Kinza [War Doctor/Ailla]

[Ailla]

She didn't know whether he was right about her potential or not. She was still very young, but she felt as if the CIA had stolen all her hope and left her as not much more than an empty husk. They would never let her go – not now, not ever.

Nonetheless, she did know she would prefer to die than to allow them to put her back in cold storage. Nothing the Doctor had said about the War held any fear for her in comparison with that.

The journey through the Time Vortex to Sarn was more turbulent than any she had ever experienced. Her temporal senses were screaming with revulsion at the destabilisation of time, and her empathic field was resonating painfully with the distress of the TARDIS as the ship sought to avoid the worst of the ruptures. If she had needed a comprehensive demonstration of just how devastating the War had become while she slept, she could not have received a better one.

She clung to one of the railings, holding on for all she was worth, so that she wasn't thrown violently against one of the walls. The Doctor was moving back and forth around the console, almost in a kind of dance, flicking switches and dragging levers, doing his best to maintain equilibrium. His face was strained and his expression tense.

"Ailla, check the internal dampeners...something's going very off and I'm afraid we're about to lose the gyroscoptic stabilizer when we go through again...which is... Very soon! Too soon..."

Struggling to stay on her feet, she worked her way around the console until she reached the panel containing the synchronic feedback unit. As he had suspected, there was an alarm light flashing, indicating that the gyroscoptic stabiliser had been compromised. Since this particular component was the one which oriented a TARDIS to the nearest gravitational force, to ensure the ship did not arrive upside down, losing it in the mid-flight was very bad news indeed. She flipped open the panel, but the sight that met her eyes made her stomach sink in dismay.

“There's been an energy overload. Those idiots...they must have tampered with the retrogressive arc inversion. The stabiliser's totally burned out!” she exclaimed. “I could fix it, but only with the appropriate parts, and there isn't time!”

He muttered to himself as he began the process of depositing the faux TARDIS for the Daleks to threaten at will. And how they would. The trick was to dematerialise the TARDIS as the other came to view, normally nearly elementary chicanery. But his controls were not responding and he could only blame the yoke of the CIA and their hasty work for it. He hit the controls to put the decoy ship outside at their specific coordinates in the planetary airspace, just seconds...it had to be timed..."We've got to go, countdown in ten, nine, eight, seven...six..."

Something slammed into the side of the TARDIS, as if it had been swatted by a giant hand. Ailla nearly lost her balance, but somehow managed to pull herself upright again, as the entire ship yawed back and forth. On the view-screen, she saw the decoy policebox spinning away from them through the darkness of space, as the Doctor pressed the button to jettison it. Already, there were countless bronze saucers converging on it, materialising out of the Vortex in horrifying force.

Clinging to the console, [the Doctor] hit the fast return again and again, hopscotching the TARDIS back into the Vortex like a skipping stone in reverse. The Vortex pulled the ship in undertow and the Doctor fought it, calling for Ailla's assistance as the internal dimensions of the TARDIS swam, leaving them with the sense that up was down, right was left as the orientation to 'down' shifted in a relentless chase to fix itself to one and finding no purchase.

The ship was shaking so much now that Ailla was afraid it was about to tear itself to pieces. Desperately, she deactivated the temporal stabiliser and reached across the console for the transitional element control rod, yanking it down. It was a little-known engineer's trick Koschei had once taught her, extremely dangerous, and only to be used in the most extreme circumstances. It would induce buffering in the TARDIS's harmonic wave packet transference, but it also meant they would exit the interstitial continuum at the perihelion of a temporal ellipse, possibly severing the main fluid links.

On the other side of the console, the Doctor was fighting to maintain control of the ship, keeping her on target for their landing on Sarn. The internal dimensions were bleeding into each other, contorting and twisting in a spectrum of colour, almost obscuring his figure from her sight. Doggedly, she clung to the bucking control rod, forcing it down with brute strength, while the TARDIS seemed to roll at the crest of a wave.

Then they were through the dimensional barriers at last, speeding towards the surface of Sarn.

