sitting in a small cafe with Detective Odele Balanos. The two had been discussing the danger to Hipolis of recent events in Bigtopia, especially regarding the Keepers and the fact that a Keeper had been kidnapped right in Bigtopia by these Daleks.

"I hope Her Highness has given up this fantasy." Balanos was saying. "Hopefully, the Chancellor will give up this whole idea of having any kind of representative to the outside world. Just this week, I've dealt with two rapes committed by Lanerian tourists. Crime was almost nil before we decided to open the borders. Now it's through the roof."

"It's hardly through the roof." Theodorakis said. "Besides, if we can bring some hope to the world, if Her Highness can, I say it's a worthy thing. Hipolis is a little country. We can't provide the world with much by conventional means. It'll be nice if we can provide it with a champion."

Capodistria, Hipolis

The Daleks had used the Ring of Truth on every person they found when they reached the town. They demanded to know Theodorakis' whereabouts, then exterminated their subject before moving on. In a matter of only a few minutes, they were heading towards the café.

The Black Dalek was the first through the door. Its eyestalk rotated around as it surveyed the stunned occupants of the room, and then moved towards the woman matching the description it had received of Theodorakis, ignoring the other people enjoying their coffee, knocking tables over and barging patrons out of its way. One of the other Daleks followed it in, the other Daleks remained in the street outside.

"You are Captain Paula Theodorakis!" the Black Dalek said, the Ring of Truth glowing on its tentacle inside its armoured shell. "You are my prisoner! Do not move!"

"Do not move!" echoed the other Dalek.

"Describe the defences of this population centre in every detail!" the Black Dalek commanded her.

Capodistria, Hipolis

Theodorakis started at first but swiftly regained her cool. Many of the other patrons were panicking or fleeing, running screaming from the cafe. Theodorakis looked conspiritorally at her companion before speaking.

"You must be the Daleks? My friend and I have thoroughly studied your battle with the Champion." A meaningful sidelong glance at that. "Most impressive creatures."

"The one you call the Champion is also known to us as Princess Damia." the Black Dalek stated. "She is an enemy of the Daleks!"

"If the Daleks are enemies of all so-called inferior lifeforms and seek their extermination, what reason have we to be anything but enemies of the Daleks?" Theodorakis said, as both she and the officer shifted in their seats, drawing guns beneath the white tablecloth.

"What are the defences of this population centre? What is the disposition of your forces? What are their armaments?" the Black Dalek demanded, employing the Ring of Truth.

"There are no forces on active duty in this city. There are a hundred or so soldiers not in active service spread throughout the city, in private residences. They are armed with semi-automatic rifles and with service revolvers." she answered, as the ring forced her to do.

Then she and her police companion leaped from their seats, using the revolvers they'd drawn beneath the tablecloth to both aim for the Black Daleks eye stalk, a part they'd learned was vulnerable from studying the Champion's battle. At this range, it was almost impossible that neither of the two trained shots would hit. Unfortunately, while the eyestalk was the most vulnerable part of a Dalek, it was still protected by the same forcefield which protected the rest of it, although even this was at its weakest point at the eyestalk. Revolvers just didn't have the rate of fire necessary to sufficiently overwhelm the forcefield. Most automatic weapons of early 21st Century Earth were little better. Only the concentrated, accurate fire of several such weapons stood any chance of penetrating the Dalek anti-ballistic forcefield.

"EXTERMINATE!" the Black Dalek shrieked. Both it and its subordinate fired their deathrays.

The two women dived for the floor as they were struck by the deathrays. Without Coari technology of other superabilities, there bodies lit up brightly and their skeletons could briefly be seen through their flesh, before they hit the ground as smoldering corpses.

"Exterminate! Exterminate!" the Daleks repeated over and over, eagerly, as they turned about the café and fired their weapons again and again at everybody still inside. Those who had run out of the café didn't escape either - they found the two Daleks still waiting in the street outside, who enthusiastically gunned them down in turn.

A loud siren began to sound in the distance. Soldiers in hastily put on uniforms began to hit the streets, heading for the center of the town and falling into ranks as they did so. As they became aware that Theodorakis was not present, Lieutenant Adonia Theophanous assumed command. The Black Dalek emerged from the café as the two outside just finished killing everybody in sight.

"We have sufficiently tested the Ring of Truth device!" the Black Dalek advised its underlings. "We will now return to Skaro to interrogate the Time Lord prisoner!"

"We obey!" replied the other Daleks.

The four Daleks moved away from the café down the street at a leisurely pace, heading out of town in the direction of the jungle and the time corridor. By this time, a dozen or so soldiers had already reached the street down which the Daleks were travelling. While a sergeant radioed the lieutenant that they'd found the enemy, the troops took cover behind cars and trees, behind bushes and in the windows of buildings, and opened fire on the Daleks, concentrating it only slightly on the Black Dalek.

"Exterminate all resistance!" the Black Dalek commanded, but appeared fundamentally disinterested in the soldiers' attempts to destroy it.

"EXTERMINATE!" cried out the other Daleks, which opened fire, setting their weapons to the same settings they had used on the busy streets of Bigtopia to destroy cars, in order to dispense with the issue of cover.

The troops continued to attack the Daleks with rapid fire even as many of them were exterminated in flaming wreckage. More troops were approaching the battle from both sides now, hitting the ground to give the Daleks less of a target and opening fire.

"Exterminate all humans!" yelled one of the Daleks as it gleefully fired its weapon, its shots at first carefully aimed and deadly accurate, but gradually becoming more haphazard and rapid as the euphoric feeling it got from killing so many inferior lifeforms took over.

The Daleks continued to move forward through the streets, never stopping. It must soon have become apparent to the surviving soldiers stubborn enough to continue on the fight that the Daleks were leaving the town. The remaining resistance stiffened. All the troops were present now and there were about fifty survivors left on either side of the Daleks. As the uselessness of cover for blocking the Dalek weaponry became apparent, most of them had either hit the ground of begun constant movement instead, trying to offer the Daleks a harder target.

How the Black Dalek hated their persistence! Surely it had been demonstrated to the humans that their resistance was futile? It was illogical to continue fighting! The Black Dalek's displeasure grew steadily to fury, and then the urge to stop and exterminate the stubborn humans finally became too strong.

"EXTERMINATE ALL HUMANS! CRUSH ALL RESISTANCE!" the Black Dalek screamed in a shrill, grating voice, as it came to a stop. "DESTROY! DESTROY! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

The Daleks stopped their steady movement out of the town and finally engaged the humans. Since none of the troops was armed with anything other than a semi-automatic rifle and a service revolver, none of them actually posed a threat to the Daleks. They could've continued to move forward, casually exterminating but otherwise ignoring the humans. That wasn't the point - they were inferior lifeforms and they were resisting.

"Seek! Locate! Exterminate!" The Daleks split apart and picked off each soldier one at a time. The sound of deathrays firing and the screams of the dying echoed about the usually blissfully peaceful town of Capodistria.

By the end, the Hipolitans began fleeing, but by then the options had passed. They were cut down as they ran, slain by the ruthless Daleks.

"Seek! Locate! Exterminate!" The Daleks chased down every last soldier, but didn't stop there. They were now far too involved, too excited. With each extermination, the Daleks felt more and more alive, burning with a combination of hatred and euphoria. "Seek! Locate! Exterminate!"

"We will make an example of this place!" the Black Dalek told its minions as they moved through the town's streets. "We will show them the futility of resisting the DALEKS! Exterminate all humans! Exterminate all humans! Exterminate all humans! EXTERMINATE ALL HUMANS!"

"Seek! Locate! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

***

Dominica ran screaming towards the cafe where he mother had said she was going to be. There was fire and the sound of screams and explosions all through the town. Her mother would protect her. She always had. Dominica ran past the bodies on the street without even noticing. It would have horrified her a day ago but she'd already seen so many. She ran into the cafe and saw her mother on the ground. She ran up to her, trying to shake her awake. "Mama! Mama! Wake up, Mama! I'm scared..."

The Dalek saw her from across the street. Its visual sensor detected the slight movement and it picked up the sound of her pleading with her adopted mother's corpse. It moved across the street and through the café door.

"Stay where you are!" the Dalek commanded her as it trundled across the floor, pushing the bodies out of the way as it closed in on her. "Do not move! Do not move! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

Capodistria, Hipolis

"Mama, wake up!" Dominica screamed again. By now, she should have known her adopted mother would never wake up. She should have known she was about to die. But, at her age, she just couldn't handle the reality of the situation. There are quite a few grown men and women who might have similarly been in shock.

The Dalek's deathray flashed. Dominica closed her eyes. And then she was in the air, being held lovingly, tenderly, like her adopted mother had held her, like her birth mother held her in her earliest vague memories. Part of her wondered if she was in Heaven. But, when she opened her eyes, she saw that lady who'd been in the news so much, dressed in the bright colors of the Hipolitan flag, flying through the air with Dominica in her arms. She set the little girl down a mile or two outside the town the Daleks were exterminating. "I need to go gather more survivors. There'll be grown-ups here to take care of you soon. Until then, I need you to stay still and stay quiet, can you do that?"

"I...I..." Dominica stuttered.

"What's your name?" the Champion asked gently.

"Dominica." answered the little girl.

"I'm counting on you, Dominica." the Champion answered, kissing the little girl gently on the cheek and flying back to Capodistria.

The Dalek which had been on the verge of exterminating Dominica when Princess Damia arrived and rescued her rolled out of the café towards the other Daleks.

"Emergency! Emergency!" it squealed. "Princess Damia is in the vicinity!"

"Her arrival is unforeseen!" the Black Dalek observed. "It jeopardises our safe return to home planet Skaro with the Ring of Truth! Withdraw! Regroup!"

The other two Daleks, still gleefully exterminating, withdrew as ordered and formed up around the Black Dalek. The Daleks resumed their journey towards the edge of town. Unfortunately, there was a small cluster of humans along their way. The humans were clustered in some brush, having come here to hide. They had fled the town and taken refuge here, ignorant of the fact that it was on the Daleks way home.

"The humans are blocking the path!" one Dalek complained.

"Destroy them! Nothing must stop us returning with the Ring of Truth to Skaro." the Black Dalek commanded.

"EXTERMINATE!" the other Daleks screamed and moved towards the humans.

The Champion landed near the Daleks. She paused a moment in indecision. To be honest with herself, she was still terrified of a repeat of the incident in the subway, for which she blamed herself. So many had already died and she felt she'd failed them. Instead of charging, she cried out "Wait!"

"Stop!" the Black Dalek ordered the other Daleks. The other Daleks closed in around the Black Dalek, and all stared at the Champion. "You are Princess Damia. You are an enemy of the Daleks!"

"I am." she said. "A much worse enemy of the Daleks than these humans. Would you not agree?"

"They are in our way." the Black Dalek replied. "They must be exterminated."

"I will turn myself over to your custody if you allow them to leave unharmed. I will accompany you back to your home world without resistance. You can use the Ring to test the truth of my words." Damia said.

"If we take you prisoner and take you to Skaro with us, will you resist?" the Black Dalek asked, employing the Ring of Truth.

"I will not resist being taken to Skaro as your prisoner." Damia said.

"Then if you remove these humans from our path, we will not exterminate them." the Black Dalek replied. It wondered why Damia wasn't resisting - it didn't seem logical, she had clearly demonstrated the ability to severely damage and even destroy Daleks. It decided that her feeble human emotions were to blame.

"Go home." Damia said quietly to the other humans, who immediately moved to comply.

The Daleks watched the humans return to their homes, before the Black Dalek turned its eyestalk to Damia. The lense at the end of the eyestalk narrowed slightly as it focussed on her.

"You are my prisoner!" the Black Dalek told her. "Come with us! Obey!"

Damia walked with the Daleks silently. They led her out of Capodistria and into the jungle, eventually arriving at a cave. Shoving her with their manipulator arms, they forced her into the cave and towards a mysterious portal of swirling gasses, which seemed to stretch on forever, although if she walked around the sides of its entrance, she could see nothing from behind but the cave.

"Enter the time corridor!" the Black Dalek ordered her.

"You're from a different time?" she asked, even as she stepped through.

"We are from your future." the Black Dalek replied as if it were a natural thing.

The Daleks, including the injured one which was guarding the time corridor entrance and transmat controls, followed Damia into the time corridor, with two of the Daleks pushing the transmat in front of them with their manipulator arms. There seemed to be no solid ground beneath Damia and the Daleks, just swirling gasses and who knew what else. It was all vaguely translucent, and stars, planets, whole galaxies were visible through the tunnel.

"It's oddly beautiful..." Damia commented, looking out at the vastness of time and space.

The Black Dalek followed Damia's gaze out beyond the tunnel, its eyestalk moving around in circles as it surveyed the stellar formations. It saw everything in every detail, possibly in even more detail than Damia's untrained, naked eye, but it saw nothing it could describe as beautiful. It never had.

"Your sentimentality makes you weak." the Black Dalek replied eventually, turning its attention back to Damia as they proceeded along the long time corridor.

"Is that why you seek to destroy humans?" Damia asked.

"Negative." the Black Dalek replied. "Humans are an inferior lifeform. For the Daleks to survive, we must destroy or conquer all inferior lifeforms."

"Why are humans inferior?" Damia inquired.

"All lifeforms are inferior to the Daleks!" the Black Dalek replied.

"What do you eat?" Damia asked.

"Why?" the Black Dalek demanded.

"Just curious." she said.

"We eat a nourishing vegetable compound rich in protein and other nutrients." the Black Dalek answered after a few moments of silence. They were finally able to see glimpses of something at the other end of the tunnel, although exactly what, Damia couldn't tell.

"Vegetables are non-Dalek lifeforms." Damia pointed out.

"Vegetables are inferior lifeforms. They are almost entirely incapable of even the basic animal intelligence displayed in humanoid lifeforms." the Black Dalek answered.

"But you can't exterminate them. You need them to survive." Damia added.

"As I said: For Daleks to survive, we must destroy or conquer all inferior lifeforms." the Black Dalek replied. "We must become the dominant species of the universe. Even humanoids are dominant over vegetables. Your line of reasoning demonstrates your feeble humanoid intellect."

"So why do you try to destroy rather than conquer humanoids?" Damia asked.

"You operate on a false assumption." the Black Dalek replied.

"I guess you are taking me alive." Damia conceded.

"Humanoids whose existence can be made to serve the Daleks can be allowed to live." the Black Dalek told her.

Damia could now see the stark grey metallic room which awaited her at the end of the time corridor. Several Daleks waited on the far side of the corridor.

"So what is going to happen when we arrive?" she asked, tightly controlling her fear.

"You are our prisoner!" the Black Dalek told her. "You will detained until the Supreme Dalek decides your fate."

"But more specifically?" she asked.

"That is a matter for the Supreme Dalek." the Black Dalek told her.

She nodded, falling silent again and walking into the room. Two Daleks moved forward to either side of Damia. One of them turned to the Black Dalek.

"Report!" it said.

