It was bleached blood red, just like the squadron ships I used to fly in
silent running mode to avoid Dalek patrol saucers. Electric blue flickers
danced over the capsule at the end of the room, a battered blue police box with
minty blue windows. The TARDIS! I ran across to the ship and pressed my head
against its humming exterior. I had never been so happy to see that grotty old
box, Doctor. Now I needed to discover where you and Vicki were being held.
The cells weren’t hard to find despite the low lighting and my paranoia eating away at my sanity. The guard ushered me through. Clearly just having access to the secure area was enough to grant you entrance anywhere within this section. There was a woman crouched in the corner of the furthest cell, hiding her face and weeping. I wanted to rush into the cell and hug you Vicki, to let you know everything would be okay. She must have heard me coming and uncurled herself, tears streaming down her face. It wasn’t Vicki. She looked furious and asked who I was. I introduced myself and she told me her name was Tegan Jovanka.
Before I could ask her anything alarms sounded and a strobe light blinded
me. The guards restrained me violently, as though they hadn’t had the chance to
rough anybody up for a long time. Naturally Eleanor was furious. She struck my
face and grabbed my cheek with her razor sharp nails. She thought Tegan was a
Voltrani spy and that I had infiltrated the Dome to help her escape. The Time
Capsule, the TARDIS, was supposedly of Voltrani design and they had captured
the machine seven months ago and had been running experiments on it ever since,
developing a rudimentary understanding of its practices. This poor woman had
been trapped in this cell on her own for seven months. Tegan was a feisty one
for sure and the sudden chance to rail against her captors brought out the fire
in her. I detected a twang of an accent, the Australasian zone perhaps?
The cells weren’t hard to find despite the low lighting and my paranoia eating away at my sanity. The guard ushered me through. Clearly just having access to the secure area was enough to grant you entrance anywhere within this section. There was a woman crouched in the corner of the furthest cell, hiding her face and weeping. I wanted to rush into the cell and hug you Vicki, to let you know everything would be okay. She must have heard me coming and uncurled herself, tears streaming down her face. It wasn’t Vicki. She looked furious and asked who I was. I introduced myself and she told me her name was Tegan Jovanka.
I will never forget what happened next for as long as I live. Eleanor demanded that I reveal my intentions and my allegiances to the Voltrani. I refused to be intimidated, despite the fact that my arm was being twisted from its socket. Eleanor gave me one more chance but I remained square jawed in stony silence. She removed a device from her lab coat and pointed it at Tegan. A look of horror crossed the prisoners face as a beam of light crossed the threshold of the cell and enveloped her. I watched as her skin started to peel and blister, wither and wrinkle and she shrank into an old woman before my eyes. Tegan fell to the floor, a dirty grey husk and her clothes disintegrated to dust. Watching somebody age to death was the most horrific thing I had ever seen and I prayed I would never see anything like that again.
I thought it was my turn next but instead I was shoved into the cell. When they left me I sank to my knees and tears flowed, all my frustration and anguish pouring out of me. A prisoner again. Eleanor visited every day for months and I could see the resentment grow in her eyes with each visit. They never even bothered to take the blistered skeleton away. Eleanor never knew but Nebrox would sneak in for five minutes a day and give me news from Pellan and share a joke. He was a good man. Somehow he could see that I wasn’t a threat even if Eleanor could not. I kept reaching for Hi-fi, memories of Mechanus forcing me to seek that small comfort but he was in my room in the TARDIS.
Imagine four months of nothing. Just sitting. Thinking. Scant conversation and only a rotted skeleton for company. You ‘d think after years on Mechanus I would be used to this sort of thing but the boredom consumes you.
Voices arguing up the corridor; Shadows stretching along the floor, and getting closer. Nebrox and Pellan were whispering furiously, shoving at each other. I could have wept at seeing Pellan again. They had come to help me escape although Nebrox was terrified of the consequences. Things had gone too far, Pellan told me. Eleanor had worked on the time travel technology with renewed vigour after my disloyalty. She had developed the temporal acceleration device into something on a much more impressive scale and the government had decided it was time for the Voltrani to pay for their deceitful infiltration and development of the time technology. I didn’t need to be told any more. The three of us stormed from the prison and I noted the guard lying unconscious, a bloody gash gouged from his skull.
If my betrayal had cut Eleanor deeply you should have seen her face when she realised who had helped me escape confinement. This had made her mind up, the Voltrani were a true menace, turning even the most loyal of heads to their cause. Nebrox could see she was programming the device to target the Voltrani Dome. He rushed at her but she quickly produced a gun and ripped three holes in his chest. I saw a pained look strike Pellan and he rushed to his lover’s side. Eleanor threw the lever and the enormous viewing screen came to life. Scientists held their mouths as if they were about to be sick as the blinding bolt of scarlet temporal energy tore across the surface of the planet and shattered the Voltrani Dome. You could see buildings accelerating into disrepair, people looking up and pointing at the inferno in the sky and crumbling into a fine grey powder, the plants withering to mulch. The City aged to death in less time than it took Eleanor to throw the lever.
My stomach twisted with revulsion and not even bullets could have stopped me reaching my ex-lover now. She looked terrified as I drew myself to my full height and grappled with her. Pellan was weeping over his husband’s dead body. A City teeming with life had decayed before my eyes. What had I done to this world?
~~~
Twelve months. That’s how long I had been on Malanex Alpha. Twelve months to bring this planet down. I knew what I had to do. After securing Eleanor I dragged Pellan from Nebrox and instructed him. Because I knew now, I knew why the missing year had vanished. It was me. I started this war by saving the Voltrani. I wasn’t going to let these terrible events take place when we had a chance to reverse them.
Pellan used the time equipment to clutch the planet in its claws and reverse events like ripping a page from a book. It was the oddest of sensations; time reversing felt like somebody was literally inside your head rewriting your history with furious intensity. I wondered why I wasn’t whipped back in time a year and how despite knowing that things had changed and my time on Malanex Alpha had never happened, I could still remember everything. A gift of the TARDIS, I suppose. Or a curse.
~~~