Fic: Times Such as These
Last fic post before my winter break is over! Time for some depressing stuff about the Gallifrey crew and the Time War, naturally. I wrote about half of this all the way back in 2010, then wrote the rest of it last week. Sometimes my process is delayed. Anyway:
Times Such as These
Doctor Who, Gallifrey Audios
Rating: teen
(war-time situations, off-screen character death)
Characters: Romana, Narvin, Braxiatel, Leela, Eight, the Master, K-9
Wordcount: 4,700ish
Summary: The Time War is too large and complex and confusing to be viewed in generalities. Four personal stories from the War.
The first shots of the Time War ring out when Dalek vessels fire on a CIA time cruiser. The first shots of the Time War are fired by the Doctor, in an attempt to kill Davros while one of his former selves stares at him in shock. The first shots of the Time War are fired at Humans, during the Dalek invasion of Earth.
It is a good thing that no one will survive to write the history of the Time War - the shifting chronology and unstable order of events would render any attempt at creating an accurate overview useless and confusing.
Instead, focus in on the personal histories, the soldiers and commanders and individuals who lived and died in the War. There are the stories to be told, the mistakes to be regretted, the lessons to be learned. Or the stories to be forgotten, the mistakes to be forgotten, the lessons to be forgotten as Gallifrey sinks into itself and is lost to all space and time.
But the echo of those small, personal stories will linger, even as the overarching history fades and disappears.
---
When Leela began teaching bootcamp, she was given the newest recruits and had a month to train them, to make them into warriors. She was proud of her work, then, because she thought that the Time Lords would win their war.
Now she thinks they are losing, and that she is teaching her Gallifreyans how to die more slowly.
As the War progressed, the training sessions dropped from a month to three weeks, then two weeks, then one. Somehow time is becoming precious, even on Gallifrey.
"Five days," says K-9, who is helping with recruiting, and battle plans, and anything else that he thinks he can do. "Mistress Romana wishes the recruits to be trained in five days."
Leela catches her breath, bites her lip. "It cannot be done," she says. She knows she is lying, because she has said the same thing every time the bootcamp was cut, and every time it has been done. Yet the time still seems too short, too impossible.
"Five days," repeats K-9. "We calculate that the recruits will attain 87% competence despite the shorter duration. 13% is an acceptable loss for two days' gain."
Leela turns on her heel and walks out of K-9's office, hands clenching with the effort of not arguing. Her mind is already whirling with what will have to be changed, what will have to be left out.
There are twenty recruits for Leela's division of the bootcamp. At the beginning of the War, each of those recruits would be a fit young Gallifreyan, ready to serve their planet. Leela spent most of her time trying to cure of them of their youth and their belief that they already knew everything worth knowing.
Now half the recruits are soldiers already, wounded soldiers recovering from regeneration sickness. Sometimes people who are killed by the Daleks come back with their memories half-missing, lost through the pain and terror of extermination. They forget their homes and their families and their training. It matters little for the War if soldiers forget their families, but they must be trained again if they are to fight.
The other half of the recruits are still young, younger, they are taking students and children for their army now. Leela does not need to cure them of their pride, because they have none. Each young Gallifreyan has lost parents and siblings and house-cousins in the War. Each young Gallifreyan knows the fate that is waiting for them.
The first day, Leela looks at her recruits, learns their names. Neptazhari is only thirty, and cannot remember a time before the War. Equanima has regenerated five times during the War, and Leela trained her before her first battle. Equanima smiles a lost smile when Leela asks if she remembers, and says that she cannot recall. Derin has been serving Gallifrey as an engineer, but Gallifrey has decided it needs people on the front lines more than it needs people to build technology. Seventeen more recruits, the same three patterns - children, broken veterans, skilled workers who are no longer needed at home.
Leela knows enough of tactics to know that these recruits are the sign of a lost war. She teaches them how to hold their stasers, how to shoot, how to decide when to shoot. At the end of the day, she goes to K-9's office.
"Are these the only recruits?" she asks. "Tell me that you are giving me the worst recruits, and that the other teachers have better. I will understand."
K-9's ears spin, slowly. "You have the best recruits, Mistress Leela," he says. "If the best recruits are given to the best teacher, then competence increases by-"
"Thank you, K-9," says Leela. "I do not need to know."
There are no fit young Gallifreyans, not anymore.
On the second day Leela teaches the recruits how to wait, how to hide from the Daleks, how to hide from the allies of the Daleks.
On the third day Leela teaches the recruits how to fight with their fists and their feet and their heads. She teaches them that anything can be a weapon, if you try hard enough.
On the fourth day Leela teaches the most basic of first aid - where to press, what to hold, when to give up.
There are many more lessons, but there are only five days. On the last day, there is an obstacle course.
"We'll be fighting the Daleks tomorrow!" Neptazhari is staring at the obstacle course in disbelief. "Is this supposed to prepare us?"
The rest of the recruits murmur uncertainly. Leela looks at the course. It is good - parts of it flicker in and out as they slip between time streams, and the wall they must climb is very high, and the barbed wire that they must crawl under is very low. Leela designed the course with K-9, years ago, when the War was new and Leela was still chafing to be on the front lines, fighting the enemies of all free life.
The obstacle course is not enough. But nothing is.
"It is all I can give you," says Leela.
"We could die tomorrow," says Neptazhari. She is not afraid, she is certain.
"Ask Equanima how to prepare for the Daleks!" snaps Leela. Her temper is short because she knows Neptazhari is right. "Ask Equanima how you prepare to die."
The recruits look to Equanima. She smiles her lost smile.
"There is no preparation," says Equanima. "It is very easy to die."
She walks forward and begins the obstacle course. Derin the engineer follows, his brow tight with the effort of not thinking about tomorrow. The rest of the recruits trail after them, Neptazhari last.
Leela watches them through the course, yells advice and encouragement. She shakes their hands as they leave for their postings.