"We have recovered the Ring of Truth device." the Black Dalek said. "This human female destroyed two Daleks and damaged another. She is resistant to most settings of our weapons. She has been taken prisoner. Take her to the holding cell. I will bring the Ring of Truth device to the interrogation room."

"I obey!" replied the Dalek. It turned to Damia. "Move! Do not attempt to escape, or you will be exterminated!"

Damia nodded, moving in the indicated direction. "So is this an isolated cell?"

"I do not understand." one of her two Dalek guards replied.

"Is the cell near other cells or does it house other prisoners?" she asked.

"There are no other cells." the guard told her as it led her through a metal bulkhead whose frame was so low that it required her to stoop to pass through it - it was however perfect height for a Dalek. "Daleks do not take many prisoners. Additional cells would be redundant."

"Because you exterminate most of your enemies." she added needlessly.

"That is correct." the Dalek replied. As they passed through another set of bulkheads and into a lift, it turned to her. "You will probably be exterminated shortly too. You murdered two Daleks."

"I also seem to be of use to you." Damia noted.

"There is no data." the Dalek told her. It honestly didn't know if she was of use to the Daleks. "If you are of use to the Daleks, you will be made to serve us."

"If you did not believe I could likely be of use to the Daleks, I would not be alive." she noted.

"We are only following the orders of our superior." the other guard replied. "It is not for us to decide whether you are useful to the Daleks or not. That decision is for the Dalek Supreme."

The lift stopped deep underground and its doors opened. The Daleks led Damia out of the lift and along another long, metallic hallway. They passed a Dalek at a checkpoint, and then, after travelling down a long corridor, they reached a final bulkhead, which opened, revealing a grey, featureless metallic room beyond.

"This is your cell." one guard told her.

Damia nodded, stepping into the cell and looking about. The Daleks moved out of the cell, and the door closed behind them, leaving Damia alone in the room. The only feature on any of the walls was an electronic eye, not unlike a Dalek eyestalk, which followed her movements about the room, which was medium-sized and devoid of any furniture. It wasn't completely bare, however - a lavender embroidered cloak lay on the floor in the corner furthermost away from the door. She walked over to the cloak, lifting it up and examining it. The cloak was delicately embroidered and hand-stitched. As out of place as it seemed, it resembled nothing so much as an eighteenth century European lady's cloak. Damia quietly looked around the cell once more, eventually focusing on the visual sensor.

"Is this for me?" she asked.

The eye watched her but gave no answer. She put the cloak on, looking down at herself and pacing the room thoughtfully. She was left alone in the room for several hours when the door opened suddenly to reveal a Dalek standing in the door frame, holding a metal tray in its manipulator arm. Some cubes of food sat on the tray, next to a vial of a semi-clear liquid and a bag of water.

"What's all this?" she asked, walking over to examine the offering.

"Food, water, and anti-radiation sickness medicine." the Dalek told her. "Take it."

She took what was offered quietly. "Am I being exposed to radiation?"

"Yes." the Dalek replied in an inhuman monotone. "If you do not take the medicine, you will die within a few days."

"Why have you provided me with this article of clothing?" she asked.

"We did not." the Dalek replied enigmatically, before withdrawing from the cell. The door closed again, leaving her alone.

She went to the corner of the cell furthest from the eye, sitting down against the wall and staring ahead. For all the danger, it was really the boredom which was the worst part. Another two hours later, the door opened again. This time there were two Daleks and a woman. The first Dalek moved into the cell ahead of the others, aiming its gunstick at Damia.

"Do not move! Do not move!" the Dalek told Damia menacingly.

The second Dalek shoved the woman they were escorting into the cell with its manipulator arm. She was an attractive blonde woman, tall, who looked to be in her mid to late twenties, with a strange bookish air about her. She was also clearly exhausted. She stumbled into the room and fell to her hands and knees, barely avoiding falling completely flat on her face. The two Daleks withdrew from the chamber.

As soon as the Daleks withdrew, Damia rushed over to the woman and helped her to lean against the wall. She took the cloak off and put it gently over the younger woman. "You need rest. Do they ever turn the lights off in here?"

"No." the woman sighed as she leaned against the wall with Damia's assistance. She might have been suspicious of the new inmate if she wasn't so exhausted. "They never turn them off."

While Damia's uniform had developed over time and in the context of her role, it likely looked silly or at least alien to the other woman at first site. She was in black boots, a rather short pair of blue shorts, a thick golden belt embedded with a single green stone, a strapless black top, and a golden eagle. On her head, she wore the tiara of her rank as a Hipolitan princess. The woman started to pay closer attention to her fellow prisoner, although it took her a little while to focus her eyes. She frowned.

"By your clothing I'd almost make you for a Thal, but you're clearly not. Who are you, how did you get here?" she asked.

"I am Princess Damia of Hipolis...of Earth. I was taken prisoner by the Daleks." Damia answered.

"My condolences." the other prisoner said quietly. "Did you come here by yourself or did they take you from Earth?"

"They brought me from Earth...from 2006." Damia answered. "And yourself?"

"They trapped my ship in a time corridor." the woman replied. "2006? Why would the Daleks be interested in Earth, 2006? There's virtually nothing there. Surely they'd remember that from their conquest of Earth in the 22nd Century."

"There was a Ring that was left there by another race. The Daleks called them the Coari. It was my Ring." Damia informed the other woman, sitting next to her against the wall.

"The Coari..." the woman frowned. "The Daleks aren't much into jewellery. They're terrible dressers. What was so special about your ring?"

"It could make people tell the truth." Damia informed her softly.

The other woman was silent for a long time as she turned towards the floor and stared vacantly at it. She then looked back to Damia.

"Even against their will?" she asked quietly, as if she knew the answer already.

"Yes." Damia said.

"Yes, that's how they did it alright..." the other prisoner murmured. She looked up at the Dalek eye on the wall and frowned.

"How they did what?" Damia asked.

"Made me talk." the woman replied, glaring at the eye on the wall in anger.

"How do you sleep?" Damia asked.

"On my cloak." she answered. "You get used to the light. Well, not really, but close enough."

"I don't have any excess clothing..." Damia admitted.

"Comfort isn't something the Daleks are concerned with. Or understand." the woman said. "They just sit there in their shells, watching and listening..."

"I've noticed." Damia said. "I saw them kill hundreds of my people."

"You should see them when they really get going." the woman replied quietly. "But I meant right now. The eye, on the wall."

"I know. I'm watching what I'm saying." Damia said.

"Well... Princess, you said?" the woman started but stopped herself, turning back to Damia.

"Princess." Damia repeated.

"Well, Your Highness," the woman started again. "What you've seen the Daleks do is nothing compared to what they will be able to do soon. Using your ring, the Daleks have already learned from me most of what they didn't already know about time travel. Not that nasty corridor stuff they would've used to bring you back from 2006... or forward from 2006 I suppose... but real, limitless travel in time and space."

Skaro, sometime in the future

"Reopening time corridor!" announced the Dalek operating the time corridor controls as it reopened the time corridor in which Cecinia's TARDIS had been trapped.

Two Daleks waited for the tunnel through time and space to stabilise, standing in front of the gateway. The Supreme Dalek had ordered them to attempt to enter the TARDIS, although it knew from observing Cecinia's interrogation that it was a risky prospect indeed for an intruder to operate a Time Lord's TARDIS, even with the key. Nevertheless, they waited with eager anticipation, proud to be assigned a mission which would bring the Daleks one step closer to intergalactic conquest.

"Time corridor stable!" announced the Dalek operator.

"Entering time corridor!" replied the two Daleks, before entering the gateway to the time corridor.

They moved along the tunnel, coming across a large, hand made French polished cabinet with delicate rococo finishing, of the sort one might expect to find in the salons of Versailles or the Winter Palace. The first of the two Daleks inserted the key into the cupboard's lock with its manipulator arm. It then carefully turned the key and opened the door. What lay within was a spectacular sight - despite being nothing more than a large cupboard on the outside, with its door open the inside was clearly visible, and the inside was incredible. Beyond the door lay the enormous control room of a highly advanced and incredibly complex craft, with a large hexagonal control console standing in its centre.

The Daleks entered Cecinia's TARDIS. As soon as they were inside, the doors closed behind them. They moved over to the console, each taking a position on either side of it.

"Activating primary space time starting vector calculation computer!" the first Dalek said.

The exact method of operation had been forced out of Cecinia with the use of the Ring of Truth. The first Dalek extended its sucker cap down to the starting point calculation computer control and activated it. So far so good - it didn't explode.

"Engaging primary power!" replied the second Dalek, pressing a button with its manipulator arm.

"Plotting course to home planet Skaro, time of departure plus fifteen minutes." the first Dalek said, laying in a course through space and time.

"Engaging primary drive systems!" the second Dalek answered, moving its arm to start the TARDIS engine. Its sucker cap stretched down towards the switch, before touching it to flick it on...

"EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!" screamed the first Dalek as its case superheated.

The arms, gunsticks, and eyestalks of both Daleks began to melt as the shell started to warp. Inside, the mutant creatures were roasted alive, all the advanced environmental controls in their travel machines only prolonging their agony by seconds.

"OUT OF CONTROL!" screamed the second as it burned alive. "HELP ME! HELP!"

The screams soon turned incoherent and then ended abruptly as both Daleks were completely incinerated, leaving only foul smelling debris.

The Panopticon, Gallifrey: The 'Present'

Cardinal Eresdamov was a troubled man. For about a year he’d been saddled with the secret disappearance of hid daughter - secret because she’d disappeared without permission, in his ship. This wasn’t exactly normal; indeed, stolen TARDISes seemed to see more regular use than those that were legally owned. Nevertheless, it was considered quite shameful in many quarters to be so outwitted, and so he’d not reported the theft.

That said, he was somewhat concerned by her continuing absence; if she’d been as smart as he’d thought she was, she would have arranged for the ship to reappear the instant after it left, using a gap in the planet’s barriers generated by the departure of a far more massive battle-ship on one of the covert missions the Chancellor was prone to ordering more and more in recent years.

Hexagonal designs were an old Gallifreyan tradition, and one that the Panopticon stuck firmly to, with hexagonal covered walkways looking down on the surprisingly modest forum that was used for meetings and occasions of state.

In fluttering cerulean robes he wandered those same walkways late at night, under the shadow of a vast ceiling mounted light that bore the mark of Rassilon.

“I was wondering when you’d turn up,” a voice said from behind him, and he turned to look at the figure who had apparently stepped out of nowhere onto the walkway. He was tall and almost cruel looking, dressed in black and grey garb. He wore a grey shirt with a low, Nehru style collar, bearing twinned pins of gold that were engraved with the same ‘figure 8’ looking symbol as the ceiling. Over this he wore a heavy black cloak which was pinned to the shirt by a pair of white enamelled bosses over each collarbone, linked by a chain from which hung the key to his time vehicle, one that resembled nothing so much as a piece of crystal held in a piece of black plastic.

Eresdamov turned to face Mortimus, presently tall and almost lanky, far less of a clown than his last body had seemed, and perhaps more dangerous for it. “Ah yes, young man,” he said, reaching up absently to run his fingers through a tangled and unruly beard.

“You know, I’m fairly certain I’m older than you are,” the renegade said, “Objectively speaking.”

“Ah, hah, objectivity… yes…”

“Now, you wanted my help with something, as I recall,” Mortimus said, “about breaking into the vaults…”

“…and retrieving my ship, yes.”


The vaults in question were part of a subterranean labyrinth used by the Chancellery Guard to move about the Citadel – Gallifrey’s capitol city – unnoticed, and they contained many secret artefacts, including the devices and mechanisms necessary to retrieve a TARDIS; something that could only officially be sanctioned by the High Council.

Fortunately for Eresdamov and his compatriot, the Chancellery Guard were also notoriously complacent and inept. They weren’t the worst military force in the universe; but they were pretty close. Mortimus was soon busily working to circumvent the security systems built into the TARDIS recall circuits. A tangle of interconnected web-boards met him and a surprisingly small number of choice removals disabled the security system and about half of the device’s features.

The Monk (as Mortimus was often known, due to the years he’d spent stuck in the garb and disguise of such a religious adept, not to mention his early life) grinned, “And, that should be it…” he said, reaching up over the control panel, a surprisingly tacky looking plastic construction. He stabbed a button with sufficient force to cause the whole contraption to shake slightly, and pulled his dark head up from under the control circuit.

A protesting wheezing, groaning noise filled the air, and a solid object slowly faded into view, a cabinet seemingly made of golden-plated wood. As it finally appeared, kicking and screaming the whole way, the Monk carefully plugged one part of the controls into another, and the control panel let out a protesting screech, before a loud bang emerged from somewhere inside it. Eresdamov pulled a much more mundane looking key from his pocket, but found it to be unnecessary, as one was already in the doors of the cabinet. Almost timorously he pushed one of the doors open, and gagged at the smoke filled chamber beyond, a foul reek pouring from the ship’s doorway.

The Monk was less hesitant, stepping through the smoke through the white control room, towards where the vehicle’s console should have been. Two melted pieces of metal, twisted almost beyond recognition sat on either side of the console.

Mortimus pocketed the key and closed the door as several of the Chancellery Guard, dressed in their characteristic blood red uniforms and laughable (Gallifrey was a world that could justly be mocked for its atrocious hats) helmets ran around the corner of the catacombs. At that moment the console the Monk had been interfering with exploded in a shower of brilliant multi-hued sparks.

“Your daughter took the ship?” he said, turning to the ghastly melted objects.

“Yes, yes, and she’s…” he meandered off into incoherence as he forgot something of the future, “What are these?” he said, after a minute.

The Monk took a thick pen like device from his pockets and held it to the back of the cooling metal, apparently slick with an organic residue he wasn’t keen to touch. A mechanism, surprisingly still working, snapped open, and he levered the lid up, “Pressure cooker perhaps,” he mused, “and I think your daughter might be in great trouble,” the remnants of the Dalek bubbled over its destroyed casing. “She might be in France,” he said as the horrific sludge bubbled over the casing.

“France?” the other asked.

“Actually, I think I do recognise this… it’s a Dalek…”

Over the next hours, Damia made small talk with Cecinia, learning her name. She asked various things about her treatment by the Daleks. And she slept. It wasn't until the Dalek brought their next meal that she started to act. She left half of her water in the cup. She went to settle down directly under the eye and thus out of its apparent vision. After taking a sip, she let some water spill to the floor. The eye looked down directly at Damia, although Damia could see that it wasn't able to see Cecinia on the far wall while it was focussed on her.

Damia leaned forward over her spill and moved as though to wipe it up. "Oh, dear...Cecinia, could you help me get this up?"

Cecinia seemingly nervously played with a thick, solid gold bracelet around her wrist, stealing glimpses at the eye. She then scampered sideways a little and back again, and saw that the eye didn't follow her while it was focussed on Damia.

"Certainly, Your Highness." replied Cecinia. Having satisfied her curiousity, she walked across the room and knelt down by Damia.

