(MAIN RANGE): The Caves of Evil!
(MAIN RANGE): The Caves of Evil!
Starring Tim Treloar as The Third Doctor, Katy Manning as Jo Grant and Alison Pill as Lottie
Featuring John Culshaw as The Brigadier and also The Delgado Master
And Michelle Yeoh as The Other Master
Happy 50th Anniversary to Jo and The Master
Chapter One
Lottie was used to what happened when she entered a TARDIS. For reasons beyond her understanding, she would exit it at another point in the vehicle's history. This was possibly because she had jumped into the event horizon of an exploding time ship that shattered her into splinters of time and space. She had just stepped into the Twenty Sixth Doctor's TARDIS.
She had not expected to go back quite so far.
The Man was dignified, and quite confused. His nose was immense, balanced by lined eyes, ruffles and a bowtie and a cape that looked straight out of Dracula's closet. "I say," he began, "My dear, are you all right??"
Lottie had fallen straight out of the TARDIS doors into some kind of laboratory.
The wind was out of her- probably because she had just fallen through the time vortex - and further than usual.
She recognized the man.
"Oh my god," she whispered... "You're so young-"
And then she fainted.
* * *
Jo Grant came into the UNIT lab that morning earlier than usual, to find someone in her seat, a blonde woman wearing a white lab coat. "Oh, dear. Have I already been replaced?" Jo said, cheerfully, even though she knew that if she had, she would have been very sad indeed.
The Doctor was examining the Doors of his TARDIS with some kind of probe - not his usual sonic screwdriver, it looked almost like a tongue depressor with a cube at the end. "Jo, excellent to see you. We have a mystery, I'm afraid. That woman...she's fallen directly out of the TARDIS!"
"Oh my!" Jo squeaked. "Where did she come from, do you think?"
"You know, Jo, I haven't the slightest idea," The Doctor said, placing his cube rod back on the table and reaching for a tape measurer. "I'm taking measurements... this could, you know, be the key to ending my exile here."
Jo hoped the Doctor was right, but she didn't get her hopes up - this sort of thing happened very frequently, They'd nearly fix the TARDIS, but they wouldn't, and the Brigadier would say something like 'close, Doctor, but no cigar,' and the Doctor would scowl and everything would carry on as normal.
"What do you think we should do, Doctor?" Jo asked. "Should we tell the Brigadier?"
"Oh, I don't think so, Jo. He'd treat it as some dreadful security breach of some kind and lock the whole base down. Then where would we be? Oh no, I don't feel any danger from this woman... she seems strangely familiar."
"She does look an awful lot like me-" Jo suggested for a moment, and then dismissed it, as although they looked similar, you certainly couldn't confuse them...
"Well, we better had hope that we can figure out whatever it is before Lunchtime...there's the first scheduled interrogation of The Master in a month, and I have to be there, or I know he'll find some way to trick those poor guards." The Doctor said.
"The Master!" Jo squealed, shocked, even though she already knew all about this. She just was contractually obligated to squeak occasionally.
"Indeed, Jo..." The Doctor said, furrowing his brow. "And although I don't think this woman is connected... it's certainly not a good omen..."
Chapter Two
The Brigadier and some of the men were watching the Master very intently...the new cell he had been transferred to was the best availible... The glass between them was two feet solid - although it wasn't glass, it was a formula the Doctor had given them for transparent aluminum. Besides that, the walls were pure cement, and beyond them there was nothing for the Master to get to- the cell was underground. The Master was sitting in a plastic chair in the center of the room (which the Brigadier thought darkly ironic) and he stared at the soldiers setting up these defenses, and simply doing that unnerved them all more than they would ever admit out loud... The Master didn't even seem to blink.
The Doctor and Jo came in, Jo trying to make some excuse about why they were late, which the Doctor stopped her from saying for some reason, but it didn't matter. The Brigadier didn't pay attention to any of that. He had eyes on only one person in the room... because despite all the precautions - the aluminum, the soldiers with their guns aimed at the Master's hearts should he move but an inch... the solid concrete walls at least 8 feet thick in an underground base with no rooms whatsoever minus this single cell to which only three government officials outside of their team even knew existed...