"I am sorry," she whispers to the empty field, when they are gone.
The next week there are no more recruits. Gallifrey is running dry.
"We are sending most instructors to the front lines," says K-9. "Mistress Romana wishes you to know that you may request a posting with the tactical unit within the Citadel-"
"No," says Leela. "I will go to the front lines."
K-9's ears twist uncertainly, but Leela is determined. She cannot send so many recruits to their deaths, and then refuse to go herself. She will face the fate that is waiting for her, that is waiting for them all.
---
"Doctor." Romana glances up at him from her papers. "Do stop bleeding on the carpet."
"Yes, well. Sorry, my lady President, but I can't seem to turn off my circulation." The Doctor doesn't bother to keep the sarcasm out of his tone, and Romana grips her pen a little tighter.
"I only meant that you should sop it up with something, rather than let it pour all over my floor. Which has been freshly cleaned, I might add."
"If I'm bothering you, I can leave." The Doctor pointedly does not cover the gash on his arm, instead letting it run into a gathering pool by his feet. Romana presses her lips together to keep from firing back a retort. She's too busy to fall into this sort of ridiculous back and forth, and the Doctor's injury is hardly his own fault. Romana sets her pen down and looks up, trying to meet the Doctor's eyes. It's difficult - normally the Doctor stares straight at her, challenging, but just now his eyes seem unfocused, drifting from Romana's face to the wall behind her and back. Romana frowns.
"You had better tell me what happened," she says. "Braxiatel said that you refused to report to him or go to the medics, and he was worried you'd be so stubborn about the matter that you'd actually regenerate from blood loss."
The Doctor shrugs. Romana would quite like to shake him, but she suspects that would exacerbate the problem rather than helping it.
"Well?" she snaps, instead. "Are you going to report? Or am I supposed to just stare at you and your glorious wounds?"
The Doctor shudders, still doesn't focus on her. He absently rips off a shred of his already tattered shirt and uses it to bind his arm as he begins to speak. "The attempt to stop the Daleks did not go well."
"Yes, I can see that."
"What?" says the Doctor, and a little of his attention returns as he follows Romana's gaze to where blood from his wound is now seeping through his makeshift bandage. "Oh. Well, this is nothing compared to what happened to the rest of my company. Most are wounded, worse than this. And two died." The Doctors eyes drift back to the wall as his jaw tightens. Romana hesitates before asking the obvious question.
"Did they regenerate? Did the Daleks capture them?"
"No and no. The Daleks seem to have developed a weapon, a sort of ray gun attachment to their normal blaster, looks rather silly- I'm sorry. I'm getting distracted. The weapon prevents normal regeneration. I tried-" The Doctor stops, and then squeezes his arm hard, causing himself to gasp with pain. Romana rises to her feet without thinking, takes a step out from behind her desk. She stops as the Doctor begins to speak again.
"I tried to kickstart a regeneration for Larol, but the Daleks caught up with us. I don't know if I could have saved him if I'd had a little longer." The Doctor pauses again, but his expression warns Romana to keep her distance until he's finished.
"We brought the bodies back," says the Doctor, at last, and then he begins to shake. He lets the cloth slip from his wound as he covers his face with both hands, his breath coming out in hiccups. Something lifts from the air and Romana steps toward the Doctor again, catching the chair in front of her desk and placing it behind him, guiding him into it. The Doctor isn't weeping, just breathing irregularly, short gasps and long slow breaths as he tries to calm himself.
Romana would like to be sympathetic. She is sympathetic. But she has twenty scheduled meetings today, and she has to force herself to look at the Doctor and not think about how much time she has left before her conference with the tactics and planning branch. And she'll have to inform Narvin about the new Dalek technology immediately, which makes twenty-one meetins, and not enough microspans in the day.
"Doctor," she says, leaning over him, "how did you injure your arm?"
The question seems to steady him, as she'd known it would. He doesn't uncover his face, but his breathing evens as he tries to answer.
"I- I fell, carrying Glys- the corp- the other, the other casualty. Cut myself on a piece of rock." The Doctor chuckles, a little hysterically. He makes a hopeless gesture, leaving only one hand shading his eyes. "Stupid, very stupid of me. Two people killed by Daleks, and I manage to get injured by a bit of stone!"
"It's for the best," says Romana, firmly. "You're too important to the war effort to be lost. Now, you're going to go to the infirmary, and then you're going to recall everything you noticed about the new weapon for our experts. All right?"
The Doctor gives one last shudder, and then finally brings his hand away from his face, blinking up at her.
"All right?" says Romana, unsure of whether he'd heard the first time.
"Yes," says the Doctor, quietly. "Yes, yes, I'll go. But can you answer me one question, Romana?"
"I can try." Romana straightens, paces back to her desk.
"How can you do this?" Romana raises an eyebrow, and the Doctor hastens to explain, his hands making arcs in the air as he tries to show what he means. "I don't mean running the war or dealing with the paperwork or any of that. You do that because you have to. But how do you stand all the lives being lost? Every report that another alien ally, or an old friend, or a new trainee just out of the academy has fallen to the enemy?" Romana opens her mouth, but the Doctor keeps talking, the words pouring out of him.
"This isn't new to me," he says, "not the death. I've lost friends, enemies, strangers, and I've mostly managed to push on. But I can't do it, Romana, not any more. I hardly knew Larol and Glysa, but they died while in my charge. Not because they had chosen to follow my instructions, but because they'd been ordered to put themselves under my command. They never had a choice, not after they were chosen for operations duty." The Doctor pauses for breath, and Romana watches him, carefully.
"Every Time Lord in existence is currently under your command, Romana. How do you deal with being responsible for so many deaths?"
Romana actually thinks about the question for a moment, almost long enough to let the old terror of what the War was doing fill her. But she left that behind long before, and she isn't going to let it slow her down now.