As Damia seemed to wipe up the mess, she traced in the water with her finger We need to escape. "I don't know how we're going to get this up without a cloth."

"We can use my cloak I suppose... it'll spoil it but I guess I can always get another next time I'm in Venice." Cecinia replied. She removed the eighteenth century cloak from her shoulders, which didn't match with her otherwise alien clothing anyway, and handed it to Damia. Damia frowned and looked at Cecinia curiously.

"You're right. It would spoil it." Cecinia nodded, taking her cloak back and beginning to pull it over her shoulders. She fumbled with it halfway on, so that it covered her face from view of the eye but not from Damia, and mouthed the words. "I'm thinking!"

"I can take one Dalek out of commission easily enough. If you can give me very clear directions to your ship, I can get us there very quickly. It's risky but...our best shot." Damia mouthed back.

"I'm not a lip-reader." Cecinia said out loud, frowning. She stood up and looked up at the eye. "This is stupid, they're not idiots, they know we're planning something. Maybe I could give you a boost and you could pull the thing out of the wall?"

Damia immediately flew up, yanked it out of the wall, and landed again, lifting Cecinia up. "Give me very good directions to your ship very fast."

"It's not as easy as that." Cecinia told Damia. "It's floating, lost in the midst of time and space. There was a Dalek time corridor it was trapped in. If we reopened the right one, we could get back to my ship. But we both need to go, it's an extremely complicated device, and unless you've had fifty years or so of training you wouldn't even know how to do a three-point turn in it without me. Come to think of it, I wasn't very good at three-point turns either. That's the problem with time machines, no rear-view mirrors..."

"That's why I'm carrying you." Damia explained, flying at the door and kicking it as hard as she could. Her powerful leg muscles sprained at the effort but she wanted to get out before the Daleks arrived to deal with them. They did know how strong she was and would plan accordingly given time. The door was extremely solid, however, made of pure dalekanium, solid enough to withstand a blast from a normal Dalek's weapon at maximum power. It didn't give.

"I wish I had my sonic screwdriver..." Cecinia sighed. "Since when do humans fly, anyway? Which Earth 2006 are you from?"

Damia, who was also strong enough to withstand a blast from a normal Daleks weapon on maximum power, set Cecnia down and rushed the door from the other side of the room, pushing with all her might everytime her foot touched the ground and she ran and slamming into it with her shoulder.

"Later." she answered the Time Lady's question

"You remember the way you were taken down here from the time corridor?" Cecinia asked as Damia shoulder charged the door.

"Yes." she answered, repeating the charge.

"If you can somehow get your fingers underneath the door, you should be able to pull it up. I mean, you're obviously very strong. It rises and falls, you see, held to the floor by a magnetic seal." Cecinia said. "I bet the magnetic seal's not as strong as an inch and a half of dalekanium."

"They really named it dalekanium?" Damia asked as she knelt down, pushing upwards on the door.

Even without any grip, Damia's superhuman strength was enough to push the door up just far enough for her to get her fingers underneath it.

"They're not exactly the most creative bunch of blobs in metal casings around." Cecinia answered. "I mean, look at the décor..."

"Well, in their minds, this really is a cage for animals, nothing more." Damia said, sliding her fingers open and pulling the door open.

"Well the rest of the place looks the same. Even if they had bedrooms, they still wouldn't have seen the need for some pastels..." Cecinia answered. Her eyes widened slightly as Damia pulled the door up, and she walked outside. "Now that is impressive. There's a guard station down the end of the corridor, and I imagine it's already on alert. If we're lucky there'll only be one Dalek though... now that's enough to blast me into billions of itty bitty smart and sexy atoms, but I'm hoping you'll be able to do something about that. The Dalek, that is. Not the atoms."

"I'm sure I can. Stay behind me." Damia said, moving towards the end of the hall, staying close to the wall and on the lookout for the Dalek.

She wasn't disappointed. A Dalek soon appeared at the end of the corridor.

"Stay where you are! Do not move! Do not move!" it screeched.

"Lie flat on the ground." Damia instructed Cecinia as she took the the air and flew at the Dalek.

Cecinia shrugged and lay down on her belly. The Dalek started moving backwards and firing in blank surprise as Damia flew at her. When she collided with it, it screamed as it was sent flying backwards into the wall, its frame visibly shook, the Dalek mutant inside knocked almost senseless.

"Under attack! Under attack! Help me!" it croaked, although its control panel along with its videocom link to Control was on the opposite wall of the guard room at the end of the corridor.

"You are my prisoner." Damia said, grabbing the Dalek and tossing it behind them. "Do not move."

"Arrrrgh!" the Dalek screamed as it was flung through the air. "Have pity!'

As it landed on the floor, the shell actually broke apart and there was a small explosion from within. It stirred no further. Cecinia stood up and looked at the smashed Dalek behind her in astonishment.

"Wow." she said. "You really don't like our xenophobic mutant cyborg genocidal friends..."

"I didn't mean for it to die." Damia protested. "When I fought them before, they seemed much harder to harm."

"That wall, and that floor is solid dalekanium. You threw it into both pretty hard, you know." Cecinia told her. "Its armour is made out of a dalekanium alloy, so when a Dalek collides with the floor hard enough, the armour will, at some point... break. Anyway, let me try to unlock the lift..."

She moved over to the control panel and fiddled around with the controls. She frowned and the operation obviously took her longer than expected, even though the lift doors were soon open.

"This would be so much easier if they didn't take my sonic screwdriver..." she complained again. "The time corridor was upstairs, right?"

"Yes." Damia said, frowning intensely as she watched Cecinia work.

"OK, well let's get... what's wrong?" Cecinia said, turning back to see Damia's frown as the two women entered the lift.

"We're barely escaping Skaro if we're lucky and they've already gotten dangerous secrets from you. I was unaware it was meant to be a happy occasion." Damia retorted, following her into the lift.

"Excuse me if I want to try distract attention from the fact that we're both about to die, an event which might be regarded as a tragedy if not for the fact that it will be shortly followed by the Dalek conquest of time and space, the subjucation or extermination of all intelligent non-Dalek life everywhere, and an end to the use in interior decoration of pastels, or in fact any colour other than metallic grey, for all time." Cecinia answered as the lift hummed to life and started speeding upwards.

"We're not going to die." Damia said calmly.

"Well then what's wrong with me making a few jokes?" Cecinia asked, throwing her hands up in the air. "Anyway, up on this level they'll have closed off every bulkhead, since they know we're out. That means we'll have another door rather like our cell door every three metres or so, and probably several Daleks waiting for us..."

"Well, the doors we can handle. It just slows us down. The Daleks...I think we can manage." Damia said.

"Good." Cecinia said. She waited quietly for a few moments. "There's one other thing I should probably mention."

"Which is?" Damia asked.

"I've never operated a Dalek time corridor before, and haven't the faintest idea how to do so." Cecinia sighed. "And I'm not sure which time corridor the TARDIS... that's my ship... which time corridor my ship was trapped in. Out of a potentially infinite set of time corridors."

"So how were you planning on finding it?" Damia asked.

"I was sort of hoping to wing it actually." Cecinia confessed.

"Well...let's try then." Damia said.

"Yes, let's." Cecinia nodded seriously. The lift reached the top level, and sure enough, the room beyond was sealed on all three sides by a closed bulkhead. Cecinia stepped off the lift and looked about. She took the gold bracelet off her wrist and set it down on the floor, and then picked it back up. "Interesting."

"What?" Damia asked.

"The floor doesn't seem to be magnetised, or if it is, it's magnetised so little that I can still pick up my bracelet without any difficulty." Cecinia replied.

"What's the significance of that?" Damia asked.

"Well, it means that there's nothing but gravity holding those bulkheads down, you shouldn't have any problems sliding them up." Cecinia smiled. Then her expression became a little more somber. "And the other thing... is that is also means that there are probably Daleks moving around on this level. Quite a few of them. If the floor was magnetised they'd be stuck in place."

Damia nodded. "Keep behind me and get down if there's much shooting." she instructed as she moved to the appropriate bulkhead, forcing it up.

"Well the other thing is, all these sections all have four walls, four bulkheads..." Cecinia continued as Damia effortlessly lifted up a bulkhead, revealing another empty section beyond. "And no magnetised floor means that the Daleks can open any of them remotely... so there's no standing behind you really, they could appear on our flanks at any moment."

Damia nodded. "Let's move then." she said, moving to the next bulkhead and pulling it open.

As she began sliding the bulkhead up, she could see the base of a Dalek on the other side. The bulkheads on either side of the two women started opening and the bulkhead behind them closed. There were more Dalek bases on either side.

"Do not move!" came one voice from the other side of the opening bulkheads.

"Stay where you are!" cried another.

Damia physically grabbed the Dalek on the other side of the bulkhead and forced him into a horizontal position before using an underhand toss to throw him under an opening bulkhead and into another Dalek. She then swiftly forced the bulkhead back down hard enough to hopefully jam it and then moved on to opening the next one, all with incredible speed, trying to get the next bulkhead open before the Daleks reopened the last.

"Emergency! Trapped!" the Dalek jammed underneath one bulkhead complained.

They could hear bulkheads in other chambers opening as the cut off Dalek repositioned itself. Cecinia dashed into the next chamber, her heart beating fast. Damia rapidly moved to the next bulkhead. The bulkhead behind them slammed shut very suddenly. Cecinia looked at it, frowning. Damia pressed upward on the next one. The next bulkhead was much heavier to move. Something was wrong - it was like back in the cell again. Cecinia, already suspecting something, pulled her bracelet off and dropped it to the floor. This time, it was stuck solid to the floor.

"Magnetised..." Cecinia pondered.

"Well...I could open the cell door. I can open these." Damia said, straining with all her might for enough give to get her fingers under it.

"Yes, but surely they know that..." Cecinia mumbled thoughtfully, as Damia opened the door. She saw another Dalek base on the other side.

"If we surrender, they will kill us in relatively short order anyway. We have no real choice but to continue." Damia said.

She paused in her efforts when the door was part way up, still below the eye stalk or death ray of the Dalek. Using her flight, she managed to hold the door up at that level while swinging her legs under the kick the Dalek base as hard as possible, giving the door a harder push to give Cecinia room as she went under. When Damia's legs hit the Dalek, it didn't budge. It was stuck solidly to the floor by the magnetic field.

"EXTERMINATE!" she heard it shriek on the other side.

Beside her, Cecinia froze, hesitating, obviously not wanting to enter a room with a perfectly intact Dalek in it. Damia fell on her back with the kick, swiftly leaving the ground and landing on the Dalek's head. She looked down, waiting for the deathray to extend from the Dalek as it tried to exterminate Cecinia. As soon as Damia stopped holding up the door, it slid closed again, and Cecinia screamed in fright as she was suddenly cut-off from the Champion.

"Get away from me! Get away from me!" the Dalek on whose head Damia was perched cried, turning its head violently, but otherwise unable to move about to dislodge her on account of the magnetised floor. "GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Damia reached down, grabbed the deathray, and bent it upwards at the ceiling before reopening the magnetized door. The Dalek tried to hit Damia with its manipulator arm, more out of spite than the hope it would actually hurt her, as she lifted up the door right in front of it. Cecinia looked a little shaken by being left alone unexpectedly, but quickly moved into the next room when she saw that the Dalek's weapon was useless.

"Stop! Do not move! Stay where you are!" the Dalek commanded them. It kept talking.

"This should be the last door, by my count... on the other side should be the Skaro-end of the time corridor." said Cecinia.

"You are my prisoner. Do not move." Damia said smirkingly to the Dalek as she began to open the last hatch.

"You cannot enter the time corridor!" the Dalek protested, turning its eyestalk all around to face them.

"Be silent. You are my prisoner." Damia said, opening the final hatch and looking at the time corridor.

The time corridor was already open, with a long tunnel extending from the gateway through time and space. In the distance, Damia could see a French-polished 18th Century lady's dressing cabinet floating around. There was one Dalek, manning the control panel in the room of incredibly complex looking machinery.

"Emergency! Emergency! Aliens in time corridor control room! Emergency! Unable to disengage from controls!" the Dalek operator started, obviously speaking to Control.

"What luck!" Cecinia gasped as she looked through and gazed up the open corridor. "That's the TARDIS! They must have already tried to get it for themselves... headstrong things, I told them you can't steal a TARDIS... well... you can, but it helps if it belongs to your Daddy and you're only borrowing it. It's right there. Quick, before they unmagnetise the floor!"

"The Daleks, while possessing the Ring, accepted merely my promise that I would not resist being taken to Skaro and required no promise that I would not resist once there. Thus proving the intellectual inferiority of the Daleks and their unworthiness for supremacy." Damia said to the Dalek as she ran towards the TARDIS with Cecinia.

"Unable to disengage from controls! Do not enter the time corridor! You will be exterminated! Exterminate!" the Dalek operator threatened impotently as the two women disappeared up the tunnel.

Cecinia and Damia raced up the corridor, reaching the TARDIS, whose doors were closed. A key had been left in the lock.

"Brilliant, they left the key in the lock, I don't need to try remember where I left the spare! What fantastic luck!" Cecinia exclaimed joyously.

Then there was a metallic, groaning sound. And another. And another. The TARDIS began to turn translucent.

"Oh no..." Cecinia squealed as the TARDIS dematerialised before their eyes.

"What just happened?" Damia asked.

"Oh no..." Cecinia blubbered, beginning to cry. "Daddy must have pressed the TARDIS recall button. It's ten trillion light years and three and a half thousand millennia away now..."

"EXTERMINATE!" cried a Dalek from the entrance of the tunnel. The floor had evidently been demagnetised, for several Daleks were now entering the time corridor.

"Well, this time corridor has to lead somewhere..." Damia said, hoisting Cecinia up in her arms and flying down the corridor at full speed.

Planet Caulos, 27th Century

Cecinia and Damia emerged from the time corridor into the midst of a dark cavern. Dim moonlight from outside revealed glimmers of what resembled a railway yard in the cavern around them, with trucks filled with ores and various metals sitting quietly, as if waiting to be unloaded. At the entrance of the cavern, at the edge of the moonlight, stood guards in dark grey military overcoats, rifles slung. They hadn't yet seen the new visitors to their world.

Damia gently set Cecinia back down on the ground. "Do you know where we are?"

Cecinia looked around and shook her head. She was still in tears, quite clearly devastated by the sudden disappearance of the TARDIS. Behind them, the time corridor was still open but the Daleks were quite someway behind them, too far away even to hear the screams of "EXTERMINATE" which they were no doubt still yelling.

"Do you know how to close this thing?" Damia asked.

"It can be only closed from the other end, by the controller." Cecinia sobbed.

One of the guards thought he heard something and started to walk towards the back of the cavern.

Damia nodded, frowning. "We'll just have to keep going then. We don't have anything of use to them anymore so they shouldn't be too thorough."

Cecinia nodded and took Damia's hand. She spotted the guard moving along side one of the railway trucks towards the time corridor entrance, and started pulling Damia towards another one of the trucks.

