(MAIN RANGE): The Dalek Noun Adjective
(MAIN RANGE): The Dalek Noun Adjective
Starring Jodie Whittaker as The Thirteenth Doctor
Featuring Alison Pill as Lottie
Part Two of the Trilogy beginning with Are you Missing Any Planets?
Chapter One
"Time Rotors Online."
Lottie heard the Rotors whir to life, as the diagnostics began. "System Check!"
"Levels of Tetrion Radiation?" "Acceptable."
"Levels of Artron Energy?" "87%"
"Outside Factors?" "Minimal"
"Begin the temporal experiment." Lottie began imputting the data into the terminal. Numbers streamed across the screen. Above her, she saw through the interface, that the aperture was beginning to open.
The systems shook, and sparks rained from above.
"Casualties on Deck 11!"
"We're out of sync with normal space time!"
"Abort Mission, Abort Mission, Abort!"
Lottie didn't have time to scream before the ship collapsed under the weight of time itself, surrounding them and suffocating them into nothing.
Dalek Prison 321. The Last of The Great Dalek Prisons. Embedded deep in the Xanon Cluster, according to all known records, the Planet does not exist. Established by the Time Lords, long ago, it was placed a few seconds out of sync with the rest of the universe, because Me and my ol' Friend Benny crashed straight into it. Another Story, I suppose. Famous for one thing, and one thing alone. It contains the last surviving pure Daleks. Oh, you can find Daleks a lot these days, dime a dozen they are, I have a casing that I use as a paperweight. Well, a very large paperweight. These guys, though are different. The thing is, these Daleks are the last of the original breed that Davros first created, the very first, outfitted to serve as generals in the time war. When Gallifrey found one of these guys, it was too costly for the war effort to simply kill them. No, Dalek Prison 321 is based around the phenomenally stupid idea of keeping these Daleks alive. They have the best firepower, they are the best Daleks at doing what they do. Which of course, means for us, they are positively the worst. And at the time, I didn't even remember it still existed...
Chapter Two
The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, alone. It was a planet of blue sand, each and every rock a shade of sky, indigo, turquoise, but mostly the plain deep royal blue, and the desert of blue stretched out before the Doctor as far as she could see.
She contemplated what she should do about the TARDIS. It blurred into the sand in an unreal way.
In the distance, a ship was falling straight out of the sky. Burning up. Ribbons of the Time Vortex, Abstract energy that can't be explained swirled around the ship.
Time reached around the ship, which exploded as it crashed into the blue sand, kicking up the sand into what the Doctor figured would probably be an awesome photograph.
Time smacked her straight into the head, and she fell unconcious.
The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, into a jungle sunset. The Doctor did a double take. "Time!" She exclaimed. "I've shifted, aproximately, ooh, I don't know, smells like 1947 earth time. Course that doesn't much matter when we're billions of miles from earth. And I'm talking to myself again! Ah, oh well. So, how many years did I fall back, for this planet to go from verdant jungle to lifeless, admittedly pretty blue sand?"
The sunset glared around her, falling through the leaves and giving a green-yellow glow to the jungle field. The Doctor breathed happily. So much life here, she could feel it. The opposite of barren, this was the kind of place she lived for.
In the distance, a ship was falling straight out of the sky. Burning up. Ribbons of the Time Vortex, Abstract energy that can't be explained swirled around the ship.
"Here we go again!" The Doctor yelled, annoyed, as she clung onto a branch as time socked her in the eye.
Chapter Three
"Time loop! No, actually not a time loop!" The Doctor exclaimed, stepping out of the TARDIS into the volcanic origins of the planets formation. She had a nasty bruise on the eye from being punched by Time. "No, the ship is crashing into the planet, which for some reason, means it's crashing into every single time on the planet ever! So, let's see if I can figure out the pattern to this! Because obviously, in like, thirty seconds, the ship is going to fall, and, well... Hm. Let's think. What do I know about the planet Xanon?" The Doctor took a few seconds to think.
"Aw, it isn't that Xanon, is it?"
In the distance, a ship was falling straight out of the sky. Burning up. Ribbons of the Time Vortex, Abstract energy that can't be explained swirled around the ship.
"Seems pretty explainable to me! It's time stuff!"