"You've already answered your own question," says Romana, and holds up a hand to stop him from interrupting her. "I do it because I have to. Just like I have to run the war and do the paperwork. Which, by the way, does need to be signed. Go to the infirmary, Doctor."
She sits down as the Doctor jumps out of his chair, and she's already deep in her paperwork when the door shuts, the sound too loud to be polite but too quiet to be a proper slam.
After a moment, Romana picks out a fresh piece of paper with her official letterhead. She writes the personal condolences to Larol's family. Then another for Glysa's. Then the supply requests. Then the reports from the pre-Rassilonite front. Then her meeting with tactics and planning. Then the trip down to Narvin's labs.
The next time the Doctor makes a report, he lets Brax take it. It makes Romana's schedule much easier, which she appreciates. She's extremely busy, running the War, and everything moves so much more smoothly when she doesn't really have to think about what she's doing.
---
"Sonic lance." Narvin holds a hand out, squinting at the circuitry laid out before him. His assistant gives him the tool, and Narvin makes a few minute adjustments.
There are no traitors in the Time War, because everyone knows that the Daleks will kill any Time Lords they can find. And the Laws of Time have been forgotten, because even the most conservative of Gallifreyans becomes careless with the Laws when fighting for survival. Stripped of its old purposes, the CIA in wartime is just another branch of the military. CIA agents with relevant experiences are returned to old duties and half-forgotten tasks. The rest are sent to the front.
Coordinator Narvin has become a technician again.
He sets the lance aside. "Run a current," he orders. The circuitry sparks, and he holds his breath as the machines around him rumble into tenuous life.
They still need spies, which is why Narvin builds tiny drones to sneak into Dalek ships without uselessly risking Gallifreyan lives. And they still need to monitor the time line, in case of disaster, which is why Narvin helps maintain banks of computers dedicated to finding potential time rifts and paradoxes.
Paradoxes can be weapons. Time rifts can suck in Dalek fleets and spit out hunks of rusted metal that once were enemies. Narvin is pushing, pushing, to find how the phenomenon of déjà vu can be harnessed and used to warp Dalek brains into senility. Every little thing must bend its purpose to the War.
The machines are half-started and stalling, unable to break past the warming stage and into operation. Narvin curses and snatches up the sonic lance again. The assistant trails him across the lab as Narvin opens the control console and begins to rewire.
"We should turn off the current-" says the assistant, but Narvin shakes his head. They must hurry. He has so much else to do today.
Most of all, the Time War needs soldiers.
Narvin is grateful for his time on the Axis and the parallel Gallifreys. He is even grateful for his lost regenerations. Without those experiences, he could not have built the machines which now power the Gallifreyan army, the regeneration looms that confer endless cycles of life. Unfortunately, the Daleks have made this strategy obsolete, with their new weapons that cut Time Lords down without even allowing a regeneration.
The machine Narvin operates now is of his own creation. The counter to the Daleks' weapons. The resurrection machine.
The console panel hisses and shocks Narvin's fingers, but he's done with the wiring. The tenor of the machines are changing, and Narvin looks up with a gleam in his eye.
The assistant hovers over the bare operating table, waiting.
Coordinators have always had access to the Matrix, even before the military expansion of the CIA. The brain-patterns and DNA blueprints of thousands of Time Lords.
And the Time War needs soldiers. Disposable soldiers.
A body forms on the operating table, and the assistant leans forward. The body is solidifying nicely, and its fingers twitch as its nervous system responds to the newly-aware brain.
"Get back," says Narvin, and the assistant looks over at him, doesn't move fast enough. The body's fingers close around the assistant's throat and squeeze.
Narvin's left hand tightens around his sonic lance and his right hand touches the staser at his side, but he does nothing. Damaging the subject at this stage could produce irreparable harm.
The assistant chokes. Narvin thinks he can remember a time when he would have found all of this disgusting, abhorrent. A travesty of science. Now he finds it tedious. He has so much to do.
As the assistant falls to the ground, the body opens its eyes. Sits up. Its bare toes scrape the surface of the floor, its legs not quite long enough to reach the ground from the operating table.
"Where am I?" asks the Master.
"Gallifrey," says Narvin. "I have placed memories of the Time War and current intelligence regarding the Daleks in your brain. Do you remember?"
"Yes," says the Master. He looks down at the assistant, crumpled on the floor. "Are you going to do something about that?"
"He'll regenerate," says Narvin. "You should be programmed to follow orders. Please stand."
The Master slides off the operating table, his face showing an uncertain frown. Renegades don't like doing as they are told, and modifying the Master's brain patterns to enforce happy obedience would cause too much damage. Fortunately, grudging obedience is sufficient.
"Get dressed." Narvin gestures at a uniform folded on top of a computer bank. "Then report to Castellan K-9 for testing. You should have memory of where he is to be found."
The assistant is beginning to regenerate. The Master looks between him and Narvin as he dresses, and Narvin waits.
"The trials of war," mutters the Master. "I'm so pleased to live again." He gives Narvin a salute, facile in its perfection. But he walks out the door, and Narvin's drones track him to K-9's office.
Narvin turns away from the drone feeds. His assistant has become a blonde.
The first success of the resurrection machine. No cause to stop there. And no point in changing the data settings, since the current ones are working.
"Prepare for the next soldier," he tells the assistant. "And be more careful, this time."
The assistant gets shakily to her feet. Narvin begins another sequence.
He remembers when he thought Romana was the greatest danger to Gallifrey. Or perhaps Darkel, or the Imperiatrix. Even the Free Time movement.
He had no imagination, then.
"Where am I?" asks the second Master, when he is fully aware. He's taller, this time. Narvin's assistant is standing nearly on the other side of the room.
"Gallifrey," says Narvin. "I have placed memories of the Time War-"
He can feel the words becoming familiar and stale on his tongue, stale as the air he breathes.