Ailla barely had time to register the crash. The impact tore her free from the console and sent her flying through the air, smashing her full-length into one of the pulsating walls.

Then there was nothing but darkness.

[Vansell]

Human thralls didn't possess temporal senses. A human thrall, or any of the human or humanoid slaves that marched the surface of Sarn, couldn't have known that the two tiny pinpoint shooting stars that streaked across the blackness of space in a parting of the green smog-clouds were travelling through more than physical space. But she wasn't human, and there would have been little use in taking this thrall if she weren't able to adapt its body to her own senses.

Nor did Daleks possess temporal senses. That, she observed, would be why they were all rallying to chase after the brighter of the two shooting stars, the one moving in a very linear fashion, arcing towards the horizon in a descending orbit. The command must have been broadcast through the Pathweb, and it was as close to excited as she imagined a Dalek could get.

"THE DOC-TOR HAS BEEN LOCATED!"

"HE IS AN ENEMY OF THE DA-LEKS!"

"HE WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

"EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR! EXTERMINATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

The grindstone had ground to a halt - distracted and diverted, Daleks were careening down their glass roads in the direction of whatever central assembly point they had been directed to. Those few of higher rank in the new shells capable of levitation were rising up and skimming above the rocky surface of the planet.

But she saw in more than three dimensions, and saw clearly the second of the shooting stars slip back into the time vortex. Its course was wild and erratic, clearly losing control. Motionless, practically invisible against her sooty surroundings, she watched, silently frustrated that she couldn't drag her human thrall through time with her to follow its progress.

Finally, as the night reached its darkest, it re-emerged from the time vortex - mere seconds for the object itself - and collided with the surface of the planet, sending up a dust cloud that obscured the landing site. Keeping to the deepest of the shadows, alert for any sign of returning Daleks, she began to make her way across the rough terrain towards the crater.

[Deleted]

Clambering against the grain towards Ailla, he used the cables and roundels as hand and footholds, making his way across to her. The ship spat sparks, coils of smoke curling around the console room as the lights flickered. One by one they dimmed and then brightened; he felt his hearts lift slightly even if the cloister continued to knell. Oh, what had he done? No what had been done to his ship? Who touched a ship's gyroscopic stabilizer? It was simply not a done thing.

Truly, he needed to stop crashing on planets that ended in -arn...

"Ailla?" As best as he was able, he knelt down next to her and began to check her for the extent of her injuries. He knew that the ship would be spotted if they didn't move, but if she needed to regenerate...well, then she must stay in this ship until she recovered. He would have to find a way to hide the ship, even if she wasn't going to be vortex-worthy until she healed.

[Ailla]

Light flickered painfully and slowly back into Ailla's brain, consciousness seeping through a veil of darkness. Her head was aching unmercifully, and her body felt like it had been punched through a wall.

There were hands touching her gently, a voice calling her name. Koschei? Dizzy and uncertain, she struggled to make sense of what had happened. Had they crash-landed? No... she was in a TARDIS, she could feel the unmistakeable resonance of it, surrounding and enveloping her. But it wasn't the familiar mental hum of Koschei's ship. This one was strange to her.

And the voice that was speaking to her.... So gruff and curt, as if it was rarely used – as if it said only what needed to be said, and wasted breath on nothing less. Such a far cry from Koschei's smooth, hypnotic tones.

Alarmed, her eyes snapped open, her slender body whipcord tense and her fists clenched, already preparing to fight if she had to. The room whirled around her, and her face felt sticky with blood, dripping from a cut on her forehead.

Then, everything steadied, and in a moment of almost perfect déjà vu, she recognised the craggy, weathered face hovering over her, the memory of waking from her enforced cryosleep rushing back into her mind.

The Doctor.  The CIA.  The planet Sarn. 

Everything that had happened since he revived her, flooding back into her head. 

“F-Father.” The name twisted oddly on her tongue, as if it wasn't quite sure yet whether it belonged there. “W-What happened? Did we crash?”