The Brigadier still knew that if the Master really cared, he'd be out of there in minutes. The Brigadier didn't get scared of blood red demons or plastic men with dangerous weaponry, there was only one man alive that could put him on edge and it was this fellow. But the Brigadier steeled himself to remain calm, as the "interview" began.
The woman conducting the interrogation, a Malaysian woman with very thick and round glasses, and a labcoat accentuated with a pink bow tie, began to ask simple questions to begin with. She placed her carpet bag on the floor, and took out a labelled clipboard.
"Your name, please, for the record?"
"I am usually referred to as the Master." He said, darkly. He did not move.
"That's a title, though, isn't it?"
"We are all titles in the end, Miss-" The Master asked suavely, but the woman did not respond, and moved on. The Doctor's lip curled slightly, but he said nothing.
The Woman moved on to the next question, already preselected and written onto her clipboard in spidery writing.
"You've tried to conquer this planet...many times, I'd say. On no less than 50 occasions so far, and our charts are, as the Doctor assures us, rather incomplete. Why?"
The Master raised an eyebrow. "It is not a personal grudge. I do, much as the Doctor does...what I think is right. And I think it would be right for humans to...listen to their betters." He said coldly.
"That so?" The woman said, checking the sheet again. "So you didn't enjoy it?"
The Master clucked. He grinned. "No, my dear, I said it wasn't personal. I didn't say I didn't enjoy it."
He was dangerously confident, still not moving, remaining so completely and utterly still.
"These files say you are on your...last regeneration. Could you explain what that means, please?"
The Master stopped smiling. "Absolutely Nothing. I will live forever."
* * *
The Doctor, Brigadier, Interrogator and Jo cleared out of the room, leaving the Master in the same space he was to begin with- behind thick walls, with guns aimed at his hearts.
"Dreadful man." Jo said. "Oh, he gives me the willies."
The Doctor nodded. "Today, he was... more feral than usual, yes, Jo. I am positively certain he is planning something. We should redouble security."
The Interrogator gasped. "Oh, I must apologize! I left my carpet bag in there! Just a minute!"
The Doctor turned, and called. "Miss Interrogator, wait!"
And then there was an explosion.
The Interrogator turned around, and took off her glasses and two pieces of latex from her face. "Oh, sorry. Did I forget to mention my carpet bag had a bomb in it big enough to destroy the transparent aluminum and also melt the guard's brains??" She shook her hair, and it fell down from a bun into a long ponytail, and removed the bowtie and labcoat, revealing a black catsuit.
"What the- I say, who are you!" The Brigadier barked.
"I am usually referred to as The Master," The Interrogator said, smiling. "Well. The Other One."
Jo screamed.
Chapter Three
The Brigadier reached for his gun before The Master did a precise high kick and knocked it out of his hand with a twirl. She turned and ran.
"Doctor!" Jo blubbered. "How could that be the Master?"
"Time Lords have a fluid sense of gender, Jo." The Doctor said.
Jo sputtered, trying to reconcile this with a 70s perspective. "But then - then - there's two of - two of them!"
"Honestly, Miss Grant. I find it easier to believe than lizard people in the center of the earth." The Brig said, picking up his gun. "We should move quickly."
The Doctor, Jo and The Brig rushed into the cell - but where it was, there was now an enormous cave - miles wide and miles high, the dust still settling, and rocks still raining down from the ceiling. Rushing water could be heard in the distance, and you could almost see it if you had perfect eyesight...The three of them stood there, only a small pinprick of light above them in a ravine of darkness- and the two Masters were nowhere to be found.
"Damn and Blast!" The Doctor stomped his foot. "How did the two of them -"
"Doctor," Jo said..."I think this might be time to tell the Brigadier about what happened in the lab..."
* * *
Lottie came to, to find a glowing hologram standing in front of her. It was... Lottie didn't recognize them at all.