---
Time skims by unevenly now, microspans stolen by the Daleks, spans borrowed by the war effort, moments expanding and contracting and making Braxiatel's head hurt. He closes his eyes, and the War has just begun. He opens his eyes, and the War is crashing to a conclusion.
Close, open. A war is a particularly unpleasant thing to be involved in. Braxiatel, however, has been involved in many unpleasant efforts in the course of his long life, not least the effort to make his brother into something respectable.
That end, at least, has been achieved. Theta is now one of the best soldiers they have, close friend to their Lady President, and foremost expert on the Dalek threat.
Every cloud, and all that.
"Cardinal," says an aide, waving a packet of papers, and Braxiatel startles out of his reverie. He tries to ground himself in the day-to-day management of War instead, keep his mind from drifting into omphaloskepsis.
But the War terrifies Braxiatel, and when he is afraid of something he tries to think of something else until it goes away. Such things usually do, if you make enough plans and keep yourself busy. Nothing endures forever.
As a Time Lord, Braxiatel has always been aware of the fleeting impermanence of things. Even the Time Lords themselves are not immortal, despite their multitude of regenerations. Braxiatel had ages to come to terms with the knowledge that all things must surely end.
But every day, it is still a shock to draw up the casualty lists for Romana's viewing.
An assistant reads out the names and details from various reports, and Braxiatel faithfully transcribes. He draws the circles out longhand, rather than sully this task with shorthand or, worse, typed printouts. The names on this list are too important for that. He can take the time to do things properly.
"Devantrolerian, serving with the tenth squadron, killed by the Daleks in battle in sector five. Ganeshimatarious, on assignment, killed by allies of the Daleks after being captured in sector twelve. Tirontimary, serving with the ninth squadron, killed..."
Braxiatel carefully renders the names of each casualty, large loops showing assignment and placement, small markings on the edges of the circles denoting manner of death. The ink flows with precision from his brush, never dripping and marring the page.
"Leela of the Sevateem, serving with the Outsider auxiliaries, presumed dead after the loss of her entire platoon in battle with the Daleks- Sir, are you alright?"
"Perfectly," says Braxiatel, and picks up his brush from where it slipped out of his hand.
Black splatters the paper, but fortunately only on a small area of otherwise blank space. After consideration, Braxiatel writes Leela's name under the blot of ink. His hand is more awkward - not necessarily because of some emotion, but because he is using the alien characters Andred had shown him, back when his most pressing concern was how to fit a savage into his paperwork. No graceful circles, these, but harsh, brief lines, with a few loops and circles scattered among the more angular shapes. Braxiatel writes Leela's given name, then her origin, leaving the Gallifreyan notation of the details of her assumed fate for last.
If the writing of this name takes longer than the others, it is undoubtedly due to the fact that he is unaccustomed to using such alien characters.
Braxiatel ignores the fact that he has had to write this name on form upon forms for years now.
Close, open. The brevity of life, the impermanency of creation is something all individuals must grapple with at some level. Braxiatel's brother sought out alien philosophy, convincing himself that other races found meaning in their short primitive lives, while traditional Time Lords led their prolonged but shallow existences. Philosophy enabled Theta to believe both that some things truly were permanent, such as love and friendship, while simultaneously convincing himself that none of it mattered in the end. Zen, he'd called it. Braxiatel had always suspected that the cultural appropriation had gotten a bit confused.
Braxiatel sought out something physically enduring, instead. When he discovered nothing could ever endure, he tried to create something that would meet his requirements for permanence. The Braxiatel Collection, the largest repository of art from dead cities, planets, and races, is, at its heart, a monument to Braxiatel's inability to accept that all things must end.
It's becoming easier to accept. It feels like realism is taking its hold in Braxiatel's mind, replacing foolish hope for a better tomorrow with defeated pragmatism.
Braxiatel sits in the heart of his collection, in the depths of his TARDIS. There is nowhere else large enough and safe enough to store it now, what with the War. The War which will soon burst the walls of even this fortress, and destroy even this great civilization.
The list of casualties is growing.
Romana has died, the victim of either Dalek action or Time Lord betrayal, depending on whom you believe. When asked to resurrect a suitable leader, Narvin chose to recreate Rassilon himself. A mistake, Braxiatel feels, but Narvin is no longer present to defend his actions. He went missing shortly after Rassilon's return, and many suspect that he was the first victim of Rassilon's new reign. Leela, of course, has been presumed dead for some time. The Masters are slowly disappearing, one by one, as they either fall to the Daleks or anger their Lord Rassilon. Either event results in death. Only the Doctor still remains, fighting enemies on both sides of the War. Braxiatel expects that this is a temporary situation, and soon his brother will be destroyed as well.
Braxiatel has a choice now, between trying to mimic the role of the unfeeling sycophant, or becoming next on the already long list of Rassilon's recent victims. Not that anyone is actually writing casualty lists. To do so would be to open oneself up to the wrath of a madman.
There is a third choice, risky but probably with a higher chance of survival. A Time Lord may no longer be able to operate in the wider universe without detection and extermination by the Daleks. But a lone drifter, a human or some other common alien, might survive. A lone drifter with an art gallery might even be able to keep the inherent impermanence of the universe at bay until events moved on enough to allow the rediscovery of his true nature.
Pounding sounds from the outside door of the TARDIS, the racket amplified until it reaches even the inner rooms. Braxiatel stands, making a decision.
He's seen too much in these years to believe that he will escape, simply by virtue of being a Time Lord with a mission. But he's learned too much not to believe in the worth of the attempt.
Close, open. The TARDIS shudders as it dematerializes, and Braxiatel's hands shake as he begins to calibrate the chameleon arch.
---
Gallifrey's skies burn orange, then blood-red as TARDISes and Dalek cruisers scream through the atmosphere. There is no rational hope for the War, for peace, for survival.
But the achievements of Gallifrey have never been bounded by rationality.