You aren't supposed to see the narration, Doctor.
"Oh, right, sorry!"
The Ship fell out of the sky, flame incircling it as the world faded away.
Time kicked the Doctor in the crotch.
The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS. "Aw, time, you're mean." She said to herself, aching her wounds. "So, I understand now, why the time thing is happening. Oh yeah, I get it. It's the planet I found back in my seventh incarnation that's a few seconds outside of time. Why...I still can't seem to remember. But either way, time planet. Which of course, has ramifications when a vessel with primitive time travel experiments on board, crashes straight into the middle of it."
"Who are you talking to?" Asked Lottie, at her station.
"Ooh, am I on the ship this time?" The Doctor asked. "Break from the norm. Digging it. What's your name, Scientist Woman?"
"Dr. Leticia Palaver. But, if I had friends, they'd call me Lottie." Lottie said, nervously.
"Okay, Lottie. Ooh, are we besties now? Should I make friendship bracelets?" The Doctor asked, as she noticed the ship growing closer and closer to the planet surface.
"Okay, sorry I have to go, Lottie! Time is really stupid. Anyway, better brace myself. This is the part that hurts." The Doctor groaned as Time hit her kneecaps with a baseball bat.
The Doctor stepped out of The TARDIS back onto the blue sand again. She saw her past self talking about fifty feet away. Lottie was with her. "What the? Why am I here? I was just on the Relativity, and-"
"Nice name for a spaceship, Lottie." The Doctor said. "Now, essentially, you were working on a time experiment and you crashed into a planet a few seconds outside of time when you entered the time vortex. My TARDIS, materializing onto the planet at a similar time, got caught in the blast, and I've been hopping through the time and space of this planet, always right before the crash happens and then the physical manifestation of time shows up and beats me up, restarting the loop."
A man in a suit that was really just a cardboard box with the words TIME and in smaller letters This Actor Represents The Anthropomorphical concept of Time, and is fully licensed to kick your ass. He is an allegorical concept. Please ignore him.
Nobody got to read it before Time beat them up when the ship crashed.
"I'm not sure I understand." Lottie said. "Time is happening everywhere at once?"
"Time always happens concurrently. For a time traveller and their friend, events in say, the 1960s and 1970s, happen concurrently for them if they get seperated in two different eras and find their way back to eachother." The Doctor explained.
"What?"
"Oh for crying out loud, just listen to the Split Infinitive." The Doctor complained.
In the distance, a ship was falling straight out of the sky. Burning up. Ribbons of the Time Vortex, Abstract energy that can't be explained swirled around the ship.
The Man in the time suit conked The Doctor and Lottie's heads together and the loop reset.
The Doctor and Lottie stepped out of the TARDIS into a cell of Daleks.
Chapter Four
The Daleks. My worst enemy, and unlike The Master, one that I don't want to be in a relationship with. The Daleks are cruel, and cowardly. They think in strategy, they're organic, but they think like machines. Like an if then clause, mind. (IF: Life not = Dalek, }} THEN: Exterminate). Though a fair bit less psuedo-code-y. Daleks always manage to surprise me. The cold, unfeeling eye of the Daleks are what get to me the most. When I get nightmares, I see that cold eye narrowing around the friends, the people that I love. I see the people I've lost to the Daleks. Not just the people that have died, but losses all the same. Susan. Lucie. Donna. As far as I'm concerned, the Daleks can go to hell. And that's where they've sent me, plenty of times...
"The Daleks!" The Doctor growled.
"Gesundheit?" Lottie offered.
"WHO IS--THIS--" One of the Daleks, a Blue one with a slightly taller height grated. "IDENTIFY YOURSELVESSS!!!" It screamed as it's gunstick swiveled.
"Um. I'm Leticia Palaver. This is the Doc-"
"Dockside Ice Cream!" The Doctor finished, bluffing. "I am, um, Melanie Bush, Proprietor of Dockside Ice Cream, direct from the lovely old boardwalk in Biddeford, Maine!"
The Dalek paused. "YOU AREN'T BY ANY CHANCE, COMPLETELY BLUFFING US, AND ARE ACTUALLY THE DOC-TOR, ARE YOU?"
"Absolutely not." The Doctor said.