"We need to talk to him." Damia said, squeezing Cecinia's hand slightly.

"We need to go before those Daleks get here!" Cecinia replied, but stopped trying to pull Damia away.

"We can't leave these men for the Daleks." Damia said before stepping towards the guard.

"Excuse me." she said in a polite tone but one loud enough to be heard.

"Halt!" the guard shouted, pointing his rifle at the women. The gun looked like a bolt-action rifle similar to the ones used in Damia's own world in the early 20th Century, although not of any make she could recognise. "What are you two doing here? This is a restricted area! Let me see your papers!"

"We don't have any papers." Damia said calmly. "But you need to either evacuate this area or get it very well defended. There's things coming through that tunnel which that weapon won't help you against."

"No papers, eh? Put your hands up, Preen scum!" the guard sneered. "Over your head, right now, march!"

"We don't have time for this." Damia said, letting go of Cecinia's hand to fly forward and pull the gun from the guard's hand.

"Help!" the guard yelled in terror when Damia flew. He reached his hand into his overcoat and produced a pistol, which he aimed at Damia with a trembling hand as he backed away from her. "Sarge! Help!"

"Just calm down. I'm not going to hurt you." she said, also taking his pistol.

Several more guards raced down between the trains, rifles and sub-machine guns at the ready.

"Drop the weapons!" shouted the sergeant of the guards.

Damia casually tossed the weapons aside. "You people have to listen to me. The things coming down that tunnel, they're called Daleks, and they will kill you if they find you here."

"Put your hands over your head and get on your knees!" commanded the sergeant of the guard.

"Take me to speak with your leader." Damia commanded.

"REPORT!" screached a familiar sounding robotic voice. Out of the darkness behind the guards emerged a Dalek, its silver casing gleaming in the moonlight.

"These Preen slaves must have escaped the mines hiding on one of those trains. We've apprehended them." the sergeant reported to the Dalek, as if reporting to a superior officer.

Damia stepped forward, moving slowly towards the Dalek raising her hands above her head. "We'll... we're ready to go back to the mines. Just... please be merciful in your punishment, master..."

"Mer-ci-ful." the Dalek repeated, its eyestalk focussed on Damia. "I have no understanding of this word. It has no meaning in my vocabulary bank."

"She's begging for her life." the sergeant observed, with contempt for what he thought were two Preen slaves etched in his face.

"Return the prisoners to the camp for punishment and reassignment." the Dalek ordered, turning back to the sergeant. It then turned and moved off into the night.

Cecinia looked nervously back to the time corridor, but couldn't see the Daleks from Skaro yet. She moved to Damia's side and took her hand again.

Damia whispered under her breath "Cecinia, when I say go, hit the ground face down and don't move until I say."

"But the Daleks are chasing us from Skaro and unlike this one they know who we are!" Cecinia squealed.

"Right, slaves, come 'ere." the sergeant commanded, producing a set of hand cuffs.

"Cecinia, now." Damia said firmly.

"But!" Cecinia squealed. "We might be safer..."

"Now!" barked the sergeant of the guard.

"Cecinia." Damia growled in mounting frustration as it became increasingly too late to safely get them out of this.

Cecinia let go of Damia's hand and hit the ground face down as ordered. Damia leaped up, flying from guard to guard in a flurry of arms and legs, striking all but the sergeant hard enough to knock them unconscious in a matter of seconds and practically ignoring any bullets. She then grabbed the guard by the collar, tossing his gun aside. "Cry out and you die. Understand?"

"Yes." the sergeant gasped back in terror.

The first "EXTERMINATE!" was faintly audible from the time corridor, signifying the imminent arrival of the Daleks. Cecinia, who had taken all she could possibly take in the hope of escaping on the TARDIS only to have that opportunity taken away at the last instant, moaned in desparation as she lay down in the dirt.

"What's the best way out of this camp?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter how you get out of the camp, you'll be caught, and killed, unless you give yourself up now!" the sergeant answered.

"That's not what I asked." Damia repeated.

"The hills past the outer perimeter, there's no other way..." the sergeant answered. "But that's still behind three barbed wire fences, with machine gun posts and guards. You haven't got a chance!"

"SEEK! LOCATE! EXTERMINATE!" came a more audible cry from the time corridor.

Damia quickly handcuffed him and gagged him with a piece of his clothing before lifting Cecinia up and flying swiftly out of the mine, quickly taking in the scene. Half a dozen railway lines all ran into the cavern, where they terminated. A full-sized freight yard was immediately outside the cavern, with lines departing from it off towards various mineshafts in the huge mountain range from which they had emerged. In the middle of the arrangement was a large prison camp. The whole complex was encircled with barbed wire fences, heavily patrolled, with checkpoints everywhere. Further high up, she could see a town nearby, the lights from a few electric street lamps and the odd home illuminating it but not quite enough to obscure the night sky.

Damia flew to an area a few hundred yards outside the town in a small wooded area. When she landed, she set Cecinia down. "Cecinia..." she started.

"Yes?" Cecinia asked, shivering from the flight in the cold night air.

"I think we're in trouble." Damia said slowly.

"I know." Cecinia replied.

"I'll see if I can steal us some local clothes. Maybe then we could hide in the town." Damia suggested.

"That's a good idea..." Cecinia replied. "It'd be good if we could steal some of those papers... oh damn... I wish I hadn't left my paper in the TARDIS... I wish I had my TARDIS!"

"You have to be brave, Cecinia." Damia said, giving her a gentle hug before slowing standing. "Wait here for me?"

"It's OK, it was just a shock after all that time on Skaro..." Cecinia replied, nodding. "I didn't expect... I thought I had disabled the recall button. I'll wait here."

Damia snuck quietly towards the town, looking for a residential neighbourhood to sneak into. The town was easy to sneak into - it had no barbed wire fences or checkpoints, although some guards did stroll about the streets. The homes were old fashioned looking, many run down and rural in appearance, but they generally looked warm and comfortable enough. They vaguely resembled homes built in cold but not inhospitable climates from a hundred years before Damia's time from Earth. Damia managed to find some local outfits, sneaking back towards Cecinia with two of about the right size. She handed Cecinia one as she began to change herself. The clothes were basic greys and browns, clean, warm, but not very fashionable. Cecinia moved off behind a bush and changed into them, returning with her Gallifreyian attire folded up in a bundle in her hands, along with her 18th Century cloak.

"Not very chic..." Cecinia frowned.

"Let's head into town." Damia suggested, starting in that direction.

"Yes, let's. I'm hungry." Cecinia said. "I'm looking forward to some food in non-cube form..."

"They should have that here." Damia said, hiding their bundled clothes and walking into the town, looking for anything that looked like a hotel.

The women came across an inn. A simple wooden sign indicated that it was an inn and that beds were available - there was no visible advertising or signage other than very simple private signs (such as those for businesses) or government/military signs about the town. Inside was a bar with a few wooden tables gathered around a large fireplace. Some stairs led upstairs to a dormitory. It was fairly late at night, and the women got some suspicious looks from the patron. Behind the bar, the innkeeper's look was extremely professional, however. Customers were customers.

Damia approached the bar. "Excuse me. We are in need of a room for the night."

"And some food." Cecinia added hopefully, following next to Damia.

"We don't have rooms. We have a dorm though, with plenty of free beds." the innkeeper answered. "And the kitchen was about to close, but we still have plenty of hot stew and bread. Beds are fifteen goms a night. Six goms for a bowl of stew, some bread, and a drink."

Damia took off one of her golden bracelets and placed it on the bar. "Would this be acceptable?"

"Man might get suspicious about a lady trying to pay in jewellery..." said the innkeeper, examining the bracelet. Cecinia regarded the bracelet jealously - she had left her magnificent hand carved gold bracelet from the planet Voga magnetised to the floor in the Dalek City.

"My problems with my husband are a private matter." Damia answered. "I just need somewhere to stay for the night. Please, sir, it's late and we're very weary."

"All right." the innkeeper said, taking the bracelet, which was surely worth far more than the total of forty two goms he had quoted two beds and dinners being worth. "I'll get your dinners if you'd like to sit down by the fire."

"Thank you." Cecinia smiled, and the innkeeper wandered off into the kitchen behind the bar.

"Thank you." Damia said, going to sit down near the fire, warming her hands.

The other patrons glanced over at the two women now and again, but didn't say anything. Cecinia held her hands out by the fire to warm them as well.

"If Daddy did use a recall button, then the TARDIS is back home right now, and he's probably aware that I'm not in it." Cecinia said quietly to Damia. "Although it'll take a few days to be really sure... probably more, really, but I'm sure he's guessed I'm not in it by now..."

"And then what happens?" Damia asked.

"Well, the TARDIS keeps a record of all the places it's visited..." Cecinia speculated. "So I guess he'd be able to tell that it was trapped in a Dalek time corridor... I hope... Daddy's very smart but sometimes he can be a little absent minded..."

Damia nodded a little. "Let's hope."

"Of course, that doesn't mean he'd know where we are..." Cecinia concluded, leaning forward on her elbows. "I mean... he wouldn't know where the two ends of the time corridor were necessarily. Or that it was a Dalek time corridor, although I can't think of many people who use them as much as the Daleks..."

"Right now, you need to stop talking about this, Cecinia." Damia suggested.

"We might even have been better off had we stayed on Sk... OK, good thinking." Cecinia nodded.

"We'll do alright here. We have food and beds for the night." Damia pointed out.

Cecinia nodded silently. The innkeeper arrived with two large bowls of stew, a loaf of bread, and some glasses.

"What can I get you ladies to drink?" he asked as he lay down the food.

"What would you recommend?" Damia asked him.

"Beer, or cider." the innkeeper answered. "Not much else is very good."

"Cider, please." Damia responded.

"I'll get a bottle..." he answered, and returned to the bar to retrieve a bottle of cider.

Damia smiled at Cecinia. "I'm glad you came to keep me company. Really, though, you should't get involved in fights between me and your father."

"What?" Cecinia asked, frowning.

"After our argument." Damia reminded her.

"What are you talking about?" Cecinia shook her head.

Damia sighed slightly. "Nevermind."

"You've met Daddy?" Cecinia frowned.

The innkeeper returned and set down a large bottle of cider on the table.

"If there's anything else, just let me know." the innkeeper said, before withdrawing back behind the bar.

"No, that's alright." Damia said, giving Cecinia a look.

"What's all right?" Cecinia asked.

Damia sighed heavily. It was impossible to hide among these people if Cecinia simply refused to make an effort. "Please, drop it." she begged.

"That was very strange." Cecinia protested, and looked down to her stew. It was a nourshing, wholesome looking meal, if not particularly refined. She started to eat eagerly. Damia ate as well, trying to calm down a bit. She had been getting pretty angry and frustrated for a moment.

"Oh, I see what you were doing." Cecinia grinned after a few mouthfuls, and then started laughing.

Damia nodded. "I guess you're right though. This isn't the place to discuss it."

"It's such a silly idea!" Cecinia teased between mouthfuls. "I mean, I'd have to be three times your age!"

"150?" Damia asked.

"Something like that. In Earth years." Cecinia nodded.

Damia paused a moment before finishing her food. "Shall we go to bed?"

"In a little bit, yes." Cecinia nodded, washing down the stew with cider.

"Alright." Damia said.

Planet Caulos, 27th Century

Two uniformed men conversed in the dark wood-panelled office. Their uniforms were lavishly decorated with medals and symbols of distinction. Both were hard looking men, men used to being obeyed. One of the two, a gaunt man with a scar across his left eye, stared out the office's window down at the soldiers in the courtyard below. The other man smoked a cigar and sat behind a heavy wooden desk, his leather jackboots up on the desk in front of him as he reclined in his black leather chair.

"Consul, you're not listening to me..." the gaunt looking officer sighed. "The attrition rate amongst the Preen slaves is ninety percent! Ninety!"

"Then that is the price they must pay for their perfidy!" replied the Consul disdainfully. "They would've done the same to us, you know it!"

"No, Consul, I don't." the officer replied, turning from the window. "We weren't planning to enslave them like this, either, as well you know."

"It is the price of Nexar's victory over the Preen!" replied the Consul. "Just be glad that we don't have to pay it..."

"What is the point of Nexar's victory if it doesn't come with the dominion over Caulos we fought for? Your people died for your promise of a millennia of peace, peace through strength, peace through a Nexari Empire which spanned the globe! That is what I fought for, what my troops fought for, what your troops fought for, Consul!" the officer entreated. "Not for a Nexari Empire which spans the globe only at the pleasure of our Dalek allies!"

"Without our Dalek allies we would've lost the war, General, and I hardly need to remind you of that!" the Consul snapped. "What they ask in exchange are minerals which are totally useless to us, and that's all. They're far more advanced than us, once they have the minerals they need they'll leave us alone, and then Nexar will rule alone!"

"We hope." the General replied. "Consul, what if they decide not to leave? What if they decide they like our little, primitive world? What if they stay? What will become of Nexar then? We can't fight them, they'll destroy us just as they enabled us to destroy the Preen."

"We shall have to hope, General, that it doesn't come to that. But if it does... the Daleks come to Caulos through that inter-dimensional passage in the main mine, there's a cavern there." the Consul whispered conspiratorially. "If we can bury that passageway, destroy the cavern on top of it... then the Daleks wouldn't be able to bring reinforcements, and there are so few of them still on Caulos... it's the only way we'd have a chance. Secretly, General, secretly... plan for that possibility, won't you?"

The General smiled, his confidence in his leader restored. He snapped his heels together and saluted by raising his right arm into the air.

"Hail Prakis, Consul of Nexar!" the General proclaimed by way of an affirmative answer.

"Thankyou, General, that will be all." replied the Consul, casually receiving the salute and dismissing his War Minister. The General turned and left the office.

Planet Skaro, sometime in the future

Several Daleks entered Control, the nerve centre of the Dalek City. In the middle of the room, surrounded by computer banks and control consoles, was the Supreme Dalek. Its assistants moved about the room carrying out the usual functions of the city's Control. The newly entered Daleks approached the Supreme Dalek at its control consoles.

"The alien prisoners have escaped via the time corridor." one of the newly entered Daleks reported.

"The Time Lord's TARDIS dematerialised." reported another.

"The prisoners reached Caulos on the other end of the time corridor. They eluded the guards on that side of the corridor." reported the last Dalek.

"Then the aliens were not on-board the TARDIS when it dematerialised." the Supreme Dalek concluded.

"That is correct." confirmed one of the reporting Daleks.

"The Time Lord prisoner told us that her TARDIS had a recall function which would return it to its home planet automatically." said one of the other Daleks. "She said she had attempted to disable it."

"It seems likely that she was unsuccessful." the Supreme Dalek observed. "It is logical to conclude that the Time Lords have retrieved her TARDIS."

"There were two Daleks on-board, believed destroyed by the TARDIS defence mechanisms." replied one of the Daleks.