This entry was originally posted at http://neveralarch.dreamwidth.org/56209.html. Comment wherever you want.
Times Such as These
Doctor Who, Gallifrey Audios
Rating: teen
(war-time situations, off-screen character death)
Characters: Romana, Narvin, Braxiatel, Leela, Eight, the Master, K-9
Wordcount: 4,700ish
Summary: The Time War is too large and complex and confusing to be viewed in generalities. Four personal stories from the War.
The first shots of the Time War ring out when Dalek vessels fire on a CIA time cruiser. The first shots of the Time War are fired by the Doctor, in an attempt to kill Davros while one of his former selves stares at him in shock. The first shots of the Time War are fired at Humans, during the Dalek invasion of Earth.
It is a good thing that no one will survive to write the history of the Time War - the shifting chronology and unstable order of events would render any attempt at creating an accurate overview useless and confusing.
Instead, focus in on the personal histories, the soldiers and commanders and individuals who lived and died in the War. There are the stories to be told, the mistakes to be regretted, the lessons to be learned. Or the stories to be forgotten, the mistakes to be forgotten, the lessons to be forgotten as Gallifrey sinks into itself and is lost to all space and time.
But the echo of those small, personal stories will linger, even as the overarching history fades and disappears.
---
When Leela began teaching bootcamp, she was given the newest recruits and had a month to train them, to make them into warriors. She was proud of her work, then, because she thought that the Time Lords would win their war.
Now she thinks they are losing, and that she is teaching her Gallifreyans how to die more slowly.
As the War progressed, the training sessions dropped from a month to three weeks, then two weeks, then one. Somehow time is becoming precious, even on Gallifrey.
"Five days," says K-9, who is helping with recruiting, and battle plans, and anything else that he thinks he can do. "Mistress Romana wishes the recruits to be trained in five days."
Leela catches her breath, bites her lip. "It cannot be done," she says. She knows she is lying, because she has said the same thing every time the bootcamp was cut, and every time it has been done. Yet the time still seems too short, too impossible.
"Five days," repeats K-9. "We calculate that the recruits will attain 87% competence despite the shorter duration. 13% is an acceptable loss for two days' gain."
Leela turns on her heel and walks out of K-9's office, hands clenching with the effort of not arguing. Her mind is already whirling with what will have to be changed, what will have to be left out.
There are twenty recruits for Leela's division of the bootcamp. At the beginning of the War, each of those recruits would be a fit young Gallifreyan, ready to serve their planet. Leela spent most of her time trying to cure of them of their youth and their belief that they already knew everything worth knowing.
Now half the recruits are soldiers already, wounded soldiers recovering from regeneration sickness. Sometimes people who are killed by the Daleks come back with their memories half-missing, lost through the pain and terror of extermination. They forget their homes and their families and their training. It matters little for the War if soldiers forget their families, but they must be trained again if they are to fight.
The other half of the recruits are still young, younger, they are taking students and children for their army now. Leela does not need to cure them of their pride, because they have none. Each young Gallifreyan has lost parents and siblings and house-cousins in the War. Each young Gallifreyan knows the fate that is waiting for them.
The first day, Leela looks at her recruits, learns their names. Neptazhari is only thirty, and cannot remember a time before the War. Equanima has regenerated five times during the War, and Leela trained her before her first battle. Equanima smiles a lost smile when Leela asks if she remembers, and says that she cannot recall. Derin has been serving Gallifrey as an engineer, but Gallifrey has decided it needs people on the front lines more than it needs people to build technology. Seventeen more recruits, the same three patterns - children, broken veterans, skilled workers who are no longer needed at home.
Leela knows enough of tactics to know that these recruits are the sign of a lost war. She teaches them how to hold their stasers, how to shoot, how to decide when to shoot. At the end of the day, she goes to K-9's office.
"Are these the only recruits?" she asks. "Tell me that you are giving me the worst recruits, and that the other teachers have better. I will understand."
K-9's ears spin, slowly. "You have the best recruits, Mistress Leela," he says. "If the best recruits are given to the best teacher, then competence increases by-"
"Thank you, K-9," says Leela. "I do not need to know."
There are no fit young Gallifreyans, not anymore.
On the second day Leela teaches the recruits how to wait, how to hide from the Daleks, how to hide from the allies of the Daleks.
On the third day Leela teaches the recruits how to fight with their fists and their feet and their heads. She teaches them that anything can be a weapon, if you try hard enough.
On the fourth day Leela teaches the most basic of first aid - where to press, what to hold, when to give up.
There are many more lessons, but there are only five days. On the last day, there is an obstacle course.
"We'll be fighting the Daleks tomorrow!" Neptazhari is staring at the obstacle course in disbelief. "Is this supposed to prepare us?"
The rest of the recruits murmur uncertainly. Leela looks at the course. It is good - parts of it flicker in and out as they slip between time streams, and the wall they must climb is very high, and the barbed wire that they must crawl under is very low. Leela designed the course with K-9, years ago, when the War was new and Leela was still chafing to be on the front lines, fighting the enemies of all free life.
The obstacle course is not enough. But nothing is.
"It is all I can give you," says Leela.
"We could die tomorrow," says Neptazhari. She is not afraid, she is certain.
"Ask Equanima how to prepare for the Daleks!" snaps Leela. Her temper is short because she knows Neptazhari is right. "Ask Equanima how you prepare to die."
The recruits look to Equanima. She smiles her lost smile.
"There is no preparation," says Equanima. "It is very easy to die."
She walks forward and begins the obstacle course. Derin the engineer follows, his brow tight with the effort of not thinking about tomorrow. The rest of the recruits trail after them, Neptazhari last.
Leela watches them through the course, yells advice and encouragement. She shakes their hands as they leave for their postings.
"I am sorry," she whispers to the empty field, when they are gone.
The next week there are no more recruits. Gallifrey is running dry.