"BECAUSE OUR MEMORY FILES DO DOCUMENT A DOCTOR WOMAN VERY MUCH LIKE YOU DEFEATING US WITH A MICROWAVE OVEN. WE'RE STILL VERY EMBARRASSED ABOUT IT."
"Nope, not me," The Doctor lied, while Lottie continued to make confused faces.
"...THAT'S FAIR. DO YOU HAVE ANY ICE CREAM ON YOU?"
"No, sorry, mate."
"SHAME." Said The Dalek, firing their gunstick at The Doctor, screaming "EXTERMINATE!"
The Doctor began began to scream worriedly as the other Daleks began to fire. "What is this that thing?" Lottie yelled.
"A Dalek! It's like a thing, a monster inside a mobile trash can, and it want's to kill everyone. Think Oscar the Grouch."
The Daleks continued to fire at them as they hid behind a conveniently placed pillar to dodge their attack.
"This pillar isn't going to survive much more Dalek gunfire!" The Doctor worried. "Let's hope time resets the loop, puts us on another part of the planet, not in this cell with these Daleks."
"Why are they here?" Lottie asked.
"Ooh, it's on the tip of my tongue. Starting to come back to me. Oh. Oh, Wow. Ollistra. Time lord woman, vile, loved her to bits. She came up with this prison thing, the reason why the planet is a few seconds out of time is to keep the Daleks from escaping it! She! She memory wiped me, the old hag!" The Doctor remembered.
Lottie placed her hands on her ears as the explosions and screaming Daleks echoed. "Why don't you want them to know who you are?"
"Well, for the laugh, really." The Doctor said. "Also they get way meaner these days when they hear my name. Something about me beating the hell out of them every time we've met."
"You're gonna do it again then?"
The Doctor smiled. "Oh yeah. Well, let's hope. I just have to keep them from escaping the planet."
The Dalek firing stopped. "ARE THEY DEAD YET?" One of the Daleks asked.
"LET'S BE REALLY STUPID AND ACT AS IF THEY AREN'T TOTALLY ALIVE. WE HAVEN'T IMITATED JAMES BOND VILLAINS ENOUGH THIS MONTH."
"WOW, THAT'S VERY RUDE TO JAMES BOND VILLAINS. AURIC GOLDFINGER WOULD HAND YOU YOUR ASS, DALEK STEVE."
"WELL, THEY'RE PRESUMABLY DEAD. LET'S JUST NOT CHECK. I'M TOO LAZY."
The Daleks rolled away anticlimactically.
"Come on, Lottie. We need to get out of here to figure this out! This loop is way longer than the last few."
"More dangerous too, I assume." Lottie muttered, as they creeped from behind the pillar towards an exit door.
"Wait! It's a prison cell, door's jammed." The Doctor complained.
"Look, Doctor! The window!" Lottie pointed, as they saw the crashing Relativity barrelling towards them. Burning up. Ribbons of the Time Vortex, Abstract energy that can't be explained swirled around the ship.
The Relativity crashed through the walls, and finally, a Dalek screamed with, what must be delight. It was horrible.
"The Daleks! They're getting into the ship!" Lottie exclaimed, as The Daleks began to roll into the crashed wreckage. "OUR ESCAPE ROUTE HAS ARRIVED. WE SHALL EXIT THIS FOUL PRISON! AND THE UNIVERSE SHALL BE BATHED IN THE FIRE OF THE DALEKS!"
Time punched Lottie and The Doctor in the jaw.
Chapter Five
"OUR ESCAPE ROUTE HAS ARRIVED. WE SHALL EXIT THIS FOUL PRISON! AND THE UNIVERSE SHALL BE BATHED IN THE FIRE OF THE DALEKS!"
Time punched Lottie and The Doctor in the jaw.
"Wow!" The Doctor said. "So for the past few times, time has randomly moved us through the history of the planet! I guess this time, it moved us back six seconds!"
Lottie placed her head in her hands. "Doctor. I have a degree in temporal physics. This whole thing is wibbily wobbily timey stupid. None of this should be happening!"
"I can't help but feel the Daleks are responsible in some way," The Doctor whispered. "Let's try and get on that ship. Whatever happens, these Daleks cannot evacuate."
The Daleks had all moved on board the ship, except for one.