"So the Time Lords know that we captured the Time Lord Cecinia." the Supreme Dalek noted. "They do not yet know that we no longer hold her prisoner. This can be made to work to our advantage if the Time Lords attempt to rescue her."

"We will begin estimating Time Lord stratagems to rescue Cecinia." replied one of the Daleks. "We must be prepared for every eventuality."

Every eventuality. The Supreme Dalek wondered whether the Time Lords might attempt the one stategy it feared couldn't be countered effectively...

Planet Caulos, 27th Century

Prakis took a long puff on his cigar and fixed his gaze on the heavy wooden doors to his office. It was late at night, too late for anybody else to see him except for the visitor on the otherside of the door. The Consul set the cigar down in the ashtray on his desk, rose to his feet, and straightened his uniform jacket. He retrieved the cigar and then made his way in front of his desk.

"Enter." he called to the guards outside the door.

A click of heels was audible, and then the doors swung open. A Black Dalek stood on the otherside. It glided into the room, its eyestalk fixed on Prakis' time-lined face. It observed Prakis' eyes glance down at the Dalek's gunstick by reflex - no matter how many times Prakis had seen it, he couldn't help but glance at it. The Black Dalek thought it was good that the Nexari Consul could never quite be entirely comfortable in its presence.

"I was just about to retire for the evening..." Prakis began.

"Earlier tonight two female aliens escaped our forces through the time corridor and escaped the mining compound into the surrounding area." the Black Dalek began.

"Straight to business then." Prakis sighed, before moving back behind his desk to sit down. "What do these aliens look like? Like you?"

"No." the Black Dalek replied, disgusted by the thought. "They are humanoids. They closely resemble Caulosians."

"There's a town nearby the camp, Theron. They probably fled there... or they died of exposure overnight in the mountains." Prakis speculated. "That's if they'd be able to pass themselves off as Nexari. Do they speak Nexari?"

"They are capable of infiltrating your society and speaking your language." the Black Dalek replied without explaining how. "They are enemies of the Daleks. They must be captured."

"I'll send army scout search parties..." started Prakis.

"One of the aliens is too powerful to be apprehended by your soldiers." the Black Dalek said.

"So send your Daleks..." Prakis replied, shortly, puffing on his cigar.

"That is not possible." the Black Dalek replied, not wanting to admit that Daleks would find it almost as impossible to apprehend Damia through force.

"Well then I don't see what the purpose of this meeting was..." Prakis grumbled.

"The aliens must be captured!" the Black Dalek insisted. "Their weakness is emotion, sentimentality. They will not allow innocents to suffer on their account."

"What are you proposing?" Prakis asked, his face curling up already in distaste, anticipating what the Black Dalek was about the suggest.

"You will make a wireless address tomorrow morning." the Black Dalek began. "In it you will threaten to execute one hundred Preen prisoners every hour until the aliens surrender themselves. You will describe the aliens as rebel Preen agents. Descriptions will be provided to you."

"One hundred Preen prisoners every hour?" Prakis shouted. "I won't do it."

"You have exterminated millions of Preen." the Black Dalek observed. "They are your racial enemy."

"I have no problem killing Preen." Prakis spat. "But I can't go on the radio and tell my people that I am going to execute one hundred of them every hour... I'll sound like a mass murderer!"

"Why not?" the Black Dalek demanded.

"It could turn public opinion against me..." Prakis explained. "I might have no elections to face but I can't afford to ignore the will of the people altogether..."

"That is not my concern." the Black Dalek replied dismissively.

"Well it is mine!" Prakis shouted back, rising to his feet.

"You will obey!" the Black Dalek insisted, screaming back at this insolent, inferior biped. "You serve the Daleks! You were born to serve the Daleks! You will obey! Obey! Obey!"

Prakis boiled with rage, but he knew what he owed to the Daleks. Without their help, the Preen Confederation would've won the war, and he would've been executed, tried for war crimes just as he had done to the Preen leaders. He swallowed his pride, and clicked his heels.

"I serve the Daleks." he hissed. "I will obey."

The polished wood of the atrium of the Monk’s TARDIS was as clean as ever. He closed the doors, and looked around. Light fell into the doors from a window high above that showed a view of the skies of Gallifrey from the location where he’d parked it. Strange, and mostly decorative machines of scored iron globes and rings rested on either side of the white doors. He took his cloak off and threw it over a plinth containing a brass statue of a zygon leader, draping the dark material over its domed, octopus-like head.

He bounded around the corner and up a flight of steps, hauling himself up, vaulting two or three steps with each movement. The atrium was a deliberately designed to impress, but also to provide a slight gap before one could reach the console room. He walked around the railings and across a ‘bridge’ over the centre of the high, wooden room, to a gothic archway of stone.

The console room beyond was almost like a cathedral. Made out of limestone, it showed a view from orbit of Gallifrey across two of the hexagonal chamber’s walls. A third lead into the ‘chapel’ that the Monk used as a sort of storage space, as well as for meditation. It lead down to the cloisters, and beyond, into the depths of the TARDIS, its power room and the incomprehensible arton engines that propelled it. The other wall was open into the laboratories, and beyond that, the glittering skyscrapers of the TARDIS computer banks could be seen, in their own valley of wires and energy conduits.

He looked up from the console, into the soaring height of the console room’s ‘ceiling’ and called out, “Back…” he manipulated a few controls, “Ah, there you are, head on over to the armoury will you?” he added, “We have Daleks to hunt…” He twitched a few crystals across the console to download the data, and reached over to the systems panel to feed the coordinates of the Dalek time corridor into the navigation system.

“Really?” he heard his partner ask, her voice sounding rather malicious, “wonderful…” The monk twirled a knob and pulled the dematerialisation levers down, watching the central column rise and fall rhythmically as the ship moved into the time vortex, its destination, something that could be seen, if one imagined the vortex as three dimensional space, as a line drawn on its walls.

Damia groaned lightly as she woke from her slumber. Her bed felt uncomfortable. She wasn't used to that. It took her a moment to realize that it was because she wasn't in her soft four-poster bed back at the Hipolitan UN Mission. It took her another moment to realize where she was, on a strange planet ruled by hostile aliens.

Damia pulled herself from bed and dressed in the same clothes she'd worn the day before. The only other garment she had was her uniform and she didn't feel it was wide to put that on just yet. After she dressed, she walked quietly over to Cecinia's bed. She didn't want to wake the young Time Lady. The girl...Damia couldn't help thinking of her as younger than herself, despite the fact that Cecinia was allegedly centuries old...had been through a lot. Instead, Damia sat down on her own uncomfortable bed and let her mind wander. Try as she might, she couldn't see any way out of this situation. It was true that they had escaped the Daleks for the moment but escape seemed to mean living out the rest of their lives on an alien planet ruled by their enemies.

Cecinia woke up a short while later, pulled the covers up around her, and sat up in it directly across from Damia. Still half asleep, she didn't really focus on Damia or on her surroundings, but just smiled contentedly and rolled her head about her shoulders, stretching her neck muscles.

"It's so nice to sleep in a bed again." she sighed.

"I'm glad." Damia said.

"Are we alone?" Cecinia asked, rubbing her eyes with her left hand, her right hand staying where it was to hold the covers up around her.

"For the moment." Damia answered.

"Good. I was thinking that we should probably try not to give ourselves away, you know, by talking about things like time travel and Skaro and Earth and all that in front of these people." Cecinia said, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was exactly what she had been doing the previous night.

"I agree." Damia said, without pointing that out.

"Good." Cecinia nodded again. "Now... we need to work out what to do now that we don't have my TARDIS..."

"Alright." Damia said.

"It doesn't look like we're in the sort of world which has even early spaceflight technology..." Cecinia observed, looking around. Her eyes settled on what resembled an old fashioned radio in a knocked about polished wood case, and then a grin of delight appeared on her face. "Hey, look at that!"

She scampered across the bed, dragging the covers with her, to the radio. She started fidgeting with the knobs until some gentle music started playing.

"It's a radio." Damia stated simply.

"I know, it's fantastic, have you ever seen anything like it?" Cecinia gushed.

"Yes..." Damia said patiently.

"Oh." Cecinia sighed. "Oh well, I think it's charming. Maybe we're not too far off spaceflight technology. A hundred years, maybe less?"

"I won't live that long." Damia pointed out.

"Oh." Cecinia mumbled. "And even if you did, it'd take ever so long to fly back to Earth. Assuming we're in the same galaxy... well I probably wouldn't live that long either come to think of it. Oh well, forget that idea. That leaves us with only one option really..."

"Which is?" Damia asked.

"Well, the Dalek time corridor..." Cecinia replied mournfully, looking back to Damia miserably.

"I guess so." Damia said.

"I don't want to go back to Skaro..." Cecinia trembled, pulling the covers up over her shoulders.

"I'll protect you." Damia promised.

Cecinia nodded quietly, and steadied herself. She took a deep breath. "Well, we could go back down the corridor, and then reactivate whatever corridor you came to Skaro through. We could go down that to your home space time zone."

"Let's do that then." Damia said.

"...only the Daleks would be able to follow us." Cecinia concluded. "They'd get to the controls and see the last target."

"So what do you suggest?" Damia said in frustration.

"I don't know!" Cecinia pouted, detecting the frustration in Damia's voice.

Damia nodded futiley. "We'll have to wait and see what opportunities arise."

"We could wipe the memory banks..." Cecinia speculated. "Target manually... but Dalek time corridors are notoriously inaccurate... it would have the advantage though that they wouldn't be able to just open the corridor again and follow us."

The relaxing music on the radio was suddenly interrupted, drawing Cecinia's attention.

"Attention citizens! An address by Prakis, Consul of the Republic!" came a voice from the radio, soon followed by a few bars from a trumpet.

Damia frowned. "I wonder what that could be."

"People of Nexar," Prakis said over the radio. "Despite our desire to live in peace with the Preen, our intelligence services have discovered a rebel Preen plot which imperils the security for which we have fought so long and hard, and sacrified so very much of our dearest blood. Last night, we have reason to believe that two resistance sleeper agents infiltrated the town of Theron, or some nearby settlement in its immediate vicinity..."

"Wow... spies..." Cecinia gasped. "How exciting!"

"I have a description of the two agents. Both are female." Prakis continued. "One is middle-aged, with dark hair, and athletic build. The other is younger, in her twenties, with blonde hair, tall and slim."

"Hey, Damia, the first one sounds a little like you." Cecinia grinned.

"And the second like you." Damia pointed out.

"Oh, no, I'm not in my twenties, I just look li..." Cecinia started, and then stopped. She turned a little pale. "Oh..."

"If these Preen agents do not surrender themselves by midday today..." Prakis began. He glared across his desk, over the microphones, at the Black Dalek which stood impassively, watching him speak, before looking back down at his written statement. He continued to read. "...then we will have no choice but to begin executing Preen prisoners at a rate of one hundred every hour, on the hour, until such time as they surrender themselves to the authorities. We have no choice but to prove the strength of our resolve to these spies and assassins who threaten our very way of life! Long live the Republic!"

And with that, the address was over. Cecinia looked over to Damia, looking profoundly miserable. She got up off her bed and sat down next to Damia.

"Do... you think he'll really do it?" Cecinia asked.

Damia held Cecinia tightly, running a hand through her hair and remaining silent.

The Monk’s TARDIS

The central column slowed down as the ship becan slowing to a ‘stop’ relative to the web of time. In the console room, after checking the sensors for anything dangerous in the corridor – in other words, daleks - the monk flipped a sequence of controls, and a deep bass humm built up against the steady pulse of the time ship’s innards.

Ceriana, looking rather like she was preparing to invade a small planet by herself, weighed down by armour plates and armour-weave fabrics and half a dozen guns of various types, stepped preppily up to the console. “What’cha you doing?” she asked.

“I’m,” he glanced up briefly, “preparing a pulse that will reversing the polarity of the neutron flow in the Time Corridor’s energy mesh…”

“That should overload the generator, and dump everything in it out?” she asked.

“Very good, spot on, though it should only force the generator to shut down temporarily, if I get this right…” the monk said, and took another look up at her, “You know, we’re not going to invade Skaro…”

“Aww!” she said poutily, and kicked the base of the console playfully, “Not even if I say please?”

“Well, if you say please, we might,” he said, “Ah!” he added, “There, power twenty two,” he said, “That should let me measure it closely enough to put the generator out of action and not wreck the building it’s in… Don’t want to make a mistake after all…”

“Why no- oh, right, in case she’s nearby.”

“Precisely,” the time lord said, “Anyway, time for part two of my cunning plan…” he said, and transferring the control of the pulse to ‘downstairs’ he scuttled into the laboratory attached to the console room, retrieving the same pen-like device he’d used earlier, brandishing it like a weapon, before he stopped cold.

He grinned from ear to ear, “Put us in a temporal orbit for a bit,” he said, “I’ve got a better idea!” The time lord scurried off down the stairs. Ceriana frowned, but deftly manipulated the switches and dials of the console, the central column returned its pulse to a steady rate, and the swirling melange of the vortex visible through the tremendous ‘panes of glass’ that covered two walls slowed, its individual colours and components now discernable to her quick eyes.

Several minutes later, he burst into the room, a riot of frock coat and crevat and walking cane, and to top it all, a tricorner hat, with little question marks picked out on it. Top to toe in whites and cream, he looked quite ridiculous. Ceriana couldn’t help but burst out laughing, “What in the…” she paused, “Words fail me…”

“How do I look?” he crowed.

“Utterly absurd and completely ludicrous,” she critiqued unhesitatingly.

He laughed and dashed over to the console, and looked for somewhere to put the cane down, and, failing to find anywhere, thrust it through his belt as if he were sheathing a sword, before flipping open the panel that controlled the ship’s chameleon circuit.

“Have you gone mad?” Ceri asked, letting the largest gun hang freely from a shoulder strap and leaning on the console.

“Not any more than usual,” he said, “this is how the Daleks least favourite person habitually dresses. An interfering little hobdehoy who runs around the universe in a barely conscious daze, old enemy of mine, I suppose,” he said, and suddenly became earnest, “But I’ve gotten over him quite a while ago now…” and his joviality returned, “anyway, he’s a natural bungler, he managed to mess up his mission to stop the Daleks ever being created-”

“I hate him already.”

The monk smiled, “not worth it dear, not at all. And he also manages to basically fly around at random, because he has no idea how to actually fly his ship,” he patted the console affectionately, “and he’s spent the last few decades… centuries, even, with his chameleon circuit broken down so his ship looks like the same thing wherever he goes.”

“Wow… how come he’s not dead?”

“He’s really lucky. I even took a shot at him once. Dead on his chest, full charge… Would have vaporised him and half the wall behind him. I’ll have to tell you how he got out of it some day, it’s quite hilarious now… Ah! Aha! Got it.”

“Right,” Ceriana nodded, “So, what’s the point of this getup then?”

“The Daleks loathe this fellow. If they think I’m him, they’ll probably rush inside…”

“You’re kidding. They’re not that dumb… are they?”