"We are sending most instructors to the front lines," says K-9. "Mistress Romana wishes you to know that you may request a posting with the tactical unit within the Citadel-"
"No," says Leela. "I will go to the front lines."
K-9's ears twist uncertainly, but Leela is determined. She cannot send so many recruits to their deaths, and then refuse to go herself. She will face the fate that is waiting for her, that is waiting for them all.
---
"Doctor." Romana glances up at him from her papers. "Do stop bleeding on the carpet."
"Yes, well. Sorry, my lady President, but I can't seem to turn off my circulation." The Doctor doesn't bother to keep the sarcasm out of his tone, and Romana grips her pen a little tighter.
"I only meant that you should sop it up with something, rather than let it pour all over my floor. Which has been freshly cleaned, I might add."
"If I'm bothering you, I can leave." The Doctor pointedly does not cover the gash on his arm, instead letting it run into a gathering pool by his feet. Romana presses her lips together to keep from firing back a retort. She's too busy to fall into this sort of ridiculous back and forth, and the Doctor's injury is hardly his own fault. Romana sets her pen down and looks up, trying to meet the Doctor's eyes. It's difficult - normally the Doctor stares straight at her, challenging, but just now his eyes seem unfocused, drifting from Romana's face to the wall behind her and back. Romana frowns.
"You had better tell me what happened," she says. "Braxiatel said that you refused to report to him or go to the medics, and he was worried you'd be so stubborn about the matter that you'd actually regenerate from blood loss."
The Doctor shrugs. Romana would quite like to shake him, but she suspects that would exacerbate the problem rather than helping it.
"Well?" she snaps, instead. "Are you going to report? Or am I supposed to just stare at you and your glorious wounds?"
The Doctor shudders, still doesn't focus on her. He absently rips off a shred of his already tattered shirt and uses it to bind his arm as he begins to speak. "The attempt to stop the Daleks did not go well."
"Yes, I can see that."
"What?" says the Doctor, and a little of his attention returns as he follows Romana's gaze to where blood from his wound is now seeping through his makeshift bandage. "Oh. Well, this is nothing compared to what happened to the rest of my company. Most are wounded, worse than this. And two died." The Doctors eyes drift back to the wall as his jaw tightens. Romana hesitates before asking the obvious question.
"Did they regenerate? Did the Daleks capture them?"
"No and no. The Daleks seem to have developed a weapon, a sort of ray gun attachment to their normal blaster, looks rather silly- I'm sorry. I'm getting distracted. The weapon prevents normal regeneration. I tried-" The Doctor stops, and then squeezes his arm hard, causing himself to gasp with pain. Romana rises to her feet without thinking, takes a step out from behind her desk. She stops as the Doctor begins to speak again.
"I tried to kickstart a regeneration for Larol, but the Daleks caught up with us. I don't know if I could have saved him if I'd had a little longer." The Doctor pauses again, but his expression warns Romana to keep her distance until he's finished.
"We brought the bodies back," says the Doctor, at last, and then he begins to shake. He lets the cloth slip from his wound as he covers his face with both hands, his breath coming out in hiccups. Something lifts from the air and Romana steps toward the Doctor again, catching the chair in front of her desk and placing it behind him, guiding him into it. The Doctor isn't weeping, just breathing irregularly, short gasps and long slow breaths as he tries to calm himself.
Romana would like to be sympathetic. She is sympathetic. But she has twenty scheduled meetings today, and she has to force herself to look at the Doctor and not think about how much time she has left before her conference with the tactics and planning branch. And she'll have to inform Narvin about the new Dalek technology immediately, which makes twenty-one meetins, and not enough microspans in the day.
"Doctor," she says, leaning over him, "how did you injure your arm?"
The question seems to steady him, as she'd known it would. He doesn't uncover his face, but his breathing evens as he tries to answer.
"I- I fell, carrying Glys- the corp- the other, the other casualty. Cut myself on a piece of rock." The Doctor chuckles, a little hysterically. He makes a hopeless gesture, leaving only one hand shading his eyes. "Stupid, very stupid of me. Two people killed by Daleks, and I manage to get injured by a bit of stone!"
"It's for the best," says Romana, firmly. "You're too important to the war effort to be lost. Now, you're going to go to the infirmary, and then you're going to recall everything you noticed about the new weapon for our experts. All right?"
The Doctor gives one last shudder, and then finally brings his hand away from his face, blinking up at her.
"All right?" says Romana, unsure of whether he'd heard the first time.
"Yes," says the Doctor, quietly. "Yes, yes, I'll go. But can you answer me one question, Romana?"
"I can try." Romana straightens, paces back to her desk.
"How can you do this?" Romana raises an eyebrow, and the Doctor hastens to explain, his hands making arcs in the air as he tries to show what he means. "I don't mean running the war or dealing with the paperwork or any of that. You do that because you have to. But how do you stand all the lives being lost? Every report that another alien ally, or an old friend, or a new trainee just out of the academy has fallen to the enemy?" Romana opens her mouth, but the Doctor keeps talking, the words pouring out of him.
"This isn't new to me," he says, "not the death. I've lost friends, enemies, strangers, and I've mostly managed to push on. But I can't do it, Romana, not any more. I hardly knew Larol and Glysa, but they died while in my charge. Not because they had chosen to follow my instructions, but because they'd been ordered to put themselves under my command. They never had a choice, not after they were chosen for operations duty." The Doctor pauses for breath, and Romana watches him, carefully.
"Every Time Lord in existence is currently under your command, Romana. How do you deal with being responsible for so many deaths?"
Romana actually thinks about the question for a moment, almost long enough to let the old terror of what the War was doing fill her. But she left that behind long before, and she isn't going to let it slow her down now.
"You've already answered your own question," says Romana, and holds up a hand to stop him from interrupting her. "I do it because I have to. Just like I have to run the war and do the paperwork. Which, by the way, does need to be signed. Go to the infirmary, Doctor."