"Hello, Lottie. I've heard of you many a time before. Naughty girl." The Master smiled, which was awful to look at. She carried in the hologram a... a staser. What was that doing in this time?
"Now, Lottie, dearest, I'm the Master. And you're going to do exactly what I say."
Lottie bit her lip. "No! Who are you! Where are you broadcasting that holo from!"
"Calm down, pretty lady. We'll have plenty of time for cliche later. Now be a dear, and pick up the psychic cloak I left for you on the table." She laughed.
Lottie begrudingly did so.
"See? That wasn't so hard. Now, I may be all for messing up the Doctor's timeline, but only when I do it. So dearie, put on the psychic cloak."
Lottie sighed. She knew all about this woman, but everything she had told her to do so far - she had to preserve the timeline.
"There! That's a temporal variant, so when you see the Doctor next, he will believe you were always wearing that psychic disguise, and you'll always have looked like a different person. Helpful timeline fixer."
Lottie bit her lip.
The Master continued. "Now. I help you... you help me..."
* * *
The Brig scowled. "What do you mean a woman fell out of your TARDIS! Doctor, you are supposed to tell me these things!"
"She isn't a security threat." Jo said, earnestly. "The Doctor said he had a good feeling about her!!"
"Doctor?" The Brig asked for clarification.
"What she says is true, Brigadier." The Doctor said sternly. "But nonetheless, we must move forward, and quickly."
"Miss Grant, you should go back and warn one of our vaguely characterized allies about this woman. The Doctor and I shall go forward and stop the Master. However they forged these caves leaves much to be explained... As well as leaves me concerned." The Brigadier commanded.
Jo nodded. "Of course, Brigadier! As long as the Doctor will be fine."
"Jo, I could not be better. Come, Brigadier, we must scale this rock face to get after the Masters." The Doctor said, and Jo rushed off in the other direction - to go out of the underground base and cave and back off to the UNIT lab - while the Doctor and Brigadier climbed over the rocks and moved further into the darkness.
Chapter Four
The Doctor and Brigadier moved into the caves, and as they went on, they moved from this central tunnel into a sidepath - where it grew dark incredibly fast.
"Doctor, how do you think the Master got these caves in here? They haven't been newly formed - but there were no caves when we built the bunker to contain the Master.
"I'd assume she has had a very long time to plan this. It could be some sort of - oh, I don't know, Brigadier. She hasn't hollowed it out with bombs at least. We would have noticed." The Doctor said.
The Doctor and Brigadier turned another corner... "Doctor. There's light ahead!" The Brig whispered, taking his gun out of his holster.
They began to slowly creep around the corner, the light growing slowly brighter.
As they turned, they found the source, a short cylinder, disconnected from the wall.
"Doctor, is that what I think it is?" The Brigadier asked.
"I fear very much so, Brigadier." The Doctor replied. "Quickly. We have to find them!"
The Doctor and Brigadier ran down the corridor, for that is what it was - no longer a cavern, but a dark corridor, and to their shock, they quickly discovered the source of the cave...
The two Masters, standing at a TARDIS console.
"As I thought -" The Doctor said - "This whole cave, it's a collapsing TARDIS. Bigger on the outside than it is on the inside - an absolutely enormous cave connected to a small TARDIS room.
"Oh, bravo, Doctor, we are ever so impressed," said The Master, taking a TCE out of a drawer and aiming it at them. "I believe hers was damaged in a recent scuffle, but I haven't had the time to ask. Nonetheless, even a bad TARDIS is a good cave, and a better escape route. Wouldn't you think?"
"You mean- You mean, it's functional?" The Doctor gasped. "That would be incredibly dangerous!!"
"Oh, Doctor," The Woman Master laughed. "Of course it is! But look on the bright side - you're leaving the earth with us- for good."
And as she pulled the dematerialization lever, they fell out of time and space, and as Jo stepped out of the cave - where there used to be a cave, there was now nothing but cracked concrete wall.
To Be Continued In...
(MAIN RANGE): Dimensionally Transcendental
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