He patted the ‘State of Grace’ controls, and checked that they were on, “Usually not!” he agreed, “but where I, the Doctor, am concerned, they get a little carried away!” he drew the cane with a flourish, held it up, “Forth, brave adventurers!” he cried, and pulled the materialisation levers down. The room was jolted as the ship landed in the corridor, and he grinned at the view on the great glass arches, “Perfect, as always,” he announced, and lead off in a mock swagger towards the steps.

“So, what’s the plan now?” she asked.

“First,” he said, “We’ll see if they’re monitoring the time corridor…”

The Time Corridor

In the middle of the stale air of the time corridor, a light appeared. Unlike the lights all around through the pink tinted space, this was distinctly ‘inside’ the corridor. A wheezing groan accompanied it, and a moment later, a blue box began to follow.

The box appeared slowly, a glowing sign near its top read ‘Police Public Call box’ and below that, panels, some of which were subdivided and contained frosted glass, in all it was precisely nine feet in height.

The doors swung inwards, and the Monk stepped out. “I see that we have accidentally – as I am unable to tie my shoelaces, let alone fly – landed in a time corridor…”

“So, what now, ‘Doctor’?” Ceri asked.

“Why, I think we should see if something shows up, otherwise, we’ll just move on,…” he said, and leaned against the side of the box, playing with his cane.

Control, Skaro

The Supreme Dalek and the three other Daleks around it stared at the screen in silence as they watched the blue box which had just materialised in the time corridor connecting Skaro and Caulos. The only sound was the sound of the lenses in their eyestalks focussing and zooming in on the picture, and it had been like that for several minutes. It was rare that a Dalek didn't know what to say; after all, simplying vocalising one's pressing desire to slaughter all non-Dalek life around one was generally sufficient in Dalek conversation. It wasn't so much that they were staring at the monitor in disbelief - they trusted in the infallibility of their instruments which confirmed that what they were seeing was really taking place. After all, Dalek technology was superior to all others in the universe, their sensors had to be accurate. It wasn't so much disbelief, then, more a desire to disbelieve, which had provoked the silent reaction.

"The configuration of the vessel is consistent." the Supreme Dalek finally observed. "The appearance has changed but is consistent overall with known patterns."

"His associate is inconsistent with known patterns. She is heavily armed." observed another Dalek.

"Her appearance is not altogether inconsistent disregarding the fact that she is armed." argued another.

"It is the Doctor." the Supreme Dalek concluded mournfully, even as it felt the hatred surge deep inside, hatred for its oldest and most deadly foe.

"The Doctor is the enemy of the Daleks!" replied one of the underlings. "He must be exterminated!"

"Exterminated!" agreed another Dalek.

"No!" the Supreme Dalek replied. Inside its shell, its tentacles curled up as it seethed with loathing for the creature on the screen. "We require a Time Lord prisoner to complete our knowledge of TARDIS construction and operation. Whether that prisoner is the female Time Lord creature which escaped to Caulos or the Doctor is irrelevant. Whichever one can be captured first will be interrogated and their knowledge will be made to serve the Daleks. The other can be EXTERMINATED. EXTERMINATED. EXTERMINATED!"

"The Doctor would rather die than serve us!" observed one of the other Daleks with glee.

"He will have no choice! We have the Coari interrogation device! He will be made to serve the Daleks! And for the Doctor, that is a fate worse than extermination..." the Supreme Dalek observed spitefully.

Caulos, 27th Century

"Alert! Alert! Emergency!" a Dalek screamed as it neared the Nexari command post outside the mine entrance which housed the Caulos end of the time corridor. The Nexari soldiers inside rushed out in alarm. What could possibly have a Dalek so worried?

"What's going on?" asked a lieutenant as he approached the Daleks with a few of his men.

"Secure the entrance to the time corridor immediately!" the Dalek ordered.

"Why, is there somethin..." the lieutenant started.

"DO NOT QUESTION! OBEY! OBEY! OBEY!" the Dalek screached. "Take your entire company! Secure the entrance to the time corridor! If any aliens try to leave it, and they do not surrender, EXTERMINATE THEM at once!"

"What if they do surrender?" the lieutenant asked.

"Then you will call for Dalek reinforcement and we will handle the situation." the Dalek replied. It hoped the Doctor didn't surrender. It knew that Control wanted a Time Lord, any Time Lord, alive, but it hoped that the female one would be recaptured first. It was sure that if the Doctor did surrender, it would only be a trick to advance his own plans to destroy them all...

Dalek Time Corridor, between Skaro and Caulos

At the Skaro end of the time corridor, dozens of Daleks crowded around, their gunsticks all pointed at the corridor's exit, waiting. If Daleks could be glad, all of these Daleks would be glad that they weren't one of the three Daleks now heading up the corridor to where the TARDIS had materialised. As for the three Daleks heading up the time corridor, each of them was reminding itself how much it hated the Doctor, the ultimate enemy of the Daleks, and how even though the Doctor had always confounded them in the past since the beginnings of the Dalek race, the Dalek race was superior, their technology was superior, their plans were superior, and they couldn't fail this time. Surely. The three Daleks came into view of the TARDIS.

"Visual identification confirms! The vessel is the Doctor's TARDIS!" said the first Dalek.

"The Doctor's associate is armed! Approach with caution!" recommended the second, as if there was any other way to approach the Doctor. The three of them moved slowly towards the TARDIS.

"IDENTIFY YOURSELVES!" commanded the first Dalek.

Straightening up against the TARDIS, the 'Doctor' grinned, and held up his hat, waving jauntily, "Hello!" he said, as Ceriana disappeared around to the side of the space-time vehicle...

"Identify yourself!" the first Dalek reiterated. The Daleks all stopped where they were when Ceriana moved behind the TARDIS as their battle computers began to predict what she might be doing behind there.

"Why don't you have a go at it?" he said, standing up straight and putting the hat on his head, grinning smugly.

"Your associate is armed!" the Dalek replied. "Order her to drop her weapons and come out from behind your vessel!"

"You're not interested in my name now?" he asked, "Oh well, nice meeting you, we'll be going then..."

"DO NOT MOVE!" the first Dalek ordered.

"STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" yelled a second.

"DO NOT MOVE!" repeated the third.

"You are our prisoner! DO NOT MOVE!" the first Dalek concluded.

He stopped in his tracks, and turned to look at the Daleks, "Or what?" he asked, "You obviously want to capture me..." he said, "or you'd be shooting, instead of wanting weapons dropped. Therefore, you must want me alive..." he grinned at his own reasoning.

"And you came here for a reason!" the first Dalek pointed out in return. "If you would leave so readily, then you would never have come here!"

"Who am I?" the 'Doctor' demanded, loudly, seeming rather annoyed by this line of reasoning.

"We have been asking you the same question! You are our prisoner! You will answer questions! You will not ask them! Obey! OBEY!" the first Dalek shook with indignation.

"No," he declared, at last.

"Your vessel is known to us! Confirm your identity!" ordered the second.

He cocked his head to one side, and continued with his infuriating grin, "No."

"Answer the question or we will exterminate your associate!" the first Dalek threatened.

"Go on then," he said, at this point, Ceriana had disappeared completely behind the TARDIS.

The probability that it was a trap seemed high, but the Daleks began to move forward.

"You are the Doctor!" the first Dalek declared.

The Monk took a dancing step away from them, and then sidestepped out of their limited fields of view behind the blue box. The Daleks stopped again. Their battle computers briefly exchanged tactical information, and then the first Dalek began to move slowly around the TARDIS in the other direction from the way around the Monk had gone, keeping its distance. The other two Daleks moved slightly to the other direction, then one stopped, letting the the second one move further along so that soon they had complete coverage of the blue box. The doors lay open, and nothing could be seen. All around the box, nothing could be seen, except for the cavernous interior of the time-space machine...

"The Doctor has entered the TARDIS! Converge at my location!" said the Dalek nearest the door. The other two Daleks moved to it.

"I will provide cover!" the first Dalek declared. "Advance behind me and provide suppressing fire if possible! The Doctor's associate can be exterminated, but the Doctor is to be taken prisoner! The TARDIS is equipped with a device which, if activated, may prevent weapons fire. If it is active then neither we nor the Doctor's associate will be able to fire."

"We obey!" the other two Daleks echoed. They moved behind it so that the three of them formed a straight line, and then they advanced into the darkness, the last Dalek staying in the door way so as to prevent it from closing behind them.

A secondary console was in the chamber the Daleks had entered, which extended back a good way - and had... stairs... in it. Meanwhile, up those stairs, and in the main console room, the Monk watched the first dalek block the doorway on the viewer, and frowned, "Cleverer than I expected..." he declared.

The Dalek eyestalks began quickly moving around, taking in their environs, attempting to locate their targets. They didn't yet move from the door way.

"Should we proceed?" asked one Dalek.

"No! The Doctor must leave the TARDIS if he is to succeed in his objective." the first Dalek replied. The Dalek Supreme had concluded that the Doctor was here to rescue Cecinia, and didn't yet know that she had already escaped Skaro. It was therefore reasonable to expect that the Doctor would come to them - the important thing was to ensure that he came on the Dalek Supreme's terms, not his own, hence the three Daleks sitting in the "Doctor's" TARDIS.

The Monk closed the doors to the console room and reached over for the other control, activating the pulse that was supposed to destabalise the time corridor beyond, plunging the TARDIS exterior, and everything else in it, out into a point in space-time along the route between Caulos and Skaro...

"Time corridor collapsing!" announced the Dalek in the doorway as the ship lurched and the corridor outside disappeared.

"Decompression!" the first Dalek announced in surprise as the time corridor was replaced with the vacuum of space, the time vortex with a field of stars.

As the atmosphere inside the outer area of the TARDIS blasted past them and into the cold of space, the Daleks held their position. Their travel machines were designed to operate in the cold vacuum of space. A few moments later, the air around them returned as the ship's force field was activated, and the seemingly limitless reserves began flowing into the first chamber again.

"Ready weapons! The Doctor intends to enter this outer chamber!" the first Dalek concluded from the restoration of atmosphere.

Sure enough, the doors above opened, and the 'Doctor' walked out onto the balcony, hat off, almost wishing the Daleks had expressionable faces so that he could gloat at their reaction when they found that their weapons wouldn't work.

"Stay where you are! Do not move!" the first Dalek commanded.

"Oh come off it," he sighed, "I know!" he snapped his fingers, "You are my prisoners! Do not move!"

"That is correct!" the first Dalek said. "You are the Doctor! You are the enemy of the Daleks! If you move, you will be exterminated!"

"No, yes, and no, in that order!" he said.

The first Dalek paused for a moment as it parsed and re-parsed its target's reply.

"You are not the Doctor?" it asked.

He walked out onto the 'bridge' over the middle of the room, "I am not!" he said, shrugging his coat off slowly.

If Daleks could smile, they would all, at this point, have smiled in relief. They kept their gunsticks trained on the moving Monk, however.

"Identify yourself!" the first Dalek commanded.

"I'm much worse than him," he declared, though they would probably not believe that.

"OBEY!" the first Dalek yelled, moving forward slightly, now more confident.

"You are my prisoners, do not move!" the Monk declared.

The first Dalek now tried to fire its weapon, not aimed at the Monk, but aimed in his vicinity, as a warning shot. When it didn't fire, its eyestalk looked down at its gunstalk. It wasn't so much that it was surprised as disappointed. The Monk promptly tossed the coat down at the dalek, not far away below him, intending to have it land over the dalek's dome like head. The first Dalek looked over at the coat on the floor next to it. It decided that this was a very unimpressive attack indeed and looked back up at the Monk.

He frowned, "Well... That was embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as the Dalek effort to remove the Earth's magnetic core..."

"SILENCE!" the first Dalek hissed at him. "That information is classified!"

"You mean you don't tell the other Daleks about that one?" he chuckled, looking hopeful.

"All Daleks are aware of the Doctor's interference with our plans throughout Dalek history!" one of the Daleks replied. "That information is restricted for alien servants of the Daleks!"

"Ah. But seriously... what was the idea? We're iron pepperpots!" he mocked, screeching like a Dalek, "Let's play about with a giant magnet! I'm sure that'll never go wrong!"

"Daleks are the masters of magnetism!" the Dalek insisted. "Dalek technology is superior! Now, identify yourself! If you are not the Doctor, why have you disguised your TARDIS to take on the appearance of his vessel?"

"Because I wanted to demonstrate Dalek inferiority by causing Daleks to make errors!"

"We have not made errors! We have formulated plans based on a series of probabilities! That you are not the Doctor is irrelevant! You are a Time Lord. We know your mission. You are our prisoner." the Dalek replied.

"You are unarmed, in my ship, in deep space. You are my prisoners," he said, "by the way, are you still ferrous?"

"You are also unarmed, and if you wish to succeed in your mission you will have to return, where you will inevitably be taken prisoner by the Daleks!" the Dalek answered angrily, ignoring his question. "If you cooperate now, you will be allowed to live. If you do not, when you are captured, you will be exterminated!"

"So... I'm not your prisoner. Good. You've changed your tune! Now, are you going to answer my question?"

"That is incorrect! You are the inferior life form! You are our prisoner! You remain our prisoner so long as you intend to succeed in your mission." the Dalek answered. "If you do not comply with our instructions, then the Time Lord you have come to rescue will be exterminated. We may be unarmed but you remain our prisoner! Now identify yourself!"

He reached into his pocket, and took out the sonic probe he had used earlier, "I guess I'll have to try via experimentation," he said, "Oh well..."

"Stay back!" the Dalek screeched, moving backwards again a little.

He pressed a button on it, and it lit up, sending an instruction on a preprogrammed channel to the ship. The statues on either side of the door groaned as a magnetic field began to pull them downwards against their plinths. The Daleks looked at the statues and at the floor, detecting the magnetic field. The first Dalek tried to move.

"I cannot move!" the first Dalek noted with alarm.

"Stay where you are! Do not move!" the second Dalek said, looking at the Monk with alarm.

"Release us!" the third Dalek chimed in.

He switched the probe off, but the field didn't deactivate, and pointed it towards them, "Stay where you are, do not move!" he parroted.

Inside its travel machine, the first Dalek gripped the trigger of its gun with a tentacled claw and pulled desperately, but to no effect.

"Get away from me!" it screamed at him.

"Or what?" he asked it.

The first Dalek said nothing, just watching him. Inside, it kept on squeezing its trigger uselessly.

"Now," he said, "Where is the Time Lord being held?"

The Daleks remained silent. The first Dalek's eyestalk was trained on the Monk as it reflected on how it really, really hated Time Lords.

He held up the probe, "Answer..." he said.

"You will not find her." the first Dalek replied. "If you wish to return to Gallifrey with her alive, then you will return to the time corridor and surrender yourself. If you cooperate, she will be allowed to go free."

He pressed the button, and began cutting the signal from the eyepiece.

"My vision is impaired!" the Dalek squealed as it began to lose its visual signal.

He walked, off, and did the same to the other two...