She sits down as the Doctor jumps out of his chair, and she's already deep in her paperwork when the door shuts, the sound too loud to be polite but too quiet to be a proper slam.
After a moment, Romana picks out a fresh piece of paper with her official letterhead. She writes the personal condolences to Larol's family. Then another for Glysa's. Then the supply requests. Then the reports from the pre-Rassilonite front. Then her meeting with tactics and planning. Then the trip down to Narvin's labs.
The next time the Doctor makes a report, he lets Brax take it. It makes Romana's schedule much easier, which she appreciates. She's extremely busy, running the War, and everything moves so much more smoothly when she doesn't really have to think about what she's doing.
---
"Sonic lance." Narvin holds a hand out, squinting at the circuitry laid out before him. His assistant gives him the tool, and Narvin makes a few minute adjustments.
There are no traitors in the Time War, because everyone knows that the Daleks will kill any Time Lords they can find. And the Laws of Time have been forgotten, because even the most conservative of Gallifreyans becomes careless with the Laws when fighting for survival. Stripped of its old purposes, the CIA in wartime is just another branch of the military. CIA agents with relevant experiences are returned to old duties and half-forgotten tasks. The rest are sent to the front.
Coordinator Narvin has become a technician again.
He sets the lance aside. "Run a current," he orders. The circuitry sparks, and he holds his breath as the machines around him rumble into tenuous life.
They still need spies, which is why Narvin builds tiny drones to sneak into Dalek ships without uselessly risking Gallifreyan lives. And they still need to monitor the time line, in case of disaster, which is why Narvin helps maintain banks of computers dedicated to finding potential time rifts and paradoxes.
Paradoxes can be weapons. Time rifts can suck in Dalek fleets and spit out hunks of rusted metal that once were enemies. Narvin is pushing, pushing, to find how the phenomenon of déjà vu can be harnessed and used to warp Dalek brains into senility. Every little thing must bend its purpose to the War.
The machines are half-started and stalling, unable to break past the warming stage and into operation. Narvin curses and snatches up the sonic lance again. The assistant trails him across the lab as Narvin opens the control console and begins to rewire.
"We should turn off the current-" says the assistant, but Narvin shakes his head. They must hurry. He has so much else to do today.
Most of all, the Time War needs soldiers.
Narvin is grateful for his time on the Axis and the parallel Gallifreys. He is even grateful for his lost regenerations. Without those experiences, he could not have built the machines which now power the Gallifreyan army, the regeneration looms that confer endless cycles of life. Unfortunately, the Daleks have made this strategy obsolete, with their new weapons that cut Time Lords down without even allowing a regeneration.
The machine Narvin operates now is of his own creation. The counter to the Daleks' weapons. The resurrection machine.
The console panel hisses and shocks Narvin's fingers, but he's done with the wiring. The tenor of the machines are changing, and Narvin looks up with a gleam in his eye.
The assistant hovers over the bare operating table, waiting.
Coordinators have always had access to the Matrix, even before the military expansion of the CIA. The brain-patterns and DNA blueprints of thousands of Time Lords.
And the Time War needs soldiers. Disposable soldiers.
A body forms on the operating table, and the assistant leans forward. The body is solidifying nicely, and its fingers twitch as its nervous system responds to the newly-aware brain.
"Get back," says Narvin, and the assistant looks over at him, doesn't move fast enough. The body's fingers close around the assistant's throat and squeeze.
Narvin's left hand tightens around his sonic lance and his right hand touches the staser at his side, but he does nothing. Damaging the subject at this stage could produce irreparable harm.
The assistant chokes. Narvin thinks he can remember a time when he would have found all of this disgusting, abhorrent. A travesty of science. Now he finds it tedious. He has so much to do.
As the assistant falls to the ground, the body opens its eyes. Sits up. Its bare toes scrape the surface of the floor, its legs not quite long enough to reach the ground from the operating table.
"Where am I?" asks the Master.
"Gallifrey," says Narvin. "I have placed memories of the Time War and current intelligence regarding the Daleks in your brain. Do you remember?"
"Yes," says the Master. He looks down at the assistant, crumpled on the floor. "Are you going to do something about that?"
"He'll regenerate," says Narvin. "You should be programmed to follow orders. Please stand."
The Master slides off the operating table, his face showing an uncertain frown. Renegades don't like doing as they are told, and modifying the Master's brain patterns to enforce happy obedience would cause too much damage. Fortunately, grudging obedience is sufficient.
"Get dressed." Narvin gestures at a uniform folded on top of a computer bank. "Then report to Castellan K-9 for testing. You should have memory of where he is to be found."
The assistant is beginning to regenerate. The Master looks between him and Narvin as he dresses, and Narvin waits.
"The trials of war," mutters the Master. "I'm so pleased to live again." He gives Narvin a salute, facile in its perfection. But he walks out the door, and Narvin's drones track him to K-9's office.
Narvin turns away from the drone feeds. His assistant has become a blonde.
The first success of the resurrection machine. No cause to stop there. And no point in changing the data settings, since the current ones are working.
"Prepare for the next soldier," he tells the assistant. "And be more careful, this time."
The assistant gets shakily to her feet. Narvin begins another sequence.
He remembers when he thought Romana was the greatest danger to Gallifrey. Or perhaps Darkel, or the Imperiatrix. Even the Free Time movement.
He had no imagination, then.
"Where am I?" asks the second Master, when he is fully aware. He's taller, this time. Narvin's assistant is standing nearly on the other side of the room.
"Gallifrey," says Narvin. "I have placed memories of the Time War-"
He can feel the words becoming familiar and stale on his tongue, stale as the air he breathes.
---
Time skims by unevenly now, microspans stolen by the Daleks, spans borrowed by the war effort, moments expanding and contracting and making Braxiatel's head hurt. He closes his eyes, and the War has just begun. He opens his eyes, and the War is crashing to a conclusion.