"DALEK HOWARD. WHY HAVE YOU NOT ENTERED THE SHIP."
"SORRY DALEK STEVE, BUT THERE IS A ROCK IN MY WAY. I AM OUT OF HOVER FLUID AND I CANNOT FLY OVER IT."
What was reportedly Dalek Howard continued to move back and forth and bonk into the rock repeatedly in a miserable attempt to get on the ship.
"These are the most dangerous creatures in the universe?" Lottie asked, giggling.
"Quiet! They've killed hundreds of people I care about, I don't care if they're basically B-Movie garbage."
Dalek Howard eventually blasted the rock with his gun and rolled on board the ship.
"Come on!" The Doctor said, grabbing Lottie's hand and rushing on board, just as the ship was about to depart.
"WE HAVE SUCCEEDED!" The Supreme Dalek grated. "WE USED OUR EVIL PLAN TO CAUSE THE RELATIVITY TO CRASH INTO EVERY SINGLE PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF THE PLANET. NATURALLY, ONE OF THOSE WAS OUR PRISON CELL. EXECUTE ALL THE REMAINING SCIENTISTS!"
"Okay, so yeah, the Daleks were responsible." Lottie whispered. "But whatabout the time ship crashing into a planet that's a split second out of time?" She asked the Doctor.
"I know. The Daleks may have been stuck on that prison planet, but they did still have access to the Dalek Pathweb, their telepathic network. It wouldn't have been hard for them to send a signal to set the ship on a course to crash into the planet in the first place." The Doctor helpfully explained.
"Well, it doesn't seem to have crashed in every single part of the planet's history or the planet would be nothing but crashes, 100 percent crashes." Lottie queried.
"Well, the loop hasn't happened enough times yet! There's one buried in the blue desert, one in the jungle, a bunch more, but in various times! Some of them are buried under millennia of rubble, eventually it'll reach that point!"
"Temporal Physicist, remember? I know you're making this up!" Lottie complained.
"No I'm not! This is what's happening. Accept it." The Doctor said, giving a quick aside view to the audience.
One of the Daleks imputted data into the computer. "TEMPORAL SEEPAGE DEACTIVATED. PREPARE TO LEAVE THE ATMOSPHERE."
"I OBEY!"
"What can we do to stop them?" Lottie asked.
The Doctor shrugged. "Call the time lords and cry for Mummy?"
Chapter Six
The ship's rockets flared as it began it's ascent into the atmosphere.
"DATA INDICATES THERE ARE AN EXTRA TWO LIFE FORMS ON BOARD OUR SHIP!" One of the Daleks yelled.
The Dalek Supreme turned to Dalek Steve. "DO YOU HAVE FLEAS??!"
The Doctor whipped out her Sonic screwdriver and began to over-rely on it. "Oi, mates!" She cheered, whispering for Lottie to hide.
"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!!" The Daleks angrily yelled.
"Mm. I try." The Doctor smiled. "Turn your ship around. I've signalled Ollistra. It's all over for you."
"OLLISTRA HAS NOT BEEN SEEN SINCE THE FINAL DAYS OF THE TIME WAR!" The Dalek Supreme screamed. "YOU BLUFF!"
The Doctor grinned. "No, I'm all in."
"....DALEKS DO NOT UNDERSTAND POKER METAPHORS!"
"ISN'T THAT BRIDGE?"
"SINCE WHEN HAS ANYONE PLAYED ANY OF THESE GAMES?"
The Doctor glared. "No. Seriously. It's all over, and-"
One of the Daleks shot her in the chest and she collapsed.
"WOW! I DID IT! OH MY DAVROS, I DID IT! DALEK SUPREME, ARE YOU PROUD?"
Lottie sneaked around the corner, and hit a few switches on the panels. She breathed heavily. "Here we go." She muttered, before turning around and jumping into the ship's temporal core and falling into the time vortex.
Lottie, although I didn't realize it at the time, did something extraordinary right there. Well, it's not whole-y an original idea. Clara did try it first, the clever clog. Lottie jumped into the temporal machine that was causing all the problems, and Lottie evaporated into nothingness. And well, everythingness. There isn't much I can do to explain, I was unconcious at the time, but I suddenly felt a few extra memories, tingling at the back of my skull. Here's how a few of them went...