[Vansell]

Searing heat and the smell of hot ash emanated from the crater, and a thick cloud of roiling steam filled it - dancing, evanescent wraiths in the spotlights from the surrounding factories, chimeys and rigs.

The blistering heat didn't concern her - this wasn't her skin. Keeping low to the ground, crawling along on her front, she slithered through the gravel to the edge of the crater and peered over its edge. Her cloak entirely covered her from above, its mottled colour blending well with the surrounding rubble and ash, and the bandanna across her face protected her throat from the parched air and flurries of fine, clagging dust.

Her keen eyes scanned the bottom of the crater, holding each spot for several seconds while the shifting steam cleared.

There! Only visible for an instant, there had been a hint of blue at the edge of one of the spotlights, quickly shrouded. Just one corner of a blue, cuboidal object right in the very centre of the crater.

She shuffled herself around until her legs dropped over the edge, closed her eyes and let go, to slide down the slope backwards, booted feet first, towards the blue box. At the bottom, she waited a few more minutes for the dust cloud to settle, then turned and cautiously approached the box, still keeping low to the ground, squatted down on her haunches so that she could drop and hide at the first sign of movement.

[Deleted]

“F-Father.” The name twisted oddly on her tongue, as if it wasn't quite sure yet whether it belonged there. “W-What happened? Did we crash?”

He  made a pained expression. "The internal dampeners are shot, the CIA in their overzealous ways tampered with the gyroscoptic stabilizer. We've managed to get to Sarn but there's no way the Daleks didn't see us come through. If you can, we should move now before the TARDIS is swarmed." He reached out a hand to help her up, hoping she wasn't too injured. "I'll set the ship to auto-repair as much as it can, it should at least be able to re-route the stabilizers for us so we can make our escape. Assuming of course it's not captured...I'm not sure if that will make our job easier or more difficult yet. Sadly, we've lost the element of surprise."

[Ailla]

Despite the centuries she had spent in cryo-storage, her new body was physically young and strong, and still surging with artron energy. Even as she struggled to sit up, she could feel her superficial injuries knitting back together at a rapid pace, including the gash on her forehead, which had already stopped bleeding.

[The Doctor] made a pained expression. "The internal dampeners are shot, the CIA in their overzealous ways tampered with the gyroscoptic stabilizer. We've managed to get to Sarn but there's no way the Daleks didn't see us come through.”

A bubble of bitter laughter welled up in her throat in response to his words. “Well, if that isn't just typical! Sabotaging their own mission before it's even begun. Very efficient.”

“If you can, we should move now before the TARDIS is swarmed." He reached out a hand to help her up, hoping she wasn't too injured. "I'll set the ship to auto-repair as much as it can, it should at least be able to re-route the stabilizers for us so we can make our escape. Assuming of course it's not captured...I'm not sure if that will make our job easier or more difficult yet. Sadly, we've lost the element of surprise."

She took his hand and wrapped her own around it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. She could feel the roughness of his skin, the worn dry callouses on his fingers, the strength in his grip. But beyond that, on a different level, she could feel his weariness, his deep longing for peace, his growing despair that it could ever be achieved.  And, even more pressing, his anxiety for her, an emotion which was strange to her and tugged at her hearts.

“I can move. I was trained as a soldier from birth. It takes a lot to slow me down,” she reminded him. Her green eyes caught his and held, searching and compassionate. They knew nothing of each other, mere strangers only, their relationship nothing more than biology and lost possibilities. But still, she found herself wanting to somehow reassure him, to lighten the burden that weighed so heavily on his shoulders. “And, between us, we will find a way. No matter what it takes. Together.”

[Vansell]

Besides the faint hiss as the heat parched the moisture from the air and sent steam coiling around her still form, the bottom of the crater was silent as the grave. There was no movement yet from the strange blue box. Perhaps there wouldn't be - after all, there was no indication that it was anything more than space debris. Even if it was a craft, its occupants might not have survived the crash.

There was alien script of some sort on it, she noticed as she waited, squatting, still as a rock. A line of it around the top, on each side - nothing she could read, let alone in this darkness.