Close, open. A war is a particularly unpleasant thing to be involved in. Braxiatel, however, has been involved in many unpleasant efforts in the course of his long life, not least the effort to make his brother into something respectable.
That end, at least, has been achieved. Theta is now one of the best soldiers they have, close friend to their Lady President, and foremost expert on the Dalek threat.
Every cloud, and all that.
"Cardinal," says an aide, waving a packet of papers, and Braxiatel startles out of his reverie. He tries to ground himself in the day-to-day management of War instead, keep his mind from drifting into omphaloskepsis.
But the War terrifies Braxiatel, and when he is afraid of something he tries to think of something else until it goes away. Such things usually do, if you make enough plans and keep yourself busy. Nothing endures forever.
As a Time Lord, Braxiatel has always been aware of the fleeting impermanence of things. Even the Time Lords themselves are not immortal, despite their multitude of regenerations. Braxiatel had ages to come to terms with the knowledge that all things must surely end.
But every day, it is still a shock to draw up the casualty lists for Romana's viewing.
An assistant reads out the names and details from various reports, and Braxiatel faithfully transcribes. He draws the circles out longhand, rather than sully this task with shorthand or, worse, typed printouts. The names on this list are too important for that. He can take the time to do things properly.
"Devantrolerian, serving with the tenth squadron, killed by the Daleks in battle in sector five. Ganeshimatarious, on assignment, killed by allies of the Daleks after being captured in sector twelve. Tirontimary, serving with the ninth squadron, killed..."
Braxiatel carefully renders the names of each casualty, large loops showing assignment and placement, small markings on the edges of the circles denoting manner of death. The ink flows with precision from his brush, never dripping and marring the page.
"Leela of the Sevateem, serving with the Outsider auxiliaries, presumed dead after the loss of her entire platoon in battle with the Daleks- Sir, are you alright?"
"Perfectly," says Braxiatel, and picks up his brush from where it slipped out of his hand.
Black splatters the paper, but fortunately only on a small area of otherwise blank space. After consideration, Braxiatel writes Leela's name under the blot of ink. His hand is more awkward - not necessarily because of some emotion, but because he is using the alien characters Andred had shown him, back when his most pressing concern was how to fit a savage into his paperwork. No graceful circles, these, but harsh, brief lines, with a few loops and circles scattered among the more angular shapes. Braxiatel writes Leela's given name, then her origin, leaving the Gallifreyan notation of the details of her assumed fate for last.
If the writing of this name takes longer than the others, it is undoubtedly due to the fact that he is unaccustomed to using such alien characters.
Braxiatel ignores the fact that he has had to write this name on form upon forms for years now.
Close, open. The brevity of life, the impermanency of creation is something all individuals must grapple with at some level. Braxiatel's brother sought out alien philosophy, convincing himself that other races found meaning in their short primitive lives, while traditional Time Lords led their prolonged but shallow existences. Philosophy enabled Theta to believe both that some things truly were permanent, such as love and friendship, while simultaneously convincing himself that none of it mattered in the end. Zen, he'd called it. Braxiatel had always suspected that the cultural appropriation had gotten a bit confused.
Braxiatel sought out something physically enduring, instead. When he discovered nothing could ever endure, he tried to create something that would meet his requirements for permanence. The Braxiatel Collection, the largest repository of art from dead cities, planets, and races, is, at its heart, a monument to Braxiatel's inability to accept that all things must end.
It's becoming easier to accept. It feels like realism is taking its hold in Braxiatel's mind, replacing foolish hope for a better tomorrow with defeated pragmatism.
Braxiatel sits in the heart of his collection, in the depths of his TARDIS. There is nowhere else large enough and safe enough to store it now, what with the War. The War which will soon burst the walls of even this fortress, and destroy even this great civilization.
The list of casualties is growing.
Romana has died, the victim of either Dalek action or Time Lord betrayal, depending on whom you believe. When asked to resurrect a suitable leader, Narvin chose to recreate Rassilon himself. A mistake, Braxiatel feels, but Narvin is no longer present to defend his actions. He went missing shortly after Rassilon's return, and many suspect that he was the first victim of Rassilon's new reign. Leela, of course, has been presumed dead for some time. The Masters are slowly disappearing, one by one, as they either fall to the Daleks or anger their Lord Rassilon. Either event results in death. Only the Doctor still remains, fighting enemies on both sides of the War. Braxiatel expects that this is a temporary situation, and soon his brother will be destroyed as well.
Braxiatel has a choice now, between trying to mimic the role of the unfeeling sycophant, or becoming next on the already long list of Rassilon's recent victims. Not that anyone is actually writing casualty lists. To do so would be to open oneself up to the wrath of a madman.
There is a third choice, risky but probably with a higher chance of survival. A Time Lord may no longer be able to operate in the wider universe without detection and extermination by the Daleks. But a lone drifter, a human or some other common alien, might survive. A lone drifter with an art gallery might even be able to keep the inherent impermanence of the universe at bay until events moved on enough to allow the rediscovery of his true nature.
Pounding sounds from the outside door of the TARDIS, the racket amplified until it reaches even the inner rooms. Braxiatel stands, making a decision.
He's seen too much in these years to believe that he will escape, simply by virtue of being a Time Lord with a mission. But he's learned too much not to believe in the worth of the attempt.
Close, open. The TARDIS shudders as it dematerializes, and Braxiatel's hands shake as he begins to calibrate the chameleon arch.
---
Gallifrey's skies burn orange, then blood-red as TARDISes and Dalek cruisers scream through the atmosphere. There is no rational hope for the War, for peace, for survival.
But the achievements of Gallifrey have never been bounded by rationality.
This entry was originally posted at http://neveralarch.dreamwidth.org/56209.html. Comment wherever you want.