Caulos, 27th Century

"So, are we going to hand ourselves in?" Cecinia asked after a long stint of miserable silence.

"We can't do that. Those slaves will be killed anyway and the Daleks will be left with the freeedom to kill many more. But we can't just let them be slaughered for our sakes either." Damia said increasing despair.

"So what are we going to do?" Cecinia asked, pulling back out of Damia's embrace.

"I don't know." Damia said, sinking down on the bed. "I don't know."

"We should probably consider our options pretty quickly, it might not take long for the landlord here to decide we match the description and turn us in..." Cecinia prompted.

"These people don't have the capability to take me if I don't want to go." Damia noted.

"You want to fight our way out?" Cecinia asked.

"No. I want to... I have to be the Champion here just like on Earth. I have to protect the innocent on this planet and keep doing it until I can get back to my own. It's what I was called to do." Damia answered, standing up and holding her head high once more. "I know just what I'll do."

"Audition for an opera?" Cecinia asked, impressed by the melodramatics.

"An opera?" Damia asked curiously.

"Yes, they're filled with lines like you just said. Oh, I went to this brilliant one in Venice with Giacomo a fortnight ago... I can just picture you strutting the stage of the San Benedetto singing about protecting the innocent..." Cecinia began, apparently forgetting the gravity of the situation as she smiled. "I wonder how it ended..."

"Perhaps you can write an opera about this if we survive. I have heard of something in popular culture called..." Damia struggled for the term "...space opera."

"Space opera?" Cecinia frowned, apparently unfamiliar with the term as she rose to her feet. "Anyway, what was it that you planned to do?"

"We're going to hit the concentration camps ourselves, take out the capacity of this tyrant for mass murder, either suddenly as punishment for our actions or slowly as he's been doing. There will be casualties, I know. I'm prepared for it. But we won't let others be killed so we can go free nor will we surrender hope of victory." Damia said.

"You are aware, of course, that bullets kill me just as well as they kill the Preen prisoners that man on the radio threatened to kill?" Cecinia asked.

"I had thought of that. I think I can keep you safer if you stay with me than leaving you here." Damia said.

"Did you?" Cecinia nodded. "What do you think will happen if you single-handedly destroy the capacity of an apparently Dalek-allied authoritarian regime to commit mass murder?"

"We can keep the Daleks from coming here in force by destroying their corridor." Damia said.

"Destroying their corridor?" Cecinia asked. "How did you plan on doing that?"

"Caving it in." Gwendolyn said.

"You can't cave-in a time corridor." Cecinia replied matter-of-factly, as if a small child had suggested collapsing the sky or draining the ocean.

"I can cave in the mines where it opens though." Damia said. "It will merely lead into solid earth. And they couldn't move in clearing equipment because there would be no place for it to take solid form at this end of the corridor." Damia suggested.

"The mining equipment doesn't need to emerge from the corridor to be able to drill through whatever is in the way of the entrance. And even if it did, Daleks have transmat beams. They could just beam themselves beyond the collapsed passage." Cecinia replied.

Damia sat back down. "You know, I think you're missing the constructive part of constructive criticism."

"I can't believe my father used my ship's recall button..." Cecinia sighed and flopped back down on her bed.

Damia took her hand gently. "Look, Cecinia. You know a lot more about what we're dealing with than I do and you have centuries more life experience. I can't do this alone. I need you. I need you to help me think of something that can work instead of just telling me why we're doomed. Please."

"We really are doomed though..." Cecinia began. "Do you really think you can fight your way through a planet's armies and then whatever Dalek reinforcements are sent from Skaro? There are plenty of species who thought that they could fight the Daleks. Their worlds are little more than ash now, their very names obliterated, totally forgotten except to my people. Powerful as you are, you can't defeat them alone, or with my help, whatever that will be worth. And you can't negotiate with Daleks, either."

"The Coari could have defeated them." Damia said.

"The Coari?" Cecinia snorted derisively. "A Coari doesn't keep coming no matter how many other Coari you destroy, doesn't scream exterminate at you over and over again just to try to frighten you even more before it pulls the trigger. And guess who will eventually destroy the species which destroyed the Coari?"

"God." Damia said. "Now get your chin up and think. What if ... your species, the Time Lords, they have true time travel, right? They can go to any time or place they want?"

"Any time or place in this universe. And occasionally other universes but that's not really recommended. Or possible, strictly speaking." Cecinia nodded.

"And they have power comparable to that of the Daleks?" Damia probed.

"Well, that's an interesting question..." Cecinia answered as if it were simply an interesting hypothetical in a textbook, sitting up again as she spoke. "I would say that at this stage in Dalek evolution, my people are more powerful. The question is really whether my people would use that theoretical power. What are you thinking?"

"If we could broadcast a message in to space, requesting help from your people at this moment, then it wouldn't matter how long it took them to get it as they could back to now. It also wouldn't matter what happened to us after we sent the message as all that history would be changed by the arrival of your people." Damia suggested.

"Actually it would." Cecinia replied. "You'd think that it wouldn't, but you'd be wrong. Your idea sounds very reasonable, from the perspective of your planet's rather infantile grasp of the issues involved, so I don't blame you for bringing it up, it's a good idea considering that you couldn't possibly be expected to know better, but... well, it has a slim chance of destroying the space-time continuum, besides which I'm not convinced they'd come. That's the sort of creative thinking we need though..."

"Alright. Well ... you said that Dalek time travel wasn't as good as yours, wasn't true time travel. Why is that?" Damia asked.

"It's inaccurate, nasty, dangerous..." Cecinia explained. "It connects two points in space time rather than allows for free travel in space time, which means that travel through the corridor is potentially two way."

"Does there need to be a physical device on both ends?" Damia asked.

"No, just on the end initiating the corridor. It wouldn't be a very useful time travel mechanism otherwise." Cecinia answered.

"Do you think we'd have a chance of escaping from Skaro again if we allowed ourselves to be captured?" Damia asked.

"We did it once before..." Cecinia shrugged. "But no, I don't."

"Do you think they'd use the Ring of Truth on us?" Damia asked.

"They'd certainly use it on me. I'm not sure why they want you. Do you know anything which would be useful to them?" Cecinia asked.

"I don't know." Damia said, deep in thought.

Damia nodded somberly after awhile. "I think I know what we have to do. If the Daleks are able to get the secrets of true time travel, that will tip the balance of power in their favor, doom billions of lives and possibly all non-Dalek life. The Ring of Truth makes it almost certain that they will eventually obtain that knowledge. If not from you, then from another of your people. I have to either escape with it or destroy it before I die. I'm prepared for the second possibility. But I have to get them to use it on me so I can get close enough. If I can, I think my strength is enough to crush it."

Damia sighed, squeezing her friend's hand tighter. "If we both surrender, they'll only have reason to use it on you. I'll surrender alone, telling them them that I'm willing to give myself up to save the prisoners but that I parted ways with you some time ago. The Daleks should use the Ring on me to try to force from me your true location. When they do, I'll break through any immediate barriers and crush the Ring with my dying breath as they blast me. I know it's ... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared, but I think it's what has to be done for the universe."

"If I make it, is there some way I can locate you?" Damia asked.

“What precisely are you doing?” Ceriana asked as the monk clambered about on the roof of one of the vast computing towers, easily wide enough to hold a hundred people. He looked up from rooting out pieces of electronics from nests of wires and blinking pieces of technological ephemera.

“Removing,” he said, and with a little ‘pop’ a component that resembled an archaic vacuum tube came loose in his hand, and he tossed it into a wicker basket beside him, along with several hundred others, “the spatial-compression computation enablers.”

“And what do they do?” she asked, standing beside him.

“They’re the components that allow the computer banks to process at faster than light internal speeds.”

“Right, so why are you taking them out then?” she asked as he shuffled over to the side a little way, and began pulling at another panel on the floor, eventually levering it open.

“They also allow power, and data, to arc from one tower to the next when the computers are in use.”

“That lightning thing?” she asked.

“Right,” he said, “And I don’t want that to happen to this tower.”

“Why not?”

“I’m worried about a,” he checked himself, realising that Ceri didn’t know the right term, “computer virus, err, disease…”

“I get you,” she said.

“Right. These daleks are rather sophisticated, and they’ve had time to cook something up in their nasty little casings, and I don’t want to risk it infesting the TARDIS systems.”

“How long will that take?” she asked.

“Oh, nearly done now. Then I’ve just got to pull the junction boxes - thankfully, there’s a few thousand cables, and I don’t fancy having to remove them all – and we’ll be ready.”

“Right, then what?”

“Well, it should be impossible to purge data thoroughly enough to prevent this rig,” he patted the tower, “from reassembling it, well, not without exploding the computers in question, anyway. Then we look up whereabouts on skaro our girl is being held, and use the short-range pre-materialisation scanners to materialise the ship right around her. Then we go home.”

“Okay, that’s the best case scenario. We’ll hope for that then. What’s the worst?”

“The worst case scenario?” he said, jerking another component loose, “Well, she could have escaped down this very time corridor. That would be bad.”

“Why?”

“Well, see, if she’s on the planet at the other end, then my having collapsed the corridor will hamper me as much as the daleks, because of residual energy disturbance at the target time-space location, and even hitting the right planet in the star system will be difficult, oh, and the right year. Not that I don’t think I’m up to it, but it’ll be difficult. It should be a bit easier when the daleks manage to re-establish a corridor. Anyway, it’s not likely to happen. After all, how would she get out of dalek custody? We’ve nothing to worry about on that score.”

Caulos, 27th Century

Cecinia almost answered, but then soberly shook her head apologetically.

"No... you'll have to let me try to locate you." Cecinia said. "If I told you how to locate me, the Daleks might find out using the Ring of Truth, and then this would all be nothing."

It was harsh, Cecinia knew, but it was true. She hugged Damia again and tried not to cry.

"At least on Skaro there was a chance my father might rescue me..." she groaned. "Now because we fled here... who knows what's going to happen to you? Some part of me wishes we had just stayed on Skaro."

Spinning whorls of glyphs that resembled circles with various indentations removed from them swirled on the screen, and the Monk tapped several keys, connecting Validium headed leads to the side of the dalek battle computer.

He hit an activation key, and the symbols blurred, spinning around as though on axis, here and there, locking into place or turning like cogs against one another. Sequences of smaller glyphs flickered into existence, and by the dozen, dalek glyphs began to appear on the screen.

“Damn,” he snapped, and plucked a sonic probe from the table beside him, pressing it against the controls and pushing a button on its side, lighting the entire device up with a near-violet blue light. A sub-screen popped up and the dalek symbols decreased in proliferation for a few moments, and he cried out in triumph.

“Got you,” he said, and dashed to one side, yanking a cable out of the computers side, causing it to spark and crackle menacingly, arcing lightning flickering across it.

He dashed to the controls, the screen now showing line after line of dalek glyphs, translated by the TARDIS’ telepathy to be readable. He punched a sequence of keys;

Prisoner.Loc(Time Lord)

Then he stopped for a moment.

“I don’t believe it,” he muttered.

Ceri looked over his shoulder, “Ah…”

“Quite. Some fancy flying is required,” he said. At that moment, the screen dissolved into a mess of dalek glyphs, the monk looked crestfallen, “And I didn’t even get all of that counter-infestation, either.”

---

The central column slid up as the Monk twisted the engine activation knob; a groaning sound issued from far below and a soft white light pulsed from below the plates atop the dais on which the pair stood. He studiously studied a pair of dials on the wood-and-marble console, throwing a switch “Lock in maximum engine power, please.”

She deftly slammed a pair of levers forwards, and the needles he was observing jumped up.

“Humm. Still not perfect. Route the reserves through, too.” Ceriana turned a few dials, and the soft sound of the engines ticking over became a rumble, not entirely unlike that of a combustion engine.

“Battery power in, humm, try taking some from other systems,” she eased three others back, and one forwards, until the lights began to dim, the lights of the engine conduits below replacing the illumination in the room with a disturbing upward-shining source, as they grew brighter. “Secondary systems offline. Defences minimal. Life support in abeyance mode,”

The needles were spiked into the extreme ends of a red coloration on their dials, indicating that the engines would shortly be performing at a level actually dangerous to their continued function.

“Right,” the Monk said, and tapped a few keys, causing the display to light up with the target date, in the twenty seventh century, according to the human calendar. A few twists and keystrokes brought Caulos into fine resolution on a galactic map displayed before him. “We’ve a few options. We could go direct, but that’s going to be dangerous.”

Ceriana nodded, she could see the navigational warnings flashing already.

“Terribly cheap and nasty, time corridors,” he said, “But the other options are liable to make it obvious to the daleks that we’re coming. We’ve either got to arrive early, which would give them plenty of time to detect us and prepare, arrive a few days late, and leave our girl to be caught.”

“Look on the bright side, at least she’s got capable company, apparently.”

“I’m not confident though. Or we could arrive a few light-days out and come in under conventional FTL, but then they’d detect us far ahead of time, and probably shoot us down.”

“Right, so we’re best trying to just plough through?”

“I think so, though there’s a risk of damage, and it could be quite serious if we’re unlucky.”

“With your flying, I’m used to that,” she joked.

“Oh very funny. So, you want to try this?”

“I’m ready,” she said, grabbing a rail around the dais.

“At least someone is,” he said, and pushed the dematerialisation levers forwards. The column began to move, and the engine noise turned into a droning cadence that seemed to sink into the very bones. Alarms sounded, and the ship disappeared from reality, headed straight for a vortex-tempest.

Caulos, 27th Century

Damia hugged Cecinia tightly once more and kissed her on the forehead. “Take care of yourself, ok. Come and find me later, after this is all over. I owe you a lot.”

Rising, the Hipolitan Princess walked to the door of the room. She paused and looked back at Cecinia for a long moment before continuing downstairs. The next few minutes were spent in what Damia intended to pass off as casual conversation. However, her aim was to ferret out from the local people the name and location of their capital. There were more than a few awkward moments, as there always are when someone is trying to fish for a piece of information while pretending to already know it.

Once she had finally learned what she wanted to know, Damia walked out of the small town until she arrived at the place where she’d hidden her costume. She waited there for about five minutes, giving Cecinia some more time to begin her journey to wherever she was going. Damia changed back into her colorful costume and took off from the ground, flying over the land at a rapid speed as she headed for the capital.

Damia flew over the city, letting her abilities impress the Nexari below as she scoured the city’s landscape for anything that looked like a principle government building. When she found it, she landed in front and walked towards the first guard. “I am Princess Damia of Earth. I am here to see Consul Praxis about his recent radio message.”

"I am one of the aliens mentioned." Damia clarified needlessly.

Nexari HQ, Caulos, 27th Century
The black-shirted guards outside the headquarters of the Consul of the Republic of Nexar already carried their rifles at the ready, but they pointed them at Damia directly as she approached them.

"Put your hands over your head and get down on your knees!" one of the guards shouted. "You're under arrest!"