Slowly, minutes ticked by, each visible to her as they joined together in a long stretch of time, while the steam died down and the dust settled over her motionless form.

[Deleted]

A bubble of bitter laughter welled up in her throat in response to his words. “Well, if that isn't just typical! Sabotaging their own mission before it's even begun. Very efficient.”

'Yes, just before...ah, do you remember saying stabilizer burned out? I have the spare parts but not the time. We didn't have it then, we certainly don't now. We'll have to see if the old girl can make use of the secondary systems and re-route. In the meantime, best we're off." He inputted a short sequence into the smouldering console and hoped for the best. She'd seen worst - but the worst might be yet to come.

“I can move. I was trained as a soldier from birth. It takes a lot to slow me down,” she reminded him. Her green eyes caught his and held, searching and compassionate...“And, between us, we will find a way. No matter what it takes. Together.”

"It seems you have more sense than those that sent us on this mission. Unless they purposefully crashed..." he frowned, a thought solidifying. "Purposefully crashed the ship so we would complete the mission, instead of flying off. It hardly matters, there's no use delving into paranoia," he chided himself.

Navigating the travesty of the TARDIS interior with Ailla, he went towards the doors. They were still on what felt like 'down' to the current internal gravity. The door controls proved useless. When nothing happened, he pulled his sonic screwdriver from his bandolier and pointed it at the doors. They hitched and gasped open, a thin trail of smoke arcing out. Out of joint as the ship was, they were looking at Sarn's burned skies. The War Doctor gave his daughter a look. "No matter what it takes!"

He reached down and gripped the edges of the ship's doors and swung himself out. Gravity caught him as he exited the ship, boots crunching onto the volcanic soil. His ship was embedded longways into the superheated surface. An impact crater surrounded the ship, the air still powdered by dust thrown up from their arrival. He reached down a hand into the ship, towards Ailla's feet. It was a sorry sight to see, the interior scrambled so. But he knew that as soon as the doors sealed, the ship would begin to heal. He could only hope that it would heal enough and activate the emergency protocols before the Daleks found her and tried to crack her open again. He was loathe to leave his TARDIS but they would need their freedom of movement. Pragmatically, if they were at large, they could try to get the ship back at a later point in time, which was more than could be said if they were exterminated with extreme prejudice.

[Ailla]

"It seems you have more sense than those that sent us on this mission. Unless they purposefully crashed..." he frowned, a thought solidifying. "Purposefully crashed the ship so we would complete the mission, instead of flying off. It hardly matters, there's no use delving into paranoia," he chided himself.

"There's no such thing as being too paranoid when it comes to the CIA,” she muttered darkly. “The entire organisation lives and breathes paranoia. Unless things have changed a great deal since my day, that is.”

Since my day...  A fleeting sense of amusement brushed through her at her own words. She sounded like some hoary old operative, retired now, and complaining about the incompetence of the up-and-coming youngsters. She supposed in a way, that's exactly what she was, thanks to Sentris, despite her relative youth. Who knew what the CIA of this time was like, centuries after her own, and in the middle of a Time War to boot? Then again, some things never changed.

Gingerly, nursing her injuries, she climbed down the slanting floor towards the doors, finding what handholds she could. Then she watched patiently as her father tried to open them from the console, before he gave up and resorted to using the sonic screwdriver.

The vista of sky that was revealed was not a promising introduction to the rest of Sarn. An unpleasant bronze colour with a greenish tinge, it was polluted with plumes of rising smoke. From where she was standing, Ailla was unable to tell if the choking black clouds were sulphuric in composition, and therefore natural to the volcanic planet, or if they were caused by war damage inflicted by the Daleks. Perhaps it was a combination of the two.

Ailla wrinkled her nose. She could certainly smell the volcanic gases. As soon as the doors had been opened, the console room had been filled with the pervasive stench of rotten eggs.

The War Doctor gave his daughter a look. "No matter what it takes!"

She sighed and repeated it with a nod, like a mantra. “No matter what.”

He reached down and gripped the edges of the ship's doors and swung himself out. Gravity caught him as he exited the ship, boots crunching onto the volcanic soil.