"Dr. Leticia Palaver. But, if I had friends, they'd call me Lottie." Lottie said, nervously.
"Okay, Lottie. Ooh, are we besties now? Should I make friendship bracelets?" The Doctor asked, as she noticed the ship growing closer and closer to the planet surface.
"Okay, sorry I have to go, Lottie! Time is really stupid. Anyway, better brace myself. This is the part that hurts." The Doctor groaned as Time hit her kneecaps with a baseball bat.
Time swirled around them, and suddenly Lottie helped the Doctor up. "Wait, what? This didn't happen." The Doctor muttered.
Lottie pointed to herself on the floor. "Doctor, it's me. Lottie, from the future!"
"Ooh! Do I regenerate into Martin Sheen?"
"How should I know?!?" Lottie sputtered. "Come on. We need to deactivate this ship and drive it away from the planet?"
"Isn't that a paradox?" The Doctor asked.
"Yes, but it's one the Daleks can't benefit from." Lottie commented, and the Doctor cheered.
"Golly. You're smart. I should have you on retainer."
The Doctor and Lottie began imputting coordinates, and the ship made a sharp turn out of the atmosphere.
"We don't have much power. Sooner or later, we'll fall back into orbit, and it'll start up again." The Doctor muttered. "There simply isn't a win here."
Lottie gritted her teeth. "You won't like what I have in mind," she said, walking over to the computer and electrocuting herself to death.
Chapter Seven
Lottie popped out of nothing again, pointing at the unconcious body of Lottie on the floor, and the dead body of Lottie to her right. "Told you." Lottie said.
"Oh. You didn't time travel, you pulled a Clara. Splintered yourself, all over the time vortex. That's naughty. It never ends well." The Doctor said, angrily.
"I didn't know what else to do." Lottie growled. "This isn't exactly a scenario where everything comes out all perfect and rosey!"
"There are rules." The Doctor said stoutly. "You just killed yourself to use your own body as synaptic energy for the main computer!"
Lottie gritted her teeth. "Doctor." She sighed. "There wasn't another way out. You put your faith in me, and this is what I came up with."
The Doctor bit her lip.
Lottie put herself in the computer slot again. "I still need to burn up another body to give us enough fuel to leave orbit."
The Doctor growled. "Lottie, please."
"There will be more of me." Lottie said, and she plugged herself into the computer. The lightning blasted.
And then none of it happened, as Lottie's other self, nursing a weird headache, got up from the floor.
She looked at the two bodies lying by the computer unit.
The Doctor looked back, angrily.
Chapter Eight
"That's the end of it." The Doctor said. "No more crash. No more anything. The Daleks stay in that prison. But I can't help but feel, something's wrong."
Lottie looked at the ground, sorry for herself. "Do you...remember all of it?"
"Not all." The Doctor said. "It starts to blur together."
"I do."
The Doctor walked back to the TARDIS, angrily. "Stay here." She said. "Don't risk your life. You're smart enough to know that."
Lottie twiddled her thumbs. She was overwhelmed.
"The Daleks will be back." The Doctor said, tired. "I will be back. Until then, I hope I don't hear too much from you. There's a lot of Clara's in the time vortex. I still encounter them from time to time, and it brings up problems. I don't want to start seeing you everywhere, too. I already deal with enough renegade slightly amoral temporal scientists on a regular basis. I'll be going."
"Doctor, look for me out there." Lottie said. "I hope there's one of me that doesn't disappoint you."
Lottie stood there as the TARDIS faded away.
She walked back to the wreckage, and towards the prison. Keep out of trouble. Then why did the Doctor leave her on a planet with nothing but Daleks?
That's all of it. The origin of Leticia Palaver, a woman that's far too brilliant for her own good, and didn't know what she was doing. She still believes the ends justify the means, she still believes in sacrificing her splinters if she needs to, she still is a lost little girl who just happens to know a lot about time travel, and I still think, deep down, she's quite a good person indeed. The question is, whether she ignores that. I'll be seeing her, I'm sure. I worry for her. I worry for her, a lot more than I worry for most of my friends I met. Most of them, I know will turn out okay. Leticia Palaver is still figuring herself out. I haven't seen the last of her...and you know, I don't know exactly what to expect.
The End?
Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor
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