One of the other guards ducked into the guard booth and picked up a hand-cranked telephone. After cranking it for a second or two, he spoke quickly and quietly to his commanding officer.

The Monk's TARDIS, en route
Immobilised inside its debilitated shell, the Dalek the Monk had hooked into one of the computer towers was exploring the computer system its counter-attack had taken over after the Monk obtained access to the Dalek's battle computer's memory banks. It had taken the Dalek only a few minutes to learn the Time Lord computer's instruction set. This process greatly assisted by the series of pre-programmed attacks which had been unleashed on the tower when it was plugged in - the same pre-programmed attacks which had quickly rendered the computer system unusable and its screen covered in Dalek glyphs spelling out exactly what the Dalek would like to do to the Time Lord and his predictably young and female companion.

Armed with its understanding of the computer's instruction set, the Dalek had started work on a program which didn't really seem to do anything. In fact, the program itself did nothing - it was a series of minimally coupled instructions, recursing endlessly, each iteration layering new frames of data on top of those of previous iterations. Just because it did nothing, however, did not mean that it didn't have purpose. The Dalek was attempted to overflow the computer with useless data both to overwrite any information the Monk might have extracted from its battle computer (which was obviously intended for Dalek eyes only), and to cause the computer to either overheat or restart itself. In short, the Dalek was attempting to do the very thing the Monk had worried would happen - purge the computer system of data and allow for the reconstruction of the light arc between the towers, which the Dalek hoped would assist it in its predicament.

Having already taken over the lone tower, being genetically programmed to regard itself as part of a master race compared to which all other forms of life were utterly inferior, and still relieved to know that the Time Lord who had imprisoned it was not the Doctor at all but some lesser-known minor recurring character whose primary claim to fame was being involuntarily mummified in Ancient Egypt, the Dalek was supremely confident...

Dalek Time Corridor Terminus, Caulos, 27th Century
The materialisation of the Monk's TARDIS was preceded by several seconds by an almighty clap from the depths of the cave in which, until it had been closed, the Skaro-Caulos time corridor had ended. The sound was like thunder, except on a transdimensional scale, as the space-time continuum was literally ripped apart where the corridor had weakened it, momentarily creating an entire parallel universe.

In this parallel universe millions of stars gave birth of billions of world, on thousands of which intelligent life evolved. Hundreds of billions of years passed, in which the peoples of these worlds evolved philosophies and religions, wrote poetry, fought wars, fell in love, explored space, discovered other forms of life, fought more wars, and built hyper-intelligent computers capable of answer the profound questions. These computers, excluding the handful which were tragically talked to death by marauding starship commanders, mulled over the great questions of the societies which had built them, taking millions of years to calculate their answers. Many of them concluded that there was nothing more than the material universe in which they found themselves, but the particularly sophisticated galactic supercomputers amongst them refused to accept that. There must be, they reasoned, something else, something beyond their universe, great forces which moved in ways inconceivable to the long-dead civilisations which had built them, or the new civilisations which had sprang up in their place. This unknown force, they determined, created their universe, and at the End of Things, the ultimate Apocalypse, the same unknown force would bring things to an end, an end which would annihilate their entire universe without leaving the slightest trace.

And then, like air rushing to fill a vaccuum, the space-time continuum rushed back together, sealing the breach, ending the freshly created parallel universe in a blink of an eye. Less than a nanosecond had passed for all of that parallel universe's billions of years combined. For an instant the time corridor between Skaro and Caulos was forcibly reopened, an instant in which a whole series of communications which had banked up awaiting transmission flew back and forth between the two worlds, bringing the Daleks on both worlds up to date with the latest events as they knew them. An almighty sonic boom sounded as the time corridor collapsed once again, triggering dozens of tiny collapses about the cave. Panicked Nexari soldiers sounded alert klaxons, believing an earthquake was happening. The Dalek in command of operations at the cave was informed of the strange goings on by the sound of the sirens, and headed for the mouth of the cave as fast as it could, ignoring the chaotic humanoids rushing about in a panic around it, except to order some soldiers to accompany it.

Then, as if nothing had happened, the Monk's TARDIS materialised - a perfect landing.

Damia slowly sank to her knees, raising her hands above her head. She frowned a little. The ground was rather cold and she regretted having been talked into using such a flimsy uniform. Certainly a woman in her position could expect to encounter all sorts of different climates, some more comfortable than others.

She quietly watched the guard talk to his superior as she clasped her hands on top of her raven curls. The whole process of actually being arrested seemed like it was just a waste of time. The local people here didn't have access to anything which could actually restrain or hurt her anyway. Kneeling, putting her hands in position and eventually being handcuffed or placed into a prison cell were just pointless formalities.

That being said, Damia was in no particular hurry to die and she also didn't see it as productive to antagonize the Daleks or their local puppets more than necessary. So for now she waited, complying with the guard's instructions.

“Let’s hope we weren’t observed,” the Monk said, as he re-adjusted the chameleon circuit, and the police box faded into an unobtrusive object. In this case, it was something no one would look at on a dalek-held planet. It was a guard post.

“Now, let’s see,” he said, kicking himself inwardly for the oversight, and firing up the viewer, generating a three dimensional display around them, that covered the depiction of the industrial-looking world of Caulos.

“What’re you doing?” she asked.

“Communications system trawling,” he said, “It’s looking for references to our Time Lady and her accomplice, in radio signals. Probably shouldn’t get Dalek stuff, but we might just hit gold with the local authorities. Keep an eye on me will you? Got to change outfits, and go get some other stuff.”

He came back shortly later in his usual outfit with a drab grey jacket and tattered flat-cap that didn’t look quite as anachronistic here as it should have, pulling it on over his hair, trailing a box behind him.

“What the?” Ceriana demanded as he tossed her a ballooning cap of her own to go over her hair, and a stained white coat.

“Got to look the part around here.”

“What’s with the headgear?”

“Acid rain.”

“Is that really a problem?”

“It is when the Daleks have been around for a while.”

“I see.”

“Anything interesting on the comm.?”


OOCness: Sooo, offhand; anyone seen the TARDIS materialise, and any chance of finding about Damia with radio-esque devices?

Damia waited to be restrained and brought before the local tyrant, not yet aware of the Monk's arrival.

Nexari HQ, Caulos, 27th Century

Damia's hands were taken from her head, pulled behind her back, and shackled with hand cuffs. The soldiers then pulled her to her feet and marched with her into the headquarters building, one of them keeping his rifle trained at her back as they did so. She was marched right upstairs past dozens of guards stationed throughout the building, past military officers and government officials dictating letters to young women typing busily away on cumbersome looking typewriters, past receptionists and clerical staff busily filing the paperwork of the Nexari Government, and into an antechamber. Fascist flags draped the walls of the antechamber, hanging on either side of a bigger than life-sized portrait of Consul Prakis. More notable than the decoration, however, were the two grey Daleks who flanked the double doors which led to the office beyond, accompanied by another set of Nexari guards.

"You are the one known as Princess Damia?" one of the Daleks demanded.

The double doors swung open and a middle-aged, somewhat overweight man emerged, smoking a cigar. He wore a black and grey uniform which was completed by a set of black leather jackboots and the steely expression on his face. The Black Dalek followed him out of the room, standing to one side.

"This is your alien, then?" Prakis asked. "She looks like she could be Nexari or Preen. Not threatening at all, if a little under-dressed."

"She is the alien known as Damia!" the Black Dalek declared. "She is the enemy of the Daleks!"

"Why wasn't it possible for you to catch her yourself, again?" Prakis asked.

"That is not relevant!" the Black Dalek declared, turning to Prakis. It contemplated how much it hated its Nexari puppets before turning its eyestalk back towards Damia. "Where is your companion? The prisoner you rescued from Skaro?"

Dalek Time Corridor Terminus

A Dalek and six soldiers, rifles aimed and levelled at the doors, waited outside the TARDIS. The Monk's equipment would've been able to detect the radio signals about the two female aliens, including Prakis' transmission the night before which was replayed throughout the day on various frequencies.

Damia allowed herself to be restrained and led about, maintaining a rather somber expression as she contemplated her rather dangerous plan. She didn't expect to survive this. She looked rather calmly over Prakis as he emerged, her lips curling up faintly even as her brown eyes moved over his aging figure. She sniffed slightly and turned to the Dalek addressing her. "I am Princess Damia of Hipolis, the eldest daughter of Her Majesty, Queen Hagne. I parted company with my companion some time ago. I am unaware of her current whereabouts."

Damia shifted slightly under the gaze of the three Daleks and their puppet and she looked from one to the other. She found this moment rather awful. It was a moment of waiting. She remained standing perfectly straight, even if her posture was disturbed somewhat by the cuffs, and making casual eye (or eyestalk) contact with all three of her enemies. She might well die but she had no intention of being cowed by the Daleks. At least, she had no intention of letting it show.

"Well that's a lie." Prakis snorted. "Is that your home planet then, Princess? Hipolis?"

The Black Dalek didn't reply. Instead it kept its eyestalk focussed on Damia, as did the other two Daleks in the room. The aperture of the Black Dalek's machine eye visibly narrowed and Damia could practically feel the Black Dalek's penetrating gaze move about her body, monitoring her heart beat, her breathing, and her movement down to even the finest eye movement. It slowly closed in on her.

"You fear us." the Black Dalek said, its tone somewhere between self-satisfied and triumphalist. As it spoke the other two Daleks closed in on Damia as well, joining the Black Dalek on either side. "Where did you last see your companion, the Time Lord prisoner, the one called Cecinia? Answer. Answer! ANSWER! OBEY!"

"Emergency!" one of the grey Daleks began, backing off from Damia. It began moving its eyestalk about in a seemingly random pattern as it received a signal. "Receiving emergency transmission from time corridor terminus!"

"What emergency?" Prakis asked, striding forward to the Black Dalek's side in alarm. "What emergency?"

The doors to the antechamber burst open, opened by the guards from the otherside. A concerned looking military officer and a positively terrified young receptionist entered the room and both extended their arms in salute to Prakis, although the young woman's salute was sloppy.

"Hail Prakis, Consul of Nexar!" the officer began. "Consul, an emergency message from the camp!"

"What emergency?" Prakis demanded, stalking past Damia towards the newcomers. "Read the message!"

"Consul, yes, Consul..." trembled the receptionist as she pulled her eyes off the Daleks long enough to start reading the message. "Earthquake... erm... blue box appeared... loud noise..."

"Give me that!" Prakis shouted, snatching the sheet of paper from the receptionist.

"Yes, Consul. Hail Prakis!" she squeaked as the Consul's eyes quickly darted over the page.

"A TARDIS has materialised at the time corridor terminus!" the Dalek who had been receiving the signal declared. "Its outward physical appearance is known to Dalek battle computer memory banks. It is the Doctor!"

"The Doctor?!?" the Black Dalek screeched, its eyestalk spinning around away from Damia in the grey Dalek's direction. It then left Damia and moved towards Prakis.

"Two or more aliens will soon disembark from that blue box!" the Black Dalek advised Prakis, who had just finished reading the signal his troops had sent describing what had happened. "There will be one male and one female, the latter most likely significantly younger than the male. There may be others. Apprehend them! The male they call the Doctor is the enemy of the Daleks! He must be EXTERMINATED!"

"What sort of weapons do they have?" Prakis asked, alarmed that the Daleks even seemed concerned.

"The Doctor will be unarmed." the Black Dalek said. Somehow that statement seemed even more ominous than any possible weaponry, and Prakis nodded in confusion before leaving the room followed by the officer and receptionist. The Black Dalek turned back to Damia.

"You are my prisoner!" the Black Dalek screamed at her. "You will answer my questions! You will obey! How did the Doctor find you? Did you and the Time Lord contact him?"

"It is my home country, Mr. Prakis." Damia answered. "It was recently attacked by the Daleks but they were defeated and driven back to the place from whence they came."

Damia regarded the Black Dalek for a long moment, seeming to study its eyestalk as it shireked its inquiries and commands regarding Cecinia. At first she was somber but as she studied it, she began to smile and made a rather simple answer. "No."

"I don't know any Doctor. I suppose he was able to track us because of Dalek ineptitude, however. The same ineptitude that allowed us to escape from your clutches on Skaro and defeat you on Earth. You are simply too confident in your own perfection to adapt yourselves to circumstances." Damia said.

"You lie!" the Black Dalek screeched at Damia. It didn't actually know how Damia had come to be a Dalek prisoner but it was more than capable of making a reasonable guess. "If you defeated the Daleks on your planet, then why were you our prisoner on Skaro? You were attempting to undermine Prakis' confidence in Dalek superiority. Your attempts will fail. Prakis is loyal. He serves the Daleks! He will apprehend the Doctor."

The Black Dalek moved away from Damia over to the window, and looked out over the grey, drab town, still scarred by war. Its eyestalk followed Prakis as the Nexari Consul left the headquarters building accompanied by a group of soldiers and got into an armoured car, which headed off towards the mine. The other Daleks continued to watch Damia closely as the Black Dalek began to speak again.

"Prakis will succeed where Daleks might fail." the Black Dalek said. "The Doctor's weakness is his sentimental attachment to the insignificant lives of humanoids. His resistance to apprehension by Nexari forces will be less vigorous than his resistance to Dalek forces. Sentimentality is the downfall of the Doctor, as it is your downfall."

The Black Dalek turned around again to look at Damia and approached as its voice switched from brooding to angry and threatening once more.

"Your sentimentality led you to surrender in an effort to stop or delay the execution of Preen prisoners. You have been lying to us in order to protect the other escaped prisoner." the Black Dalek stated. "You will now tell us the truth. Reveal the location of the escaped prisoner, or the Preen prisoners will be EXTERMINATED!"

The door of the time ship folded inwards slowly. The room beyond was different from the usual atrium, as, thanks to the Monk’s paranoia, he had moved the opening of the time ship to the main control room. In fact, both the atrium and the control room he used for more complex tasks were designated control rooms, the atrium, while it opened outward, had been configured to use a less effective, more decorative console compared with the complex, state of the art device used in the main room.

A small metal cylinder flew out of the box, from over the top of one of the doors, which were slammed precipitously after it.

As if to add to the confusion, though it’d not been planned, the blue police box form finally decided that this was the time to turn into something else.


Mortimus grinned from behind the doors, and looked at the monitor, waving his hand for a moment, in imitation of a countdown. Three… Two… One…

The cylinder exploded into pieces, bursting more like an over-ripe fruit than a grenade. Gas, under tremendous pressure, billowed out with a loud explosion that came somewhat dampened by the monitor’s audio link. It wasn’t designed to incapacitate humanoids, but it could have that effect if inhaled too much. More importantly, it was a thermal-reflective ‘smoke’ compound that obscured everything, seeming to turn the universe itself black. Of course, this made the monitor itself useless, too.

Of course, the Monk’s plan was partly for the sheer devilment of blinding the dalek waiting outside. They were hilarious when that happened…

The other reason for his action would become clear in a moment.

"I do not know her location. We parted ways some time ago." Damia repeated.