Appearances were often deceptive, she thought to herself. The Doctor was much more agile than he looked. She was just about to grit her teeth against her injuries and follow his example, when his hand extended back towards her through the doors. Crouching, she grabbed hold of it, and he pulled her outside the ship.

Her first sight of the surface of the planet was no more encouraging than the sky had been. Raw, black soil, as coarse as sandpaper, dotted with harsh, twisted outcroppings of rock. Overhead, the twin suns blazed, the rays muted only by the clouds of dust and volcanic particles that corrupted the atmosphere. Perspiration beaded damply on her forehead. The heated air seared her lungs, and she couldn't help coughing as she breathed.

Even worse, in the near distance, she could see the bleak industrial wasteland the Daleks had created. The jagged networks of rusty pipes; the clouds of steam rising from the thermal extraction plant, used to pump the precious numismaton gas from the core of the planet; the nestled hive of habitation domes.

“Any idea where we're supposed to find these Gyn'sabu?” she asked in a quiet voice, hoping against hope her father wasn't going to point in the direction of the Dalek settlement.

[Vansell]

((SO sorry for the lateness! >.< I didn't get any notifications for this one - had no idea I was up! Thanks to BB for the prod into action!))

---

A fingerwidth layer of the fine ash had settled over her cloaked and motionless form by the time the first humanoid emerged. A little taller than she herself, from what she could judge. Dressed in tough leathers, and moving easily enough in them that she doubted they had become that worn and battered on someone else's back.

And then another - much smaller, but with adult proportions by the standards of most species - a plain training tunic of some sort, and quite orange hair. A female form, like her own present one.

They seemed, at least, aware of the caution they would need to survive here - they were moving slowly, keeping close to their ship. That is, until the female spoke.

"Any idea where we're supposed to find these Gyn'sabu?"

The word stirred her interest - and she herself stirred, rising up slowly, barely stirring the ash that lay across her back, but revealing a little more of her ivory-pale skin and canvas bandanna, and the ash-coloured clothing in an irregular ring around her whole body.


Five of six pairs of interventionist eyes were fixed on a holovid screen, and five of six pairs of tabard-clad shoulders tensed as the signal from the recall bracelet struck down on the surface of the planet.

It wasn't quite going according to plan. But then, in a way, that was the plan. If the Doctor had been a CIA agent in the traditional sense, he would have been given an exact course of action, and checkpoints to make sure he was on track. Past records showed that the Doctor didn't work that way, and past records indicated that that recall bracelet wouldn't be alone - the Doctor would almost certainly still be with it at this stage.

And past records showed that when things didn't go according to plan for the Doctor, he got results.

[Deleted]

“Any idea where we're supposed to find these Gyn'sabu?” she asked in a quiet voice, hoping against hope her father wasn't going to point in the direction of the Dalek settlement.

He peered, squint-eyed into the glare towards the puffs of smoke and took a few steps towards the extraction plant. "There were people here, once. As I said, there was an evacuation. But there were probably stragglers, people who did not want to go, new and unlucky refugees not unlike the Gyn'sabu themselves. Of course if I'm wrong though I rarely am, then we'll find a rather lot of Daleks." He looked back at her with something of an air of anticipated mischief. "One way or another, they won't be expecting us to go up and knock on their dome doors."

Gesturing with his chin, he said, "There may be a way through the mining encampment. Either a network for a supply line or through some help from the enslaved populace. Plus, if we happen to cause a little uprising along the way, all the better for everyone. Everyone but the Daleks anyway! Just the way I like it! Now, let's get away from the crash site before the patrol comes." He looked for the nearest bit of cover and began to run towards it at a fair clip, leaving his ship to repair itself.

[Ailla]

"There were people here, once. As I said, there was an evacuation. But there were probably stragglers, people who did not want to go, new and unlucky refugees not unlike the Gyn'sabu themselves.”

Ailla couldn't imagine a planet as bleak as Sarn ever having been someone's home, still less a place that anyone would refuse to leave. She wondered what it had been like before the Daleks came. Probably not all that much different to what it was now, she suspected, given the volcanic nature of the terrain. From what the Doctor was saying, it appeared the Daleks made a practice of enslaving the local inhabitants of any planet they invaded, and using them as a ready-made workforce. By now, those that had refused to flee during the evacuation were probably regretting that decision very much.

“Of course if I'm wrong though I rarely am, then we'll find a rather lot of Daleks." He looked back at her with something of an air of anticipated mischief. "One way or another, they won't be expecting us to go up and knock on their dome doors."

“I can't argue with that,” she responded dryly. “I have to say, I wasn't expecting it either.”

Gesturing with his chin, he said, "There may be a way through the mining encampment. Either a network for a supply line or through some help from the enslaved populace. Plus, if we happen to cause a little uprising along the way, all the better for everyone. Everyone but the Daleks anyway! Just the way I like it! Now, let's get away from the crash site before the patrol comes." He looked for the nearest bit of cover and began to run towards it at a fair clip, leaving his ship to repair itself.

He was always like this, she recalled, even back in the days of the Darkheart incident. He never had a plan – or not the sort of plan the CIA would approve of, anyway. He just improvised as he went, flying by the seat of his pants, taking the ragged threads of a situation and weaving it into an off-the-cuff solution. She had never met anyone quite like him before. It was an odd feeling to realise that such erratic brilliance had contributed to her gene pool. She couldn't help wondering doubtfully whether she took after him in any way at all.

She was just about to start running behind him, when she stopped stock still in her tracks, crouched low to the ground like an animal. A sensation of wrongness assailed her, raising the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. Her empathic field was vibrating quietly. There was another presence close by, she was sure of it, watching them.

Narrowing her eyes against the harsh sunlight, she looked out over the wasteland, searching for some sign. Was that a puff of dust? She paused, staring intently. But no, it was just a tumbleweed scudding along, pursued by a playful breeze. Her shoulder muscles tightened, until they were as tense as a wire. Whoever it was, they were very good at concealment. She could detect nothing at all.

Making sure to keep her head low, she sprinted across to catch up with her father.

“We're not alone,” she warned him softly. “Someone's out there... a humanoid, following us.”

[Vansell]

The two humanoids from the ship set off up the loose scree sides of their crater, and she followed, her footsteps completely without sound and her robe barely uttering more than a whisper that could have been the wind as its hem brushed rock and dust. She was hunched low to the ground, her movement swift and gliding like a ray on the ocean floor, hardly stirring the dust that had settled across her back.

Without warning, the female humanoid came to a halt, and she only just reacted in time, dropping back to the ground, motionless. Had she heard her? No, that was impossible - she knew that even with this thrall, she could be completely soundless when she needed to be. She wouldn't have survived this long if she couldn't.

Even her heart slowed its beat as she waited, bated breath, watching through the dark haze of cloth as the female humanoid scanned the dry, dusty landscape. Then, after what would have seemed like an interminable stretch to anyone possessing less extensive temporal senses, the female humanoid began to move again, and she resumed gliding along after the pair.

"We're not alone. Someone's out there... a humanoid, following us."

The words caught her ears - so faint, but she was accustomed to listening. She would have to be very, very careful.

[Deleted]

Making sure to keep her head low, she sprinted across to catch up with her father.

“We're not alone,” she warned him softly. “Someone's out there... a humanoid, following us.”

His eyebrows went up in surprise as they trod along the dusty ground. "Is that so?" he said, sounding curious. "Should we say hullo? Maybe they are hiding from the Daleks, like we should be." He continued walking as before, not sparing an offstep. "It is not one of the Gyn'sabu, is it? Did one escape? That would be far too coincidental," he muttered. "Let's see if we can get them to expose themselves a little...there's not that much cover here, so either they are using some type of cloaking device or perception filter...or they are very, very good at hiding. Or if we're particularly unlucky if they're not friendly, both." Even so, he still sounded cautiously curious, alert for any signs now but attempting to keep from projecting his attention.